Grenade at the Dinner Table

PP3 finally offered what the Ex Force had come for.

After the food, the inventions, the awkward romance, and the potato ice cream, he told the party they could use one of his test-rig auto wagons for the road to Stormcall. They could also stay the night in Eveline's part of the manor and rest before the next leg of the mission.

Then something crashed in the hallway.

A grenade rolled into the dining hall.

Storm Boulder moved first. He threw himself onto the blast, absorbing the explosion with his own body before it could tear through the table. The manor's strange dinner became a battlefield in a heartbeat.

A goblin bomber came through the corridor. Voices echoed from the kitchen side. The chefs were killed in the chaos. More enemies entered: bombers and spider-like constructs, turning the dining hall into a cramped fight between polished furniture, family relics, and the shrine to Schnookums.

PP5 fired and missed more than he wanted to. Eveline answered with magic, then gave herself over to the wolf. Dhaz climbed for a better line of fire, abandoning elegance because the shot mattered more. Jonah's spiritual weapon became a giant lizard arm, a joke born from PP3's earlier invention and made suddenly useful. Maine pushed enemies with force. Nick looked for the right spell without burning Ash alive. Ash ran straight into the corridor and did what Ash does best: turned his body into the front line.

Faephine protected Jonah with magic that could turn a bad roll into something survivable. PP3, for all his eccentricity, protected Schnookums before joining the fight.

Grease Tooth's forces had already hit Dinkle's.

Now they had breached Pringle Manor itself.

The offer of a wagon still mattered, but the terms had changed. The party would not leave Point Pringle as guests. They would leave as people who had survived a direct attack inside the house that was supposed to shelter them.