Victor Pranks the Rival Table

Victor Shaw saw homecoming's Adventurers Hall crowd and chose mischief as reconnaissance.

Higher-ranked adventurers were gathering, which meant rivals, reputations, and opportunities all sat in the same room. Victor considered the obvious wrong idea and then followed it: use Mask of Many Faces, become someone else, and test the room with a gag poison.

He chose Victor Calloway as the face.

Calloway, a Rifleton gambler and freelance adventurer, gave Victor enough of a mask to approach the table where Sting Zario and Glimmer sat. Sting noticed something was off and avoided the drink. Glimmer did not.

The gag poison failed upward.

Instead of getting sick, Glimmer's fairy powers transmuted the effect into an intense burst of fairy-fire euphoria. The prank did not land as planned, but it did reveal the shape of the social field: alert rivals, strange powers, and adventurers whose bodies did not always obey ordinary cause and effect.

Victor had not gathered formal intelligence.

He had made the room show its teeth while laughing.