S06E04: The Gang Pursues An Emocorn

==Aside==
Kanye apparently pronounces “Deus Ex” as “Deuce Ex”, and the DM has informed us that Twitch Plays Microsoft Flight Simulator exists.
==Background==
Last time, we retrieved what looked an awful lot like a Drakeguard bracer off of Taldric’s body.
We brought it to a delighted Qualish in his "new" base at the Barrier Peaks Valley Office, and he was able to confirm our suspicions that it functioned as a Horseman's version of our bracer: AKA a magically powered device with capabilities imbued by a powerful patron. Since we still don't know what the Horsemen are actually up to, we asked Qualish to try and spy on the other Horsemen through the bracer - especially before they know about Taldric’s death.
Afterwards, the group stroll across the island to the Intelligence Division, where Kanye apparently asked Tom Clancy to make us famous. This vague wish was eventually narrowed down to promoting MCVFD as folk heroes - making the public aware of us, presenting us as a force for good (Kanye in particular), and hopefully inspiring people to help us if anyone happens to see us fighting. We were also warned that this would make us way more recognizable, which is likely to make stealthy operations more difficult.
As necessary for fame, Nissa is making us a theme song, and Sorith is working on a themed beverage. When this brew gets shipped out in kegs, Kanye will have branded tap handles included (containing his entire scroll of pedigree).
After some rest up at the Fire Station 99, we hear a knock on the door and find a note from Qualish taped on the power armor saying “Come see me”.
==Session==
Averlyth bought a cloak that summons a single bee from Fantasy Jo-Ann Fabrics. It’s definitely the knock-off version of… something else.
Kanye sees new beverage dispensing toggles on the inside of the power armor, labeled Fantasy Cola, Fantasy Sprite, and then a question mark. Kanye deliberates for 10 minutes about whether or not he should wear the power armor. It’s canonical for some reason that Woodhouse is wearing a fedora.
The group navigates through the intentionally inconvenient pathing that leads to Qualish’s secret hideout and then invite themselves into his office.
===Qualish's Office===
It is a complete mess.
The mindflayer in the statis chamber is no longer frozen (and is sitting there looking angry). There are haphazard tubes errwhere, sciency papers and things thrown around. Most of the open books and notes and sketches lying around have to do with planar technology - presumably containing the research we requested to figure out how to bring us to limbo.
Upon our arrival, Qualish nonchalantly polls the group on our knowledge of quantum mechanics and its impact on transmutation magics. Seeming completely unsurprised at the resulting blank stares, he proceeds to translate his findings:
*The bracer is 100% confirmed to be powered by He Who Sleeps
*It has a communicator
*It has some abilities that are triggered by something, though he has no way to diagnose what the triggers or abilities themselves are
Qualish also had done some stuff to examine the energies coming off of the thing, hoping it would allow him to triangulate the locations of the other Horsemen's bracers. The experiment unfortunately didn't work - the other bracers presumably have some concealment spell - but in the course of this search, he found something really really interesting, that couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
He makes eye contact with Nissa specifically and asks “What do you know about Lum the mad?”
tl;dr Everyone has heard of the legendary artifact known as The Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad. We vaguely remember it as a wildly powerful magical device from ancient history, discovered or operated by said Lum.
Kanye is tapping the mindflayer’s glass like an absolute idiot.
The mindflayer puts it's hand on the tank and makes gentle but deep eye contact with Kanye and he is instantly struck with both a relentless fascination with the captive and a feeling that it is incredibly immoral and unacceptably wrong to cage a sentient creature like this. Qualish smacks Kanye across the head and then hits a button that makes the glass go opaque.
Qualish resumes his explaination. Lum the Mad is … an arcanist? He found this phenomenally powerful device we’ve almost certainly heard of and used it to summon armies, create monstersfirestorms, and more. He rose to power with it, went to war with it, and then eventually ... something happened.
This device has been lost for some time. It tends to pop up at various times in history, being discovered and then used/abused by someone, before seemingly falling apart or disappearing. It’s fate is never exactly clear, but it’s never been in continuous use, and it's known appearances are all over the world.
Qualish looks excited, and his next line sounds like a whispered revelation: everybody assumed the Infernal Machine was arcane, since that’s how powerful shit works, but Qualish thinks it was planar - and that it looks like a component from the floating island ship ages ago. That would explain why it’s so hard to find; whenever it gets destroyed, the parts get scattered around the planes - not just the astral plane, limbo plane, etc., but also the plane of time.
Qualish thinks the Horseman are currently looking for the pieces of the Infernal Machine.
On top of that, while he was looking for their bracers, he picked up a signal with all the hallmarks of the legendary artifact. He's sending us to this signal, and thinks it’ll lead us to parts for the Infernal Machine, or at least clues on what the horseman are up to.
This is easily the happiest we’ve ever seen Qualish - including when we saved his life. It almost seems like he’s also completely forgotten he was doing this from a promise to us; now he’s personally invested in this mission.
Kanye asks a very smart question about the size of the infernal machine piece that we’re looking for and gets a gold star from Nissa. Qualish doesn't actually know though, we get a big old excited shrug.
Qualish gives us the standard universal coordinates for the signal's location and tells us to report back as soon as we know what we find! He also ominously but cheerfully hopes we beat the horsemen there.
Kanye suddenly questions if our signature brew has finished - Sorith says we have a magical orchard, but the apples themselves can’t be rushed.
===Bosley's Office===
We march on over to the Deputy Director's office with the intent of requesting a teleportation spell for the mission. Unlike Qualish, her office appears neat (without Taldric's blood, because apparently we gave her his "tattoo" last time - she did not want this), and we find her sitting at her desk, looking at paperwork, with an assistant handing her things to sign.
Bosley's surprised to hear we received a quest from Qualish, but has no issues with us going on this trip, given she has nothing actionable for us right now. When we share the details, she suggests we requisition a Bag of Holding from the Quartermaster to hold whatever parts we find, and helpfully fills out the corresponding form 27b for us right away.
Bosley asks for the coordinates, Nissa obliges, and then she comments that we're not even going that far - the location is just outside the Barrier Peaks. We pretend we knew that. She reminds us to check in when we can, don’t be out of contact for too long, etc etc.
Bosley puts the paper on a magical reader and the light on the bracer that says we can teleport turns on. Nissa and Kanye immediately teleport with glee.
Sorith says no dwarves are allowed near the apple orchard and then teleports. Averlyth apologizes on behalf of the group and then teleports, catching what seemed like a deep sigh and some muttering under Bosley's breath.
===Signal Coordinates===
We materialize on a path in the woods. We do seem to be in the rather large forest that surrounds the Barrier Peaks - we started somewhere in here when we first went to go find Qualish. This isn’t a spot we immediately recognize, but the area as a whole is familiar to us. The ground is littered with fallen nuts, tree trunks are covered with thick patches of fungus, and there’s a musty smell. However, vivid sunshine still shines between the trees.
Nissa is extremely distracted by the mushrooms growing out of the tree - they’re poisonous, they don’t grow in this patch of woods, something's off about them.
Kanye thinks it’s pretty nice out here but lowers his visor anyways, turning on the air purifier.
Sorith and Averlyth notice there are a number of eyes on us; fey creatures from the nearby trees. Normally fey spirits seem cheerful and friendly even if they aren’t - evil fey typically appear mocking and cruel, giggling as they stab you - but these ones look grubby and kind of mean.
Sorith yells boo and 6 small fey creatures bolt, easily scattered. One of the bolder ones, as he dives behind a cluster of bushes, yells back “enjoy your sunny woods”.
Kanye motions for everybody to stand up - something’s getting his hackles up, though he’s not sure what. He looks around for obvious threats, but doesn’t see any. Beams of sunlight shine through the trees, the mushrooms are weird; is it just a vague sense of foreboding?
Averlyth notices it’s the correct time of day for sunbeams, but after a minute realizes the sunbeams are coming from the wrong direction, and some of them seem to be moving.
With the ephiphany shared, everybody's suddenly able to perceive the sunbeams moving in unnatural, possibly magical ways. The movement also appears to be intentionally subtle, but they are now clearly shifting around us.
We notice none of us are currently touching a sunbeam.
Nissa gets a piece of paper out of her bag and throws it into the sunbeam - it sails gracefully and lands away up the path. Kanye goes to get it to avoid littering.
As Kanye walks forward, a leg crosses into a sunbeam, and heavy spiked nuts fall through the trees, landing on him and Nissa. The gang is now reimagining the forest as a tripwired vault.
Averlyth doesn’t see any particular cluster in the sunbeams - no obvious allusion to a guarded location.
Kanye nimbly navigates between sunbeams to get to the base of a climbable tree. After contemplating how much effort it would be to climb, he bravely jetpacks upwards with Nissa - breaking through the canopy that isn’t that high or dense above us.
From there, Kanye doesn’t see anything abnormal. Nissa notices that further along the path that we’re on, there appears to be a small curl of smoke rising up out of the canopy (a house or camp or something?) and that even further, there’s a collection of ruins.
Nissa takes the time to quickly sketch out a map of landmarks on Kanye’s back - her most recent writing pad.
Kanye gently, gracefully returns to the ground spinning very slowly. Nissa vomits because she’s delicate.
The group decides to move towards the smoke. Kanye proclaims we should go to the campfire (same target).
The group carefully navigates down the path. Looking back, Sorith notices the sunbeams seem to be following us. Averlyth has a general feeling that we are probably still being watched?
The group briefly contemplates things we could experiment with the sunbeams - intentionally triggering the beams, or trying to affect them with light/darkness spells in some way.
: Kanye: Oh, that’s a good idea! What if we split up?!
Kanye questions if the teleport spell directly brought us to the artifact correctly - we remember that the Director’s aim might have shifted a bit in her current condition, so we have no way of knowing if the artifact is actually at the smoke or the ruins, or somewhere else altogether.
Nissa hops off of Kanye’s back to let him conduct a science experiment. He picks a likely looking sunbeam, pulls out an heirloom mirror, and then gently, deliberately eases the mirror into the beam so it shines straight up at itself.
As he does it, the mushrooms on a tree right next to him release a noxious gas into his visor.
He gets a whiff of the spores, taking some poison damage, and now he’s confused. Then he suddenly hears a voice near his head saying “Atmospheric contamination detected, closing all airways”.
Kanye, while confused, starts sipping from the question mark soda stream. There's a taste of prune??? Cherry?????? With a hint of vanilla???? It’s Fantasy Dr Pepper~
Sorith, Nissa and Averlyth continue down the trail, and Kanye barely follows. We can see the trail bends up ahead - Nissa guesses we’re getting close to the source of whatever the smoke is.
Averlyth casts Pass Without Trace to allow the group to give us the oporutnity to sneak up on whatever might be at the smoke. We’re confidently cloaked in shadow as we make our way between the beams.
About halfway up to the trail, Sorith and Averlyth nearly trip and spend a few seconds looking deep in each other’s eyes. Nissa and Kanye notice ahead of us, a young scruffy looking satyr tumbles out of the bushes with a panicked expression on his face, seemingly looking wildly around for us? He cannot find us and looks upset about it.
Kanye, suddenly inspired, dashes gracefully around the sunbeams in the path to catch this satyr. Around the bend, he can’t be more than 15 feet behind him, and then he comes screeching to a halt because standing in the woods ahead of us, there’s an elderly dryad with enormous antlers crouched down, talking to the satyr, who’s frantically explaining that he lost us. The dryad (with the slightest expaseration) gestures to Kanye standing right there, then shoos the satyr away before standing upright.
(Averlyth and Sorith take their time catching up because Kanye runs off like all the time, there isn't really a reason to rush)
The dryad has some features of a stag; numerous herbs and charms, and dozens of candles are set on her antlers. As she becomes aware of the attention on her, she walks over, unsurprised to see us. She introduces herself as Mother Stag, asking us to not think poorly of the woods, and then steps through the beams to no effect.
Kanye follows procedure and introduces himself, informing her that our group is here seeking an artifact. She asks for us to follow her and meet her sisters, saying she knows what we are talking about, and that we are to meet them and drink tea.
Averlyth’s foot slips into a sunbeam and she dodges a nut last minute - proving the light is still not safe. Mother Stag tells us the sunbeams will be safe if we stand near her. Everyone stands as near as awkwardly possible to her.
===Dryad Cottage===
She leads us to a place where giant dryad trees grew together - a gorgeous dwelling that has not yet succumbed to what she calls "Banrean corruption". Inside the cottage, we meet Mother Skunk and Mother Mole, who have taken on some of the appearances of the animals they’re named after. Mother Skunk has long dark hair with a dramatic streak, Mother Mole has small eyes dramatically magnified behind the thickest glasses possible, and sniffs the air as we enter before busying herself with tea.
Nissa, Averlyth and Sorith introduce themselves to the dryad sisters, and then Mother Stag tells us about Banrean: a dark hearted unicorn that has hunted fey to extinction with the help of a dark god and creatures that serve her. They are responsible for the sunbeams, the mushrooms, the meanspirited nature of the fey, and other evil within the forest now.
Kanye candidly asks about the artifact again; Mother Stag informs us that it is likely in the hands of Banrean, who currently resides in the ruins further into the woods.
She offers us a magical bridle to capture Banrean alive, and woven crowns of the forest made out of willow branches, which will protect us from the traps of the woods. There are enough crowns for all of us, and they should even resist some of the traps Banrean has placed.
: Averlyth: Cool, yeah, we have experience with not killing things.
: Kanye: Yeah I can not kill things if I have to
Kanye casually inquires about the repercussions of Banrean dying - the corruption would stop, but they wouldn’t be able to undo the current corruption to restore the forest. He then asks about unicorns and Nissa advises him to not touch the pointy part. They have telepathy, healing, there are some folklore around them around maidens, something something.
Kanye asks if there are more free goodies to get to prep for the upcoming combat.
: Mother Stag: Weren’t you just telling me you were so good at not killing things?
: Kanye: It’s, uh, it’s a new development.
The group quickly discusses strategy for combat. Averlyth asks if the unicorn counts as fey - turns out they might be celestial instead? (Unclear)
: Kanye: I can grapple a unicorn. I’ll give it a shot.
Averlyth gets confirmation that the unicorn doesn’t serve Bane, to avoid conflict of interest.
Mother Stag tells us we can be guided to the chasm around the ruins, but no further.
Nissa considers herself fairly well read, but she’s never heard of an evil unicorn. The phrase “unicorn lair” is almost comical even, although they do tend to typically be guardians of an area, and have a place of power. But it usually results in the land getting healthier, more magical, not this corrupted bullshit.
: Kanye: Are Unicorns gendered? Where do baby unicorns come from?
Olatur, the Satyr Kanye was chasing down previously, is assigned to accompany us to the crossing
. Nissa thinks he’s hot. Kanye takes out the charisma vape pen and passes it around.
Olatur leads us into the woods for about an hour - long enough for Pass Without Trace to wear out. With the crowns equipped, we are able to pass through the sunbeams without harm, though we can see the mushroom growing thicker and thicker as we near the ruins.
===Ancient Ruins===
Before long, the trees part to show a weathered, ancient city, surrounded by an enormous, 100ft deep chasm. A fallen tower lies stretched the gap, as a questionably safe makeshift bridge. In the distance, we see an isolated plateau with rocks in the center, surrounded by sections of walls held by the roots of stunted trees. On the near side of the chasm, we can see the broken remains of former ground floors of buildings.
Olatur walks us to the edge of the city and stops, saying he dares not enter the unicorns realm. He will wait here and observe our progress.
As a precaution, Kanye asks what adversities await us in the city. Olatur admits there might be kobolds and goblins, but emphasizes that the unicorn is the main problem. Olatur also says he wouldn’t mind if the unicorn gets a black eye on the way back given the whole "ruined the forest" and "killed a bunch of his friends" thing. Nissa sympathizes deeply. Averlyth is ready to move on.
Averlyth sees the ancient ruins are veeeeery old; but the toppled stone blocks that surround the big open area that we’re standing in are still very obviously and clearly engraved with carved images.
Sorith sees mostly faded ruins. Kanye and Averlyth see carvings depicting stylized aspects of daily life - hunting, warfare, humanoid figures dressed in archaic styles of clothing. Nissa notices all of this, and also engraven lines leading from certain figures back to a certain point.
She follows them - they meet at one in the middle, and see the lines converging on a huge central representation of an obviously magical mechanical device. Kanye stands next to the same block, nodding appreciatively and attempts to compliment the workmanship.
Kanye licks the stone, getting fine hints of liquor??
Some of the stones depict city scenes, but the rocks had degraded so much that it’s not particularly recognizable.
: Kanye: Well I am happy to shuttle people in my blood powered death trap. I’m a giver.
Sorith effortlessly runs across the tower, tapping his foot impatiently for us on the other side.
Kanye chooses to sip on Fantasy Cola, then picks Averlyth up and flies across, humming with Nissa still on his back.
Now, on this plateau, we see the crumbled shell of an ancient castle. It’s in extremely poor condition and it would take quite some artistic license to still consider it as a castle, but we walk around until we find the "main entrance" anyways.
Kanye turns on the Power Armor's flood lights and we walk right on in.
As we enter the main courtyard, all of us can already see a dark, sinister unicorn across the way. She’s really not happy looking - just standing there smouldering ominously.
Nissa notices that various smaller creatures are peeking out from around the rocks and ruins in the area - imps, kobolds, redcaps, small unpleasant creatures, all peering at us unpleasantly.
The group has a flashback to the bar the night before, remembering how we planned to introduce ourselves to the unicorn.
We didn't actually have a plan. So once again, Kanye introduces himself, the group, and our intent to cleanse the forest.
The unicorn sneers and frowns at us, its eyes widen in what can only be viewed as utter contempt, but the voice in our heads sounds calm, almost even sad. She tells us we have been manipulated and that she takes no pleasure in ending our lives.
Averlyth asks for an explanation. Banrean correctly guesses we were sent by the hags, predicting that we were given "toys" to fight her, and asked to bring her back alive. She says we were misled, and that she's a defender of these ruins that are more ancient than we know.
No matter though - Banrean doesn't actually care about our story or our "excuses"; without ceremony, she commands us to defend ourselves.