Sundae and the

In the candyfloss plains separating Peppermintown from the Peppermint Woods, the workers of Real Chocolate Ltd forage for chocolate buttons with which to produce the company’s various dessert products, after their recently appointed CEO made the bold step of changing all their recipes to no longer require the finest quality mint choc lumber from the forest, given the distance between it and the town.

For all the benefits of this cost-cutting move, though, some Peppermint People insist that the change poses a health and safety risk, pointing to several recent cases of food poisoning, including one in which a young woman tragically passed away after drinking a Real Chocolate™ milkshake. Despite publicly insisting that the cases are mere coincidences, the company’s CEO, Lord Sundae, has recently been spotted wearing a spooky necklace rumoured to ward off the unquiet dead.

Furthermore, Lord Sundae started wearing a crown just shortly before his appointment as CEO, and as soon as it became clear that his recipe change was unpopular, he abandoned his luxurious, inner city manor for a simple hut outside of town. Other than the recipe change, he has refused to comment publicly on any of these decisions. For all his peculiarities, though, Lord Sundae is essentially an ordinary Mint Imperial, not known to possess any spellcasting capabilities or martial talent. MISSION GOALS:

1. Steal the Necro Necklace or slay Lord Sundae.
2. Ensure Real Chocolate Ltd returns to their original recipes.

PORT-IN: Candyfloss plains, near Peppermintown.

(by Reece)

Lor, an Aspiring Fascinator, Morgan Darillium, an Illusionist, Wolfgang Stormgard, a Thunderbird, and Zahak, another Thunderbird, port-in to a strange candy realm upon a hilly plain lush with greenery made up entirely of candyfloss. Huge chocolate buttons are scattered across the field, and are being harvested by faceless workers resembling golems made from oversized, red-and-white peppermints. Wolfgang taste-tests the candy floss, confirming that it’s minty, then the agents debate whether to first investigate the factory in the nearby town where the chocolate buttons are being delivered, or confront the CEO whose recent recipe change is likely connected to some cases of food poisoning in town.

As the squad crosses the field, Wolfgang samples a chocolate button, finding it to be regular milk chocolate, though with a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste. After Morgan warns him against eating strange food in a fae-like realm, Wolfgang drops the button. They speak with a peppermint worker, who explains that the CEO—Lord Sundae—lives in a small hut by the forest rather than in the fancy manor he owns in town. On their way to the hut, the agents notice small chocolate animals hiding in the candyfloss grass. There are a few species of arboreal mammals, all frightened and confused, but none of the agents know what to make of their presence here, so simply continue on their way. Upon arrival, a pair of peppermint guards stop them and demand identification before allowing them an audience with their lord.
The agents don’t actually have any identification, but after some discussion, the guards give in and one of them fetches Lord Sundae anyway. He emerges wearing a mint-leaf suit, an ornate candy crown, and necklace of spooky sweets. He’s just as faceless as his employees, though his body is composed of mint imperials rather than peppermints. Wolfgang attempts to pitch a new product idea to him, but Sundae just directs the squad to speak to his company’s marketing department. The other agents then try to ask about the forest, the factory, and the recipe change. Sundae explains that the old recipe used mint-chocolate lumber from the mint choc trees in the nearby Peppermint Woods, but that he switched that out for the easier-to-harvest chocolate buttons, with extra mint extract to compensate for the difference in flavour profile. However, as the conversation goes on, the vagueness of his explanations make the agents suspect that he has never actually tasted the chocolate buttons himself.
After agreeing to speak to the marketing department and leaving him in peace, on their way to town the agents discuss whether Lord Sundae is merely an incompetent businessman or could somehow be being influenced by a curse on either his crown or necklace. At the town gate, Lor uses her fan’s compelling motion to help disorient the guard, and the group are able to enter by posing as tourists from the neighbouring land of Allsugar, the denizens of which are all gingerbread people. Inside, they find clean, white streets, mint buildings, peppermint citizens, and a castle that they learn from a passer-by is the factory they’re looking for. They debate disguising themselves, forging proof that they have permission from Lord Sundae to enter, or splitting up to each infiltrate independently, before finally agreeing to impersonate peppermint workers carrying chocolate buttons into the factory.
Morgan uses illusions to disguise Wolfgang and Zahak as peppermint people, but the group still needs chocolate buttons as props, so Lor lures a worker into chasing her, causing him to drop several buttons while she dances through alleys and eventually escapes onto a roof. Meanwhile, Wolfgang, Morgan, and Zahak try to follow along and locate the dropped buttons, but locating Lor proves challenging, so all three combine their magics to summon a tremendous storm in a ritual involving guitar playing, singing, tribal dance, and the ritual sacrifice of a chocolate button. Their efforts are successful and the conjured candyfloss clouds rumble with thunder and lighting, while unleashing a deluge of lemon & mint soda rain.
On the bright side, one of the lightning bolts forms into ball lightning and guides them all to where they need to go, leading them through winding alleys and side-streets towards Lor. On the less-bright side, another lightning bolt strikes the castle’s flagpole with enough force to partially collapse the central tower. Ignoring that for now, they follow the ball lightning and are soon reunited with Lor, whom they find standing under an overhang, having managed to keep dry. The agents then head back across town to the castle, with Wolfgang & Zahak managing to convince a shaken gate guard that the gingerbread tourists need shelter from the rain. They’re waved inside, and Wolfgang drops off the chocolate buttons in an abandoned production area, while Morgan, Lor, and Zahak search for management offices.
They come upon a large hall where factory workers are being assembled to ensure no one was hurt when the tower was struck, which they’re able to talk their way past, being granted entry to the administrative section… within the damaged tower. Wolfgang soon catches up with the rest of them, and together they climb through the unstable, caramelised ruins. At the highest level of the tower that’s still standing, the squad finds some crucial evidence: Wolfgang discovers correspondence linking Lord Sundae’s crown to under-the-table dealings with a supplier in Allsugar, while Morgan uncovers records showing that during early trials, the new chocolate made an unusually high number of testers ill, only to be was rolled out anyway. Most of the agents decide to set off at once to confront Lord Sundae, but Morgan stays behind to impersonate him and convince his employees to revert to using the healthier recipe.
With illusions disguising him as Sundae, Morgan descends the tower again, before singing his decree to the assembled workers, which has the additional effect of magically making the new chocolate smell and taste rancid. The peppermint people believe that the product is spoiled and immediately begin disposing of it, and while they’re working on that, Morgan has an employee lead him to the town’s garrison, where he gathers a dozen guards by claiming that an impostor Lord Sundae is hiding in the field hut and has corrupted the company, while he is the real one. He leads them out as reinforcements, just in case the three agents are unable to defeat one businessman alone, as unlikely as that may seem.
Meanwhile, Wolfgang, Zahak, and Lor race out of town and dash across the field, stopping only when the guards outside Sundae’s hut order them to halt. Once again, they get the lord called out to speak to them, but this time the confrontation escalates quickly, with him refusing to surrender his crown or necklace after they accuse him of knowingly poisoning people for profit. When they attempt to subdue the CEO, though, an unknown force lashes out at them, forcing Zahak to leap out of the crater he was standing in which was definitely there all along. Lor and Wolfgang aren’t quite as fast, both sent tumbling when something massive slams into them, the impact powerful enough to fracture one of Lor’s ribs.
As if that offense isn’t sufficiently disheartening, Lord Sundae proves equally well-defended, when Zahak unleashes a devastating spell, dive-bombing the mint imperial after taking the form of a storm dragon with a body of living lightning… only for his assault to be suddenly halted, his power seemingly expended against nothing at all, for there isn’t even any sign of a barrier shielding the man. After hurling a couple lightning bolts at the lord to no avail—one of which he infuses with ice in case Sundae’s strange spell only guards against electrical attacks—Zahak is unsure what more they can do against this inexplicably insurmountable foe, until Wolfgang realises that there must be something going on here that they’re not seeing, so in a desperate effort to clear his mind, discharges a lightning bolt into his own cranium.
Deciding that they have little left to lose at this point, Zahak follows suit, with both of them sent flying and suffering third degree burns to the face as a result. However, that desperate act is sufficient to temporarily shock their brains free from the grasp of the mental magic that has been passively affecting everyone in the area, allowing the Thunderbirds to perceive the presence of a titanic, two-hundred-metre-tall hydra in their midst… which in keeping with the theme of this inchoasis, is made of fruit gummies rather than flesh and blood. As they throw off the effect, they realise that what they’ve conquered isn’t actually something so simple as a mere invisibility spell, but rather that they were being continuously forced to forget the creature’s existence entirely, even whilst looking directly at it.
Alas, Lor is both too sensible and too lacking-in-lightning-bolts to join in with the self-inflicted shock therapy, so remains unaware what she’s up against, and spends almost all of her remaining essence on a powerful magical strike, conjuring a lance-like cyclone of scarlet wind that she launches straight for Lord Sundae. Zahak & Wolfgang can see clearly what happens next, as one of the hydra’s heads darts down, swift as a striking serpent, interposing itself between Sundae and Lor’s lance. Her spell annihilates that head, but in just a matter of seconds, the stump of the neck splits in half like an amoeba replicating, then regenerates, granting the beast two new heads in place of the one it lost.
At this point, Morgan finally arrives with his contingent of town guards, whom he orders to pretend to assist the “false” Sundae, but actually surround him and at Morgan’s signal, dive at him and tear off his spooky necklace, which Morgan has told the peppermint people is the source of their foe’s dark powers. When the guards approach Lord Sundae, he attempts to have them help subdue the agents, but they act incompetent while attempting to sidle closer to him. They’re not entirely successful at first, but then Zahak unleashes his full power, transforming himself into a mighty storm giant, not quite as large as the hydra, but towering over everyone else present. This stuns the lord sufficiently that Morgan spots the opportunity and shouts to his men, having them all dive onto Sundae. In but a moment, they’ve torn his necklace to pieces, scattering skull-, ghost- and pumpkin-shaped candies across the ground.
No sooner is the necklace destroyed than a ghostly peppermint woman formed from insubstantial, shimmering mist manifests in midair and lunges at the lord, choking him to death with her seemingly solid hands whilst his own limbs phase ineffectually through her body, preventing him from shoving her away. When he finally perishes, whatever magical force held together the mint imperials that made up his form ceases to function, and he reverts to nothing more than a pile of minty sweets in a leafy suit. The agents’ badges start pinging, and the ghost thanks them for their aid, explaining that the necklace they destroyed was a ward against the undead, with which the CEO had kept himself safe from her after she came back to haunt him following her untimely demise due to a severe case of food poisoning.
Wolfgang helps Lor pingout, as she’s practically delirious from essence exhaustion, then pings himself out as well, whilst Zahak realises that the Gummy Hydra is not malicious but merely lonely, since so few people can see it—ordinarily only whomever possesses the crown, which wards its wearer against mind magic—so he comforts it and promises to arrange for some acquaintances of his to come by after the mission to recover the creature and deliver it to the Khaganate he owes fealty to, in which there are fey beings immune to mental manipulation who should be able to give it the loving home it longs for.
The hydra doesn’t show any sign of understanding his promise, but his tone is friendly, so it nuzzles against him and when Zahak pets it, the creature’s heads jostle against one another, each trying get the most head pats for itself. Zahak then pings out as well, leaving only Morgan, who takes the time to properly thank the guards he recruited, then dispels his disguise an instant before pinging out, leaving them all to stare in stunned silence at the spot he occupied, as they realise with horror that they’ve collaborated in slaying their province’s rightful lord.

• Morgan Darillium
• Zahak (Aspirant)

• Wolfgang unregistered
• Lor unregistered