S05E24: The Gang Avoids Terrible Best Case Scenarios

## Aside

The team has canonically decided that the “Pocket Workshop” and “Pocket Meeting Rooms” are just rooms off in some building somewhere, where Fantasy Costco workers go in to clean them up in between uses.

Cue awkward rare encounter with a lost employee.

## Background

### **Adventures in Doin Gloin**

The group previously acquired an apparatus of Qualish - which is effectively a giant lobster tank - which allowed us to drive around in the slime covering the city of Doin Gloin.

During our exploration, we discovered the statues above the “slime line” (out in the open air) are posed like statues, and located in alcoves, in nooks, other places where you'd expect to see them. Within the slime, however, they have all been posed in lifelike scenes. As we made our way around the city, we noticed a few more things about them.

First of all, there are thousands of them.
Second of all, the statues didn’t appear to be created for the scenes they were in - the line of sight doesn't really match, not all the poses are aligned, etc. It's as if someone just had a collection of glass statues and placed them as closely as possible. This may be where the illusion came from, of the glass people of Doin Gloin.
Third of all, they are surrounded by glass baubles, scattered all over the whole city. Some of these baubles are particularly shiny and posed specially within their scenes - a soccer ball being kicked by kids, an apple in someone’s hands, a scepter in a throne room.
These suspiciously remind us of notes from Qualish, indicating there was a way to link crystal prisms to a universe.
The group proceeds to scour the city for worlds to jump into, under the (occasionally forgotten) premise of trying to find Qualish.

### **World 1: Portland**

We first made our way to the observatory, where we saw a statue of a guy looking through a telescope.
The lens in the telescope was revealed to be made out of crystal prism - extracting the bauble and placing it in our portal contraption resulted in opening a doorway to Portland, where the group wandered around the mystical scenes before inevitably being drawn to Pioneer Square, where there was an exit in the waterfall by the Starbucks.
Smartly realizing how many worlds we may yet explore, Kanye created a fancy crate to collect the baubles we’ve gone through and has been labeling them with vague, subjective iconography. Woodhouse has been going through and politely labeling them with actual words afterwards.

### **World 2: Mechanus Realm**

The centerpiece in the clock tower was revealed to be a bauble that took the group to the perfectly orderly plane of the Modrons. Daals, a being of the Chaos realm, is extremely upset about existing in this location.

Kanye does a violence and the parking cops show up so the group leaves.

### **World 3: Ptolus Market**

A glass apple being "sold" in the marketplace was revealed to be a bauble that took the group to the multiverse’s biggest market, where "everyone comes to sell their wares". Here, it is revealed that every universe has a Starbucks.

The group is enraptured by the opportunity to shop. Carlos passes on the opportunity to scope out an exotic strain of pandimensional marijuana. Um passes on the opportunity to steal.

There are more baubles to find!

## Session

The group takes the lobster tank to the chimney!

It turns out it’s a glass-blowing workshop and remains magically lit, even below the slime. Kanye, with his worksman background, notices the workshop appears active, and that a glass statue of a workman was posed while holding a bauble as if he was shaping it.

Since no one (Carlos) is around to protest Kanye calling shotgun, he operates the arms to grab the bauble from the statue and presses the button.

A portal is opened up to a laboratory even more technologically complicated than the ones we’re familiar with. We see a mindflayer trapped in a tank, 5 beating hearts in a tank, and a suit of plate armor that is connected to both. The machinery in this area reminds us of the machinery at the monastery.

Nissa notes that Mindflayers come from the same plane of Limbo as Slaads and have a reputation of ancient psychic conquerors that can take over your body and all stuff like that.

Kanye approaches the armor.

It immediately raises an arm, engaging force pikes that we’ve seen from the monastery, and we hear a whirring noise as it readies to fire. Kanye instinctively stops approaching and retreats instead.

As he steps back, it powers back down, and then lowers its arm back down.

Kanye investigates the rest of the room - he doesn’t find any eyes in jars, but he found a skull with gems for it’s eyes and teeth, and notices the glass piping around the room is kinda weird for a reason he can’t pinpoint.

Um notes that if he didn’t know better, the glass pipes almost seem like intestines. It seems suddenly meaningful that there are no doors.
Nissa finds papers from Qualish to collect in the area, adding more notes into her finely organized trapperkeeper. She only has time to skim through, but she confirms the hearts are power sources for the “Power Armor”, which is his attempt to combine the technology of the crash plane aircraft (the monastery) with something other than power cells.

Averlyth has a hunch that the five hearts belonged to the bodies of the Brooklynn Nine-Nine squad, although there’s no hard evidence aside from the fact that they match the approximate sizes of their original bodies’ species.

The Mindflayer does not appear to be mentioned in any of the notes.
Additionally, the Mindflayer has not moved the entire time we’ve been in the room.
It’s not breathing, it’s not looking at anything, it’s almost like it’s frozen somehow.
Averlyth is super creeped out by the Mindflayer. Kanye is trying to make a psychic connection with it. Um notices there are controls near the Mindflayer and notifies Nissa, who doesn’t know what they do but is certain it’s related to the Mindflayer’s jar.

Most importantly, there is one red control labeled with a sticky note that was hastily scrawled with “DO NOT PRESS”.

Nissa bravely points out the button and tells Kanye not to press.

Nissa is guessing some of the buttons are referring to freezing, defrosting, something?... She’s about 70% certain. She consults the cleric for further insight on understanding which button to press.

**Averlyth**: I would like to point out that the *best case scenario* would be a *live Mindflayer*.

The cleric reminds the group that we are here to look for Qualish and uncover the mystery of Doin Gloin.

Note: the glowing doorway of light we walked through is still behind us, so we may leave whenever.

Nissa goes through the door, and Averlyth quickly follows. Kanye seizes an unsurprising opportunity for science and throws a stone through the light door. It hits Nissa.

Kanye runs through the doorway. Then Kanye runs back. Then Kanye runs back into the doorway.

**Kanye:** “I don’t see any Qualish, and there doesn’t appear to be anything I can … steal.”
Before exiting with the group, Um examines a framed glass device that resembles a window - it is not transparent, and there is a switch next to it. Interested, Kanye yet again goes back into the portal and looks very carefully for sticky notes before unceremoniously flipping the switch.

The window glows and suddenly we can see through it.

We see a space that appears to be a huge temple that has long since gone to ruin. A main hall is painted with murals, lots of previously fine furnishings that have rotted over time. There are shackles hanging on the walls, and a large skeletal/undead Naga Medusa.

We can hear it talking and muttering to itself, hissing about priests that have wronged her, ranting about the inane babble she can still hear from the High Priest.

As soon as the window opens, however, she turns and looks at Kanye.

Kanye suddenly freezes.

Nissa and Averlyth are looking through the doorway, Um is behind Kanye and cannot see through the window. Suddenly we see his skin starting to turn translucent.

Um carefully flips the switch without looking through the glass.

This does not immediately stop Kanye’s transformation into glass.

Nissa immediately starts spouting everything she knows about Medusa - this one is a mutant that can turn things into glass, it’s super rare, kinda like an albino??
After a few seconds, it wears off - thanks to Um’s quick thinking. A few seconds more, he would’ve been totally glass.
The group questions if that window was to another dimension, or to another building within this city - there wasn’t slime in there, but the building looked like the ruins around us. Maybe it could have been the building with the not-at-all-suspicious giant Medusa sculpture on it?
Averlyth suddenly remembers that the jellified Kenku introduced herself as the High Priestess, and there was a feeling she wasn’t telling us something.
Kanye wants to do more science. Um offers to blindfold him.
Averlyth asks Nissa if Medusa would be able to paralyze her if she casts Clairvoyance to spy on the Medusa. Nissa says she’s never heard of it but isn’t sure.
The group spends about 10 minutes debating what other experiments could be done at this point. Kanye is motivated to get information to prepare himself for eventual combat with the Medusa, and wants to test whether or not the window was also a portal.

**Averlyth**: I would like to remind everyone that the *best case scenario* is a *live Medusa in the same room*.
Kanye eventually opts to instead rip the “window” (read: Computer Monitor) off of the wall. Then, holding the screen, he turns to the power armor and flips the switch.
Nothing happens.
Kanye drops the window onto the ground, resulting in a loud noise as a crack appears across the screen.

**Kanye**: “It was like that when I found it”
Kanye returns to the Rover (Um is disappointed nothing more fun happened) and the group decides to drive the apparatus to the Palace next, peeking around for guards.
Inside the areas that we can see are scenes of court life. There are finely dressed people, parties happening, etc. There don’t seem to be any signs of life or movement at all on the ground floor, under the slime.
Nissa drives and parks the apparatus somewhere where Um can scout around the roof of the palace. He sees there are no glass statues arranged in a semblance of life above the slime. Similarly, above the slime the building is deteriorating and in a state of decay.
Looking down into the slime, Um’s thieving eyes sees what appears to be the King on the throne holding a royal scepter with a great big gem. Additionally, several ladies in the area seem to have large crystal gems as well.
Um has a suspicion that the “King” on the throne is likely a normal humanoid that was positioned to look like a King.
The apparatus will not fit inside the palace, though the diving suit would.
Averlyth casts Clairvoyance into the ballroom to scope it out - she is 100% certain the orb in the scepter is clearly a crystal bauble and one of the rich ladies is wearing a broach that is clearly a bauble. There is also another lady that is wearing a big gaudy wedding ring, but she’s not entirely sure.
Kanye suits up. Before he goes down, he goes over his employment contract for Woodhouse with Nissa, letting her know that Woodhouse needs to be fed at least once a week, he really likes the blue chess piece.
The group finds a spot to perch the apparatus up in the rafters, on one of the stronger bits of scaffolding remaining. Kanye improvises a rope - which also will not last long in the acid, but should be long enough.
Averlyth casts Blessing of the Trickster to let Kanye get advantage on dex checks.
Kanye prepares himself as well as he can and jumps into the ooze, making a beeline for the lady with the wedding ring. He’s picking his way through a crowd and keeps getting his rope snagged on people - it takes longer than expected, but he’s able to pick off the wedding ring. It turns out to be ordinary glass. He is starting to feel a little damp.
Kanye heads over to the next closest target, the lady with the broach. He’s able to maneuver better this time, and remembers to keep his rope with him. He gets the lady broach no problem, but suddenly he feels a leak spring around his right knee, and starts taking a little bit of acid damage.
Kanye decides to go for the last one, knocking some statues over in his haste, before snatching the entire scepter and pulling the rope to get himself back onto the surface. Averlyth heals his leg, but the hair doesn’t grow back.

**Kanye:** The leg might be better but my mind may never be the same!
Um is genuinely impressed with Kanye and leans over and says nice job. Kanye wipes away a single tear.
Kanye puts the dud into his trophy inventory.
The group hooks up the scepter’s bauble up to the apparatus to open up the portal, and then everyone dramatically high fives before looking at the new door.
Even those of us with dark vision can’t really make out what is in the portal, which tells us it’s dark in there, but not for reasons of illumination. We can just barely pick out the shape of the room, Kanye is looking around for the light switch.
After a second, we appear to be looking at a shadowy version of the royal ballroom where we retrieved the gem from, and we have a clear impression of lots of people moving around in there.
Kanye chooses an appropriate rock according to courtly etiquette to throw into the potential portal containing a portal full of dancing, honorable nobles. He gently hucks it in, and then the rock becomes hard to perceive as soon as it goes through the door.
Averlyth casts Clairvoyance into the portal, with sight activated for a few minutes. No one is reacting to the light. It’s almost as if the room was filled with a dense fog, but even when the light is very close to the people in the room, there aren’t really features made out, they’re more like impressions or sketches of people. They are carrying on as if they were at a grand party, reveling and drinking, and no one notices us. Averlyth can confirm it appears to be the ballroom we were just in.
Averlyth switches the Clairvoyance to sound - nothing can be made out, despite there seemingly being lots of conversations and laughter happening all around. Near the very end of the spell, she sends the Clairvoyance to the kings throne, and she sees a figure on the throne. It turns to look at her (invisible) sensor.
Kanye sticks his pinky in. No effect.
Kanye sticks his face in. No effect.
Kanye sticks his head further in and looks back. He sees a brightly illuminated room with a lot of blurry figures “behind him”.
Kanye reaches into his bag of rocks, leans back into the portal, and then a rock comes sailing out at the group.
Um swiftly dodges and sarcastically comments “Nice Job”.

**Kanye**: “I think I can hear one of them talking!”
The group decides there’s nothing left to do about this one, so Kanye catalogues this bauble with a skull and Woodhouse labels it “Phantom Ballroom”.
We swap in the other bauble and open up another portal.
This time, we are able to see the ballroom again, and this time we see dozens and dozens of corporeal, glass animatronic courtiers locked in an eternal dance. There is nothing sitting on the throne.
The group dubs the previous procedure as “Initial Bauble Investigation Process 1”.

Kanye throws in a less courtly rock at one of the dancers - it dodges with superhuman speed but does not stop dancing.

Nissa and Kanye both recognize the dance as an extremely complicated and archaic dance that has not been trendy for centuries.

Kanye notices there is nothing in this room that looks like what we threw in the other room (so the baubles may not be connected).

Everyone steps into the portal. Similar to other times we have done this, the portal remains open behind us and we can still see the apparatus through the entrance.

Kanye goes to pick up a rock. He trips a little and falls towards the dancing group, but the automaton just weave around him naturally. The dancing never stops.
Kanye hucks the rock directly at the head at a couple of dancers and they all dodge out of the way. He runs through them and retrieves the rock.
We notice there aren’t any automation that appear to match the statues we saw in the original ballroom. We also notice there isn’t music playing.
Kanye accidentally rediscovers the exit portal. The rest of the group discover the room isn’t the exact same as the ballroom we got the bauble from. Nissa discovers a clipboard at the far end of the room, containing notes of stress tests he ran on the automatons. It appears he was attempting to convert glass statues into useful automatons.

**Um**: Kanye, would you like to punch a wall and see what happens?
**Kanye**: There is nothing I would like more.
Kanye is astonished to find that he has zero effect on the wall, despite his full understanding of his effect on solid materials.
Averlyth recognizes the walls are made out of his “old nemesis”, Blue Steel - the only door he’s never been able to kick down.
Um suddenly recollects that he was interested in touching the floor of the ghost room to see if the sense of touch was also suppressed. Kanye volunteers to be the one risking his life in the scary bauble.

**Kanye**: That’s our social contract! I hit things and you guys heal me afterwards!
The group swaps the baubles - Woodhouse labels it “Automaton Ballroom” alongside Kanye’s robot icon and question marks.
Kanye ties a rope around himself and steps right in.
The floor holds him up, but he’s not really able to get any perception of the ground while he’s there.
Kanye returns back to the group to relay the information and brainstorm further experiments.

**Averlyth**: I would like to remind the group that the *best case scenario* is a phantom/ghost-esque encounter, like DJ Khaled with his banshees.
The group closes the portal and ponders the facts we’re certain of:

* Qualish was here recently
* Qualish was here for a very long time - lightly right after leaving the monastery
* According to Nissa, gnomes have been known to live for hundreds of years