The Most Dangerous Game

Session 1

After a hard week of work, Darius invites the party to the Wild Hunt League Championships, an e-sports event that Friday night in town.

With mixed levels of enthusiasm, the party attended the event, watching 50 of the world's best Wild Hunt players compete in a VR-based Battle Royale / Survival / Shooter event. Things went as expected, until an unknown entity invaded the game, picking off players, and generally breaking the rules.

Prism entered the game through her VR headset, and got a closer look at it--some sort of shapeshifting beast, besting the hunters at their own game, logged in without a hardware interface--presumably having entered the game through some non-physical means, similar to herself. It noticed her and chased her away, before sneak attacking the proper champion and claiming itself the victor, disappointed with the pickings.

The situation rapidly dissolving, the Axiom agents quickly took action to neutralize any paradox. An action team was called in to deal with the 12,000+ spectators, already spinning a narrative en route, while the PCs went to secure the players themselves, who were "stuck" in the VR world. After determining that forcible removal of the VR gear was potentially fatal to the players, the agents quickly prevented any more casualties, locking down the player facility and the servers, which, thankfully, were not connected to the Internet.

The initial plan of action, given that this "Slayer" had announced its intention to keep the minds of the bested players as "trophies" if no one could best it and claim them, was for the PCs to enter the game and, with the help of a power boost from the server admin, trounce him with their superior numbers. They did so, but soon after encountering them, the Slayer realized they were "cheating" and leveraged his rule-breaking power over the game world to reset everyone to level 1, promising a proper conflict once they'd had a chance to prepare.

Session 2

After a few hours of leveling up and building equipment for themselves, it was clear the PCs were far behind the Slayer, and his lead was hopelessly increasing. And so they devised a new plan: to rescue the imprisoned champions, the highest-ranked of which were far more powerful than the Slayer, and had earned every level and piece of gear, making them not "cheaters" in his view.

They infiltrated the prison where the player's minds and avatars were kept, besting its guardians and freeing champion Vylit (Kim Seyong), Ph1nn (Luiz Armando), and Kilo (Erik Ilonov). The group confronted the Slayer, who lamented that he'd already defeated the champions, but the PCs countered he'd merely sneak attacked Vylit after she was weakened by winning the tournamant. He accepted the grudge match, and was (predictably) trounced. However, seemingly a sore loser, he took his toys (the 46 minds of the remaining players) and ran home (into the Astral Plane).

All was not lost, as Prism, confident she could follow them into that plane, concocted a plan to lead the party into that mental realm. Back at Axiom HQ, she loaded the other PCs into sensory deprivation chambers, and helped coax their minds out of their bodies and into the Astral Plane.

They constructed a ship to cross the inconceivable vastness of the plane, coasting through celestial wonders and bizarre vistas. They encounted a creature resembling a Unicorn with a rainbow mane that seemed to enjoy surfing the "wake" of their ship, which Prism befriended. They had a brief but tense encounter with a Githyanki raiding vessel, which thought better of attacking them after a competent psychic defense from the PCs.

The path led them past a neutral trading station owned by the Mercane, where they briefly stopped to take on supplies and information. Prism procured a device to help her capture the Slayer once and for all (a Mirror of Life Trapping), while Lazarus found some interesting information suggesting that the Sumerian mythology informing his own mystical connection was itself highly intermingled with extraterrestrial activity in the prehistoric period of Earth.

On the move again, they continued bearing down on their prey, eventually arriving at a color pool--a portal to a material dimension. As they phased through, Prism helped them find mortal bodies to inhabit--which happened to be animal bodies, as the world on which they arrived was populated almost entirely by intelligent animals.

Session 3

The PCs--as a raptor, a giant raven, a buffalo, and...Prism with a fox tail--continued their journey through the majestic wilderness of Sylvane, a world of endless night, lit by the glow of a planet-sized tree filling the sky. After days of rapid travel, through a variety of exotic climes and biomes, they found themselves at the eaves of a massive tree root leading to another world, across a vast unknown abyss--and straddling the bridge, a city of glass, beautiful and alien, yet strangely familiar to Prism.

The Slayer, it seemed, was hunting the hunters, and pounced upon them as they rested at the root's edge. Taking the form of a colossal hell-beast, combining the form of a multi-trunked elephant with great draconic wings and far too many horns and claws, the Slayer did battle with them, but once again was defeated, its essence quickly surging through the earth back to its hiding place.

Shortly thereafter, the PCs encountered a woman: a Sylvan who only identified herself as "The Huntress" and, of lesser importance, princess of the civilization that constructed the nearby city. She recognized Prism, and assumed she was recognized in turn, but quickly determined that Prism's memory was missing some important context.

Respecting her desire to stay incognito, she agreed to help them pass through the city to pursue their prey, helping the PCs to create a glamour to blend in, and helping Prism to remember her ability to do the same.

They needn't have worried too much, as the city's guards seemed able to be purchased for the slightest bribe of Earthly tokens. The people of the city had recently--according to the Huntress--been culturally contaminated by goods from "Midgard" as they called it, including cell phones, computing devices, fashion accessories, etc. The once insular city was filled with alien visitors.

Seeking a way to ensure victory against the Slayer, Prism took a detour to rendezvous with the ultimate troublemaker in Sylvane: the Leprechaun. Meeting them in a seedy tavern, the Leprechaun was happy to do business, offering all the help she needed in exchange for a token of magical power: Prism's entry token into The Game.

From there, the party proceeded to the Palace, to transit into the Huntress' private lodge on Midgard to rest and prepare. They were intercepted by the Queen of Night, her mother, who had a few questions, but if she suspected anything untoward, she didn't let on.

At the Huntress' lodge, the party rested, and armed themselves for the final conflict.

Session 4

Back in Sylvane, the party summoned their ship and sailed across the abyss toward the floating continent the Slayer called home. In a deep cavern in the center of the continent, they found the Slayer, in what may have been his "true form", who offered battle, hopefully decisive.

Unleashing far more power than he'd previously shown, the Slayer was a challenging adversary, but with some assistance from the Leprechaun and the Host of Sylvane, they triumphed, trapping his metaphysical essence in an astral net, and coaxing it into the mirror, even as the astral forms of the 46 players were downloaded back to Axiom's servers in preparation to be reunited with their bodies.

However, when all seemed to be at peace--disaster struck in an instant. An unknown assailant, operating in hyper-compressed time, entered the area through some cosmic doorway, and immediately delivered lethal blows to everyone present except for Prism, who he set about capturing, at the behest of some unseen humanoid figure. However, even with his temporal advantage, the lightning reflexes of the Huntress in the moments before she was assaulted meant that she'd already loosed a killing arrow toward the mysterious attacker. Seeing his doom, the mastermind closed the portal, trapping his servant back in normal time with Prism. With only an instant to process what had just happened, she gathered the remnants of the Host's power and collapsed the entire continent onto the attacker, trapping him within several quintillion tons of rock.

The other humans were simply shunted through the astral tunnel to Earth along with the 46 players' minds, but the Huntress was present in her physical form. Her life quickly fading, she bade Prism to open a portal to her lodge in Midgard. Carrying her through to the mortal realm, Prism set her on the soil, where she expired, merging with the flora and fauna. Having died apart from her home plane, her essence remains, now bound to Midgard / Earth.

In the epilogue, Prism was reunited with the other agents at Axiom HQ, now reunited with their bodies, just as the other 46 players had been, with limited ill effects. Damage Control had been minimal, with paradox down to virtually zero. She congratulated them for a job well done--especially for working long hours on a weekend--but reminded them that tomorrow--Monday--was a work day, so to show up bright and early.

Rewards

Mark of the Wild

Blessing of the Huntress, taking the form of a living tribal tattoo with naturalistic elements.

At will, as a bonus action, you can will the tattoo to change its shape, conferring a magical bonus based on the animal aspect you're channeling:

Cloak of Night

Blessing of the Queen of Night, this violet pendant has the power to absorb light, and to grant power over darkness.

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