PAX Online 2020

> "*You didn't come here to stay, you came in here to FLAY!*"
> ― Bosco
>
>

**PAX Online 2020** aka **"Try the Brain Food"** was a video recorded one shot that was streamed online as part of PAX Online. In it, four queens discover the mind flayer tavern they are performing at is less than wholesome.

## Synopsis

In a dining room of the Wyvern 'n Shirley’s tavern, four drag queen adventurers have finished their show. As the emcee, a Mind Flayer joins them on stage, they realize the entire audience is mind flayers. The emcee asks them for their signature moves.

Bosco does a spinning jump kick, landing on a table, and knocking a candelabra over. Arson Nicki finds a mic stand with a tentacle wrapped around it. She deep throats the microphone. The mindflayers applaud politely as Arson’s tongue goes numb. Butylene O'Kipple lowers into a not quite split, and throws out an arcane vapor from her pouch. It explodes on a table and vines grow from the tablecloth around the seated flayers. Fraya Love shapes a little water into snow.

The emcee takes them to some chairs to wait. A human waiter pours water for them, before she leans down to Arson and tells them to keep smiling as they are all in danger. She explains there is a cell full of befuddled prisoners downstairs, through a staircase in the kitchen, and tonight the mind flayers plan to eat the prisoners brains. She begs them to help them escape before the main course.

The queens decide to help and need to find a way to head to the kitchen without drawing attention. Arson does a woman laughing alone with her salad impression, but fails to be sneaky. So she asks for help finding the restroom and heads there to formulate a new plan.

Fraya drops her water glass on Butylene, pretending it is hot water and rushes her towards the kitchen to find a napkin station. They find one fifteen feet from the kitchen. Bosco does a triangle solo to distract while standing on the table she had landed on. The waiter worries this isn't helping.

Arson makes a loud flatulent noise in the bathroom. She exits the bathroom and walks towards the kitchen giving the audience elevator eyes. The audience is too shocked to look at her as she walks into the kitchen, where a male human is arranging lettuce.

Butylene finds a maitre’d outfit and some ketchup packets and packs them before following Fraya into the kitchen. Bosco finishes her number and she exits to the kitchen as well. The first waiter approaches them and says she thinks there is an hour before the brains are served.

Arson leads them down the stairs after the waiter opens the door. She tries to trip Bosco as she model struts down the stairs, but Bosco evades her. Butylene manages to put on the tuxedo as she follows.

At the bottom of the stairs they find a round stone chamber where embedded gems cast a purple glow. Tendrils with feathery tips dangle from an arch. Arson can hear a sound coming from it, but as she approaches it is only the tendrils rustling. They wrap around Arson. Looking up she sees a large pulsating brain with an eagle beak at the end of the tendrils. It begins floating off down the passageway with her. Bosco runs after, not wanting to be upstaged, and grabs the creature with her whip and gets dragged along.

Fraya casts *frostbite*, giving the brain creature brain freeze. It releases Arson, who tries to play dead on the floor. The creature is not deceived., and another creature’s tendrils grab her instead. The first one recovers from its headache and turns towards the others. Butylene begins shouting frantic waiter orders to the kitchen to cover for herself.

The creature ignores Fraya who is standing still, rolls its metaphorical eyes at Butylene, and seems intrigued by Bosco’s aerial silk performance. It drags Arson and brings her to a room where a cell is full of people. It lifts her into the air towards a chute that will drop her into the cage, but Arson lets out a scream. It drops her and all of the creatures flee in fear past the rest of the party up the stairs into the kitchen.

Out in the hall, Butylene uses *thaumaturgy* to make another scream, and scares off both remaining creatures, although Bosco is still entangled in one of them by her whip. She sacrifices it and lets go.

The one non-befuddled villager beg Arson to let them out. Fraya arrives and freezes the lock, which is partially biological, and attacks it with her trident, but it doesn’t break it.

Butylene climbs up and tries to shoot a blow dart at the biological part of the lock, with Fraya casting gust of wind to channel the dart. The dart delivers a dose of dissonant whispers venom, which causes the fleshy portal of the cage to dilate. One villager manages to climb the cage and Butylene pulls him free. The befudled villagers watch, but do nothing.

Bosco heads to investigate muffled voices coming from the stairs, and finds several mind flayers arriving, one with her whip. Bosco throws her triangle across the room to distract them before sleight of handing her whip back. The waiter with the flayers swears she didn’t see the queens come this way, though the flayers don't trust her.

Butytlene recalls that Mind Flayers are telepathic and usually are linked to a central elder brain of their hive. Their brains are sensitive and they are quite vain. Fraya charges down the hall and casts *frostbite* again as she thigh slides past the three mind flayers. The first flayer resists, and a second lifts her telepathically towards the ceiling.

Arson struts over, gives them several nasty looks, and says “It’s so cold in here. The only thing lower than the temperature is your IQ.” The head flayer approaches and sends a wave of psychic energy towards Arson, but she shakes it off and stands her ground. Excited by Arson’s brain power, it begins to create a glowing rope in the air.

Butylene does more *thaumaturgy* to create the sound of all the dinner plates crashing to the ground. The leader sends one of the smaller flayers to head upstairs.

Fraya casts *guiding bolt*, knocking one of the flayers in the shoulder. It sends another mental attack towards her, but she just barely shakes it off. Frustrated, the flayer whips his face tentacles at Arson, and binds her in a grapple. They march down the stairs as the other flayer drags Fraya along with the *levitate* spell. Fraya shouts that they came to defuse a bomb at the mother brain. The flayer doesn’t seem to fall for it but Butylene casts a *thaumaturgy* ticking sound down the hallway, which alarms them.

Fraya adds that they only have fifteen minutes left and the finally convinced flayers release the queens and go to consult the others and the elder brain.

Butylene dismounts from the cage and blasts open the cage doors with a bomb. Ignoring the still dazed villagers, Butylene charges through the second doorway and down the hallway as the one lucid prisoner following.

They emerge into a huge chamber with a frothing pool. In a sphere of force over it hovers a giant brain. He greets them and says he has been watching everything and admired their tricks, but he is the most intelligent entity in the galaxy and has a proposition for them. He challenges them to a game of riddles.

Fraya nails the first riddle, but botches the second. Arson and Fraya solve the third together, while Butylene and Bosco joke in the background. After failing the fourth riddle, Bosco tries to convince him they are too dumb to eat, as well as flirts.

The brain admits he is bored and looking for his equal and asks for a riddle to truly challenge him. Bosco looks to the others. Butylene just wants to do a group number, really artistic, full of abstract meaning.

To start, Butylene uses her tiefling trait of *enthrall* to get the humans on their side with an interpretive dance and a clap. Arson uses *prestidigitation* to create a low base tone and poetry whisper soundscape and gives some ASMR. Bosco sets up some whipcrack sounds and moves in time with them. The brain doesn’t get it so she switches to explosions and glass breaking sounds while dancing. Arson joins her while Butylene plays an airhorn, and Fraya *shapes water* while dancing.

The brain glows faster and lights up as Fraya makes a random joke: “How much Yas could a yas queen yas if a Yas Queen could Yas Queen?” Electricity flashes around the room as the Elder Brain gets stumped. Panels from around the room crash. One panel falls, revealing a hallway out of the room.

Arson takes off for it, as the group hears Mind Flayers heading towards them. The group flees, Fraya shouting an apology for not defusing the bomb. The passage slopes upward past exposed wiring until they emerge into a large room with two windows looking out of the lake. There is an instrument panel with a large red button.

They all press the button. The ground shakes and the chamber rises up into the air. They realize they were in a giant nautilus shell shaped ship with the tavern on top which falls off as the ship rises. But the mind flayers continue to approach. More have leapt onto the exterior of the ship from the tavern.

Arson snarls at the Mind Flayers, but fails to intimidate. Butylene creates images over her head to insult their intelligence, using her arcane knowledge of their weakness.

Bosco tries to perceive the instrument panel to figure out how to get rid of the flayers outside, finding one button that has torpedo symbols. She slams her fist on it. Missiles carry the outside flayers away from the ship.

Fraya uses her trident of fish command and animal handling to try and find an enormous beast in the water to knock the rest of the flayers from the ship. A large number of fresh water sharks leap from the lake, smashing through the windows of the ship and knocking the remaining flayers and the elder brain out of the ship.

The ship is now airborne. The villagers look on in wonderment, wondering what they’ve done. Fraya says she has no idea. To upstage Bosco, Arson drops into the splits.

Butylene, still in the maitre’d outfit, asks for a dessert menu.

### Characters

#### Party

* Arson Nicki - drider warlock
* Bosco - shadar-kai ranger
* Butylene O'Kipple - tiefling alchemist
* Fraya Love - water genasi cleric

#### NPCs

* Human Waiter
* Enthralled Human Prisoners

#### Monsters/Enemies

* Mind Flayers
* Grells
* Elder "Daddy" Brain

## Episode Notes

### Lore

* Mind Flayer hives are psychically linked to an Elder Brain, as well as to all the biological components of anything in their hives.

### Memorable Quotes

* You didn’t come here to play, you came here to flay!” - Bosco
* "Are the candelabra’s lit?" - "They are now!" - Fraya Love and Bosco
* “Did you say there’s a mic pole with a tentacle wrapped around it? You couldn’t have given me a better gift”. - Arson Nicki
* “I knew something was up; she was happy to bring us water.” - Arson Nicki
* "I used to work at Applebee’s, they used to take a lot longer to serve up the brains there" - Bosco
* 'I didn’t realize gaslight was a spell." - "It’s a cantrip." - Bosco and Butylene
* “Thankfully I never go to a gig without my flashdrive of whipcrack sound effects” - Bosco
* “How much Yas could a

yas queen yas if a Yas Queen could Yas Queen.” - Fraya Love

* "You know one of those Esther Williams number where she eats people." - DM Matt

### References

* Applebees
* Nomi Malone - Showgirls
* Cthulu
* Cirque du Soleil
* Final Girls - Horror Movie Trope
* George Michaels
* Fox News
* Say Anything
* Esther Williams

### Name That Tune

* "WAP" - Cardi B
* "I Can't Do It Alone" - Chicago musical
* "Do the Hustle"

## Behind the Queens

* This one shot was pre-recorded to be streamed online at a later date, a first for Queens of Adventure. This was done as the timeslot for the PAX Online panel given to the show was going to be late at night on a work night for the queens.
* The one-shot stood in for the live panel that would have happened had PAX West 2020 not been moved online due to covid-19.
* It is based off of a D&D 2nd Edition adventure. Listener and friend of the show Refgemlin suggested this adventure to the DMs.

The Fall of the House of Wunderbred - The Mystery of LaBouche Gardens - Tip of the Tops - The FInal Voyage of the Salty Starfish - Hang Ten - Double D20 -  vs the Lizard People - Seattle Style (in Chicago)
**San Francisco Cast**
The Day of the Lepus - Camp Crystal Light - Children of the Cornball
**Legendary Journey to the Midwest** Chicago Style - Seattle Style - Minneapolis Style
**Convention Panels** RuPaul's DragCon 2018 - Pax West 2018 - PAX West 2019 - Gaylaxicon 2019 - **PAX Online 2020**
**Live Streams** Enter the Wigsnatch - Mr Boogaloo's Dungeon Dash - Gnomenguarde Adventure - BLM: The Curse of Strahd - Pride Adventure - QoA Catch Up and Q&A - Boots the House Down - A Live D&D Conversation