Blarney War 2020

"'I'm getting stronger by the moment, and it's going to be a SHAM-DEMIC! Living or dead, UNCLE SHAM WANTS YOU... Ta find me GOLD!'""—HexSham"Blarney War 2020, also known as "Blarney War - Gold Thriller," is a Rare war released in 2020.

Summary
Pestilence has grossly underestimated Sham's greed and HexSham hijacks the entire plan! Cursing and consuming as much gold as possible, growing more and more powerful in the process! It's the one time of year when we can be 100% sure that Uncle Sham will have all of his clothes on! Especially because, as we all know, NOTHING SPOOKY ever happens this time of year... right?

Dialogue
You may skip this cutscene at any time.

Pestilence: It’s not perfect, but if I had taken any longer, I couldn’t have finished. Still, it won’t do me much good if I don’t turn this situation around. I can’t count on War anymore, and now there’s that bleeding, starving heart of a so-called demigod to get rid of… I should’ve known he’d be too soft when the going got tough. Because of them, it’s gotten to the point where I’ll have no backup if my plans are revealed. I need new agents to strengthen my domain. To raise forces, I need to recover enough power to invest in them. To recover that power, I need to act and risk being caught without backup. Then I have no choice but to break the tenets now, and weaken all who might stop me in one maneuver. Guardians, adventurers, and monsters… There has to be a single vector that connects them… Oooh. Oh! Yes, this is perfect! I could never get away with this if I still had to lug Famine around!

They collect three pieces of plague gold.

Pestilence: Now I just need an agent. Someone with a good cover for spreading the curse and creating more plague gold. As long as they’re subtle, there will soon be enough living victims to empower me faster than the coin infection can drain me. The question is… who would be ideal? Most so-called villains are ruled out by the need for subtlety. Robina the Hood would be perfect, but too likely to get discovered early. I can’t rule out the chance that [Name] might detect my influence. That leaves…

<>

Uncle Sham: It’s over… It’s finally over. After Frostval, I was so scared I’d end up breaking out during Snugglefest too… Ta think I’d managed to stay hidden two years in a row. My career would end if the world ever saw me like that.

Pestilence appears.

Pestilence: Shamus O’Slayhee… I come with an offer you won’t soon resist.

Uncle Sham: THE SHIRT STAYS ON OR I CALL SECURITY.

Pestilence: …What?! No, you gold-fueled, pint-sized traumatized wreck of a – Ahem.

Pestilence offers the plague gold.

Pestilence: I offer you power and influence, to be extended to all the gold in the world. Every last coin passing hands between the adventurers of the world could be –

Uncle Sham: I accept. Unconditionally.

Pestilence: …You do? Then as my servant, you –

Uncle Sham: Other than these terms and conditions.

Pestilence: What?

Uncle Sham: Sign here, here and here, no need ta worry about the fine print, we’ll split the profits 100-0, though I might be persuaded ta let you look at them during holidays or commission a portrait of the gold.

Pestilence: …I reiterate: WHAT. Nevermind. I thought there might be some small chance to do this by the “rules,” but you’re impossibly… YOU.

Uncle Sham: Thank ye?

Pestilence: I’d tell you to prepare yourself, but I won’t be so foolish as to let you remember this.

Pestilence works their power over Uncle Sham.

Pestilence: Perfect. I can’t fully override your nature, but it will still serve me well. As a banker, you are uniquely equipped to sneak this gold into the hands of traders and adventurers, even into the coffers of the Guardian order…

Uncle Sham: I don't understand.

Pestilence: What part can't you understand, you nincompoop? You work with currency every day, just infect small amounts of gold at a time and give -

Uncle Sham: You lost me.

Pestilence: HOW?!

Uncle Sham: Small amounts of gold? Giving it? That doesn't make sense.

Pestilence: …You can't be this dense. I don't believe for a moment that you don't understand the currency you constantly work with, the very thing you can now control.

Uncle Sham: I can control it? Oh my GOLD, I really can!

Pestilence: As long as you blight it first, yes, but we can't get carried away. Now hold still, I'm going to have to stuff some caution into that skull of yours.

<>

Pestilence: I said hold still!

Sham?: Oh, but the JOY! It's one thing ta know the GOLD is there, but it's so invigorating to really SENSE it, FEEL it…

Pestilence: Don't make this weird. That's an order.

Sham?: …And to really… BE it…

Pestilence: No, no, don't corrupt it all at once, we have to get some power BACK before we spend so much.

Sham?: There's so much GOLD that I hadn't noticed, too. Why, they've been takin' it ta the grave, the cheeky… Oh that won't do at ALL.

Pestilence: Will you please take me seriously already?! …You're growing. Why are you growing? Don't turn giant, we're in a closed room! Is your belly made of bricks or something?!

Sham?: Solid gold bricks, boss! You won't regret hiring me!

Pestilence: NO, I REGRET EVERYTHING.

A giant HexSham bursts through the roof.

HexSham: Mmm… Coins. Ohoho, nuggets… jewels… Ah! Ingots! Heheheh… I feel the power… And there is so much more out there! Hit me with all the gold you have, world! I'm getting stronger by the moment, and it's going to be a SHAM-DEMIC! Living or dead, UNCLE SHAM WANTS YOU... Ta find me GOLD!

O'Sheeny: Hey, is it just me, or does the boss look kind of funny to you?

Cyberchaun: Is he ACTING any different?

O'Sheeny: …Not really, but this gold is getting kind of… itchy.

Cyberchaun: Look, just be glad he's not wearing a loincloth and get to work.

O'Sheeny: You make a very good point.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Blarney War: Gold Thriller
Cursed Leprechaun forces are stealing everyone's gold at the command of a strangely empowered leader! Stop this spooky onslaught before everyone is cursed, broke, or stuck staring at Sham for even longer! Guardians can click on the potion bag to refill their potions if they have less than 4 potions on hand.
 * Guest List
 * Who will you go to battle with?
 * Artix
 * Warlic
 * Robina
 * Hollow
 * Galanoth
 * War Rewards
 * Top 25: Silver Leprechaun (Elite, Pet)
 * Top 50: Hex Hood Elite (Male and Female, Faces)
 * 1000 Individual Kills: Alchemical Unity (Elite)
 * To Battle
 * How many waves would you like to fight before returning to camp to rest?
 * One
 * Two
 * Three
 * Five
 * ENDLESS
 * Secret Mission

Twilly: Twillies heard that those leprechauns were taking everyone's gold, so he was smart and didn't bring any lunch money they could steal! *stomach GROWL* …Uh. If you need mealing, I can heal you. Healing! Healing.

Lucretia: Oh, thank goodness you're here! This is an absolute nightmare! I don't know what I'll do!

<>: Whoa, easy there, Lucretia, we're here for you. Did you get hurt?

Lucretia: No…

<>: Did these odd leprechauns take someone, or hurt someone you -

Lucretia: No! They're taking gold from so many people that I haven't managed to queue up a single client for my shop!

<>: …What?

Lucretia: I'm happy to help out, but all that anyone wants is the free samples!

<>: That… That uh, that's truly terrible.

Lucretia: I know! *sniff* You're a good friend, [Name], thank you for listening.

<>: Don't mention it. Now, I have to -

Lucretia: And because you're such a good friend, you'll come buy something from me on my next resupply run, right?

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Cutscene (25%)
After 25% of the monsters were defeated...

<>

HexSham: Ooh, there's so much here too. Don't mind if I do!

O'Fallen: Over our dead bodies!

HexSham: Well, yes. That's the idea.

O'Fallen disappears.

HexSham: Ah ah ah, finder's keepers. Stop holding on to it.

The ground shakes.

HexSham: Don't do that, you'll -

A skeletal arm holding an ax emerges from a grave.

HexSham: Oooh. Well, that looks useful.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Cutscene (50%)
After 50% of the monsters were defeated...

<>

Robina Hood: Wow. There are enough monsters around here to keep me busy for a while. I might not have enough gold for all of them.

Pestilence appears.

Pestilence: Going back to your antics in the middle of a war? I wonder if you have that much confidence that your allies will win… But I admire the sheer, single-minded dedication. It will come very handy. This won't take long…

Robina Hood: I was wondering when you were going to show up.

Pestilence: …What. You're been expecting me. How?

Robina Hood: I didn't know it was you, or I'd have been even more careful. But you've been stalking me for a while now, haven't you? Must've been watching me somehow, appearing when you thought you could get me, and disappearing if I could keep moving. Why do you think I've been moving through the brush? People chasing you with magic still make small trails, they're just usually stuck thinking of magical traces.

Pestilence: Your cleverness is only more encouraging. It's positively refreshing compared to what I'm stuck dealing with. Now, Hood, you'll be coming with me. We've got a lot to fix.

Robina Hood: I don't think so.

Pestilence: I wasn't asking.

Robina Hood: You're in no position to make demands. In fact, the only position you're in is "standing on my trap."

Pestilence: Trap? What trap, you insolent -

<> approach.

<>: Hello there.

Pestilence: Generally, I wouldn't consider someone without the ambition to hold on to true power to be good trap material.

<>: Unless you've got a serious edge over Famine, I've got a good idea of just how much weaker you're getting. So, am I interrupting your bluff?

Pestilence: The only thing getting interrupted is your life!

BATTLE: Waning Pestilence

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Cutscene (75%)
After 75% of the monsters were defeated...

<>

<>: Everyone's alright, then?

Yaheem: Amazingly, yes. Warlic says that it's because their gold was taken so quickly after being affected, so they only developed mild symptoms.

<>: Is he done studying the contained samples?

Yaheem: I think so. The last time he called for us, Lucretia was helping to study it. They're both waiting for you.

<>: Good. As soon as the leprechaun envoys are checked for cursed gold, I'll go in with them.

<<Scene: Warlic's Magic Shop.>>

Lucretia: I'm glad you could make it, [Name]. Even with no defender infections so far, we were staring to get worried.

<<You>>: Don't worry. I was just waiting for Liborg and O'Cratchett.

O'Cratchett: Not sure how I feel about having to leave me gold to enter yer camp, fellows.

Liborg: Better than most 'chauns would, O'Cratchett. And I'm glad to see you again, we haven't met since…

O'Cratchett: Yer unfortunate rampage. I know. I pushed some of yer teachers to take ya in as pupil back then.

Liborg: Yes, ah… Then. But thank you. That helped me so much.

<<You>>: That's genuinely heartwarming, but we ARE in a rush and need to come up with a plan. What are your findings?

Warlic: Between the intricacy of this curse and the power correspondence, there's no doubting its divine origin. Especially after you and Robina ran into Pestilence. The gold empowering these undead and making their victims ill harbors a self-replicating hex. When exposed to a coin, or to sufficiently pure gold, it draws power remotely and copies its effect onto it. Prolonged exposure without potent protections weakens the victim's immune system over time.

Liborg: And everything my uncle curses, he can control.

<<You>>: If Sham wasn't taking all of it as soon as his leprechauns grab it, the situation would be horrifying. Pestilence would already be so strong…

O'Cratchett: That won't be a 'would be' for very long if we manage to stop Sham but don't figure out how to undo or cure the magical plague.

Warlic: Unfortunately, I can't simply unravel the hex. If I tried to dispel a remotely powered divine enchantment of this intracacy… The consequences could be catastrophic.

<<You>>: …I understand.

O'Cratchett: I don't.

Lucretia: We've reached out to Kalanyr and Kamui. Since making a similarly self-replicating counter wouldn't be a minor change, it'd take them weeks to do properly. So now we've turned to alchemy. We've been working on insulation and managed some limited inoculation, but for an actual solution -

<<You>>: …Was that a pun?

Lucretia: You'll never know.

<<You>>: Did you just manage to… Gah. I think I hate you now.

Lucretia: You love me and you know it. Anyways. To find an actual solution, we need to turn to older forms of alchemy. More concerned with altering base elements than complex chemistry.

Liborg: Oh! You want to use Leprechaun alchemy to see how the curse responds to altering the gold!

Warlic: Precisely. Kamui's testing suggests that if we can stress it to a breaking point, we'll have ourselves a countermeasure. We can figure out how to turn it back, as a secondary priority.

<<You>>: And how do we use that to stop Sham? We can't have Kamui transmute every individual coin.

Warlic: There's an ancient Leprechaun ritual for mass transmutation. It's remarkably mana-efficient and completely safe, but I don't have the complete ritual -

O'Cratchett: …You speak of the ancient tragedy, the Dark Play of the Wise.

Liborg: I've never heard of that.

O'Cratchett: Of course you haven't. It's not a story the bankers would tell you. It's a barter legend. The Dark Play was a theatre performance disguising a powerful, terrifying ritual. It was a ghastly last record so powerful that the cabal of the Wise could leave anyone they despised in abject poverty. They would use the ultimate secrets of alchemy and alteration to turn all gold in the ritual's range... into lead.

Warlic: Yes, that's exactly it! You must help me find it.

O'Cratchett: Absolutely out of the -

<<You>>: That sounds like the perfect way to stop Sham.

Liborg: This sounds really scary, but if we don't do it, then one wrong step could cause a mountain of plague-spreading gold to spill over.

O'Cratchett: But we still haven't figured out how to turn lead into gold!

Lucretia: And left unchecked, he'll eventually have all the gold in the world.

O'Cratchett: …Well, yes, but I still don't think -

<<You>>: It's decided then. Liborg, let's go find Lallace. Maybe he could be convinced to sneak leprechauns behind your uncle's ranks to cast the ritual.

O'Cratchett: Does nobody realize the horror we're about to unleash?

Warlic: Very well, we'll begin small scale testing as soon as possible.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Cutscene (100%)
After 100% of the monsters were defeated...

<<Scene: Outside Uncle Sham's house.>>

HexSham: So. It has come to this. You have all driven back every single one of my collectors. I should be MAD! But you've brought so much GOLD yourselves… Gold beneath me, gold up above… Ooh, crushing you will be so rewarding.

Warlic: Everyone ready?

<<You>>: Ready.

Liborg: As ready as we'll ever be.

O'Cratchett: I'll never be ready for this, but there's no delaying it.

Warlic: NOW!

Warlic turns the gold to lead.

HexSham: What blasphemy is this? No, no, no! I can't feel the GOLD! What have you done?! Oh. My tail is stuck. Okay, but the gold is gone! WHY?!

O'Cratchett: We need a few minutes to do that again!

<<You>>: I'll buy you as much time as I can.

Liborg: That's our cue! Cast the bridge!

Warlic creates a magic rainbow bridge.

<<You>>: Time to stick a cold compress on this gold fever.

BATTLE: HexSham

A defeated Uncle Sham is stuck in a lump of lead by the front door.

Warlic: Excellent work as always, Chosen. With the final transmutation complete, the curse is completely nullified.

<<You>>: This was a great team effort. Everybody did their part…

O'Cratchett: …I'm not sure we'll be able to dig out the entrance for a few days.

Liborg: I know the cost was terrible, O'Cratchett, but you were always an honest, hard working 'chaun. The others will need your help to get through this.

Lucretia: This is some fascinatingly thorough transmutation, though. It could be used for the mass refining of inorganic ingredients for modern alchemy. Our disciplines might be very complementary. Between that and inevitably rekindling the old dream of lead-to-gold transmutation, you'll certainly recover a lot of lost gold from everyone flocking to learn Leprechaun alchemy.

O'Cratchett: *sniff* You think so? O'Timmy always says he wants to grow up to be an alchemist, too…

<<You>>: I'm just glad Pestilence didn't make another appearance. I don't think I could've handled both Sham and him.

Warlic: Frankly, I don't think Pestilence could've handled Sham and you. The old miser seemed a little too…

Lucretia: Excited?

Warlic: Let's call it that, yes. A little too excited to follow orders. Speaking of Sham, though… Should we get him out of there?

<<You>>: I'm not sure we want to move him. Whoever digs him out will have to deal with his reaction to all the lost gold.

Liborg: …Well, I suppose he has endured much worse than a nap in cold metal. Shall we get to resting and celebrating?

<<Fade out...>>

<<You>>: Wait! Lead is toxic! SHAM!

<<Scene: Darkness.>>

Pestilence: This is next to NOTHING! I'm worse off than I started…! That blasted… They'll…! No. No, I have to calm down. I can't afford the slightest indiscretion anymore. One misstep, and I might not even have enough power to revive. Now I have no choice but to take this slow...

Weapons
Alchemical Unity

Pets
Gildead Leprechaun

Un-Lead Leprechaun

House Items
Blarney Portal Painting 2020

Blarney Portal Painting

Titles
Death Insurance Dealer

Better Dead Than Lead

Natural Lead-er

Necronomichaun

Necroeconomichaun

Necrobanker

Faces
Hex Hood F

Hex Hood M