S05E27: Qualish, Finally

## Aside:

The cleric discovered she has a “mending” spell that might be useful for restoring enough structural integrity for Qualish. The DM is looking at a stack overflow to see if it’s allowed.

## Background:

Qualish convinced us to go after his body, which was currently being guarded by the Medusa.

Nissa ended combat by blasting the Horn of Ending The Session On Time, inadvertently killing 6 hidden Kenku assassins, the armature possessed by the Kenku High Priestess, and creating microfractures on Qualish’s statue.

## Session:

Averlyth climbs up to the nook where Qualish’s statue is and proceeds to cast mending on the individual fractures. Nissa starts playing her lute to help people regain health faster.

The rest of the group loot the area (and bodies) and then spend way too long trying to discuss the most lavish possible usages of the undead medusa parts. Kanye picks up the skull.

Nissa, Sorith, and Um suddenly see movement in the deepest shadows of the room, suddenly on alert.

One kenku steps forward, out of the shadows. His eyes lock on the collapsed body of the Medusa, and then he looks at Sorith.

He looks totally lost.

Sorith waves back and holds out his waterskin in offering.

The kenku steps forward and slowly takes a sip, and a dozen kenku follow, revealing we were totally surrounded in the fight.

A slow, inhuman chorus of “What do we do?” ripples through the crowd.

Kanye announces “I am Kanye Cantaliber, of the house of Cantaliber. You’re welcome?”

The group spends some time contemplating the ethical dilemma we’ve caused for ourselves by giving this society unintended free will. Averlyth presents the option of recruiting them for the Drakeguard. Kanye doesn’t think they need much, maybe just some Bane pamphlets?

Um questions if we could ask Qualish to remove the goo to leave them alone - upon hearing his name, they erupt in angry chatter. Kanye asks why, and they share the fact that Qualish opened up a portal to hell that resulted in the goo flooding the city, killing the majority of the population.

Kanye looks over at the door they pointed at around the portal to hell, and realizes it has extraplaner bits added onto it that are reminiscent of the portal back on the floating island. Seems like Qualish added these parts after his arrival

Averlyth remembers a religious ritual for reversing the flow of a magical portal. There’s a slight chance it backfires and floods the room we’re in right now. Seems like Qualish might have been using this ritual and dedicating his life to using the mechanisms of this spell for portals to other locations.

As the Kenku get over their shellshock, Averlyth makes sure Kanye properly hands out pamphlets for the good news for Bane. Good news? Bad news? The news? Bane Is.

By this point, Averlyth has managed to roughly heal the microfractures.

Nissa goes to drive the lobster onto the roof as Averlyth casts Dimension Door to teleport the statue up to the roof (thankfully it’s the size of a gnome and not an orc).

Kanye goes through the list of demands we were going to make with Qualish. The group spends a nontrivial amount of time finalizing what we want.

> Nissa: I’m going to talk to Qualish because I’m the charismatic one!
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> Kanye: And I’m going to intimidate because I’m good at that!
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> Um: And I’m going to be quiet because that is my role in this group.
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Nissa recommends the whole group goes back to the garage before contacting him via the radio. On the ride over, Sorith opens a cupboard, pulls out a keg and starts handing beers to everyone. It’s a non-hoppy, non-Indian Pale Ale. (Turns out he’s been with the group the whole time, just brewing.)

Nissa tells Qualish that we brought his totally-uninjured body back. Kanye tries to remove the Power Armor before we enter the lab, but finds himself struggling to want to do it.

Before we do our side of the agreement, Nissa asks if we could drain the ooze from the city. Qualish reveals that the Kenku are murderous bird people who once upon a time took volunteers, but later were kidnapping people and torturing innocents. Averlyth reveals that the Medusa and the High Priestess were killed, and Nissa manages to convince him to agree to our updated conditions.

Kanye opens the portal to the lab and we enter with his glass body. We follow a series of weird instructions from him, moving glass and mirrors and pieces around, and then Um presses a button (with his left hand). A series of surreal things happen and before we know it, there is a live gnome standing where the Qualish statue was.

Averlyth questions if he feels any paper cuts. Qualish questions if the body was actually uninjured - Nissa admits to using the Horn of Blasting on it.

Suddenly he realizes Kanye is wearing the Power Armor and asks if he feels possessed at all. Kanye agrees to keep test piloting it after he’s informed that the curse can be removed, and that he’s also allowed to take it off to use the bathroom or get laid. Qualish is very very curious about the results of the test piloting, especially when the batteries start running out. Also known as the standard non-disclosure curse used on demo equipment all the time.

Averlyth suddenly questions the value of the ghost bauble. Qualish first misunderstands and explains the skull in the room with gem eyes (takes a soul when you touch it - he was getting souls as payment for making things

Modron portal for gear (and eggs from a dude?)

Daal doesn’t like this fact, Nissa reveals she got pregnant, Qualish is shocked, we mention we’re going to limbo after the 4 horsemen. Qualish recognizes the name, Nissa then gives a pitch for the Drakeguard while he’s distracted looking at everyone’s bracers, impressed that it’s high tech but thrown off by the limiter, briefly offers to remove it. He lowers the glass on Kanye’s power armor face and takes off his glasses bracers. Kanye is happy for fresh air, Qualish is surprised that he didn’t turn on fresh air before getting into the suit.

> Kanye: Does this thing have a beverage dispenser?
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> Qualish: Yeah! I”ll have to warn you though, it’s filtered urine, but it’s totally sanitary.
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> Kanye: It’s my urine right?
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Qualish wants to call up our boss - Kanye briefly pretends we have no way of doing it and that we need clearance, but is reminded he’s currently in a suit made by Qualish. Qualish puts the glasses on, dials to the floating island, gets Phteven on the call, asks to see the manager, and eventually gets escalated all the way to the Director. She fills him in on the nature of the guild, he agrees on the condition he gets resources, funding and interns.

He tells us about apparatus of qualish v2 noting that we need to both go and fight in limbo. He agrees to make a bauble connect to the floating ship to make it easier, will need to give us a shopping list of things to go fetch.

Qualish presses the button that says “do not press”, everyone stares. Averlyth criticizes him for setting the precedent for Kanye that you’re allowed to press buttons labeled like that.

Everyone levels up to level 9, and also gains a level in the bracer (6), which allows us to cast the daily ability twice!

We return to the Drakeguard headquarter and debriefed with our supervisor, who is entirely impressed with everything we’ve done over the past month. She admitted we were a little junior for the titles we were given, praised us for resolving 2 crises back to back and brought the Drakeguard multiple amazing assets. She recommends we go take some downtime.

Kanye spent the previous downtime making lutes and Nissa got a lot of really bad lutes. This time, Nissa and Kanye are able to work together to make something like Nissa’s old lute but better - higher quality, with the label “READ OR DIE” along the side. Kanye receives proficiency in lute craftsmanship.

Averlyth trains the Kenku how to be truly afraid, and they are the best acolytes she’s ever had.It took about a week before they actually showed up and appeared before her, and they are absolutely on board of spreading fear. Before long, there are rumors that the woods around the Barrier Peaks are not safe, rumors of people getting robbed by bird people with distinctive marks. Averlyth gets a stealth inspiration token to cash in at some point when it’s important, like the flashback to the night before.

Sorith has been brewing beer and hanging out.

Um went back to catch up on what’s up with the sight-rot epidemic and finds out the company was municipalized by Baldur’s Gate, who distributed the eyebright to everyone who needed it at a reasonable price.