DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: Beneath an Endless Sky (5e quest!)

"So, what do you want to see first?" Danse asks, as you hook your arm on his, grinning and flicking the switch on your belt to make sure you're in boymode.

"I thiiiiiiiiiink the fanciest restaurant on Wisehome," you say, chuckling.

"Okay!" Danse says, cheerfully.

Your ears perk up. You grin.

"Then your bedroom."

Danse almost walks into a bulkhead.

The fanciest restaurant on Wisehome, as it transpired, was a little clerical establishment called The Pantheon, which was located in the middle-lower section of one of the dangling habitats. Danse explained that, basically, the old city was in the upper area, called the Attic. The richer, fancier stuff was all on the bottom, reaching further and further towards the lower edges of the infinite black ocean that filled up Gallion. The resteraunt itself had a gorgeous old Laturran classiness to it - wood furnishing that was so catastrophically fancy that you hoped it was plastic fakery, and small groves of flowers and moss everywhere to give it a real underdark vibe. Torches guttered in the corners - artful fakes using dampened light spells - and the windows looked out at the glittering stars of the underwater traffic beyond the window. Danse and you got a table at the corner, near the window.

"Surprised they let us in the door," you say, playfully.

"I, uh...paid a bit of extra up at the front desk," Danse said, still tapping his Q-card against the wooden table, before tucking it back into his pocket. "So, uh, yeah, this place is great. They use summoned magic, but they tailor it to get the ingredients, then cook with actual stoves and...such."

You nod, and the waiter comes by. The waiter is a large, furry creature with a bizarre snout and black and brown coloration, holding a pair of menu's in his snout. Brash, who is perched on your shoulder, hisses curiously, while the critter tosses his head and the menus land on the table. I'll be your waiter, they say. My master is currently at work in the kitchens - we're running a bit light on the staff. Heh. Oh, my name is Squibbler, and I'm an opossum!

"Ahh," you say, slowly , then take the menu.

Can I get you drinks?

You bite back your first question which is 'can you?' because the opossum (whatever that is) looks like he has no opposable thumbs. Instead, you say: "Uh, can I have some...do they have Drip?"

Nooo, but we have Lyne!

"Okay, I'll take that. Diet, if you can," you say, while Danse smiles.

"Water," he says.

The opossum galumphs off, and as you wait, you smile at Danse: "So, tell me! You're from around here? What's that like?"

"I was born in an orbital habitat, near one of the Arc Stations. It's an offshoot from the Order of the Stars, the biggest paladin order out here, called the Order of Roses." He rubbed his hand along his shoulder, then sighed. "I guess you can say being a paladin was in my blood - though, I mean, most people from Rose Station didn't become paladins. They were mostly the family of climate scientists, studying Zeue's storms and climatology."

You nod as the opossum came back, so distracted by his pretty, pretty face that you didn't even see how the opossum familiar nosed the class of fizzy soda onto the table. You took it and sipped from it, found that Lyne was a lot like Drip, but with a sharper flavor and slightly less bite in the after-taste. As you set the cup down, you say: "Your parents?"

"...uh..." he rubs his neck. "Still on station. Yours?"

"Well, I was born on Wyiot," you say. "My parents were born there too, and their parents, and their parents, back to the first Arkes, that was before we became the Arkemoulins, came to the station to build the foundations." You smiled, slightly. "I have a sister and two brothers, and they're all much, much more successful than me. My older brothers, Tek and Mek, are both in the sciences, Tek does programming for one of the navigation firms, and Mek is working on fusion reactor prototypes for DOSA. My sister got married to a nice gnoll Treelist named Gnarp and has five pups on the way."

"Dang, five?" Danse asks, his cheeks heating.

"Gnolls, litters..." you spread your hands. "The magics of interspecies biology."

"Y-Yeah, uh..." He takes a hit of his water. "And your parents?"

"Dad was a teacher, and Mom was a teacher, and they both got tenure at the University of Lalune," you say. "Dad's retired, but Mom still basically runs her local Grove." You smile, wryly. "They're...not thrilled about my new job."

"Lot of threatening F-mails?" Danse asks. "I've had those."

"You'd think they'd run out of bandwidth eventually," You say, throwing up your arms. "I think Mom's blackmailing someone in the communication infrastructure. I never thought I'd say it, but thank god for the Sorc's shitty array!"

Danse chuckled.

The food arrives a bit later - you got some soup and bread, and Danse had settled for a nice rare steak and potatoes. It's warm and fresh and ten thousand times better than anything ever served on the Sorc. As you eat, Danse tells you stories about his initiation into the Order of Roses, about the harshness of training to use a weapon most people thought was outright obsolete, about the difficulties in keeping awake during some of the classes. "I swear, Old Efram had to have been born during the Fall, he sure managed to talk like he was that old," he said, shaking his head as he salted his potatoes again. You giggled as he started to imitate his teacher: "In the year BF-908, there was a record of the heroic Flibbretygibbets, who as according to the legends of our order, once stood in a single bridge against the floopydoops of Kingdom of Glorbodrob-"

You giggled so hard that you almost choked on your soup.

"On and on and on, like, I didn't care about some old time heroes, I wanted to know what we paladins were going to do in the here and now to make things better." Danse flushed. "Sorry, that's...kind of my hobby horse."

"It's a cute horse, though," you say, dipping your soup with your bread. By the window, a school of fish went swimming by.

Danse smiles at you. "Thanks. Got me kicked out, though."

"Really?" you ask.

"Yeah, uh...long story," he says, then asks: "So, where'd you learn to be a...war...lock?"

"Kinda...fell into it." You smile.

Under the table, your foot bumps his. He bumps back.

Your eyebrow goes right up.


Danse is very bashful afterwards. He says he has to get some stuff done, but then he gets all nervous about just fucking you and going.

"Cap, we cuddled for, like, the entire morning," you say, grinning at him. "You can do stuff that isn't me." You caress his chest, then...start thinking about what exactly you wanted this to be. Was it just...a fling or...more or...you blushed and instead did a very Bootsian thing: "Besides, I gotta find a flumph. I've never seen one before, I want to meet one!"

Danse chuckled. "I hope they live up to your expectations." He paused, then kissed your forehead, nose, then lips. You smacked his butt, and he was, perforce, sent off to do his personal business. You showered - ignored Slacks muttering about how you could just clean yourself instantly with magic. Slacks didn't get it, he didn't get how GOOD warm water felt, how good shampoo felt, how good feeling water pumped through you felt. And you'd never been on a station that didn't have a cutoff for showers - Wyiot could recycle water and summon water infinitely, but there were still bottlenecks, and so much water was used industrially and for station keeping and for mass buoys and radiation shielding...so, there were limiters on showers.

Not in Wisehome! They had an entire ocean. A sterile ocean. A sterile ocean that had, for uncounted eons, sat lifeless beneath nearly six kilometers of ice...waiting...

You felt a strange shuddery chill shooting along your spine, looking up at the showerhead. The warm water suddenly felt faintly sinister.

"See, I told you!" Slacks called from the misted over mirror.

You pull up the phone, then dial in the operator.

"Yes, how may I connect you?" A chipper voice asks, female but you can't tell the species.

"Uh, hey, can you connect me with..." you think hard. "...Kelatchan Thuatlel's hotel room?"

"May I ask who is calling?"

"Boots!" you say.

"...I see...just a moment!" The hold song started playing.

You figure, if she's in port, and she's here then she'd know where to find flumphs, right? And, you wanted to hang out with the goober. You did flick your belt from boy to girl with a playful grin - and then, as your breasts swelled up, Kels picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Eyy, I got you!" you say, cheerfully.

"Hi Boots!" Kels says, happily.

"You wanna help me capture a flumph?"

"...I...uh...you mean talk to one?"

"Yes, I mean talk to one," you say, laughing quietly.

"I know just the place! Where you at?" She asks. You wrack your brain, tell her the place and she's quiet for a moment. "T-That's, uh...Danses' usual place..."

"Yeah," you say. "We shared a room, why?"

"Oh!" Kels' is blushing. You can tell. "Oh! Okay! Uh...meet me at, um, spire-49, level...A...uh there's...there's a map." She was quiet for a moment. "Who..." She stopped.

"He did," you say, cheerfully.

"Oh wow," Kels whispers. "He...I never thought...I...wow!"

"I'm very toppable!" You say.

"What?" Kels asks.

Your brow furrows, your unoccupied ear perks up. "...what did you think you were asking?"

"BYE!" She hangs up with a rattle and clack.

The flumph in question is hovering before a board of stratego, moving the pieces with flowing, luminous tentacles. A flumph looks kind of like a broad, flat football made of gleaming yellow hide, with two prong-like protrusions at the top that had big soulful eyes on them and a frill of glowing tentacles which brushed along the table and pushed the straego pieces around. The dragonborn who sat across from him was coppery hued and looking annoyed. "...hmmm..."

"Objective Statement: You are crested."

"No, give me a second, give me a second," the dragonborn said, palm up, facing the flumph. "...just give me a second."

"Cheerful Assurance: You have as much time as you need."

The flumph's voice echoes from its whole body, rather than coming from his mouth, which opens and closes at random. You're not sure how you know the flumph is a he or not. Kels points at him, whispering as she stands next to you: "That guy comes out here and plays strageo with anyone who wants for his lunch break."

"What's his job?" you whisper.

"Querying Call: Young goblin, have you never seen a flumph before?" The eyestalks have turned to face you. You walk over, glance at the board, then grin up at him.

"No...why do you talk like that?"

"Happy exposition: We flumphs project our emotions psychically, not verbally. Most non-flumphs cannot feel it, and so, we need to communicate this way to avoid causing misunderstandings. Rueful aside: It is a common and unfortunate thing we must face as a part of the Republic's bureaucracy."

"So, you run all this stuff?"

"Rueful exposition: No, we merely tabulate a lot. Our minds are unable to falsely perceive objective information," he said.

"Zuh-huh-wha?" you ask.

"Happy Exposition: Our minds use psychic waves rather than neurons for intercomponent communication. This means it is impossible for a flumph to lie to itself. We can lie to others, we can be given incorrect data, but we cannot filter data through our own biases. It is impossible."

"Oof," you say. "That sucks."

"Weary Resignation: Indeed. It is a heavy burden to bear, in a solar system so riven with conflict."

"...I...think..." The dragonborn said. "I...almost...got it."

You grin, then lean over, whispering in his ear.

The dragonborn glanced at you, then at the map, then grinned. He moved his knight forward with a click. "And you said I was crested!"

"Cheerful Admission: As I said. Flumphs can only not lie to themselves."

"You dick!" The dragonborn slapped the timer to indicate it was the flumphs turn.

There were, to your shock, beaches on Wisehome. And they were even beaches you could afford. The widest, highest part of the central spire had a whole false skybox and opened moonpool that let in water, with concealed warmers that made it feel nicely tropical. False speakers played gull noises and with the number of familiars and pets that people brought with them added a sense of wilderness to the park. What didn't add to the sense of wilderness was your big huge fruity drink, which you were enjoying while sitting next to Xan, who...was...

Well.

Being Xan.

"Ahhh, feel that artificial sun lamp," she groaned, her midnight black skin looking glossy after her application of sun lotion. Her white hair was done into a ponytail and she was laying back wearing a......uh....well, it was basically a white string that V'd across her nipples and vanished between her legs, just barely big enough to cover said nipples and her, uh, you know. In short, she was being as aggressively sexy as she could. It was infuriating how good she was at it too.

"Is this what beaches are like?" you ask, watching people wading into the water. Danse and Kel are out there, a small circle around them indicating people drawing back a bit from Kels. "Just laying around and splashing in water?"

"Yup!"

"...how do they keep, like, kraken out? Or aboleths?"

"Aboleths are just a legend, they don't exist," Xan said, putting her sunglasses on over her eyes. "Mmm, can you believe my ancestors hated the sun?"

"Doesn't it hurt your eyes?" You ask.

"Nah," she said. "That's why I have these." She tapped her spacer glasses.

You snort.

The past week had been...absolutely wild. With Danse and the food and hotels and such. You felt like you could actually stand to see the inside of your ship again.

"So, I hear you've been practicing on your magic shite," Xan said, cheerfully, tilting her head back to watch you sip at your fruity drink. As she does so, a glittering explosion of stars flares out across the beach, drawing ooohs and awws from the crowd. You see the source a moment later - three wizards on these...absurd propeller driven one man craft that looked like they could operate both above and below the water. They were holding their hands up, sending up streaking explosions of magical fireworks - drawing appreciative claps from the beachgoers.

"Nothing as cool as that!" you exclaim.

"Tosh!" Xan said, huffing. "Show me what you got, Boots."

---
What DO you got? Pick twooo!
[ ] Agonizing blast (+Cha to EB)
[ ] Armor of Shadows (cast mage armor at will - mage armor provides Bulletproof 1 so it's on par with a light bulletproof vest)
[ ] Beast Speech (can cast speak with animals - those that aren't extinct)
[ ] Beguiling Influence (Gain proff in Deception! ...this sucks, don't take it!)
[ ] Devil's Sight (double your...darkvision, wow this also sucks, fuck this)
[ ] Eldrich Sight (cast detect magic at will)
[ ] Eldrich Spear (+60 squares range for EB)
[ ] Eyes of the Rune Keeper (can read all writing - including encrypted text!)
[ ] Fiendish Vigor (can cast false life on self at will!)
[ ] Gaze of Two Minds (can touch a person or creature and see through their eyes and share their senses until the end of next turn)
[ ] Mask of Many Faces (can cast disguise self at will)
[ ] Misty Images (can cast silent image at will!)
[ ] Repelling Blast (can blast enemies backwards 2 squares on hitting them!)
[ ] Thief of Five Fates (can cast cast bane once per long rest)

ALso, you get a third spell! STICK TO THE PHB!
[ ] Which Spell!