Whispers From the Heart - Chapter Six

> "*I know the history of this place. I know its secrets. This island that was once home to devils...*"
> ― Barb
>
>

**Whispers From the Heart - Chapter Six: "The Way We Were"** is the fifty-eight episode of Queens of Adventure. It is a special recap episode tied into the ongoing story.

## Synopsis

As the portal hangs over Fire Island, and a storm rages at sea, and the Kracken draws closer, panic has set in within the Golden Palace. Guests scramble through as sharks drop down the elevator shaft from the penthouse and attack. Other sharks remain in combat in the lobby with Cher Noble, Karin, Patrick, and Gnomi. Sir Throbardon swoops in, dropping off Sir Jim-Jim before grabbing the children Chaz and Jo and flying away.

Cher Noble, Jim-Jim, and Gnomi rush to the stairs to head to the basement to stop the infernal ritual. In the basement, Fraya Love and Londyn Bradshaw have interrupted Barb's ritual. At the vault doors, Arson Nicki and Butylene O'Kipple watch next to the unconscious body of Belfry Ramshackle. Behind them stand Rigo Caylis and a party of Glamazons.

Strange silver mist fills the basement as Gnomi and the others arrive. In a moment, everyone finds themselves reflecting on all that happened to bring them here.

**Gnomi**: He recalls leaving home to investigate the Great Queens, as he couldn't go home until he had answers. Edith Wunderbred allowed him to to use her library in her dilapidated manor. Gnomi believed it to be based on the great houses and was full of artifacts and records of the Age of Queens and the Spreading Taint. While there, performers burst in. Recognizing their drag, he asked them to demonstrate 'reading' before they moved on. Shortly after, the house collapsed after the queens battled the monster Lashes.

He then went to work at LaBouche Gardens, founded by another great queen, fallen into disrepair after Raiders of the Dry Fist ransacked it looking for a treasure. Soon, those same performers showed up. Sensing an opportunity, Gnomi teamed up with them to solve the draglish riddles of the park's treasure. The group turned down Lady Trixie LaBouche's spirit's offer to take the park, only taking merchandise. Gnomi took the queens to the Nexus of Sidhe'Bae to sell it. There, Gnomi heard of the Tip of the Tops contest, whose prize Ice Scepter supposedly unlocked the vault of Dame Celia Molestrangler. The performers met Belfry and turned down her job offer to locate treasures of the Great Queens. Leaving the nexus, more fist symbol wearing bandits attacked.

The group made it to the Crystal Palace under the name Booty and the Hofish. During the contest, rival group Crotch tried to eliminate the performers, but they managed to win anyway. During a feast the next day, Gnomi found coordinates on the scepter to Fire Island. They booked passage there, but during the journey someone stole the scepter during the Full Moon. After investigating, they found the priest who had stolen it but a Kracken attacked, sinking the ship.

The last thing Gnomi remembers is being dragged under and watching Booty and the Hofish vanish.

**Belfry:** Momentarily becoming conscious, Belfry believes she will die next to the same performers, Booty and the Hofish, who had turned her job down. Her memories turn to the night of the full moon almost a month ago when a storm appeared off the coast. Seaspawn attacked, dragging off guests and staff. She did everything she could to keep her daughter safe. In the morning, survivors looted and others tried to escape the island only to have their ships sunk. Belfry consolidated resources to defend the Golden Palace, and decided they needed a copy of the Treaty of Fire Island to see how to approach the Glamazons for help. When the liason in Watersport, where the treaty was kept, never arrived, morale began to suffer.

Then one day, Booty and the Hofish arrived. She hired them to put on a show to boost morale: Field Hockey the Frock Opera. Thinking the group may have the performance and adventuring skills to be ambassadors, Belfry sent the party to Watersport to retrieve the treaty. She didn't expect the trouble this would lead to.

**Cher Noble:** Knowing she was built to hurt people, Cher Noble assumes this is all her fault. She and her son Chaz had been on trip that stopped at Watersport, where Chaz fell ill. As he recovered, Cher Noble had to secure them inside a hidden room below the apothecary when the seaspawn attacks began. She set traps to prevent looters from getting to them and the medicine. As the town collapsed and oozes appeared, Cher Noble debated leaving Chaz's side to try and loot more medical supplies in Town Hall.

One night, Cher Noble met Booty and the Hofish. Learning that one of the queens was a cleric of Cher, also here to find something in Town Hall, she took it as a sign to work with them. Raiding Town Hall they met Barb, sent to blow up the Kracked with the island. But Barb revealed he was trying his own plan to create mutants to fight the Kracken, although all he created was oozes. They fought Barb, freed his last prisoner, Sir Throbardon, and escaped the destroyed building with the treaty and more medicine.

Cher Noble learned the Golden Palace was still operational, and decided to take Chaz there. Before they set out, they read the treaty, and learned that those Honored Outside Guests who violate the treaty risk expulsion from the island or death.

On the trek across the island, the queens found a shrine with a map of the islands. It inspired the queens to change plans and head to the Central Island, though it was forbidden. Cher Noble continued with Chaz to the Golden Palace where her report that the queens weren't coming destroyed morale. The next morning in the seaspawn attack, the Golden Palace took heavy losses, including her arm. Now, Cher Noble worries that by coming to this place, she has made things worse.

**Rigo**: The Inquirer tries to use *light* to see the fog, but it fails. He recalls how fast things have changed on the island. A month ago, tensions in Glamalala were high between factions who wanted to open the island up more to the outside world and those who wanted to expel all outsiders. Then the Kracken attacks. Lady Essence has tried to keep things calm, but things grew worse when Booty and the Hofish showed up on the Central Island by Dame Celia Molestrangler's Ziggurat tomb. The Rangers found that the Queens were accompanied by Barb, disguised as Sir Throbardon, who escaped as the queens were arrested.

Rigo consulted records from the Glamabird memories, but needed to know the queens's motivations. This was in part to see if the party may have the qualities the Glamazons look for in worthy successors to the broken chain of history of the Great Queens. Sadly, he found nothing to warrant clemency, as the Queens broke the law despite knowing the consequences. Lady Essence sentenced them to be launched into the ocean at high tide.

After the trial, Rigo found his daughter missing.

**Jim-Jim:** As he calls out to his friends, he recalls when he and Sir Throbardon arrived on the island for vacation. The storm ruined their vacation, and Throbardon got lost in the storm looking for people to save. Jim-Jim relied on his master's training to keep trying to save people. He began to defend the beach for several days, until the Concierge was attacked. Defending him, seaspawn captured him. He awoke in a seacave filled with other guests, Patrick the scholar, and a Glamazon stranger, who had treated his wounds.

Periodically, seaspawn would emerge from a water filled tunnel and dragged off prisoners to be turned into new seaspawn. Then Booty and the Hofish showed up, and they created an escape plan. Using water breathing potions, they followed the strange song filling the tunnels to the lair of the Kracken Priest, where they found Gnomi, captured and partially transformed. Once freed, Gnomi led Patrick and the other prisoners to escape up a passage to the surface while the party destroyed the Kracken Priest's altar. Jim-Jim joined them in battle where they defeated the Priest and Butylene speared his heart, which she took with them.

At the surface, Harlotte left to count treasure, and they found a few of the escaped prisoners missing. They found them at a ghost surrounded altar, the portable party, at a club. They couldn't leave for the afterlife until they finished their Full Moon Party. Booty and the Hofish agreed to help the ghosts and take them with them to the Golden Palace. Outside they found Sir Throbardon and returned to the casino, which was under attack by mindless, uncontrolled seaspawn. Booty and the Hofish, and the two knights, raced in to help. Butylene used the heart to turn back the seaspawn. After a fierce battle with a Chuul, the Kracken messaged everyone on the beach demanding the treasure of the Ziggurat by the next full moon.

That night, they held a ceremony to commemorate those they lost, and they found hope as Sir Throbardon dubbed Jim-Jim a knight.

**Barb**: The devil is extremely frustrated by these recent events. He had always sought greatness, so felt wasted when assigned by his superiors to watch Imp's Hump, aka Fire Island, because of Archdemon Judy's grudge. While starting his assignment of breeding lava babies, he found an alchemical formula book and the recipe of mutagen. Barb hatched a plan to create a mutant army to defeat the Kracken and then show up his bosses. However, he couldn't figure out the secrets to make mutants and not oozes. He offered Butylene, original owner of the formula, a deal: Help him perfect mutagen and he wont harm the island. But they refused and attacked, destroying the Town Hall archives.

As the queens escaped, Barb saw Throbardon fighting off wyverns. So Barb disguises himself as Throbardon and joins the group, hoping to follow them to the Golden Palace and find more test subjects, only to be thwarted when they go to the Central Island and get arrested. Barb escaped down a lava shaft and returned to the lava babies in frustration.

Then his imp spies say the queens are asking for Barb's help. Barb learns Butylene's team had defeated the Kracken Priest, throwing off Barb's plan. He forms a new one when he learns of a defense summit between the Golden Palace's forces and the Glamazons. Barb convinces Carol, his boss, to attack the summit. While his plan was to help Carol and earn praise, when Carol was overwhelmed, Barb used the chance to get their boss Bernadette to get rid of Carol and promote Barb. He even managed to convince Butylene to back his plan. While the various do-gooders were still possible threats, Barb sealed a contract to make them his allies, with Butylene selling her soul to him. Now he can get Butylene under his thumb, and may get the mutants eventually anyway. Barb has been biding his time, looking for an opportunity ever since.

**Rigo**: Moving towards the altar, Rigo recalls his next encounter with Booty and the Hofish. He had been grateful the queens had saved his daughter Ellen and brought her to the summit. Rigo returned to Glamalala to prepare for the queens to arrive for training. Lady Essence convinced everyone to allow the outsiders limited access under the pretense of further evaluating their worthiness, and under the eyes of a Glamazon queen: Irene Dubois. Rigo shaped their training, giving them Glamadrome scenarios to test them. He was surprised by their success, and their offered (not insisted) help in the defending of the Ziggurat alongside the rangers. This has led Rigo to think that maybe a unified island might stave off this threat, just as once the Glamazons joined with the ancient drow warriors.

**Samantha:** Undetected by those around, Arson's patron watches the events. She's very proud of Arson's growth, although was dismayed when she returned to the Underdark to seek the ancient drow warriors. Samantha remembered when the drow came to the already existing caverns beneath Fire Island, and when she encouraged some of them to meet the drag queens of the surface and create their own house. Lolth was furious and cursed them. The Glamazons had to seal them underground as the mad driders were attacking the surface. Arson and the others came and freed them from their curse. Despite the trip putting Samantha's plans for Arson in danger, she was proud of what was accomplished. But, Samantha knows, breaking the seal on the underdark city puts Arson, and Samantha, at even greater risk.

**Dampthroat:** Also unseen, Dampthroat watches the proceedings. Having first found consciousness when joined with Alighieri the Dragon turtle, but now found anywhere the Kracken's influence is, Dampthroat exists inside the altar, possibly within the Kracken Priest's Heart, in the room. It feels that the mortals of the island are silly for resisting the Kracken's efforts to put the world to right. It particularly enjoyed watching Booty and the Hofish's struggle through the body of Alighieri whose own magic, combined with Dampthroat's control of Mystie the merfolk, combined to create all of the illusions of stories they faced. Despite the plan for controlling Alighieri being foiled by the party, Dampthroat isn't worried. As far as it is concerned, the Kracken's victory is a cosmic certainty.

**Barb:** The devil's thoughts move to the last few hours. Having heard music, while in his lab, from the Golden Palace, he went to investigate its connection to old powers. There he found Chaz and Jo playing with the portable party altar in the vault. Barb sees this as an opportunity and offers to Booty and the Hofish to let him use the altar. He resists the Kracken's attempts to control him, and feels a connection to the Kracken's mind. Barb learns what the treasure of the Ziggurat is, and he wants it. Knowing the infernal history of the island, and the devil worship of a long lost civilization here, he enacted a ritual to move the whole archipelago to hell so he can take his time to get the treasure without the Kracken, and take over hell.

Barb watched Belfry defends herself, and fall, at the hands of sharks, before a firbolg, Londyn Bradshaw, shows up and takes control of the altar.

**Fraya Love:** The water genasi cleric worries, as the silver mist surrounds her, that she did not pack the right clothes and wigs for wherever they are heading.

**Arson Nicki**: The drider, reflecting over the last few minutes, knows that they don't know a lot of lore about planes, but she feels comfortable with the idea of going to the ethereal plane thanks to her experience with blink spells.

**Butylene O'Kipple:** The tiefling is in shock, but also thinks its funny how Londyn leaped in. She also ruminates on how she doesn't make decisions well when she's hungry.

**Londyn Bradshaw:** The firbolg at the altar also contemplates her hunger, and considers what food she wants to order in the ethereal plane.

As the mists surround them, everyone finds themselves transported together to the ethereal plane, but wind up there lost and alone...

To Be Continued...

### Characters

#### Party

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

#### NPCs

* Cher Noble and Chaz
* Karin and Patrick
* Gnomi Malone
* Jo Ramshackle
* Sir Throbardon and Jim-Jim
* Barb
* Belfry Ramshackle
* Rigo
* Samantha
* Dampthroat

### Mentioned, Not Present

* Edith Wunderbred
* Lady Trixie LaBouche
* Crotch
* Father Andson
* Lady Essence
* Concierge
* Ellen
* Harlotte O'Scara - human rogue
* Adrian and Hattie the Halflings
* DJ Cyberpreppy and the Woo Ghosts (likely present, but only mentioned in flashback)
* Old Man Rufus
* Carol, Bernadette, and Judy
* Imps, including Pip and Squeak
* Irene Dubois - lizardfolk barbarian
* Ancient Drow Warriors of the House of Drow
* Lolth
* Merfolk including Mystie Seaport
* Alighieri

#### Monsters/Enemies

* Sharks
* Kracken (Mentioned)
* Chuul (Mentioned)
* Bearmit Crabs (Mentioned)

## Episode Notes

### Lore

* Gnomi recalls that the bandits who attacked the group outside the Nexus of Sidhe'Bae bore the Red Fist logo of the Raiders of the Dry Fist.
* The Glamazons are torn politically by those who wish to reach out to the outside world in greater ways, and those who believe they should become more isolationist. The Kracken Priest's Siege has bolstered both sides.
* Fire Island is known to the devils as Imp's Hump.
* The drow of Fire Island's underdark lived closer to the surface than usual for their kind. The caves they found were pre-cut by previous groups of dwarves, fire giants, and the devils before them.

### Memorable Quotes

* "Well fuck me sideways and call me Tuesday, I did not prepare for this Miss Thing. I didnt bring the right shoes, the right wings, the right clothes!" - Fraya Love
* "Is this a good fog, is this a bad fog, is this a lukewarm on the fence fog?" - Arson Nicki

* "I kinda wish I had my bowl of popcorn still to watch all this happen. I have a hard time making decisions on an empty stomach." - Butylene O'Kipple
* "I kind of wonder what kind of food this gray cloudy space has? I wonder if it has burritos. But what should I get on my buritto? Maybe they have guac. I hope its like a special kind of guac. Ooh, maybe they have enchiladas. Should I get an enchilada?" - Londyn Bradshaw

## Behind the Queens

* This episode was record during April 2020 as part recap episode, part continuation of the story. It was necessary as the cast members could not get together to record during the covid-19 shelter-in-place directives in Washington.

* In the outro, DM Matt encourages people sheltering in place to join him, Arson, Fraya, and Londyn who are live streaming on Twitch regularly.
* At the end Matt provides a list of Kickstarter backers who supplied names for characters mentioned in this episode, including:
	+ Cher Noble - named by Kate
	+ Rigo Caylis - named by Russel Bloomdale
	+ Jim-Jim - named by Jimmy Chan
	+ Concierge (Richard Fitzwell) - named by Elizabeth Uselton
	+ Sir Throbardon - named by Bryan Chung
	+ Dame Celia Molestrangler - named by Tork Shaw
	+ DJ Cyberpreppy - named by Adrian
	+ Lady Essence - named by Daniel Melenger
	+ Ellen - named by Ellen Sweeney
	+ Ranger Richard - named by Richard Grecious
	+ The Three Fingers Inn - named by Mike Bray
	+ Patrick and Karin - named by Patrick and Karin Weekes

**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**
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