Tyrant's Grasp

Through the door is a foyer with a massive stained glass window bearing an angel, deformed and defaced by the tooth fairies. As the party enters the glass making up the angel pops out of the window and assaults the party, but they're able to cut it down after taking some slicing. Beyond the foyer is a room with a grand staircase and an elaborate fountain filled with teeth that obscure a mosaic at its bottom. The party continues forward towards the staircase, but as Holden and Victor reach it, the room suddenly buzzes with the sound of fluttering wings, and five move tooth fairies emerge, surrounding the party. One of them, floating in front of the stairs, taps its pliers and then one of its teeth, saying in Sylvan "If you want to go forward, you have to pay the toll, get me?"

"I don't suppose there's some less personal way you'd accept?" Victor asks, uncomfortably shifting his axe on his shoulder. "I'm rather fond of my teeth."

"Four teeth, fresh," the lead fairy insists. "Don't care which of you it comes from, or if it even comes from you, but they've gotta be bloody and stink of spit."

”Got anyone you’re not so fond of that we could take the teeth from by force?” Holden asks.

"Is there anyone or anywhere you know of that we could get fresh teeth from, besides our own mouths?" Rosamund asks with a frown of distaste.

"Nope," the fairy says with a sadistic grin, dragging out the last "p" sound into a pop.

”Listen, we don’t have time to waste dithering,” Titia points out. ”There’s still a crazy lady who wants us dead on our tail, so let’s just grit our teeth, so to speak, and deal with it. One tooth each.”

”Fine,” Holden growls through gritted teeth. ”They can take one from the very back.”

Victor sighs, hand tightening on his axe for a moment before his head hangs. "If we must then we must, and as the lass says we are short on time."

The tooth fairies grin wickedly, four of them fluttering in front of one person each and reaching in with their oversized pliers.

[[Each PC takes 1 point of Charisma damage and is bleeding for 1 damage each round]]

Rosamund immediately tries to staunch the bleeding by biting down on her sleeve, but to not much avail. Willmar quickly approaches, leaping up to her shoulders, and laying a paw on her jaw. With a soft glow, the bleeding stops as the wound is healed.

A narrow balcony surrounds the grand staircase and the fountain below. Stairs descend from the east and west and two hallways lead south.
The center of the south wall contains a small stage, raised two feet above the ground. The backdrop of the stage is a grimy city street, with a red-and-white striped pole. The stage contains a doll-sized reclining chair. A doll lies in the chair, its bloody mouth open wide. A second doll stands over the first, clad in a blood-spattered white smock like a barber-dentist, triumphantly holding aloft an extracted tooth.

As the party moves forward, the dolls suddenly animate, the barber-surgeon turning to look at them while the patient sits up, hands moving to its bloody mouth. The barber-surgeon calls out "next patient please," while looking directly at the party.

[[Placeholder for combat, most notable thing is Victor took about 4 less negative energy damage than he should have.]]

The party rounds a corner and finds a set of double doors that swing inwards, revealing a once an elegant study. This room has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along the walls, a pair of heavy desks, and several overstuffed chairs. Most of the books have been shredded, their pages and covers forming small nests. The chairs have all been sliced open, their stuffing removed and likewise fashioned into small nests. An unsteady chair made of stacked books stands atop the larger of the room’s two desks. Loose teeth are piled on the shelves, affixed to the ceiling, and heaped on the floors in strange, spiky patterns. The only exit from this room is a door leading south.

Seated on the chair is a tooth fairy, much larger than the others with the lower body of a fleshy insect. A crown made of humanoid teeth rests upon his brow, and a scepter studded with yet more teeth rests in his lap. He looks up as you enter. "... who the hell are you and what are you doing in my palace?"

"We're a group of people who are in the land of the dead, even though we're still alive, and we're looking for a stamp that'll grant us passage along the Dead Roads so we can make it back to the land of the living," Rosamund sums up succinctly. "What do you want from us in exchange for the stamp?" she asks, dreading an answer of more teeth.

The overgrown tooth fairy stares at you, rubbing his chin. "Huh. Weird. Well, I'll make you a deal. I'm Prince Uspid, the new ruler of this palace. My mother, the former Queen Carnassial, disagrees with that notion, and has taken hold of the upper floor of the building. Kill her and cement my place as ruler of the Palace of Teeth, and you'll have my stamp."

"Sounds simple enough," Victor says, shifting his axe on his shoulder. "And no funny business? You'll have the stamp ready when we return successful?"

"Of course," Uspid nods, grinning agreeably. "A straightforward deal between us."

”Can we expect any resistance besides your mother?” Titia asks warily, suspecting there’s more she’s not being told.

"She has pet psychopomp dogs, and while I have the loyalty of most of the palace a few traitorous tooth fairies continue serving her." Uspid grins viciously. "You have my permission to slaughter them as well."

After a brief pause, Uspid waves his hand in dismissal. "Well, go on, get to it if you want your stamp. You can reach Mother's demesnes through the gatehouse downstairs."

Once the party is out of the room and out of earshot, Rosamund says, "I don't trust him. I say we tell his mother about his offer, see what she has to say about it. If he's lying to us, or if she has a better offer for us, let's take that."

”Ugh, backstabbing and politicking is not my forte,” Holden mutters. ”I say we nix the intrigue and just get out of here as soon as possible.”

"The fairies we've encountered thus far have seemed to side with him anyways, it may be safer to work with him than his mother," Victor points out.

"Something just feels off with him to me," Rosamund says with a frown. "I'm sure there's more here that he's not telling us, and I don't like it."