Carnevale - Session Six: Secret Carnevale

After the battle at the Isola della Mortanera, the di Benicio siblings waited for Silvia Franco's agents to discover the location of their treacherous servant Marco for them. In the meantime, they had been invited to a seret Carnevale party by Signora Francesca di Prava in thanks for their rescue of her from the red dragon Carnelio. All public Carnevale celebrations had been cancelled due to the curfews, but the people of Vanzenia continued to celebrate in secret.

Late at night, the siblings took a gondola to the di Prava mansion. They wore heavy black cloaks and hats to keep out the chill and to hide their party clothes, and the gondolier paddled slowly and carried a hooded lantern to avoid being seen. They disembarked at the di Prava house. Its windows were covered up with dark curtains, and no noise slipped out to the canals. The group was met inside by servants who took their cloaks and ushered them into the heart of the house.

There, a truly raucous party was taking place. Partygoers in fantastic dress were everywhere. On one side of the room, tables were heaped with food and wine. Musicians played cheerful music at the back of the room. A troupe of acrobatic halflings juggled and tumbled. Beautiful half-elven meretrices moved between the guests. On the ceiling, magical illuminations portrayed beautiful but scandalous images of the Storia, portraying the life of La Salvatrice with a very heretical erotic bent.

The seven di Benicios split up to enjoy the party. Matilde soon headed out into the garden, where she saw a man dressed in golden Serican silks as a kirin. Surely this could be none other than the famous Vanzenian explorer Niccolo Defusah, who had travelled to Tataria, to Serica and even stranger lands. She approached him and the two hit it off immediately. Niccolo regaled her with stories of his travels, before the two returned to his house before the party had ended to celebrate more privately.

Meanwhile, Adrianna was enjoying some food when a group of party-goers dressed as devils incited a food fight. The 'battle' was soon joined in earnest, with the devils knocking over a table to serve as fortifications. The chief devil began to wave his bare buttocks from behind the cover of the table. Adrianna picked up a discarded lobster and threw it, striking him upon his bottom and making him fall over. He was then seized and dunked in a butt of wine, to general laughter.

Chiara was approached by a woman wearng a bird mask with a business proposition. The woman had heard of Signora Francesca's rescue and wanted to work with Chiara and the others to attack a merchant vessel. It had been supposed to dock at Vanzenia, but its captain had broken his contract with her due to the upheaval in the city, and was going to go instead to Staglia, the home of the bronze dragons. Chiara was sympathetic to the idea, but politely declined - she felt that she and her family had enough to deal with at the moment already!

Deltorro ran into three dishevelled guests who were dressed as an angel, a gorgon and a hermaphrodite. The gorgon recognised him and started flirting with him. It was Signora Francesca herself, who wanted to show him her gratitude. Deltorro went upstairs to a private room with her and her friends, where he passed the rest of the party very enjoyably.

Via overheard a fat man dressed as a putto boasting to other impressionable guests about visiting the Isola della Mortanera. Having been there herself, Via knew that he was lying. She confronted him about it, but the other guests jeered at her. She satisfied herself with humiliating the fat man by undoing his costume with magic before stalking away.

Stefano was near a group of people relaxing on a divan. One of them, a woman wearing a beautiful costume with a hideous hag face, waved him over. She offered him a pipe to smoke, telling him that it is amazing. Stefano took a puff on the pipe... and it was amazing. He was soon joining the others on the couch, where he stayed for the rest of the night.

Greta, meanwhile, found herself caught up in a political conversation, mocking the red dragon tyrant Morignus. One of the party-goers who fancied himself a poet offered a short verse: "The dragon's a tyrant. All us he'd round up. The old lizard's just jealous - because he can't get it up!" Not great poetry, but it got cheers. Greta thought for a little bit, and then offered her own verse. "Dragon big or dragon small, Morignus is hardly a dragon at all. Dragon short or dragon tal, the only thing Morignus is dragging is his balls." This was very well received.

As the party was starting to die down, a servant informed Adrianna, Chiara, Greta, and Via that Signora Francesca wanted to meet them in the library. When they arrived, there was an elegant cat-masked woman there who apologised for deceiving them. She introduced herself as Principessa Granata di Vanzenia figlia di Morignus Dragonessa Rossa, or Gianetta for short, and assured them that she meant them no harm. Quite the opposite - she wanted to make a deal with them. Her father Morignus was so paranoid that Gianetta knew that one day he would turn on her. The only option was to betray him first, and work with the humanists to depose her. But neither she, nor the humanists, would be able to defeat him alone. She also intimated that if the humanists somehow succeeded in killing Morignus, Vanzenia would be destroyed by other dragons who wanted to keep humans in their place. The only way to avert this would be to make Gianetta the new ruler of the city. As a token of her goodwill, she passed them a letter she had intercepted. The anonymous note was from Silvia Franco. Marco had been found hiding out in a synagogue in the Dwarf Gate district. The siblings left and returned to their patron Paolo's latest hideout, a ruined shop on the edge of the Burned District, to consult with him and consider their next move.

Art: Detail from 'The Fight Between Carnival and Lent.' Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1559.