S7E04: The Gang Discovers the Back Door

## Previously on MCVFD

In a nutshell, the group got offered to go to limbo, camped out the night doing absolutely nothing, and then walked through the suspicious portal the next morning anyways.

We learned about some controversy with the Drakeguard history from the Director of the branch in limbo. What we’re being asked to do roughly aligns with what Momma P asked from us, we’re happy to chill on this plane for now.

## New Limbo Context

Dak’kon has offered for us to be escorted by a member of his team while we’re in Limbo, who has the sole purpose of ensuring things are stable wherever we go. He will not be able to fight, and may be vulnerable in combat. Nissa has asked if his name is Moodhouse.

Additionally, spellcasting is risky on this plane - there’s a risk that it may not always work, and there’s a chance for wild magic every time. Casting illusions spells in limbo are also risky in that they might become real.

## Session

We are in a meeting room. Nissa pulled out Mizz Computer, and asks her “What can you tell us about the Drakeguard”

Mizz Computer confirms both the stories we heard from Momma P and Wosley have a foundation in reality. It was true that the first several hundred years, in the Flufenpoof dynasty, the Director worked with the Founder. Then, the Director had a heart attack from an orgy, so the Founder stepped in, and then didn’t give up the control after the crisis was over. Mizz Computer stops herself when it gets too close to the current timeline, stating “Error, unstable timeline”.

Nissa looks for edit history and citations, but can’t find them.

Kanye is fixated on whether or not Momma P was involved in the orgy.

Nissa ponders how we feel about Momma P now; Averlyth votes not to deal with a Drakeguard reorg until season 8 and looks around for the cloaked drones.

*The group spends 10 minutes talking about their favorite time travel movies*.

The group quickly syncs on personal motivations.

Nissa wants to make sure He Who Sleeps stays asleep to protect her plane.

Averlyth wants to make sure He Who Sleeps doesn’t steal any of Bane’s followers - gotta eliminate the competition.

Kanye sees Limbo as an extension of the PR campaign; he’s motivated for anything that might further our reputation.

Sorith has no comment. Um is here and everyone else is here.

We also have a voicemail from Qualish asking us to check in with him (on the Prime Plane). We also didn’t even know the bracers had voicemail, but Qualish just upgraded all our stuff anyways, he probably just installed a backdoor.

Nissa draws a penis on the white-board and then leaves. Averlyth adds the word “Do not erase” next to it. Kanye draws a cube the way the DM does.

We leave the conference room to tell Wosley we’re going to first run back to the Prime plane since we weren’t planning on doing a trip to Limbo. He tells us they’re keeping the portal open and with guards through it. He reminds us not to bring anyone unexpected, to just be good guests.

Averlyth whispers to Nissa, and she pulls Daal out in front of Wosley to ask him if it’s okay for her to be carrying him around. He’s shocked by the appearance, even more shocked she’s just carrying him around like a pet, and most shocked that she “carried him to term”.

> **Kanye:** I have something very important to ask… do you guys have bike polo here?
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> **Nissa:** Um, can I finish the Slaad thing?
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He’s suddenly looking a little unsure about us, but feels better when we state we’re planning on taking on a job to recover a monitoring station when we come back.

> **Um:** It’s such a cop-out, why they called him Waluigi instead of, I guess, Wauigi?
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> **Kanye:** I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited to have this conversation with someone.
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Kanye tries to gift him a bauble, but IT policy is that he can’t take anything.

> **Kanye:** Okay fine. Can I give you a hug? Is that okay?
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> **Wosley:** Sure, we’re big huggers here.
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> **Kanye to DM:** I am going to use sleight of hand to put the bauble in his pocket.
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Wosley does not notice Kanye slipping the bauble into his pocket, but it’s *really* not a small thing, he’s going to notice. Kanye winks. Wosley looks confused and winks back, thinking that’s just what we do on the Prime plane.

> **Averlyth:** He’s going to notice the bauble in 5 seconds, when he sits down?
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> **Um:** I guess we need to be gone by then.
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We exit the building to find Dak’kon accompanied with the most emo-looking Gith Zorai. Moodhouse, known affectionately in their circle as Moody. He’s available to act as a guide whenever we’re around. Averlyth is onboard with his aesthetic, Kanye hands him a coaster.

> **Kanye:** Hey Moodhouse, can you check with Wosley? I think he might’ve stolen my bauble, I need that back.
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Moodhouse comes *very* close to cracking a smile.

The group leave to the portal and re-emerge in the blasted ruins of Bumblefuck. Our bracers can now teleport us to back to Firehouse 99.

We re-appear on the playgrounds. Everything looks like we’ve left it. There are Drakeguard Operatives practicing on the agility course, waving at Kanye and wondering whether or not he has time to wrassle with them. He gives them finger guns and then pretends to throw a ball at them or something?

We make our way through the familiar path around the base. We end up down in the boiler room, and find ourselves at the door to Qualish’s lab. Nissa knocks. He asks who it is and Averlyth responds, he tells us to get in there.

Qualish tells us about some new gear and equipment he’s made for us. And also that he’s the only one that can give us voicemail.

He tells Kanye to remove a tarp in the lab - Um takes a step back - and Kanye toggles the glitter cannons as he flourishes the tarp off. Both Qualish and the Mindflayer in the glass flip Kanye off.

As the glitter clears, we see a pile of gear. First we see a bunch of viking-style torcs that contain an activation button that can protect you in limbo.

> **Qualish:** I saw on “Find my Drakeguard” on your bracers that you guys ended up on Limbo already. How did you get there?
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> **Sorith:** Nope.
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Nissa lies to Qualish about us finding a portal in our last mission and popping our heads + bracers in, he says we’re brave as shit.

He tells us about limbo eggs? They’re apparently ultraplanar crystals, only a small fraction of which are visible in the Prime dimension. They’re little nuggets of limbo energy - if we can bring them to Qualish, he can make our gear stronger. Making it resistant to types of damage, adding jetpacks, etc.

Kanye has questions. He asks about what it would take to make more functional baubles. For the first time since we’ve met him, Qualish hesitates before answering - turns out the creation of the baubles was not the most ethical process.

Nissa puts on her torc and then asks Qualish if there’s anything else installed on our bracers he should confess to, after a reminder about how much he owes us.

Qualish for the first time ever looks a little sheepish. “So I kinda hacked your bracers to have homing beacons so I know where you are at all times, and I have the ability to broadcast to them. And I left a backdoor so I can add new features in the future.”

Nissa asks for patch notes moving forward, and for him to pinky swear never to give anyone our location. Qualish says he’d never tell anyone because he doesn’t trust anyone, he wasn’t even going to tell us.

Kanye asks about Fred, the Mindflayer. Qualish says his name is not Fred, and he tells Kanye to move the wardrobe 10 feet to the right - behind it is another door we’ve never seen before. It turns out that door could be connected to a dimension tunnel, and Qualish is very awkwardly offering us a planar resonance frequency detector keyed to this pocket dimension. If we work with someone that knows how to open portals somewhere else, they could pinpoint it here.

He asks for us not to betray his trust and bring randos to his lab, etc etc.

Kanye gives Qualish a decoder ring; he’s very happy to hack it.

Kanye spends 10 minutes trying to describe something he wants Qualish to build, something like a non-violent grappling hook/homing beacon type thing.

> **Kanye**: You know, I like to think to myself - how can I make this an athletics check?
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> **Um**: I just wanted to remind everyone that we have walkie talkies and can talk to Qualish remotely
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> **Averlyth**: Qualish might’ve blocked Kanye
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Nissa admits that we are going back to limbo - Qualish says he knows, he saw us on the map, he just figured we didn’t want to tell him anything yet - but we don’t say anything about the Drakeguard over there.

Kanye asks for the Mindflayer’s name. Qualish says he uses the Mindflayer like a rubber ducky. Kanye says sometimes he gazes into his eyes.

We go back to Bumblefuck and step through the portal - Dak’kon’s guards are highly alert but lower their guard when they see who we are. They tell us Moody is waiting for us.

We find Moody and ask him to escort us to the monitoring station that had fallen to a Slaad attack. He leads us to what we’d consider a dock in the Prime plane - it’s like a doorway with a little street that sticks out, and then it just kinda ends. Beyond it is the roiling chaos of limbo.

Moody: “Here’s how this works: when I’m out there, the bulk of my energy is on projecting a stable environment around us. This means I’m not going to be able to help if shit goes down, and I need the bad guys to keep off of me. If I take damage, there’s a chance the bubble pops.”

He walks up to a hovering platform of crystal, he touches it and a beams of light projects off in one direction. He tells us about some guideposts around limbo. Everything’s chaotic, but there’s a few fixed points of reference where the crystals are stationed so they can find their way through the chaos.

We follow him out of the city, going along the light. He doesn’t stop talking entirely, but the bulk of his attention is on keeping his concentration up. He is radiating a featureless 20 foot plane around him, possibly spherical but we don’t know? There’s a nondescript surface of gravity and breathable air that we can walk on.

As the group of us walk on this trail of light, it takes us a few hours to get to the other resonating pillar. Before we get there, what we see as we’re walking around is utter madness. Giant globs of water splashing into existence, then evaporating a second later; shapes moving around in the chaos, native denizens of limbo. We think we see a Slaad or two, but they don’t seem interested in us.

The main thing is, where in a normal environment we might see mountains or forests in the distance, we gradually become aware that there is one shape that dominates our field of view, and we are heading towards it.

Our subconscious view just assumed it’s a mountain range. Averlyth, Sorith and Kanye are aware of the mountain range in the distance but we give it no further thought because we’re distracted by everything else going on.

Nissa and Um gradually realize it’s the massive slumbering body of an incredibly large dragon. We are unclear if he was this large before, whether he’s grown, or whether everything in limbo can see him and that’s having an effect… this is no dragon we’ve seen before. It’s not on the horizon, it is the horizon. It’s mindbogglingly large, and we gradually realize the observation station we’re heading towards is not a little platform looking down on a sleeping dragon in a valley; the stations will be around this unfathomably large being, and the one we’re going to is the gathering point for all the others that must be stationed around the perimeter of him.

On some level we are all aware that mountain range is ominous and wants to hurt us.

We eventually make our way to the other resonating crystal. When we arrive, there’s a temporarily solid, almost like a hill, and we’re looking down on the observation station. The architecture of this station is very similar to all the ones we saw back in the Gith city. It has a stable environment around it, but it looks like it’s deteriorating; the only reason it must have survived this long is because so many people in the city must think of it even though no one is actively here stabilizing it. There are parts of it that look hazy, or falling apart - it’s hard to describe.

Our eyes are drawn towards, in front of the entrance of the building, 2 red and 1 blue Slaad standing around, with their backs to us. Their attention is on another blue Slaad who is fighting something that we’ve never seen before - a Chaos beast, recognized by Nissa. It’s a horrific creature with an ever changing body, like silly putty with teeth???? It changes from tentacles, to bulbous forms, to the form of a mighty creature, and on and on.

Nissa knows that Slaad are fiercely individualistic; if you ever see a group of Slaads, it’s always a temporary alliance. The thing they respect above all else is strength, and they are more likely to watch a fight to evaluate how much to respect the fighters than to participate.

The blue Slaad doesn’t appear to be doing too well, and eventually the Chaos beast gives a mortal wound to the blue Slaad. It howls in pain, curls into a ball, and then suddenly seems to melt - and now there are 2 chaos beasts before the door of the building.

The other Slaad just float away, completely uninterested in fighting them.

Nissa asks Moodhouse if the Gith Zorai fight Chaos beast often. He says they try not to, as Chaos beast can make you unstable enough to turn you into a Chaos beast.

Kanye uses “Know your opponent” to study the new opponents. We learn that they are wiser than Kanye but not by much.

The chaos beasts are now also fighting each other.

After 20 or 30 minutes of deliberation, Kanye concludes he is nervous about melee combat but the group is still intending to fight.

Um is summoning his flying disk so he can be up in the air for the fight.

Sorith is casting a shatter (no wild magic this time) on the two Chaos beasts. The beast that was recently a blue Slaad took half damage, the other one takes full damage and a chunk of it shatters and falls off. A moment later it’s reflowed back into shape and it continues advancing.

Kanye tries to shoot the laser rifle - he misses one but hits the other.

Averlyth summons her Spiritual Weapon and hits the Chaos Beast that had taken more damage so far. Then she casts Sanctuary on Moodhouse to make it harder to hit him.

Nissa casts Slow on both of the Chaos Beasts - they fail, getting decreased AC and only one attack per turn. Still no wild magic from any of us.

The Chaos Beasts spend their entire turn moving - they’re now inside the safety radius, 15 feet away from us.

Um shoots one and does a lot of damage.

Sorith walks up and punches one in the face. He tries to hit it again, but it wriggles out of the way in a very upsetting way.

Kanye shoots the formerly-Blue-Slaad Chaos Beast some more. Averlyth moves her spiritual weapon over to smack the same one.

Nissa casts vicious mockery on the Chaos Beast with a lot of self esteem, so it unfortunately doesn’t care.

A Chaos Beast tries to hit Sorith but critically fails. The other one tries to hit Kanye, but he’s safe in the power armor.

Um is firing his laser pistol, but he’s not able to hit it this time.

Sorith throws three punches - one misses, but the other are making it very bloody.

Kanye decides to finally resort to his bread and butter - his glaives - and makes a grappling strike. He succeeds, as uncomfortable as the closeness is.

Now he is going to equip the Chaos Beast as a weapon via the belt of aggressive grappling to hit the other Chaos beast.

Averlyth moves her spiritual weapon to kill the Chaos Beast that Kanye is hugging/grappling. Kanye moves to wave an appendage to high-five her weapon and it just tears apart instead - whatever was holding it together is now gone. She just shakes her head at Kanye at how gross the appendage was.

Nissa is now singing Taylor Swift to deal psychic damage to the remaining Chaos Beast. It’s now trying to move away from Nissa, so Sorith gets an attack of opportunity. Unfortunately he misses; the beast is now 10 feet away. Kanye is not allowed an attack of opportunity because he wasn’t in melee combat.

The Chaos Beast feels kinda silly, turns around and comes back to Sorith. Kanye is *now* allowed an attack because he’s within reach.

It changes its mind and comes towards Kanye, but isn’t able to hit. Kanye turns on the gore wipers that go across his nipples. Averlyth hasn’t stopped shaking her head.

Um shoots the remaining Chaos Beast and it *explodes*. Kanye’s windshield wipers are working overtime.

The way into the building is now clear - the Slaads we saw are long gone.

> **Nissa**: You know, it’s too bad Kanye didn’t tell those Slaads who we are.
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Kanye checks if the door is an innie or an outie. It is neither because it is a sci-fi door. He asks it to open and then he thanks it.

We walk into what by all appearances looks to be a lobby. There’s a reception desk, there’s some couches around the outer walls. Behind us is the entrance, on the other 3 walls each wall has a door. The door to the left is labelled barracks, the door to the right is labelled cafeteria. The door ahead of us is labeled mission control.

From where we are, we can hear noises from the other side of the doors leading into barracks and cafeteria. From our best guess, it’s the sounds of a fleshy, possibly chaotic creature that doesn’t belong in those rooms.