S05E20: The Gang Hasn't Seen Brooklyn Nine-Nine

## Background

The group met someone named the Cartographer, whose objective aligns with ours: we need to find a way to get to limbo to defeat the Horseman; the Cartographer is looking for someone to figure out what happened to an expedition that the legendary wizard named Qualish was on. This wizard was on the way to Doin Gloin, a mythical location somehow connected to other dimensions, whose existence was never confirmed.

The Cartographer gave us a map, which we followed as far as we could, accompanied by a Modron, a floating witch, and a vampire in a box. During the trip, Kanye made a signet ring for the witch and dedicated time unceremoniously trying to figure out how to both embellish the coffin and transport a signet ring into it.

The map took us into the Barrier Peaks, where we found thieves cant markings in the tunnels that said we were approaching the "monastery of the distressed body". Further on, we encountered and successfully passed a Sphinx who enforced a trade of wits, before allowing us onto a platform facing a gigantic, poorly-maintained floating island.

A ferry picked us up, and then we were brought to the central abbey on the floating island where we met the grandmaster of this place - a terrifying Bone Devil - as well an audience of hooded monks. Immediately upon arrival, he instructed his guards to kill the monk that brought us in for not unequipping us.

The group stood completely surrounded, facing an immeasurable threat.

## Session

Nissa sizes him up and gives him a courteous bow that she thinks is fitting for his manner. Averlyth copies her, bowing slightly less low.

> **Kanye**: I will show him my scroll of pedigree!
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> **Um**: That is the opposite of deference.
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Kanye, with his noble background, decides to behave as he has been trained to behave in court in front of people with a higher status than him.

> **Nissa**: Your bow says, theoretically??
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Carlos gives a respectful but contemptuous nod. The grandmaster notices but doesn’t do anything.

Um isn’t bowing, and is instead scoping out the location. The grandmaster seemingly mistakes it for admiration and begins talking about how much work he put into it.

The grandmaster asks us what brought us to the monastery. Carlos candidly says we’re on the way to Doin Gloin. The grandmaster name-drops Qualish, bragging about how the Order has his journal in his possession.

He calls for Eastwind and Westwind - his half-orc guards, who have been shooting death glares at Kanye - to clear the abbey so that he may interview us alone.

*— Flashback to when the group was in the portable meeting room, in a bar —*

Carlos questions the group about what they would hypothetically do if they encountered a large threat that wants them to join a cult.

After some failed attempts at role-playing the night before, we establish we’re not going to immediately attack it.

*— Back to the beginning —*

Nissa begins to ask what the order is about - the grandmaster hushes her, checks to see if the monastery has been cleared yet - and then exclaims, “Hey hey guys, it’s me - it’s Clifton!”

Long story short, she left Trey? running the airship stuff because it was boring, stole an airship, got attacked by a Sphinx, crash-landed onto the island, fought with a Bone Devil who tried to harvest her brain, threw a knife at the machine, and now she’s accidentally in his body. Also her cape is made of flayed faces and it's totally rad, and they even have a machine for it.

Clifton proposes that we - being good at science - get her back in her body, which is still separated from her brain. Also apparently all of the “enlightened ones” on the island are separated brains? And the grandmaster is wired up to the treasury??

She gives us a map and a quick explanation of the locale. Apparently there’s a bunch of prisoners in the engine room because they showed up to join the cult but don’t want to lose their faces, which is a prerequisite. Understandable tbh.

There’s like 25 monks who sleep in the dorms, 30 some prisoners who die all the time, a leatherworks place where they cut the faces off with all these machines and knives and medicines and stuff? There’s also a floating bridge to the treasury, which is a floating island on top a floating island.

Kanye questions whether or not he can make a parachute out of the faces.

Clifton starts getting nervous with how much time has passed and tells us to get our monks robes and sneak out quickly before the monks get suspicious.

Kanye spends a minute inspecting the Bone Devil - even with Clifton being inside it, the body seems extremely strong and fast, with seemingly strong constitution and massive amounts of health. There are also very, very sharp jagged talons on each hand.

Nissa and Averlyth are fairly confident this is actually Clifton - whoever it would be, has absolutely studied Clifton and nailed her mannerisms - and that she’s also completely honest about her motivations. She would probably not support us, but would also avoid outright attacking us unless we forced a fight in public.

Um activates Sneaky Fucker to give everyone +5 stealth. Averlyth activates Blessing of the Trickster on Nissa to cancel out her disadvantageous dexterity.

DM reminder - Claptrap, Vampire in a box, and Mary are still with us, now all (maybe unconvincingly) draped in monks robes.

The group quickly discusses our priorities.

Actually just kidding, Carlos and Kanye are discussing making 1000 face parachutes and slowly landing the island like a plane after a prison break.

Kanye starts digging a hole in the ground. It is definitely dirt.

> **Kanye**: Could I hypothetically bury a body to hide it?
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> **Carlos**: Do you have a body to bury?
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> **Kanye**: No, I just mean in the eventuality that I have a body to hide later..
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> **Carlos**: This is a new concern.
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After much debate, the group decides to make their way to the control room with the intention of launching the bridge to the treasury. This area is a maze of damaged machinery and controls. There are 5 clear canisters lining the walls, each filled with viscous fluids and what appears to be a humanoid brain.

The instant everyone is in the room, a force field shimmers into the door behind us. We hear 5 voices, delighted to see us - "ˆ*Visitors!!~"*.

A brain named Amy says they’ve been there 99 years (the other brains immediately echo with the chant "*Nine-nine*"*)*. Jake claims to control the doors in the dorms. A brain named Diez grunts at us, Charles says hi, Gina is here too. They were part of an adventuring group. Nissa makes an air guitar sound at their bard, Charles. Qualish was apparently part of their group too, though Jake is sad to tell the story; Averlyth pressures him to keep going.

Apparently they tried to fight the Sphinx. They all died except for Qualish, and he brought everyone up to the island and put their brains into the cool jars and said he was going to figure out how to fix their bodies. Then he apparently opened this weird portal and this Bone Devil fella came out and then Qualish left.

Jake wants us to go get the journal in the treasury to maybe make them more bodies, although we technically need to talk to every brain to make sure they’re okay with it.

Carlos identifies Amy is a stickler for the rules, and is able to infer she’s a lot smarter than Jake and might know stuff about the place around us.

Kanye recognizes Charles is feeling snubbed by Jake and asks him why we couldn’t just teleport over there. Kanye attempts to perform a sleight of hand trick with … chess pieces? Charles is not impressed and Gina boos him.

Charles reveals that he runs the doors for leatherworks and prisons. Nissa negs the shit out of him, issuing a professional burn. Charles is not impressed, being a professional at negging himself.

Turns out Gina only controls the force field for the room everyone's in.

The group goes into the portable meeting room for a quick sync up that ends up taking way too long and makes no progress.

Remembering what she read about this expedition while preparing for this quest, Nissa leaves the meeting room to geek out with Amy about the technology surrounding them. Apparently the island used to be a ship for exploring other planes of existence. The leatherwork place was previously the medical facility, the control room is for driving the ship.

Qualish was the one responsible for linking the brains up to the island. In addition, the original engines had been working when the group first showed up, but it stopped working during the Bone Devil’s tenure, and they just started throwing fuel in the engine to see what would burn.

Amy is wired up to the teleportation bracelets hooked up to the Bone Devils; apparently he can detach his hands and stab you in the back. They’re mini teleportation gates and he can just fly his stabby things around.

Apparently Diez runs the engine. She’s not motivated by conversation, isn’t looking for a buddy. Averlyth suspects the only thing that’s going to impress Diez is something that intimidates her into listening to you.

Averlyth asks the group of brains if they know where their original bodies are. Jake tries to answer but very obviously doesn’t know the answer. Amy says the bodies are clearly long gone.

Carlos decides to smoke out Gina’s brain by taking the lid off of a jar and converting it into a bong. Gearbox helps shine a light on the jar. He is absolutely successful. Gina likes Carlos now and also tells him where Qualish’s journal is.

Kanye attempts to ask to persuade Diez to work with us. It doesn’t work, so he goes “that’s a good point actually” and then pulls out the broadsword.

Nissa has been talking to Amy this entire time and totally bonding. She naturally succeeds in making friends with her - Amy thanks her for having a conversation with her that passes the bechdel test.

Averlyth deceives Charles into letting us go to the treasury with the promise that he'll get to pick (the hottest) body first when we come back.

Before we head out, Jake reminds us there’s a brain at the treasury that’s “a real dick” - apparently it was installed by the Grandmaster recently..

During that time, Um had sized up the ceiling pretty well.

The group leaves the control room, and Kanye asks the group if it’s possible to drive the island ship to limbo. Nissa gives him a gold star sticker for listening.

Kanye then proposes he uses his 2 spell slots (from the deck of many things) to inscribe a permanent teleportation circle on the island to the Drakeguard field office in Neverwinter.

As the group turns to leave the control room, we notice Gearbox has wandered over to one of the torn open control panels and is looking at it really intently. Um notices a lot of the wires in this place land in this particular mechanical terminal. It seems like one of the central points of command.

Kanye uses Gearbox as a coatrack. Everyone else gets the impression that Gearbox is very strongly tempted to plug himself into the terminal.

Amy calls out, warning that it would mean none of the brains would be able to control the island anymore. We decide to pull him off it - he’s a lil sad, but we’re thinking about putting him back on it after we get bodies for Amy and the crew.

We’re able to successfully make our way over to the treasury without much noise.

The route to the treasury takes us across 10 magical floating discs - fortunately, the 5 brains controlling the discs like us and don’t drop them under us.

Um practically bounces across, making it look easy, and immediately starts rummaging for loot. He finds a rectangle of black glass with indecipherable runes on it, as well as a black pearl worth 500 gold or so. Nissa is able to follow him over.

Unfortunately, the rest of the group is not very acrobatic, and struggle to make our way across.

Carlos, dangling off of a disc, gets pulled to safety by Doctor Snuggleface.

Averlyth whips out her gauntlet to clamp onto the disc she almost fell off - she whispers a prayer and Bane does the bare minimum to get her back up.

Kanye, accustomed to Nissa’s weight and forgetting she’s not actually in the disc, overshoots his jump and then panics, casting Command Zed to redo his jump. This time, he first instructs Woodhouse to get into his harness to match the expected weight.

Nissa is a little irrationally jealous, because what the fuck, it’s *her* harness.

Carlos and Um are able to independently make their way to the journal after getting inside. The cover is set with complicated interlocking clockwork gear mechanisms. Carlos is about to reach to open the book when Um grabs his hand to stop him, pointing out they lead somewhere, probably to a brain. Most of the wires lead deeper into the garbage pile. One of them snakes back out and actually drapes back to the main land, towards the control room.

Averlyth suddenly points out that the Bone Devil has had access to Clifton’s brain this whole time - the Bone Devil could be pretending to be Clifton based on her memories. Kanye also pointed out the Bone Devil could have read our memories and Clifton might not be here at all.

The group decides the best move forward is to follow the wires, which unsurprisingly lead to a brain proclaiming he’s the grandmaster. He negotiates with us to get him back into his body, which he assumes we had defeated.

The group deploys the meeting room in the treasury to keep thinking about it.