211: Disco is Dead, Batthwack!

## Summary

The party set about retrieving their packs. Climbing the stairs they discover another level of the *Tomorrow, Today!* office that promises much but delivers little. That is, until Gwen discovers a secret set of duplicate rooms behind an illusory wall. The new rooms excite Will greatly when it seems they have finally lifted the veil on *Tomorrow Today!'*s clandestine surveillance operation. Two operatives are discovered and a botched attempt to incapacitate them leads to Batthwack being temporarily knocked unconscious. The operatives escape and a squadron of guards arrives.

## Synopsis

The party begin clambering up onto what remains of the stairs, noticing that as they move up they can't hear those who remain down below. Will suspects a spell has been employed to silence any noise from this level. They help each other up, including the bedraggled lady. Gwen points out that no-one above will know what's happened because of the silence spell.

Raphina asks where their stuff is, and Batthwack points up. *"Disco is dead, Batthwack!"* shouts Will. Gwen suggests popping in and popping out with *Dimension Door* and volunteers Batthwack as he'll be able to carry more stuff. Raphina offers help *"I have pockets!"* Will is very nervous about letting Batthwack go, because he's supposed be protecting Will. Batthwack asks Captain Clockface to look after Will while he's away and Captain Clockface unsheathes his hip dagger in readiness.

Will is looking suspiciously at the bedraggled lady. *"Who are you? What's your deal?"* She replies *"Can I trust you?! She..."* (pointing to Gwen) *"...says none of you are doing anything for Tivoli, is that right?"* Will is shocked to finally hear someone from outside the party mention his hometown. Batthwack asks *"Do you have a problem with Tivoli?"* and the lady explains that's where she's from andb that the "people" there killed her family. She explains her name is Selenia and she fled from Tivoli with nothing, made her way across Six Rivers and having reached Morrow's Inlet was caught and locked up for stealing food. She says that they think she's crazy because they say Tivoli doesn't exist. Will tells Selenia that he knows about Tivoli, and she is visibly relieved, but also says he thinks she isn't for real and has been planted here by *Tomorrow, Today!* to mess with him. Gwen takes pity on her and says she needs to come with them. Raphina asks Selenia to name some people from Tivoli to prove she's really from there, but first Batthwack insists that he and Gwen make haste with their plan to retrieve their items.

Will tries to cast *Prestidigitation* to see if his magic is back and it works! He's mightily relieved. Gwen casts *Dimension Door* to the location indicated by Batthwack's *Locate Object* spell, but as she does so, they're both suddenly yanked into an invisible wall and wince in pain. *"That didn't feel good!"* says Gwen. Will uses his *Mask of Many Faces* invocation to change his appearance into that of one of the guards who brought them in. Gwen heals herself with *Healing Light*. Batthwack heals himself too.

Will goes up the stairs and peaks round the corner to find a landing off to one side with a closed set of heavy wooden doors. The stairs continue further up. The party notice that as they ascend, as with before, they cannot hear anyone who hasn't reached the landing yet. Will points it out to everyone. Batthwack's spell indicates that their possessions are on this level, so they carefully go up to the doors and listen. He cannot hear anything. Raphina casts her *Arcane Eye* and sending it under the doors, sees an empty medium-grey stone hallway, lit with the usual fluorescent lighting, eventually ending in a wall at the far end. At this end there are two doors, one on either side. Batthwack indicates that their packs are on the right-hand side, so Raphina sends her *Arcane Eye* under the right-hand door. She sees a room with wire mesh cages lining the walls, full of stuff, but she can't see if their stuff is in any of the cages. The double-doors to the corridor are unlocked and they go through. Now they're in the corridor they see the right-hand door is labelled *"Confiscations"* and the left-hand door is labelled *"Records"*. Batthwack realizes that their stuff is further along the corridor, so they head down. They reach another two doors, one on either side. The right-hand door is labelled *"Transport"* and the one on the left is labelled *"Surveillance / Communications"*.

Will wants to know what's in the *"Records"* room so he asks Raphina to send her *Arcane Eye* under the door. She does so and sees rows of bookshelves and no people. Will goes in and pulls out some random books. They're all lists of various forms of boring government information: tax records, law books, leases and deeds of property owners, elections records and details of licenced magic users. Will is disappointed that there's nothing juicy here, but takes a book of people licenced to use magic anyway. Batthwack listens at the door of the *"Transport"* room and hearing nothing he goes in. He finds stacks of rafts, a table along the left-hand side has horse tack and equipment and various piles of burlap sacks. He searches for his pack where the spell indicates it should be, but discovers that it's actually on the other side of the wall, in other room. Meanwhile Gwen listens at the *"Surveillance"* room and hears nothing. She slowly peaks in to find a room of six desks facing away from the door, no people. Each desk has stationary set up on it, with ink pots and unlit braziers. She looks closer and finds not much of interest, except that the ink pots contain lemon juice. She casts *Detect Magic* and finds nothing in the room, but does notice a significant amount of magic back out in the corridor.

Gwen goes back outside and finds Batthwack inspecting the wall at the end of the corridor. He's wondering if they can smash through it and get to wherever their stuff is. Gwen tells them she's detecting a serious amount of magic here. Reaching up to touch it, she finds her claw goes right through - the wall is an illusion! Raphina goes to slap the wall, but her hand goes right through. She puts her foot through and says "Bye guys..!" and as she passes through her voice is silenced. Batthwack and Gwen follow. Selenia and Hilula go too. Mo says *"Will, where they go?!"* Will wants to see the *"Surveillance"* room for himself, so goes in. He asks Mo to help him smash the desk and without hesitation he rushes in and flips it over. He can't find any secret compartments, but also doesn't want to leave Hilula alone for too long, so rushes out to pass through the wall and catch up with everyone else, dragging Captain Clockface through with him.

On the other side of the wall is a white stone hallway, reminiscent of the prison cells on the level below. Looking back they see the wall is invisible from this side. There are 4 doors here as well, but they are somewhat sturdier-looking double doors instead. Will is very excited to see that the four rooms are labelled just like the previous set; *"Confiscations"*, *"Records"*, *"Transport"* and *"Surveillance / Communications"*. He suspects that these secret rooms are the real operation with the others being a front to put people off the scent. Raphina's *Arcane Eye* can't get under the doors here though, so Will opens the doors to the *"Records"* room, revealing a room full of shelves with big disorganised piles of paper dotted around everywhere. Picking up a random piece of paper Will finds it's blank and recalls the lemon juice from the other room. He needs to find a way to heat the blank paper, so grabs another random piece, folds it up and tries to light it, but finds he cannot set it alight.

Meanwhile Batthwack goes into the *"Confiscations"* room and discovers towering stacks of cages filled with stuff. He heads towards the south wall of the room and finds his pack in an open cage. He comes back out to let everyone know, but once they go into the room they notice they can't hear him any more. Will, Gwen and Raphina find their packs right where Batthwack's was and Will is understandably annoyed that Batthwack didn't bother to retrieve theirs while he was there. Everything seems to be in order. Will investigates the other packs, finding climbing gear, clothes, paper and personal letters and a bunch of other stuff. Most notably he finds a tiny hydra preserved in amber. Raphina asks Selenia if she had a pack, but she says she didn't. Will finds another cage containing only a small grey bag. Inside is something small and fuzzy, though neither he nor Raphina can identify what it is. Raphina shakes it and it makes no noise. She has Pippa sniff it, who then walks away disinterestedly. She puts it in her pack.

Will is determined to find some dirt on *Tomorrow, Today!*, so Gwen looks in the *"Surveillance"* room while Batthwack investigates the *"Transport"* room. He finds a largely empty room, containing a lit stone brazier with an hourglass suspended overhead, just like the one they found in the dungeons of Castle Ravenloft. Gwen finds a room with 3 desks on the far wall and a dark rug in the centre of the floor. She's stunned to see two people sitting at the desks, so very carefully backs out of the room without being spotted. Gwen tells Batthwack about the two people and they decide to try and tie them up and question them. They wonder about asking Will to make them invisible. Will meanwhile has found various interesting items among the other packs in the *"Confiscations"* room: a small golden sphere with a pair of crumpled silver wings, an amulet on an iron chain crafted from an arrowhead that would be suitable for a giant, two unlabelled potions, a wand, and a ring that he thinks may be magical. He stuffs it all in his pack, including the amber hydra. Gwen tells Will about the plan and they decide that Mo should watch the door and make sure no one comes in. Will grabs a handful of papers from the *"Records"* room. He also tells everyone that he kept one of the coloured stones from Ravenloft's brazier room.

Will casts the *Invisibility* spell and the two dragonborn vanish. They sneak into the room quietly enough that the two operatives are busy writing and don't notice. The one on the left is a humanoid female adult, the other is an ibish of unknown gender. Batthwack makes his way towards the ibish and Gwen approaches the humanoid. They try to coordinate their grapples, but being invisible this doesn't go exactly to plan. Batthwack grapples the ibish, saying *"Don't move and no one's going to get hurt."* They yelp and this alerts the humanoid before Gwen can grapple her. She whirls round and says *"Who's there! What is this?"* She's about to cast a spell when Gwen grabs her, saying *"I don't want to hurt you."* Gwen tries to calm her but both operatives are desperately trying to escape and manage to wriggle free. Gwen does her best to reason with them, even offering some candy, but the two are scrambling away from them, very afraid. Batthwack tries to grapple again but cannot get a hold.

Meanwhile, Will and Raphina have been investigating the *"Transport"* room. The brazier has stones just like the Ravenloft one did, but there's no indication of where it might send them. Back in the *"Surveillance"* room, the human suddenly disappears, reappearing in the corner of the room. She reaches out muttering under her breath and casts *Black Tentacles*, which whip around trying to grab anything they can. The ibish holds out their feathery hands and blasts both the dragonborn with *Cone of Cold*. Batthwack is badly hit. Gwen manages to avoid harm, but is instead grabbed by the tentacles, taking damage. She casts Sacred Flame at the ibish, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on them. Having done that Gwen is now visible. *"There she is! Get her!"* Gwen casts *Healing Light* on herself. Batthwack takes more damage from the *Cone of Cold* magic and is knocked unconscious, though he's still invisible so Gwen who has no idea.

Will asks Raphina to go and check on the dragonborn. Peeking in the door she witnesses the disastrous scene unfolding, but cannot see Batthwack. She alerts the rest of the party. The humanoid operative sees Raphina and shouts *"Look there's another one! We've got to tell someone!"* Raphina casts *Spiritual Guardians* Will, hearing Raphina's cry, runs over and looks in the room. He tries to cast *Polymorph* on the ibish but it is successfully resisted. The human woman takes damage from the *Spiritual Guardians*, crying *"We've got to go! We don't know what they've got!"* and disappears. The ibish nods and disappears as well. The tentacles also vanish. Will dispels the invisibility spell and they see Batthwack lying on the ground bleeding out. Gwen tries to revive him, but can't. "We need some help over here!" she cries. Captain Clockface runs over and stabilizes Batthwack. Gwen asks if he has any healing potions in his bag and Will is a little too quick to offer to help go through his pack. He's rummaging through the bag and Captain Clockface is trying to fend him off, when Raphina casts *Healing Word* with an utterance of *"Marshmallow Fluff!"* Now revived, Batthwack immediately gets up, and looks around with a sense of urgency and panic. Seeing no assailants (his *Robe of Eyes* would enable him to see anyone who's invisible), he bolts out the door.

Will quickly inspects the desks, not wanting to miss this opportunity. He grabs all the paper he can see (which he suspects is magic paper) and rips open all the drawers. Having done that he sets bonfires on each of them. Batthwack is getting increasingly distraught, asking where the two operatives went. Gwen tells him that they just disappeared. Batthwack starts searching the other rooms for them. Will grabs a book from the bookshelves, and it appears to be alphabetical records of various Morrow's Inlet citizens. Some books refer to unnamed entities, which Will suspects contain their own details. He grabs these and tells the others to grab whatever random books they can before setting the bookshelves alight too. Batthwack goes running down the hallway towards the double-doors where they came in. As he approaches, the doors fling open and in bursts a squadron of guards.

## Trivia

* The episode title quotes Will / KT. Raphina asks where their packs and stuff is, and Batthwack points up to the levels above them. *"Disco is dead, Batthwack!"* shouts Will.
* Any other Pork Fried Dice memes / non-canon moments / interesting facts that you think are worth noting

## References

1. ↑ See: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Invisible-Ink-Message
2. ↑ See episode 153: Smoke Weed and Fuck a Lizard
3. ↑ DMs note: ibish are relatively common in Six Rivers so Gwen is familiar with them, unlike the rest of the party who had never heard of their kind before first meeting them aboard the Airship Goodberry, see episode 164: A Star Trek-Themed Campaign
4. ↑ DM's note, the humanoid's name is Rachel apparently!
5. ↑ Eric reveals here that the human operative is called Rachel.
6. ↑ ...Or is it *Spiritual Garden*??