[[Day 0 - 1492-12-19|<< 19 Nightal 1492]] | [[Day 2| Day 2 >>]] ## Day 1 Well, something stupid happened. I should've known that it wouldn't be so easy. We're stuck in the feywild. Mr. Witch and Mr. Light were happy to point us in Zybilna's direction. I'm assuming that Skoll winning the "Witchlight Monarch" title helped make them so agreeable. I was happy for Skoll when he won, but he didn't seem to like the attention. Poor guy. Before we entered the portal that they had created for us, Mr. Witch and Mr. Light said it would be a straight shot to Zybilna. I'm not sure if they were intentionally lying, but nothing about this has been a straight shot so far. All things considered, I feel like they knew what they were doing. Nia was given a cryptic riddle before she stepped in the portal: > Mind the rule of three: future, present, past > Find the alicorn and free the dormant queen at last I have no fucking idea what an alicorn is. The first thing that Skoll did once we were through the portal was summon Hati. Hati let us know that we're in a "domain of delight," because of course that's what it's called. This particular domain is called Prismeer; it used to be ruled by the archfey Zybilna. In the time since we've been here, we've learned that Zybilna has been frozen in time by a coven of hags using some famous wizard's — Tasha's, I think — cauldron or something. The hags have subsequently taken over the place. Not so straight of a shot at all. Nia magically changed into her combat gear while I was stuck putting on my armor over my dress shirt. We hadn't been in Prismeer for more than 20 minutes when some harengon attempted to rob us. They weren't after our money. Instead, they wanted the memory associated with the best gift we've ever received. I wasn't sure how we were supposed to hand over a memory, but it didn't matter — we intimidated them into leaving without issue. We're kind of scary, after all. As the harengon were leaving, weeds started sprouting in their wake. It's been pretty easy to tell that this environment reacts to emotions, which is just fantastic — and by fantastic, I mean incredibly unfortunate. We'll have to be very careful here. Hither (which where we landed in Prismeer) is pretty much just a giant swamp. The fluctuating water levels made it hard to traverse, even with my experience. I've been having to fly a lot of the time. At one point, we saw some hobgoblins walking on stilts through the place — they have the right idea, honestly. It was still early in the morning when we saw a balloon falling from the sky. We tracked it to an old, slanted tower, finding a dragon fairy locked in a cage in the carriage of the balloon. He introduced himself as Sir Talavar. He was sent on a quest by his queen to secure Zybilna's aid, but he found out pretty quickly that that wasn't going to happen. He was escaping from one of the hags — Bavlorna Blightstraw, who lives in the nearby town of Downfall — when his balloon crashed. His cage was magically locked, so Nia couldn't free him. I found myself wishing that Ezmerelda was there with us. Sir Talavar is a funny guy, at least. He kept calling us knights, a title which Nia adamantly denied. I didn't mind all too much — I think I could be a knight if I wanted to be. In any case, he told us that we could find the key to his cage at the house of a goblin named Jingle Jangle. Sir Talavar let us know that she collects keys — so I carved a wooden one on the way in case we needed to trade. As we were traveling, Hati informed us of the laws of the land. The rules are mostly an honor-code since Zybilna's not in charge right now, but it's probably not a bad idea to follow them anyway, considering our end goal is to free Zybilna herself. The first rule is the rule of hospitality — it's pretty easy to guess what that one is about. Then there's the rule of ownership; don't steal, basically, which shouldn't be too difficult. The last one — the rule of reciprocity — seems like it could be a little harder. The idea is that you have to reciprocate gifts and favors. I'm hoping that we can just repay people by getting the hags out of the picture. On the way to Jingle Jangle's, we were approached by a walking house. It was hard not to think of Barovia, back when I got beaten to all hell by the Baba Lysaga. Skoll did not share my reservations. He knocked on the door because he felt like it was what we were "supposed" to do. It turned out fine, though. The old lady inside — a druid and inn proprietor named Tsu — isn't too fond of Bavlorna. She took us all the way to Jingle Jangle's house in exchange for the promise of Bavlorna's deposition. On the way, I talked to Skoll and Nia about how I've met Zybilna before. Turns out that they have too — she saved Skoll's life as a child, and she saved Nia from getting arrested once. I'm not a fan of all these coincidences. Hati made a remark about how the fates are just like that, but it doesn't feel right to me. Speaking of Hati, and of coincidences: Hati knows Madryck, so Madryck wasn't lying about that at least. I'm not any less uneasy about it, though. Another thing about Hati: he's hiding something. He said that he doesn't want Skoll in his domain due to a concern for his safety, but it was clearly a lie. That said, I'm not certain of the actual truth — my guess is that Hati has a girlfriend that he doesn't want Skoll to meet or something. Jingle Jangle's cave-house is on a hill that can get up and walk, because why not? On the way up the hill, a willow tree alongside the path uprooted and started talking to us. Again — why not? The tree wanted us to feed Jingle Jangle, who has been pretty upset since she got robbed of her truffles and beat up by the harengon brigands. Skoll, of course, had no problems following through on this request. After some introductions, Skoll made Jingle Jangle some mushroom stew. In exchange, she gave us the key to Sir Talavar's cage, her only request being that we rough up the brigands for her. Since we were already going to be heading in their direction — and since they're a bunch of assholes — we agreed. Jingle Jangle was helpful even beyond the key. For starters, she told us about a scarecrow up near Downfall named Clapperclaw who can guide us around the place. She also let us know the name of a second hag: Granny Nightshade, who lives in "Thither." Hither and Thither. Maybe it's a good thing that Ezmerelda isn't here after all — I don't think she'd have the patience for this place. To thank her, I gave Jingle Jangle the wooden key that I had made before we departed. We were given a key of "unknown origin" by one of the willow trees in return. We then returned to Sir Talavar and let him out of his cage. He gave us his a sword as a reward; Nia took it, apparently unsatisfied by her infinite mind-daggers. We parted ways from the good Sir Talavar. As we traveled north, the scenery got less pleasant and more weird: a raven crying like a baby, a cloud shaped like a sad old woman, the like. I hate this place, basically. The Brigand's Tollway is a thirty foot tall stump surrounded by intersecting causeways. As we approached, we met up with the brigand leader — Agdon Longscarf — soon enough. Agdon Longscarf was the most unpleasant person I've spoken to in a while. He was a real shithead — and not the fun kind. So, I pushed him in the mud. He told his brigands to attack us, but it was child's play — we incapacitated two brigands and knocked Agdon unconscious in seconds. We told the rest to get lost. They listened. Skoll healed Agdon, but he shouldn't have bothered — the harengon was extremely unhelpful. We learned plenty about the guy himself, though: he likes Bavlorna because she freed him from the curse that Zybilna put upon him, and — in exchange — Agdon gives Bavlorna the best prizes from his robberies. Also, he also stole Clapperclaw's head. I hadn't even met Clapperclaw yet, and I still wanted to push Agdon in the mud again. I refrained — figured that would've been a little excessive. Skoll made him promise to collect some truffles for Jingle Jangle. After that, I let him run off like a coward. It was night by the time we got to Downfall, which is a series of little linked islets. The whole place was covered in mist — it was impossible to see more than twenty feet ahead. We encountered a couple bullywugs as we were entering town. They let us know that we should meet their king, Gullop XIX. It might be worth meeting him. Sir Talavar had said that the bullywugs were good folk. And who knows — maybe the king can help us with the whole "Zybilna being frozen in time" situation. We spotted some merrow in the water as we got further into town. They were upfront about the fact that they wanted to eat us, but Skoll talked them out of a fight. I don't think they realized how fortunate they were. We found Clapperclaw talking to some severed frog heads, which was another fun Barovia-esque image. He agreed to guide us around as long as we retrieve his head from Bavlorna, which shouldn't be an issue. After noting how tired we all looked — at which point I realized that it had been forever since we last slept — he led us out of town so we could get some rest. The place that he brought us to is just a clearing in the swamp, so we're all sleeping on the ground on a blanket in the mud. Except Nia, who is sleeping in a tree, like she's the one who's a bird here. The feywild is very strange. At one point today I ate a flower that was chanting "eat me," which was an unpleasant experience. The flower tasted good though. I don't want to be here. I'm glad to be around Skoll and Nia again, but this place sucks ass, and I miss the others. Not to mention that I haven't been away from Ezmerelda for this long in over a year — it's not fun. I feel kind of ridiculous for how much it's affecting me, but there's not much I can do about it, short of getting the fuck out of here. Tomorrow (if I can even call it that — time is weird here) we'll head for the bullywog king. And then we'll probably have a hag to kill, just like the good old days. Until then. --- ## Page Tags/Properties **Tags:** #Journal **Category:** [[Journals and Writings.base|Journals and Writings]] **Character:** [[Krue d'Avenir|Krue]] **Campaign:** [[Wild Beyond the Witchlight]] **Date ([[Calendar of Harptos|Harptos]]):** 12/21/1492