Drama in the Deep - Chapter Three

> "*I would like to eat the amniotic sack.*"
> ― Londyn Bradshaw
>
>

**A Moment on the Lips** is the forty-ninth episode of Queens of Adventure. In it, the queens journey inside a dragon turtle and meet the beings trapped inside.

## Synopsis

In quest to recruit a group of merfolk as allies, the party have journeyed underwater and learned Misty has gone inside the body of Alighieri, the ailing dragon turtle spiritual leader of their group. The queens have followed along with their friend Gnomi.

Inside the dark turtle, seastar formed Londyn clings to Butylene's arm, as she lacks dark vision. The throat swallows, flushing them downward. As they ride down the throat, little bolts of electricity strike at all of them but Butylene. They dive through a sphincter at the end, although Gnomi struggles due to his claw.

They struggle to make out much in the next chamber. Everyone but Arson begin to see tempting things they lust for: Fraya sees a pearl vibrator (like one she secretly had back home in Oceanica, Fernando). Butylene sees an androgenous bugbear with seductive armor and spear. Londyn sees a druid with abs and a bear head. Gnomi sees his orc drawings come to life. They all begin to swim forward. Arson can feel the water begin to churn and is picked up by it, being slammed against the mucus covered wall.

Looking at the others, Arson sees they are swimming towards a wall covered in pods, many of them clawed open. She gives an intimidating screech, which shakes the party out of their temptations.

Inspecting the pods, they find each of them have a clutch of eggs below them. Seven of the pods and egg clusters have been burst open. One remains intact with a humanoid figure inside. Fraya investigates, and sees a merfolk but doesn't recognize them. Londyn moves to pick up an egg, but Butylene warns they appear parasitic. The tiefling looks at one of the burst pods. There are holes bored into the base of the pod near the eggs, and then the pod was torn open from the inside. Suspecting that the intact pod means the person inside has yet to be infected by the parasites, they decide to try to open it.

Fraya takes out her chakram and cuts into the pod. Acid begins to pour out, so she stops. Londyn changes her shape into that of the parasite and burrows into the pod. She eats through the bottom of the pod, and the acid pours onto the eggs, destroying some. Others begin to rattle. Butylene tries to use *firebolt,*but a crit-fail causes the heated water to smash the side of the chamber. The dragonturtle shakes in pain and the eggs break, releasing worms. Butylene hurls a bomb, and with crit-success it explodes, taking all of the creatures with it. Londyn keeps eating the drained pod and Fraya and Gnomi cut through more of it.

A long-haired merfolk slumps out of the pod. Butylene takes a pinch of smelling salts from her pouch of spices. He blinks his eyes open and greets them. He is Virgil the turtle master, and when Misty didn't return, he led scouts into Alighieri. The group tells him most of the scout team are still inside, but they saved one of them already. Virgil agrees to help them find the others, and explains his expertise is the anatomy of turtle as he cared for his physical needs. The last thing he recalls is seeing a lusty boytaur (NSFW, DM James says) concubine and being drawn in. They try to help him jog his memory of what actually trapped him, but he cannot recall.

Gnomi asks how long they have been around Fire Island. Virgil explains the group has come here with Alighieri, who seeks stories from around the world, several times to trade stories with the Glamazons, but this time they were attacked by seaspawn at the Full Moon. Butylene wonders if Virgil recognizes these symptoms. Virgil is unfamiliar, except it reminds him of the skin of the undead that attacked the merpeople, but with Alighieri's magical nature, he cannot be sure.

The group moves into the next chamber. A slimy sludge covers the floor. All but Fraya grow intensely hungry, many of them begin to go after the sludge. Virgil poisons himself eating it (and sickens the other with his descriptions). Arson and Gnomi eye each other with their hunger. To the drider, Gnomi looks like an anchovy pizza slice with a claw. Gnomi mentions spider souffle and bites Arson. They both dodge each other's attacks.

Fraya casts *light* on her breasts to make them as blindingly bright as possible to distract the others. It doesn't work. Butylene does take a finger full of sludge, before being distracted by the grappling friends and goes to pull them apart. Londyn eats the sludge, but resists the poison, and manages to pull Gnomi free of the grapple after turning back to a starfish.

Drawing out her trident of fish command, Fraya tries to command Londyn to snap out of her confusion, but fails. Butylene uses her castanets of illusion to create a cup of ranch, which draws Arson and Virgil's attention. They fight over it, with Arson triumphant. She smashes her face into the illusion. Londyn grabs Arson's face with her suckers, which finally snaps Arson out of it.

Virgil grabs Arson's hindquarters, but Arson manages to avoid being bitten. Fraya grabs Virgil and pulls him away and turns off her highbeams.

Head clear, the group looks around the chamber and find piles of debris, and some frog like creatures. One of them moves towards the party and touches a tendril from the side of the chamber, only to be pulled in and crushed. They ask Virgil to explain this chamber. It is where mechanical digestion occurs. He also does not recognize these frog creatures.

Londyn transforms into the froglike creature and talks to them. Swimming over to them, she can see that they are covered in sores, and the debris they are in includes parts of ships and boats and whatever filters into the dragon turtles mouth. As Londyn tries to talk to them, the frogs only repeat 'Eat, Eat' over and over, and 'Master Coming Soon'. The group worries their master might be the Kracken. Londyn grabs several items with her sticky tongue and paddles with it to the group.

Arson spins spidersilk into a cat of nine tails meant for tickling, not hurting. She whips the tendrils before Londyn can give them debris to throw. It triggers the chamber walls to begin collapsing and crunching. This knocks Virgil unconscious as it hurts the others.

Fraya uses *spare the dying* on Virgil, realizing she never asked the name of the merfolk she saved outside the turtle. Londyn does some frog mouth to mouth on Virgil, reviving him.

Looking around, the churning has stopped, and all the frogs look dead. Butylene and Fraya search the room. Butylene finds nothing, but Fraya finds a merfolk. Together they remove rubble to free the merfolk, covered in worms. Fraya smacks the merfolk with a wig she pulls off, casting *minor restoration*. The voice of Cher sings and the worm infestation curl up and die. Their face is now calm.

Londyn uses *healing spirit,* reviving both merfolk. The group decide to press on, and head through the next valve for the next chamber.

### Characters

#### Party

* Arson Nicki - drider warlock
* Butylene O'Kipple - tiefling alchemist
* Fraya Love - water genasi cleric
* Londyn Bradshaw - firbolg druid

#### NPCs

* Alighieri (setting)
* Gnomi Malone
* Virgil (debut)
* Veronica (debut)

#### Monsters/Enemies

* Parasite Worms
* Frogs

## Episode Notes

### Lore

* Alighieri travels the world gathering stories.
* The disease ravaging Alighieri and the frog creatures inside, look similar to traits of the seaspawn.

### Memorable Quotes

* "I can just turn into darkness, can't I?" - Londyn Bradshaw
* "Usually I spit when I see something like that." - Butylene O'Kipple
* "Only you can prevent crotch fires." - Fraya Love
* "I would say don't try to science this too hard." - DM Matt
* "I know it's anatomy, inside and out." - "Perfect" - "Ya know, didn't need to know that." - "That's Love" - "We are in Lust!" - Virgil, Londyn Bradshaw, Fraya Love, and Arson Nicki
* "Can somebody please knock Virgil out again?" - Londyn Bradshaw
* "You should talk to him in a 1940's accent." - Londyn Bradshaw
* "I thought my tongue was worn out, but seems there's life in the old girl yet!" - Virgil
* "I just took a nice big breath of fresh air, so I'm full." - Fraya Love
* "Master could be the Kracken or it could be Barbara Streisand." - Fraya Love

### References

* Magic School Bus - Miss Frizzle
* Finding Nemo - Sea Turtles riding the current
* Splash Mountain
* Smokey the Bear
* Aliens
* DC Superheroes: Wonder Twins, Wonder Woman, Beast Boy
* Dante's Inferno
* Farscape - Leviathans
* Brazil - "Complications with My Complications"
* Harry Potter
* Barbara Streisand
* Beyonce
* Taylor Swift's Marching Band

## Behind the Queens

\*In the outro, DM Matt mentions the launch of an end of year survey. At the time of outro recording they had 87 replies already. By the time of release, according to twitter, they had 91. DM Matt says if they reach over 100 replies by the end of December 2019 they will record a special episode to be released to the main feed.

\*The name of the first merfolk encountered, Virgil, is a reference to the Greek Poet who was used as a guide through the afterlife by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy. Veronica and the merfolk saved last week Meryl, were named by backer UncleDeadly.

\*Gnomi's temptation was of erotic looking orcs, recalling the book of erotic orc drawings he stole from Wunderbred Manor in the first live show, and that he kept at LaBouche Gardens in the second live show.

\*In this episode, Londyn is reistant to poison. Months later when the group held the live show "Mr Booglaoo's Dungeon Dash", she would not have poison resistance and would be very confused, siting her previous resistance.

**Greetings From Fire Island**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - **The Show Must Go On**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4
**Operation Watersport**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4 - Ch5 - Ch6 - Ch7 - **Trials**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4
**Ghosts of the Coast**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - **The Devil's Due**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4
**Special**: The Story So Far
**The Beautiful Place**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4 - Ch5 - Ch6 - **A Dance in the Dark**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4
**Drama in the Deep**: Ch1 - Ch2 - **Ch3** - Ch4 - Ch5 - Ch6 - **Whispers From the Heart**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4 - Ch5 - Ch6
**Danger Rangers!**: Ch1 - Ch2 - Ch3 - Ch4 - Ch5 - Ch6
**Mist Connections**: Ch1 - Ch2
**Unreleased**
Lost: Camp Crystal Light - Pax West 2018 --  vs the Lizard People
Live Shows: Seattle Style -- Minneapolis Style