S05E10: Kentucky Bourbon

*The gang meets Kentucky Bourbon. Carlos impersonates a cop. Nissa flirts with a jock. Um sticks his finger into wild magic pollution.*

Arriving at the office of archaeology professor Kentucky Bourbon after it's been robbed, the gang learns that a group of cultists are also trying to reach the lost pyramid of the mad wizard Peter the Perturbed. Racing to the location, they find it has been poisoned by wild magic leaking from the pyramid into the environment. A group of elf guards confirm the cultists entered the pyramid already, riding a young purple worm.

## Background

> **Nissa** : “We saved a dog!”
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> **Stacy:** "…I'm happy for you."
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> **Nissa:** "Also we stopped a bunch of evil priests from performing a ritual to anger a forgotten god into triggering a famine that would have killed thousands."
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> **Stacy:** "Kinda buried the lede there."
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The group had previously staged a fake sacrifice (with a real killing of a human polymorphed into a dog) to trick a group of cultists into leaving the ruins found by another archaeological team. The Lady Esmeralda Moneybags seemed to be responsible for the ritual, though the group did not have any official connection between her and any of the other villains thus far.

The group reports this to the Drakeguard Director of Field Operations and then head down to the quartermaster to upgrade their bracers, as they’ve reached yet another level in the Drakeguard!

* **Carlos**: Director’s Shield
* **Nissa**: Guided Shot
* **Um**: Guided Shot
* **Averlyth**: Insightful Riposte

Last time, the group chose the quest for the “Forest Psalm” - an ancient song that causes cataclysmic destruction in its wake may have resurfaced, and the group is needed to retrieve the weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

## Session

The founder of the Drakeguard had heard a rumor about an archaeological professor having a lead on the “Forest Psalm”. We go to the Neverwinter campus to find this Kentucky Bourbon.

A jock runs past Nissa while playing ultimate frisbee and runs into a tree trying to impress her. She compliments him on the catch (he did not catch it) and asks him where the Archaeology building is (it is within eyesight). Completely unfazed, he answers and escorts her to the building, refraining from calling the people inside “nerds”.

> **Carlos**: “Hey Nissa, who’s your friend there? He looks a bit like one of the guys you farted on recently”
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*Nissa shoots him a dirty look*

> **Averlyth**: “It’s too bad you didn’t pretend not to know him”
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> **Nissa**: “Oh yeah, could’ve gotten them to fight”
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> **Vicki**: “*Roll for initiative*”
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Once inside the building, the group looks the professor up on the directory and see his office labeled with a 600 number. Um makes his way up by climbing on the walls of the stairwell. The students seem to have seen stranger, everyone else walks up normally.

On the 6th floor, we see “Kentucky Bourbon” written on a cardboard label taped over something else, as if he had only recently been granted the office, and then the door is slightly ajar.

Um knocks, and there is no answer. Um knocks harder, and the door swings wide open to reveal a completely ransacked room. There are papers thrown all over, things knocked around, a closet on the far side. After some skimming, Nissa notices a theme in the work spread across the floor - they seem to be around the location of something in particular, and the name “Peter the Perturbed” keeps coming up.

Then, they hear muffled noises coming from a closet that sound suspiciously like someone tied up in a chair, hopping up and down. Carlos opens the door to see someone gagged and tied up in a chair, hopping up and down. Carlos closes the door.

### Meeting Kentucky Bourbon

After the briefest of debates, the group reopens the door and unties the man, who introduces himself as Kentucky Bourbon. (There is a short delay as the group educates Averlyth on the definition and cultural history of the term “blaxploitation”. Something about cheaply produced kungfu movies in the 70’s and Dolemite being assigned for homework.)

When asked what happened, Kentucky explains that a “wild, Rasputin-looking wizard with thugs” barged in, tied him up and stole something from him. He’s about to reveal what it is when he realizes he has no idea who we are. Carlos immediately and successfully claims to be a cop.

Fully trusting Carlos to be an authority figure, Kentucky goes on to tell us he had been looking for the silver Pyramid of Peter the Perturbed, who was historically known for transmutation experiments that completely destroyed the natural order of the environment surrounding his island in a river. This wizard lived centuries ago and was eventually defeated by a hero known as Velma the Vaccinated, who had managed to brave his Pyramid of traps with a group and slay him.

Kentucky had recently found Velma’s journal documenting her experiences, which included enough information for Kentucky (and us) to be able to locate this island and Pyramid. It had been taken in the burglary, but Kentucky was also able to recall a few other details of note - not everything had been pillaged from the Pyramid, there was a maze that changed as would-be invaders got deeper, and there were undead present within.

After a quick huddle in the hallway, the group decides to ask Kentucky about what he knows regarding the “Forest Psalm” (e.g. if it’s one of the artifacts within the Pyramid). He isn’t particularly horrified to hear the question despite not having mentioned it once during his story, and says he wouldn’t be surprised if it was found there, as it’s powers would match Peter’s interests.

The group returns to the field office to do some quick preparation before teleporting to the quest location. Averlyth blesses a flask of holy water for Um, a 40 ounce of holy water for Nissa, and a thirst quencher from 7/11 of holy water for Carlos. Nissa decides to grab a stick as well as baking soda to use as breadcrumbs for the aforementioned maze.

### The Island

Finally, the group teleports and finds themselves on an island facing the strangest of scenes.

Upon apparition, the group scares off a two-headed dog that was in the middle of eating dead fish on the shore of the river. The trees grown around them are all twisted and bizarre, in odd shapes and textures and colors, with fruit growing upside-down, or spiny to the touch on some sides but not others. Giant domestic cat sized squirrels are running around, and the water has an odd, odd sheen.

Nissa immediately begins to collect samples of the scene -- she had previously possibly grabbed a butt or two in the mage’s hideout and some good magical data would do wonders in rebuilding that relationship and not getting sued to oblivion. She discovers that the oddities with the fruits of the trees don’t seem to have any pattern - some have fur, others are hard, some are sweet, others sulphiric. She carefully takes a few for safekeeping.

Doctor Snuggleface - who is now a member of the party, mind you - excitedly runs up to the dead fish and attempts to roll around in it. Carlos is able to snap the leash onto him to pull him back, but he’s being particularly resistant. When questioned why he’s so interested in dead fish, Doctor Snuggleface did not respond. [Editor's Note: Snuggleface is the dog]

Investigating the dead fish a little closer, it almost seems as if they had *drowned*?

> **Carlos**: “Hey Averlyth, you should kiss this fish”
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*Averlyth is busy running after the squirrels, debating if their increased size would count as bonus points in a sacrifice*

Carlos looks around to see if there are any live fish and happens to see one seemingly in the midst of dying - it flops onto the shore, gasping, and then flops back into the water, gasping, and so on and so forth. Carlos goes over to it, picks it up while it’s on land, and throws it further into the water so there’s no way it can accidentally suffocate on land. After a few minutes, it goes belly-up. Carlos walks away, whistling. Um shakes his head.

After a few glances, Um notices that the water’s strange coloration almost makes it seem like there’s a layer of oil on top - only that there’s no way that the colors produced were natural. He sticks his pinky finger in the water gingerly.

It comes out with a slightly greenish tint, and a slightly longer, pointed nail.

Um casually puts his hand in his pocket.

Averlyth has decided that the squirrels would probably count the same as goats to Bane and returns to the group after not really successfully getting much done.

Nissa carefully scoops up some of the water into a mason jar. Before her eyes, the glass touching the oily, magical water appears to start changing colors, and the bottom of the glass even seems to turn into metal. Then, within a minute the jar returns to its original form. Um’s finger, too, seems less green now.

Averlyth asks for one of the jars of water and gently pours it over a nearby rock to test whether or not the magical properties are still present - it looks exactly like water poured over a normal rock. Nissa hypothesizes the effect is caused by something polluting the water upstream, as the effects have been diffused. Carlos seems to recognize the mutations as caused by wild magic.

### Approaching the Pyramid

Without further ado, the group start heading towards the giant, silvery Pyramid tip in the distant north of the island.

The woods as they progress, whilst they don’t appear to get *more* strange, absolutely do not get *less* strange. Soon, however, they reach a clearing at the base of the Pyramid. There are the remains of a camp at the entrance. The south side of the Pyramid (facing them) has stairs going up; the left and right sides have a stream of oily, multicolor *something* going down the Pyramid and into the streams. Additionally:

Averlyth notices particular tracks around both the camp and undergrowth that seem reminiscent of those created by a purple worm. She goes closer to the camp to investigate.

Carlos notices the camp seems to have been the site of a skirmish, as it is a mess and also there are dead bodies. The bodies belong to two separate groups - one including many human cultists, and another containing a single elf. The sounds seem caused from swords and arrows.

Um notices the group is being watched.

Um gestures at Carlos and Nissa to stay back as he realizes there are others in the bushes. From the edge of the clearing, they are able to see as wood elves stand up with arrows nocked, outnumbering us. One calls out to raise hands into the air; Averlyth does so, with her back to the rest.

Carlos attempts to intimidate his “elf brother “(1/16th, on his mother’s side?) into leaving instead, that they need more people to defeat us. The elf is a little taken aback but not swayed, and accuses us of being friends with the group that they “already chased off this morning”. It appears that the survivors with the dead cultists lying here had fled deeper into the Pyramids when ambushed by the wood elves.

Averlyth asks who the elves are -- they’re at least more receptive of 100% drow than < 50% elves -- and was told that these were protectors of the region, who were tasked with keeping “people like us” from entering the Pyramid and making things worse. The group may or may not have gotten that elf pretty angry actually, so it took some convincing, but after a bit, we were able to convince them we were at least *not* associated with the previous group. Though they do not fully believe we are here to help, they accept that either we can try to do our best or end up not coming out either, so they give a bit more information.

It seems the Pyramid had started “emitting” whatever chaos liquid was creating the nearby atrocities as of 6 months ago. Previously, lizard-men had inhabited the first floor of the Pyramid, which wasn’t too great but wasn’t too bad either, as they usually keep to themselves and leave well enough alone. They now are gone, and the rate of wanna-be pillagers has shot up over the past half year, to the point where the wood elves have gotten increasingly exasperated.

Nissa contemplates if they like us enough to draw a map of the maze. Averlyth points out that they haven’t gone in, either.

### Entering the Pyramid

Now facing the entrance, the group makes their way up the stairs and into what appears to be a normal, damp dungeon corridor. Except, there’s also luminescent fungus that retains its shape (Averlyth is unable to carve out identifying markings with Nissa’s stick for use as signs), there are odd mutant bugs lingering around, and there’s an overall uncomfortable atmosphere.

Um takes great care to constantly check for traps as we move towards an entrance on the left-hand down the hall.

Not even halfway down, there’s a sudden quiet -- then creaks and shudders as a wall slides out behind up and trapping us within.

With no direction but forward, the group makes their way down the left turn corridor, seeing a T-shaped intersection on the far end, and a glowing figure hovering before them. When the glowing figure notices it has our attention, it makes a beckoning motion, and then turns it back on us, making a right turn down the corridor. The group decides nothing could go wrong with following random glowing things. Um and Averlyth lead the way into the T, only to turn as another wall slides into view, splitting them off from Nissa and Carlos.

### Trapped in the Maze

Malicious cackling echoes all around them.

Nissa and Carlos immediately identify the culprits as poltergeists, invisible pranksters that could go through walls. Averlyth notes that poltergeists, like other undead, were vulnerable to radiant damage and sunlight.

-- *Group rolls for initiativ* --

Averlyth, without much thought for the invisible enemies, decides to pursue the glowing figure. Running down the corridor, she looks around the corner in time to see the figure go down one of two branching corridors on the other end. Um follows more carefully behind.

Carlos, having seen the door slide in, goes to slide the door right back out. He pushes it back, feeling something fight him; he lets go once both him and Nissa slide through, and it slams right shut behind him. Nissa leaves an arrow on the ground in baking soda indicating the direction they traveled. Trying to catch up, Nissa runs around the corner following Um and Averlyth.

Without warning, Nissa is thrown sailing into the back wall of the T. More cackles are heard surrounding the group.

Averlyth chases after the glowing figure out of fear of losing it, pausing at the entrance of the branch so she’s able to look back and see who’s caught up. Um shouts after her to be more careful and then looks around the corner just in time to see a door slide shut behind her, separating her from the group.

Carlos goes down the unknown left corridor of the T-intersection to see what’s up. Down another left turn at the end, he’s able to see two branches off the corridor.

Nissa pulls herself up, only to find her lute had been somewhat cracked from fall. Distraught, she plays a Dissonant Whisper with the now off-tuned instrument, sending one of the poltergeists muttering off in a direction away from her. Then she remembers she’s broken her lute before, it’s totally been in a worse condition than this, she can fix it.

Averlyth runs down the hall after the glowing figure, seeing it taking two rights, and then sees a door slide out in front of her, blocking her way. Um goes up to door that just slid in front of *him* and tries to push it back out of his way, but doesn’t seem to have the right leverage.

Nissa runs over to Um to keep the group together minimally as Carlos continues down his corridor to find a dead end in the first branch. With a push, he finds that the door actually swings right open into the second hallway we were in previously.

Averlyth is suddenly thrown into the ceiling, taking damage from both the collision and the fall back down. With evil laughter echoing around her, she looks up to see her glowing guide stick its head through her door and gesture at her to continue following, as though confused she had stopped. She tries to open the door to keep moving forward, but doesn’t quite get a grip on it in her winded state.

Um manages to get his door open with a second attempt and catches up to Averlyth, once again emphasizing caution. Carlos dips back around to the second, unexplored branch, and finds a dead body with 25 gold.

> **Carlos**: “NISSAAAAAAA! NISSSSSSAAAAAAAA! THERE’S A DEAD BODY COME TALK TO IT”
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Nissa leaves an arrow on the ground next to Um, then scampers back to Carlo’s hallway just in time for the two of them to hear some sort of movement near the center of the maze (doors seem to have been rearranged into different configurations again). Suddenly, the body is thrown down the corridor.

> **Carlos**: “Hey, come back here!”
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> **Whispered, Angry Voice**: *(indistinct filthy cursing)*
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> **Carlos**: “Are you my mom?”
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