S07E19: The Gang Discovers Everything's Made Up And The Points Don't Matter

== Previously on MCVFD ==
We’re currently in the Fey Realm, engaged in a Contest of Champions between Queen Mary Jane and Biggaboat Durden.
MCVFD is fighting on the Queen’s behalf: if we win the contest, she promises to let the enslaved Gith Zorai go free, and give Nissa her Limbo Egg as well as maybe “her other eggs”. Biggaboat is similarly represented by our old adventuring colleagues, the Flewtang Gang.
We’ve completed 7 out of 12 challenges, which means it’s still anybody’s game.
== Session ==
In the early morning, the queen enters the ballroom. Everyone is extremely refreshed from our long rest, though the Queen’s eyes are a little bloodshot from having just toked up. She fans out the remaining 5 cards and invites the Flewtang Gang to draw the card to determine the next round, since they’re behind in points.
They oblige, handing her their selected card, and she happily proclaims, “This is a fun one! The name of the game is Falling!”
=== Round Eight: MCVFD 6, FG 2 ===
It sounds like the entire game is to just fall, and not be the first to hit the ground. The Flewtang Gang pushes Cliff Fjord forward; they seem to be under the impression that the dwarf might do best because something something air resistance?
We’ve established that the floating disk and the power armor jets are both cheating. Averlyth teleporting upwards into the air might not be? Polymorphing into something that can control flight definitely is, but polymorphing non-flying things is fine.
After some of the usual deliberation, Nissa volunteers, to the Queen’s delight. Suddenly, the Flewtang Gang play one of their cards for the round. The Queen giggles and claps her hands before we even get to see it, and suddenly Nissa and Cliff Fjord are both falling through clouds.
Nissa immediately realizes they played the “Hinder” card, as she now has an anvil strapped to her waist. Cliff Fjord salutes her as she starts plummeting faster than him.
Nissa casts Summon Construct with her Lyre of Building, and a large anvil-shaped Modron attaches to Cliff. He reaches into his pockets, desperately looking for anything. He produces a collapsible umbrella, and it slows his fall just a little.
Nissa casts Heat Metal on the umbrella; it catches on fire, and now they’re falling at the same rate again. Cliff pulls off his pants, quickly holding them up to make a makeshift parachute. He’s now falling through the air pantsless, just a teensy bit slower.
Nissa casts calm emotions on Cliff; he fails and now becomes indifferent to creatures he’s hostile to. He lets go of his pants in confusion about the contest, looking horrified that he’s falling. He uses Sleight of Hand to try and free himself from the construct, but fails. There’s a growing look of panic on his face as he realizes the ground is getting much closer.
Nissa tries to polymorph him into the biggest whale she can imagine; despite his wisdom modifier of 0, he manages to barely resist the attempt. He calls her a whale in response, but she’s heard it all, and avoids psychic damage from the insult.
Cliff gives up trying to free himself from the construct, instead trying to maneuver towards Nissa to grapple her. They just end up swatting at each other in the air.
Nissa casts Hold Monster, paralyzing Cliff for the next minute. He’s unable to break out of the spell, becoming paralyzed for the final seconds before he hits the ground.
Nissa’s fallen close enough to the ground that she can now hear Averlyth yelling “Cape”. At the last moment, she uses her billowing cape as a parachute, slowly her fall minutely.
They hit the ground at almost the exact same time, but the slow mo clearly shows that Cliff Fjord hit the ground first, resulting in a point for MCVFD.
Both Nissa and Ciff are pancaked, but the Queen heals Nissa first.
=== Round Nine: MCVFD 7, FG 2 ===
Averlyth draws the next card, resulting in an illusion magic contest. We will take turns making charisma and arcana opposed checks. Opposing her will be Dot JPEG, the illusionist.
MCVFD is ahead in points, so we will go first. The lights dim.
Before casting the first illusion, Averlyth confers with her team, asking whether or not it would be a good idea to cast the Hinder card to make it harder for Dot JPEG to cast her spells, either through blindfolding her or tying her hands together. Or making her wear drunk goggles so her illusions are poorly formed??
Just kidding, we played the Hinder card already, to make them drink before the tag team wrestling match! The only cards left are Change Arena and “tag someone else [on our team] in here” cards. It’s gonna be a fair fight after all.
Averlyth starts off by casting an illusion of the Undead Medusa the group fought previously. It slithers through the crowd menacingly until it reaches Dot JPEG. She sneers and attempts to create an illusion of Perseus, the mythological hero that fights Medusa with the mirrored shield. However, she doesn’t get it up in time, and Averlyth’s illusion slices through it triumphantly.
Averlyth lets the Medusa illusion vanish into the ceiling, where illusions of spiderwebs suddenly appear, spreading from the darkness overhead. There’s a sense of movement above the spiderwebs, and then suddenly Dot JPEG’s illusion overtakes Averlyth’s; everyone sees an enormous spider descending from the ceiling, and then a giant boot stomping on the spider.
Thinking back to previous adventures, Averlyth remembers the fey-enchanted forest they were in before. Three larger than life dryads step through the illusion of a forest flickering with holy light. As they move towards Dot JPEG, the light turns sickly, and suddenly their true forms of hags are revealed. The hags move around her, leaning over her shoulder, and she shivers.
Dot JPEG looks momentarily taken aback, but at the last moment she laughs and steps forward. Again there’s a sense of motion near the ceiling, and then everyone sees a farmhouse fall from the ceiling, flattening the hags. Only the shoes are visible from underneath the house. She gestures at Averlyth to continue.
For the penultimate round, Averlyth prepares the scene for her impression of Grandmaster P. The lights in  the windows dim and vague roaring is heard, before the crowd witnesses an illusion of an enormous dragon bursting through the window, shrieking and landing in front of Dot JPEG.
She squints at the dragon, then calmly declares, “I know who that is”.
With a smile, Dot JPEG hijacks the illusion. The dragon becomes less menacing and more like his true, artistic self as she takes over the illusion. She makes him put up a poster on the wall, displaying his next performance in his mom’s basement.Averlyth: wait, I think we just accidentally did what we promised him we’d do, i.e. advertise his showFor the final round, Averlyth decides to make things “too real”, drawing from her most recent memories of enemies in limbo. Illusionary Slaad Zombies burst in from the doors of the ballroom, some wearing lab outfits, and others lumbering towards the nobles in the court. The crowd is freaking out - unlike all the other illusions, Slaads are a realistic threat in Limbo.
Dot JPEG looks unsure for a moment, then spots the Gith Zorai servants. With a clap of her hands, the servants are suddenly no longer dressed in little butler suits. Instead, they are dressed in traditional heraldic Gith Zorai ceremonial fighting armor. Each one of them is now carrying the magical sword that Dakon carries, and they’re all glowing with the light of their confidence.
They look at each other, at the armor they’re now wearing, and they’re hyped up by their own appearances. Instinctively, they charge into battle, fighting for several minutes. Eventually the zombie illusions disappear in a puff of smoke.
The lights come back up, the Queen waves her hands to blow away the smoke. All the illusions flutter away. While Averlyth put up a good show, the round ultimately goes to the Flewtang Gang.
=== Round Ten: MCVFD 7, FG 3 ===
The Flewtang Gang draws the next card, revealing the Horde Battle round.
Both teams will be fighting at the same time, in the same tower we fought at before. However, instead of fighting each other, this time we’ll be fighting waves of goblins, hobgoblins, etc. We’ll get points for every monster killed, so the more we can kill in an entertaining way the better.
MCVFD decides to play the card to change the arena. Despite the lure of lava moats, gravity traps and labyrinthian walls, we ultimately decide to put down cupcakes on our side of the arena to make the goblins more likely to come towards us.
As the fighting begins, Thundergun rushes forward looking weirdly confident, parking himself patiently in front of the goblin waves. Averlyth casts Invoke Duplicity, then sends her clone out just behind him.
The goblins close in on Thundergun and the Averlyth clone. Thundergun smiles, then plays a power chord on his lute. A wave of thunderous force sweeps from him, immediately killing 5 goblins. The little goblins are too dazed to do anything, and spend their turn picking themselves up. The rest of the goblin forces keep marching.
Kanye runs up until he’s just behind Thundergun, then happily pulls out his Drakeguard bracer to target Thundergun and every goblin boss on the map with Lightning Bolt, as they’ve conveniently positioned themselves in a straight line. For the first time, we’re trying to evaluate what Kanye’s spell AC is (10 + Drakeguard bracer level, which in this case is 5). Half of the goblin bosses die from the blast, Thundergun looks hopping mad but he’s still alive.
Kanye suddenly wants to steal Thundergun’s lute, and tries to figure out which actions best lets him do weird things to the lute.Averlyth: Wait, is Nissa on Kanye’s back?Nissa: it’s canon fuck walkingKanye briefly considers breaking the lute, and then thinks better of it after realizing how horrified Nissa would be.
The closest goblin boss throws a javelin at Thundergun, another throws a javelin at Kanye. Thundergun is nicked, but the other javelin bounces off Kanye’s armor. Both goblin bosses get second attacks, and then it’s Cliff Fjord’s turn.
The master thief pulls out a crossbow and targets the three goblins scattered around, closest to the group. He manages to kill all 3 of them in quick succession.
Um moves to the top of the statue and then shoots at a hobgoblin behind the column, but misses at his range.
From her vantage point on Kanye’s back, Nissa is able to cast a Fireball at the back three rows of goblins, absolutely massacring the 24 goblins and 2 hobgoblins in the area.
Mr Blowface Killa hurls himself into battle with uncanny speed. He tries to attack the 2 closest goblins, but then misses both, thanks to his uncanny speed. Dot JPEG follows up with 6 Magic Missiles, which each send a goblin to their swift doom.
Futball, who’s not as fast as Blowface Killa, runs up and throws 3 darts, killing 3.
Thundergun is looking a little worse for wear after being struck by lightning. This time he runs up to the remaining goblins and casts Shatter, killing 15.
Suddenly a giant bat swoops over the field! 3 goblins are seen piloting the bat. As they swoop over the center of the field, they drop jars of fire onto the battlefield, hitting Futball, Kanye, Nissa, and Averlyth’s clone (who still takes no damage). 
Nissa reacts to the affront, yelling “No Touchy!”. The goblin that dropped the jar on her just gets startled and dies.
Averlyth casts a Flame Strike upon the bat, immolating the 2 goblins piloting the bat and leaving the bat unhappy but alive.
Kanye shimmies up a column between the 2 remaining goblin bosses, then uses his belt of aggressive grappling to grapple one, then hit the other hobgoblin with the first hobgoblin. Kanye effectively mustaches them to death.
Cliff Fjord tries to throw a javelin at the bat, but it’s insufficient, it’s very fast. 
With his usual insane dexterity, Um leaps onto the bat and into the saddle where the goblins had been piloting it. DM: You are on the bat, now what do you want to do?Um: I don’t know, leave? There’s no one left to kill.Um leaves.
=== Final Round ===
The round is over, and MCVFD gets the point. We’re all teleported back to the ballroom. The Flewtang Gang looks pretty terrible, and Thundergun in particular is covered in burn marks and glaring at Kanye. Kanye does a little air guitar at him.
The Queen is absolutely ecstatic at the results, saying the last time they did a Horde Battle it was boring.Queen: Your friend leaving on the bat was hilarious! Does he always do that?Averlyth: We’re not sure, we lose track of him all the timeKanye: Who even is that guy?Points-wise, we’re currently at 8 to 3 for the Contest of Champions.
There are 2 cards left, but the Queen informs us that one of the cards remaining is nude oil wrestling, and “quite frankly we already got that one for free”, so she throws that card over her shoulder.Queen: “I like to keep things spicy, so this last round is going to be a winner takes all kind of deal ♫”The final round … is flirting with the Queen.
Averlyth pushes Nissa towards the queen as Nissa sprays herself with something.
Normally Thundergun would represent the Flewtang gang as the bard, but he’s a little distracted from all his injuries. In the end, Futball steps forward for his team, and has to go first.Futball: Did it hurt when you fell from the balcony?Queen: …..Futball: Shit(The gang is dying)Nissa: I was just wondering if you had an extra heart because mine’s been stolenDM completely distracted because he accidentally turned on lights for dramatic effect that made him look like he went super saiyan
Nissa knows in her heart she flubbed it, but Kanye goes “That’s a good point actually” with his bracer. The Queen ends up having not heard what she actually said anyways, all she got was that Nissa was flirting with her and that’s fun, so MCVFD gets the first point.
For his next attempt, Futball haggles with one of the servants. He’s now holding a flower that was clearly clipped from somewhere just outside. It’s not a romantic bouquet, more like a weed that grew through the cracks of the concrete. Cute, but not exactly a showstopper.
Miraculously, Futball nails the presentation. The Queen is holding the flower and smelling it, saying honeysuckle is her favorite, how did he know??
Nissa decides to “Tom Cruise it” and serenades the Queen with a reference to Top Gun that goes over the cleric’s head. Kanye contributes somehow???
Futball full on panics and just stands there.
After a couple moments of awkward silence, the Queen turns to Nissa for her turn. Nissa holds the Queen’s hand, saying “that looks heavy, let me hold it”. After a couple seconds, she smooches it.
The Queen has completely forgotten about Futball, announces that MCVFD has won and promptly drags Nissa out to the balcony. They make out a little bit, and then Nissa tells the Queen it was worth all the fighting to get to that moment, and that if she wants, they can discuss business in the morning. (gasp)
The rest of us in the hall see an awkward moment between the Flewtang Gang and Biggaboat Durden. Biggaboat looks very disappointed and we even see him take his mask off. Disappointingly, under the mask it’s just some guy. We don’t recognize him or anything, he’s just some elf we don’t know. He pulls aside Futball and Blowface Killa and is chewing them out, and then they leave out the back door.
The Gith Zorai servants all come up to us one at a time and thank us.Gith Zorai: “I guess we’re… free now? The Queen didn’t really make it clear”.The Queen’s second in command confirms it, noting that everyone may stay in the guest suite for one more night, and that their things will be returned in the morning.
We’ve successfully won the Contest of Champions!DM: Kanye, I’m sorry you didn’t get a boyfriend this timeKanye: It’s okay, we’ve got so many eggs to get
Category:Episodes