MAL Ep. 43

Despite all the glitches and awkwardnesses of the all-online format, we actually ended up getting some of the best roleplaying and challenge-solving from everybody yet. Kudos. :-D

1) Depleted of magic and resources, the party pitched camp on the edge of the eldritch forest, but Tanya felt it was a bad idea to sleep without first scouting out the wood and the twinkling lights within, and brought Aler and Red with her to check it out. She began to hear Khirg's voice calling to her, telling her to follow it to learn how to find and retrieve his lost spirit. Tanya was wary, telling the others she had heard of fey creatures tempting people into danger with such methods, but she didn't want to risk missing a real message. The small group carried on to a clearing with a large black tree perched with dire ravens, where Tanya heard Khirg's voice exhorting her to hang herself from the tree to receive visions of his fate. Tanya thought that this both sounded exactly like a trap and also exactly how fell spirits might give a traveler a vision in the middle of the night, so the group set up a plan to extract her if things went badly and she hung herself from the tree, becoming blinded by the dancing lights settling on her eyes and drained of constitution points. She stayed there for several rounds hoping for the dancing lights to coalesce into the promised vision before deciding they were just will o wisps feeding on her life energy and was extracted from the tree, which was grappling her, by means of a tug of war won by the team with the Tyrannosaurus Rex on it. They returned to camp and warned everyone not to listen to the voices.

(This challenge would have been a lot more dangerous had it sprung on Tanya during her night watch, as planned for, and had she been less alert and not taken a capable extraction team with her...)

2) Rested from sleep, the party noted that the Fey region they were in was still bathed in shadowy twilight despite it now being early afternoon. Red and Aler summoned a genie from the Underdark, telling him that his clan could return to the plane of Air now. However, the summoning was rocky and accompanied by the sound of grinding gears. Jon had heard mention of the fact that summoning spells do not always work as expected in the Fey lands, which he hypothesizes probably has something to do with the extensive multiplanar connections here.

The spell did not end normally and return the genie, Peyman, from whence he came. He was unable to portal himself to the plane of air, because summoned creatures are unable to use planar magics (a loophole-closer preventing anyone from summoning an exponential flood of demons.) The party suggested he accompany them as they would be leaving the plane before long, and he agreed. Red asked Peyman to teach her more about elemental magic and he agreed to that as well.

3) The party proceeded along the footpath to the north, where Aler caught sight of a lone human traveler in blue leather armor. They successfully stealthed over and observed him, Tanya hailed him, and eventually the rest of the party came over to talk to him as well. He spoke a language no one had heard before, but also knew Fey, so Tanya and Jon were able to translate. His name was Daitki Minarye, identifying himself as an archaeologist, and explaining that he did not know planar magics, but rather had the ability to shift back and forth from the Fey lands as a fairy gift. After some back and forth, it emerged that he was not from Malachi, but rather from some other mortal realm--Daitki asserted that the Fey lands touched not only different planes but different dimensions or realities in some way, and that only gods and the most powerful of Fey casters could traverse between different ones without being destroyed. The party took many notes. Of their immediate surroundings, they learned only that Daitki knew Puck by a different name (he said that the Fey rarely used their true names even amongst themselves, and therefore often had one or more names in other languages,) that he did not think he knew Feachan, and that on the other side of the void there were a village, some eladrin (elves born on the Fey lands who have absorbed some of its magics), and some "friendly nymphs." The party asked how to cross the void, and he said he had done it through the planes, but he thought he'd seen a bridge up north.

Zadkiel asked about Shyra/Lann Lasanta, who he hadn't heard of, but he was able to identify the owl brooch from Aler's description as meaning she belongs to the Owl clan of Archfey. Tanya asked whether there was any specific style of architecture he studied, and Daitki said he wasn't that kind of archaeologist, to which the party surmised he must be the adventurous, Indiana-Jones-style kind of explorer. Then they parted ways.

4) The party located the bridge Daitki referred to, a shimmering arch of pale blue crystal set onto round bases ringed with gold and blue chains. Zadkiel tossed a stone onto the bridge, which passed right through it and fell into the void. Tanya and Bay determined that the chains could rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise. The party discussed sending Aler or Red flying to the other side so they could work both chains at once, but Zadkiel, still suspicious, threw a rock with a light spell on it into the void, where the magic winked out before it even touched the inky blackness. Jon determined the void was antimagic, and would dispel any magic that passed over it, probably causing a flying person to fall into the pit. The bridge seemed to be some powerful artifact created to counter that and provide safe passage across, but didn't seem to be currently activated. Jon told the party that in Malachian magic, deasil (clockwise) and widdershins (counterclockwise) were usually associated with alignment, but in the Fey lands, they were instead associated with "natural" and "unnatural," respectively (though how the Fey interpret "natural" can sometimes be obtuse), and also that you usually turn something clockwise to open it and counterclockwise to close it. Zadkiel turned the chain clockwise, causing the bridge to become dark blue crystal and solid. The party cautiously crossed with no ill effects.

(I had some contingency plans for if a party member had fallen into the void, but they were not needed!)

5) On the other side, the party was able to make out light colored buildings through the trees and also see landmarks in the moonlit distance: standing stones on the hill to the north, a silver river to the south, and a cave in a mountain to the east emitting a purplish glow. The party decided to go to the village. It turned out to be both closer and smaller than they guessed (distances are hard to gauge here), it was a village of sprites, who began firing at the party from the windows. Their arrows inflicted very little damage but were, as Tanya correctly guessed, poisoned, causing PCs to become woozy or slowed. The sprites were yelling in Fey, "Human thieves! Get away from our village! You won't fool us again!" Zadkiel realized that Daitki must have robbed them. (Tanya "Ohhhhhh. He's THAT kind of archaeologist!") The party used Adriel's missile-catching fan to retreat, then Zadkiel and Jon buffed up their Fortitude scores and moved forward to negotiate with the sprites. This went fairly well, Zadkiel convinced the sprites that he was the son of an angel and was telling them the truth, but they still held the party responsible for a theft committed by their "kinsman," and wanted their village talisman, the Pearl of the Dawn, returned to them. The leader of the Dawn Sprites, Eleveld, suggested another option: a band of Dusk Fairies--"what is it your people call them? Unseelie?" have taken over the region, causing eternal twilight. Change that, and the pearl would matter little. The Dusk Fairies' leader is called Rolde, and beneath the agger by the standing stones, lies their power.

Red committed to doing this, feeling that the eternal twilight was unnatural and wrong. However, when the party conferred afterwards, Adriel convinced them that more information was needed, since making friends of the Dawn Sprites might mean making enemies of the Dusk Fairies, and wading into a feud between fairies could be a dangerous mistake.

6) The party decided not to go to the standing stones, but rather to go to the river and look for the nymphs, hoping to get an unbiased opinion from them. On the way, they passed the treehouses of the eladrin and struck up a conversation with one of them, named Aerandir. He seemed interested in the party, especially Aler, who has discarded his surface-elf disguise. Besides some general chit-chat about Fey society, which I honestly don't remember, he told the party that the dawn and dusk fairies were in constant tension. "It is the nature of this place. The wheel turns, and then turns again. No big deal really." He seemed unconcerned by the long and erratic days and nights. He said Feachan, who he called an "acciter," often stayed in the mountain cave in the northeast. Tanya recalled Puck's words about a "fey mirror" and asked Aerandir where the party could find one. Aerandir said he didn't have one, but that they were a relatively common fey magic item-- "like magic arrows are amongst we elves, you can buy them in any village of ours"-- and that the Dawn Fairies undoubtedly had some in their village, also the nymphs might. He also cautioned that the fey mirrors showed what you desire, so they could be a good help in tracking down one's lost keys or so on, but the more complicated your desire the less help they were, since they can show only the present. He also added the very eladrin-like warning that "not all desires are attainable, and even those that are, you might not like at all once you find them."

7) Zadkiel had Jon use a scry spell to search for Daitki Minarye, despite warnings from Red that knowing so little about him or even what plane he was on now, it had a low chance of success. Indeed, the spell failed, which could mean either that he had left the plane or simply that he made his saving throw.

8) The party proceeded to the river to speak with the nympths and found two, Lelie and Willow, fishing on the banks. They seemed wary of outsiders, with one warning the other in Aquan to "Watch out, humans kidnap women." Most of the beings in this area seem to speak either Fey or Sylvan plus something of their own (the Eladrin spoke Fey and Elven, the Sprites spoke Fey and Sylvan, Daitki spoke Fey and his own language, the nymphs spoke Sylvan and Aquan.)

Lelie noticed Peyman the genie and spoke with him in Aquan, which Jon happens to know, so you heard her asking if he was from the Autumn Court, and upon his answer in the negative, telling him that there are some of his folk in the lands to the north, if he is seeking them.

Tanya tried talking to the nymphs about the fey mirror, but they became frightened of her, recognizing her as a dullahan (which is associated with death) and backed into the river. Lelie said that she had a fey mirror in her underwater home, but when Tanya said "We need one, I would like to buy it from you" they both fled. Jon informed the party that many fey beings seem to take strange offense at being offered coin under any circumstance, and that in many legends brownies and such ran away if you tried to pay them. Tanya affirmed that her people were much more sensible than this.

9) The group then headed to the mountain to speak with Feachan. Zadkiel again advised caution and threw a pebbled into the glowing purple mist across the entrance, to make sure it was not an instakill portal of death or anything like that; hearing the pebble clatter on the ground, Red announced herself as High Druid of Mendham who had been sent to see him by Puck and strode in with Adriel alongside. Inside the cave, they found an incongruously elegant marble and gold chamber, with an archfey seated at a desk writing in glowing gold ink. Rather than discussing anything in the immediate environment, Red petitioned him to teach her the secrets of summoning and binding elemental armies, as she had come to believe this was the only way for Malachi to survive. (Peyman listened quietly and without comment.) A long conversation both practical and philosophical ensued, with Feachan saying testily that he didn't know why Puck would assume he had time to handhold mortals; commenting that most humans who came to him with comments like "I must know this. It is the only way" ended up becoming liches; pointing out that it takes years to learn demonology and is not something Feachan could teach Red to do in a crash course, nor did Red have sufficient power to control an army such as she was imagining anyway; asking Red questions about what kind of a leader she wanted to be; telling her that the best way for her to defeat a company of demons and other enemies would be to deploy specific counterattacks against the enemies at hand, not to try to powergame an unrealistic superweapon; giving her some curious Fey advice about using her darker impulses but not allowing them to use her; and ultimately giving in and proving Puck correct by gifting Red a book of elemental magic. Red was emotionally wrought, offering a few great lines like "It's a sorry day for Malachi when a demon lord is better at making friends than a druid" and admitting how badly the demon/illithid ambush had shaken her. The other PCs reminded her of all the progress they've been making against the League of Snakes and Red noticed and apologized to Peyman. Feachan also took great interest in the information about the Elder Lord of Chaos, making notes to himself to study that situation.

10) The party spoke with Feachan about a few other topics. Tanya said her husband was missing and Puck had said Feachan might be able to help. This too, Feachan seemed to become concerned about despite himself, and said that if Tanya learned where he was, Feachan could open a portal for them leading to that region with much more precision than Plane Shift (which dumps you hundreds of miles away.) Tanya asked if a fey mirror could give him enough information for him to create such a portal and Feachan said yes. Aler asked about the giant aberration skull you found in the Underdark. Feachan didn't know anything about that, saying he is not a paranormalist or xenobiologist, but he did identify the fluid as chaos mana. Aler asked whether chaos mana could mutate aberrations in some way and Feachan said he believes that would be possible. The party noticed Feachan was wearing the sigil of the Loon clan. (Lochrann's was Raven.) The party talked to Feachan for a while longer but that's all I remember of it, feel free to add on.

11) When the party left Feachan's hall, Red had an emotional denouement where she said she felt the burden of having to protect Malachi alone, but she knew it was not really true, because she had her friends standing beside her. The other PCs and Bay supported her.

And there we broke for the night! The party's stated goals for next session are 1) to acquire a fey mirror, either by helping the Dawn Sprites or by reestablishing contact with Lelie the nymph; 2) to explore the standing stones and see whether it is possible to solve the problem of the endless twilight in some constructive way that preferably does not involve attacking the dusk fairies; 3) to check out the Autumn Court to the north.

Game on!