S07E09: The Gang Befriends Half-Sized Hipsters

== Previously on MCVFD ==
We went to the Astral plane and beat up some pirates! We managed to not only achieve our mission of recovering the glowing crystal pedestal and the monitoring station staff, we also managed to retrieve the monitoring station itself. Hopefully the Drakeguard gives gold stars for the extra credit. We also got an airship with a pirate crew after we killed their captain?!
We came back to Limbo and dropped the monitoring station a little off-kilter on the foundation, but that wasn’t our job, so hooray we did good! 
== Session ==
When we come back to the recently restored Beta station, we notice 2 things:
# The crystal pedestal connected to the Alpha station is now glowing green
# A new voicemail on our bracers
Kanye presses the crew to restore the waffle bar in the monitoring station. He wants someone to sit in the chair and wants it to be Nissa but doesn’t want to volunteer her; she notices him bouncing around like he needs to pee and accommodates, seating herself on the chair.
Nissa feels the uncanny sensation of a psionic sensation opening in her mind, and she quickly recognizes the presence of Wosley of the Limbo Drakeguard.
Wosley is pleased that we recovered the crystal pedestal and then asked about the Gith stationed here. Nissa explains they’ve been unslaved, and describes how the Gith Yanki took the entire building to Limbo. He’s happy to hear we taught them a lesson and personally thanks us for all our work thus far, reminding us we can go back to the city to resupply as we decide what to do next. Nissa tells him we have some stuff to tell him too under a cone of silence, and then removes her butt from the seat.
Averlyth asks if we should listen to our voicemail. Kanye asks Averlyth if she wants to put her bracer on speakerphone. Suddenly the group questions if we all have the same voicemail inbox or if everyone’s getting a personal voicemail from the sender. Suddenly we wonder if we’ll be getting voicemail spams trying to reach us about our extended warranties.Kanye: Can I listen to my voicemail? Can you send it to me on Slack so I don’t have to tell anyone?DM: You don’t have voicemail, only Averlyth has a voicemail.Kanye: Averlyth can you listen to your voicemail? It’s blinking the voicemail lightAverlyth checks her voicemail in private.Hello Averlyth, this is the Director. I was just reaching out to you hoping for a status report. I know you all have been hard at work in Limbo, and I’d love to hear how you’re progressing with your mission… [she seems a bit unsure how to phrase this] …to, er, deal with He Who Sleeps in whatever way you see fit, um, you know, up to and including a …permanent solution. [awkward pause] Anyways, reach out when you have a moment, I’d love an update. Thank you!Averlyth: Hey guys, our other boss misses us.Nissa: Kanye can you be cool?Plot Reminder: Mama P personally gave us a mission to deal with He Who Sleeps, and made it very clear that she was trusting our team to do whatever it takes to deal with him correctly. Last time we reported to her, we were a little cagey and only met with Qualish. We acted like it was a secret but either he squealed or she was powerful enough to sense us - and she seems to know we’re in limbo now.Kanye: We told her we were in an open relationship right?Averlyth: Last time we asked if she was okay with an open relationship, not that we were in one..The group briefly questions if we should send our new pirate ship to Mama P with a message for us. Um points out the pirates don’t really have a motivation to listen to us after we killed their captain; Kanye thinks they’re trustworthy as far as pirates go :D 
The group thinks about potentially seeing Mama P in person.DM: What was the name of the city you blew up with a fireball?Kanye: Which one?Nissa: Mulmaster?We’re reminded that there’s still a portal in Bumblefuck, and could go back through there.
Kanye asks Moody how he’s doing. Moody thinks he’s grown stronger being with us - we can now pick something else for him to do for us in combat. The group spends 20 minutes talking about the geometric and gravitational constraints we want to apply to our battle arena.
Kanye wants to make the space harder for enemies to navigate when combat starts. Um mentions toruses and mobius strips. Averlyth suggests for our inner sphere to behave as normal, and the outer shell of our sphere to have inverted gravity. Kanye likes this; the gameplay translation would be for enemies to be slower in the first round of combat.
The group is learning about all the things we could technically ask Moody to do, including spike pits, trap doors, various magical effects. One idea would be to ask Moody once per fight to “drop” the ground out from under an enemy, effectively ejecting them from combat for a few rounds.
Kanye has the idea that we can ask Moody to suddenly make a point in the plane the lowest point; our group would all know it's coming and could grab onto something in time, but the enemies would have to roll dex to stay balanced, and then the ones that fail would be clustered for our cone/AoE spells.
The group is sold on this ability and now is deliberating on what the catch phrase is. Um points out that we only have one ability so we could just call it “Moody now”.
We suddenly realize we were talking to Moody because we were going to figure out how to report back to Mama P. We like the idea of using the planar resonance frequency detector from Qualish to open a portal to his lab directly from Limbo.
The group has now decided to:
# Give the Gith Yanki pirates severance, maybe coasters, and then tell them to go back to the Astral Plane
# Take a long rest at the Beta Station after eating our fill at the Waffle Bar
# Make a trek back to the city
# Find someone that can open a portal to Qualish’s lab
# Tell mom what we’re up to
Kanye takes a sip from his drinks - it’s BeBop Cola??? 
As usual, journeys through Limbo are confusing. It’s hard to tell how much time it’s taking, the environment is constantly changing in a way that’s chaotic and mentally staining, even though Moody is totally keeping us safe. As a result, it takes us a little longer than it normally would’ve for us to notice we’re approaching something we haven’t seen before.
Looming over what passes over the horizon - it’s hard to focus on - but we could swear there’s a massive oak tree off in the distance, but it’s kinda flickering, hazy, glitching in and out of reality?
Nissa asks Moody if that’s normal. He says it’s not, but he knows of a tree at the Halfling’s barn stable, who they lost contact with awhile back.
We decide to walk towards it. It’s confusing and unnatural in a way very different than Limbo is. Averlyth, Sorith and Kanye notice that Moody is increasingly uncomfortable as we’re approaching - something about it is incredibly unsettling for him, even if he tries to play it off like an emo kid. 
Kanye walks Nissa over to Moody with the world’s most exaggerated game of charades. Nissa talks about how the tree is freaking her out. Moody thinks it’s fucking weird. She asks about the backstory of the halfling barn stable. He says they haven’t been in contact for maybe a generation or something, and they were a farming community from the Material plane that somehow survived. They were great trading partners because you can’t make organic things out of Limbo power, so the halflings were the trading hub for plants, animals, etc. It was believed they had a way between Limbo and the material plane.
Nissa asks if Moody’s ever heard any stories about people disappearing in the night, like in ghost stories or something. Moody is extremely confused - after a few moments, it becomes clear the monastic Gith Zorai don’t exactly tell ghost stories.Moody: Aren’t you freaked out?Nissa: I mean consider where I”m coming from today. I saw the World Tree today - trees don’t normally have portals - and now I’m seeing this. I thought I knew what trees did and now I definitely don’t.Averlyth is ready to voluntell Kanye to throw a brick at it; Kanye was already in the middle of picking a candidate from his rock collection. He runs up to Um and invites him to a rock throwing competition.
Um says sure, having entirely missed why we’re throwing rocks at the tree.
Um throws a rock that sails through the air, perfectly straight and dead center around where the middle of the trunk should be (if it weren’t jumping around). Kanye has thrown a rock; before anyone can see how badly he missed, a firestorm erupts on his rock (Kanye plays it off).
It looks like Um’s rock went straight through the tree.
We’re all now a stone’s throw away from the tree. Averlyth and Um her eyes keep trying to move away from the tree, but we notice a stone plinth in front of the tree that is not flickering.
Um walks up to the stone plinth and looks at it some more. Written on the stone in common runes is the phrase “What is the greatest threat to Limbo”. The group is now wondering what the password must be.Averlyth: “He Who Sleeps”Um: Your face!Nissa: Your Mom’s Face!Nissa asks Moody what he thinks the answer is. He looks over at He Who Sleeps and responds with utter snark.
Averlyth faces the stone and shouts “She Who Wakes”. It’s as if her eyes snap into focus. All of a sudden, there is a massive tree with a bustling village was built in and around it, as if the tree was plucked and placed here from the material plane. There are structures on the ground, encircling the trunk, encircling the branches of the tree. There’s a riot of colors, animals and people, all enclosed inside a low stone wall, and there is a mostly ceremonial stone arch 15 feet that way.
Averlyth turns around to tell everyone this and now everyone is glitching. Everyone else saw Averlyth yell “She Who Wakes” and start glitching. Averlyth waves two thumbs up.
Kanye also says “She Who Wakes” and sees the tree snapping into place as well. Nissa is riding on Kanye when this happens. It’s weird, but she’s able to ride it out. She can’t feel the handle on the harness under her anymore, but she’s not falling either, she’s not taking any damage or anything, but she just can’t really tell what’s happening. 
Nissa jots down some notes real quick and then also states “She Who Wakes”. She tries talking into the bracer - Um and Sorith can only hear dialup.
Um says “Whoa” like Neo. Moody looks freaked the fuck out. Woodhouse is unflappable.
Um pokes at a glitchy figure next to him - it’s not like he doesn’t feel anything, but he’s not so sure there’s anything there? Whoever got poked sees a hazy distorted Um reach out to poke, and doesn’t feel anything anyways.
Kanye says “He Who Sleeps” and he snaps back into the other space. For a brief moment, Kanye is this close to asking Moody to shout “She Who Wakes” at the stone, thereby leaving Um and Sorith stranded in limbo. Poor Nissa is in exactly in the same position again.
Kanye says “She Who Wakes” again and goes through. Nissa puts a gold star on him.
Sorith and Um both say “She Who Wakes”. We get the impression that Moody will not be joining us, but we will be safe without his abilities as the tree has its own sphere of influence. Kanye has a rare moment of concern for leaving Woodhouse behind.Sorith: It’s okay, he’ll just use the Pocket Workshop.
Averlyth: What if the workshop isn't magical, it's just been Woodhouse restocking it this whole time?We see a bustling market, sheep grazing nearby, structures built all around a massive tree. We could guess several hundred, maybe even a couple thousand of halflings living here. The structures are all different also; roman columns on some, a yurt over here, a camper van over there, absolute no standardization, or cultural touchpoints - everyone’s doing their own thing.
After a couple moments, we become aware that standing on the other side of the gate stood 3 or 4 teenage looking halflings dressed kinda smartly. They are loudly and intensely arguing with each other about who will greet us and how. One of the halflings has a handful of glitter and an airhorn. Another appears to have hired an entire brass band. Another one is arguing that too much of a spectacle is going to freak the newcomers out.
Kanye assures the group that things will be okay.
Kanye checks if they are in shouting distance, asks Nissa how the speaker systems work again.
Kanye introduces himself. As he trails off, 3 of the halflings simultaneously run towards us, elbowing each other and welcoming us to Barnstable in sync. The brass band is sent off sadly.
Kanye asks if the halflings know about the glitchy tree. Apparently it’s on purpose and the matriarch told them to do it. They’re already pushing throw the crowd to lead us through.
As we move forward, we pass dozens and hundreds of shop stalls. We’re passing by traders and wares from exotic planes; it’s very clear they get around everywhere, not just Limbo. There are things for Mechanus, the 9 hells, the astral plane. We see one of the silver swords the Gith yanki pirates had. There’s also every type of food we can imagine. We also see a handful of visitors that are not halflings, but almost everyone is a halfling. They’re all dressed wildly differently, haggling with each other, arranging raids for more stuff.
There are halflings with big carts who are stocking up their carts for a trading journey, and others that appear to have come back with their wares. They’re taking us to the road that spirals up the tree.
Kanye is PRETTY sure he saw a sword with an elemental toggle, and is practically salivating. A Bane-themed stall catches Averlyth’s eye and she abandons the group without a second thought. Now Kanye is looking for perfect souvenir keyrings.
The kids keep kiting us through the crowd, and they’re extremely pleased with themselves. They seem to consider greeting newcomers at the gate to be the coolest job there is - they almost sound a little haughty pushing people around - and we spiral higher and higher through the tree.
In our head, we kinda expected that the structures would get more uniform or older as we get higher and higher, but there’s really no pattern, just an eclectic mix of styles and themes. Some of the structures are elegantly built into the flow of the wood that they look like they were grown, others look brutally cut like they just wanted to make space for themselves.
As we get higher, though, there’s less room. The streets get narrower and narrower, the building roofs start covering us. Eventually, we make our way pretty close to the top and they open a big set of double doors revealing the largest interior space we’ve seen so far. While there are a lot of people here, space is a bit of a premium here, even for halflings that already don’t need much space.
This room that they open up is 30 ft across, circular, and largely empty. The walls and floor are all natural, simple wood. The ceiling is really interesting - it’s open and it’s covered by just a loose weave of branches, almost enough to suggest a roof while still letting light in. There must be some magic going on, as the room looks as though it’s been lit by nice dappled sunlight, giving the whole room a warm glow. Meanwhile, what we actually see looking through the branches is the chaos of the limbo. Otherwise, this is an extremely relaxing pleasant chamber.
The kids leading the way seem to be fighting over who gets to announce us to the matriarch. She thanks them and lets them leave - when they close the doors, almost all of the background noise has been muffled.
The matriarch is an older halfling woman sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat on a small pillow. Her outfit doesn’t match any fit or fashion we’ve ever seen, there are at least 3 different types of patterns and an odd assortment of jewelry. She looks very chill, which is somewhat at odds with everyone else we’ve seen.
She gestures to the floor and tells us to pull up a seat. Nissa sits. Averlyth also sits, while petting a new Bane plushie that she bought on the way up. The matriarch asks how she can help us.
Nissa tells the matriarch about how we were just traveling in Limbo, and are confused about what’s happening here. She seems to think it funny that we called it a password, when it’s just a filter for who should be let in and out. There are multiple correct answers, but only one wrong answer. She asks us what we must think that most people in Limbo think the correct answer is. The answer is “He Who Sleeps”... and she questions if that’s not true.
The matriarch tells us here in Limbo, that intention shapes reality. The more people believe in an idea, the more pull that idea has, the more people tend to coalesce around that idea. It creeps into people’s minds until most people believe the same thing. In this case, they found it dangerous that everyone seemed to suddenly believe that He Who Sleeps was the biggest threat.
The matriarch asks us who sent us. Nissa mentions the Drakeguard, and the matriarch correctly guesses the material plane Drakeguard, which means She Who Wakes. They escaped the “consensus-based” realm of Limbo, and are now away from the danger of Slaads, Chaos Beasts, and other denizens of He Who Sleeps.
The “passphrase” to get into the tree was to say an answer that was genuinely true.
Kanye asks if this information means that there are multiple slices of Limbo out there. The response is that they truly don’t know, whether they are in a new one or not.
Nissa asks the matriarch what she believes is the greatest threat to Limbo. She responds that that cheap answer is that there is no greatest threat. The more that He Who Sleeps has become powerful, the more he becomes more like an abstract threat than an actual character. The more people believe 
She asks Nissa if we know why HWS was banished to Limbo. Nissa answers that we were told that he was harming the Physical Realm. The matriarch tells us that HWS and SWW were formerly romantically involved.
Kanye asks how to do the glitchy thing that Barnstable’s tree is under. The answer is simple - they discussed it as a committee, the bulk of her people were on board, and then everyone simply broke free from the consensus reality by forming their own. There’s a critical mass when enough people believe a thing, and it shifts. However, you’re battling inertia, and reality wants to stabilize - the simpler the idea, the better. When everyone believes that HWS is unquestionably evil, it makes it true. This culture around non-consensus explains why the community believes so deeply about non-conformity.
Nissa asks if there’s someone at Barnstable that can make portals. The matriarch says there are plenty. Averlyth gives Nissa a Bane sticker that she picked up from the booth.
Nissa asks what name to put down on the Christmas Card when we send her one. The matriarch tells us we can call her Lululemon. She stands up and gives Nissa a hug; she smells like whatever we believe she should smell like.
We’ll shop next time!