[[Day 1|<< Day 1]] | [[Day 3|Day 3 >>]] ## Day 2 I woke up feeling well-rested in what I thought was the morning. But the sky told me that it was still twilight, and Clapperclaw told me that we had only been asleep for ten minutes. It will not be so easy to track the days here. Clapperclaw led us past the severed frog heads — which apparently belong to previous bullywug monarchs — and to the king. On the way, Clapperclaw told us the abridged version of his story: he was raised by the hag Granny Nightshade in Thither, but he fled because she was a "bit too sinister" for him. King Gullop XIX is a funny guy, but he couldn't help us much with the Zybilna situation. He honestly didn't seem to have a strong opinion on Zybilna at all. He was able to get us an in with Bavlorna, at least: a book. Gullop had found the book — "Bavlorna's Big Book of Bad Blood" — being sold by a merchant, and so he purchased it; however, Bavlorna assumed that he had stolen it. Gullop gave it to us so that we could return it to her. The book is a record of Bavlorna's enemies. Nia paged through it, but it didn't have an entry on Zybilna — at least not by that name. It did have an entry on Sir Talavar that calls attention to his "horrible mustache," which I thought was a little unnecessary. More interestingly, though, it had an entry on Tasha. The way it was written makes me wonder if she's in Prismeer somewhere. Anyway, Gullop: in his great kindness, he also bestowed upon us our own noble titles during our induction into the "Soggy Court." My title is "Pondflower Knight Bloff." We all humored him, even Nia, though she certainly had a hard time doing so. Skoll wasn't having that fun of a time with it, either; he said that he didn't want to be nobility again. The fact that he was ever nobility is still something that shocks the hell out of me every time I'm reminded of it. The good news for Skoll was that the Soggy Court amounted to jack shit. Gullop claimed that only members of the Soggy Court could meet with Bavlorna — and so we dressed like idiots, marched right up to her, and did his bidding. He got us. Like I said: funny guy. Bavlorna was meeting with someone when we got to her cottage. The other woman — Charm — didn't seem to mind the interruption. If anything, she seemed to welcome it, which probably has something to do with the fact that she fled out the window after having her magic shadow thing steal a spool of thread from Bavlorna's shitty treasure room. But let me back up a little. Nia handed over the book, and Bavlorna proceeded to be the second most annoying person that I've met in the feywild. She wouldn't budge. She also had the nerve to call me rude for not wanting to go on a silly little quest to help her, the hag who is one-third responsible for making things miserable around here. Still, we weren't going to fight her — I figured Zybilna could take care of it when we set her free. But then Bavlorna caught us stealing Clapperclaw's skeletal stag head back, and she made the decision for us. The fight was a little rough. I thought that I had killed her at one point, but there was just another, smaller version of her inside all of the skin that sloughed off. It was pretty gross. We didn't even kill her; she disappeared the moment that things started to look pretty bad for her. So that's definitely going to end up being a pain in the ass later. To top it all off, Nia shot me with ice magic during the fight. Instead of being mad at her, it just made me miss Ezmerelda. I think there's something wrong with me. We searched Bavlorna's cottage and found a lot of weird shit. First there was the voice that appeared in my head when I put a broken wishbone back together. It said: > Skabatha forgets the first creature she sees when she wakes up, although her memory of it returns each night when she sleeps. A creature forgotten by Skabatha in this manner is invisible to her. So that's how you can hide from Skabatha, I guess. Whoever the fuck that is. We also found an unpunched ticket to the Witchlight Carnival signed by "Isolde," which — if I am remembering correctly — is definitely the name of a dark lord. Ezmerelda has talked to me before about her and her domain, which also happens to be a carnival. I don't know what the hell to make of it. It certainly doesn't bode well. There was also the frog statue with a fucked up looking mouth that was clearly holding things. I reached inside and found that it was wet, which was super cool and fun. There were a bunch of bags with names and descriptions on them inside. One of the bags was empty — it was labeled "Andros," which is a name that I'm sure I've heard before, but I couldn't place it. More importantly, though, there was a bag labeled "Rictavio" which was read "ability to smile." There was a wand in the bag, and we have no idea what it does. So that's weird as hell. Downstairs, away from the frog with the fucked up void-mouth, we looked around for a kitchen — Skoll still wanted to cook something for those merrow. We eventually found it, but it was covered in blood, and we weren't alone: inside, we were met with a redcap chasing around two vultures. I scared the vultures off. At first, the redcap seemed like the most normal person I've come across in the feywild so far, despite her name being "Bloody." She told us that she hates Bavlorna — good to hear. She even told us about Bavlorna's allergy: "windershins," which refers to running in counter-clockwise circles. I would've assumed that she was bullshitting us if this place wasn't completely ridiculous to begin with. When Skoll asked about food, Bloody let us know that Bavlorna had been keeping live meat. I went looking — instead of any pigs or chickens, however, I found a very naked satyr named Vansel locked in a cage. He was pretty happy despite having been delivered to a hag to be eaten. He was pleasant enough — a bit strange, though. We freed him in any case. After Vansel left, Bloody quickly showed herself to be a bit strange as well; she had to be talked down from going on a murderous rampage now that Bavlorna is no longer keeping her in check. Skoll took it upon himself to make a "fey deal" with her, which I wasn't fond of. I'd almost rather him have made another deal with the dark powers — at least with them, the outcomes are clearly defined. For Bloody's end of the deal, she'll avoid going on murderous rampages. On Skoll's side, he has to bring her back some blood — enough for Bloody to dip her cap in. The blood has to be "exquisite." I'm a little worried, to say the least. I could kill a unicorn or something if I had to, I guess, but I don't think it would be a very fun experience. I'm hoping that we figure something else out. Skoll cleaned the kitchen the best he could, which wasn't very well. The merrow didn't mind one bit — in fact, they granted us safe passage going forward. I'm glad that I won't have to kill them. I observed Skoll while he was cooking, but I couldn't glean much. I'll probably need to actually ask for guidance once we manage to find a kitchen that isn't covered in blood. I have been meaning to ask him, though, since Ezmerelda gets tired of the rations that we eat all the time. Learning how to cook is the least I could do. We gave Clapperclaw his head back once we were outside the cottage. He was grateful, and even offered to guide us to Thither. The only catch was that we would need a balloon — like the one Sir Talavar had — to get there. Thankfully, there was a very reasonable bullywug with a balloon near the cottage. The bullywug, Dumphrey, told us that he has a "passion for aviation." He also told us that he isn't too satisfied with the situation in Prismeer, even if he does get to fly a balloon now. Apparently, Hither wasn't a swamp before; that was Bavlorna's doing. Once we told Dumphrey about our quest to find Zybilna, he agreed to take us to Thither. He offered that we could sort out how to reciprocate his favor later. I never like leaving myself in a debt, but we didn't exactly have a choice. Anyway, we're on our way to Thither now. I think that I might hate the feywild — it almost makes me miss Barovia. Time seemed to work normally there, for one. For two, it wasn't chock-full of people who seemed intent on making me feel like I'm losing my mind; instead, it was just chock-full of creatures trying to kill me. Skoll seems to be doing alright in this place. He picked up four little baby vine blights from Bavlorna's and has been carrying them around everywhere we go, because that's just the kind of guy he is. I suppose that I should be grateful that I have Skoll and Nia here, at least, even if Nia decided that she was alright with inflicting collateral damage on me today. Water under the bridge and all that. We'll get out of this place, though — it's just a matter of when. I only hope that it doesn't take too long. --- ## 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]]):** 12/24/1492