[[Day 4|<< Day 4]] | [[Day 6|Day 6 >>]] ## Day 5 Today was a very long day. The first thing we did this morning was chat with Elidon. He's perfectly willing to help us navigate the palace as long as we protect him. Given that we were going to do that anyway, his terms weren't too difficult to accept. The plan is to go kill the hag in Yon and then come back to Thither to retrieve Elidon. There's no point in putting him in more danger than necessary — especially considering that our plan for the palace would be fucked if he died before we even got there. After hashing things out with Elidon, he gave us each a charm, because everyone and their mother wants to give us gifts in this place. Not that I'm complaining. Me, Skoll, Nia, and Elkhorn headed for Little Oak to pick up Squirt. On the way, we heard the same chittering noise that we heard before. I was just going to go around it again, but Skoll started wandering in the direction of the noise — and we couldn't really do anything except follow him, because that's how things are once Skoll's made up his mind about something. We came into a clearing and found ourselves facing the biggest spider I've ever seen. It was reading a storybook to a bunch of smaller animals. I've given up on being surprised by the feywild, I think. The spider, Yarnspinner, was friendly enough. He told us that he's in charge of a domain called "Fablerise." He had no idea that his domain was in the middle of another archfey's domain until we told him. He was pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. Yarnspinner offered us a place to stay if we needed it (we didn't). He also gave us each a "welcoming gift": slippers that let you climb up walls like a spider. They're virtually useless to me since I can fly, but I appreciated it nonetheless. We didn't stay for story time, which is a tragedy that we might never recover from. Yarnspinner didn't seem to mind. After we left Fablerise, my new scimitar started pulsing. And then it started talking. Turns out the scimitar is sentient. I'm fine with that — though it's a little different than last time, since it's a sword who is also a guy rather than a guy who is stuck inside a sword. The scimitar, Ewyn, can fly and be commanded, so I'll probably get more use out of it than I initially thought. That said — and I feel a little bad for writing this — I only wish he didn't talk so much. He insisted on calling me his ward, and then his squire, and finally his knight. I let "knight" pass, if only because it's better than the alternatives. There's no way in hell I'm going to be referred to as anyone's squire. I'm trying to keep my patience with Ewyn — if I'm going to use him in combat, it would probably be best if we were on good terms. But he hasn't been making it easy for me so far. At any rate, we eventually made it to Little Oak and picked up Squirt. We headed out of the forest and into the mists, which didn't leave me feeling particularly comfortable. Yet we made it up onto the mountain pass and into Yon. Squirt parted ways from us soon after. The thing about Yon is that it sucks ass. The weather is horrible — dark clouds, strong winds, loud thunder. And then there's the big, ugly castle atop the mountain. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought that we had entered Barovia. We ran into a few people along the path. The first was Amidor — our potential guide to the palace — which I thought was good luck, since it meant that we wouldn't need to be searching all over for him. He was on the defensive at first. After a bit of talking, though, he decided that we weren't a threat, was a bit funny. Amidor is in fact an actual dandelion. He's also in love with a honeybee named Pollenella, who was with him. He kept calling me a knight, which has been a reoccurring theme these last few days. Amidor fancies himself a knight too, "protecting a fair maiden" from the "tyrant beekeeper" Mudlump. He basically told us that we'd have to find and defeat Mudlump if we want his help. The other person who was with them was an elf named Gleam. She wore a crescent moon mask and apparently works at the Witchlight Carnival. Gleam added a few items to our to-do list. For starters, her sister is currently imprisoned by the hag Endelyn Moongrave. Given that freeing prisoners was probably already on the agenda, it wasn't too hard to agree to assist in her mission. There's also Gleam's coworker, a bugbear named Hurly (brother of Burly, another employee of the Carnival). Hurly is also being kept at Endelyn's place against his will. Again: probably would've helped him anyway. Then there was the stuff that we probably weren't going to be incidentally taking care of already. Gleam told us about some possible allies in the fight against Endelyn: for one, there's the local fey known as korreds; for two, there's the elven prince who has found himself lost in Yon. I didn't really think that we'd need all that much help with the actual fight against Endelyn — not based on the last two hags, at least — but we agreed to do what we can anyway. Gleam also offered some information about Endelyn herself. We learned that the big, ugly castle on the mountain is in fact Endelyn's big, ugly castle. We also learned that the easiest way to get a conversation with Endelyn is to act in the theater up there — I didn't think this was going to happen, but then Skoll roped me into putting on a performance for a bunch of perytons, so who knows. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Nia asked Gleam about Charm, the woman we saw at Bavlorna's. Gleam told us that she is likely in Endelyn's employ, so I guess we can look forward to maybe seeing her again. When we asked Gleam if Endelyn had any windershin-level weaknesses, she told us about a fear of Endelyn's: namely, the fear that she's going to die in an eclipse. This fear is actually what got Gleam separated from her sister, Glister; they're moon and sun-themed respectively. Endelyn didn't like that. Nia pointed out that I have sun and moon-themed weapons; funny to think about, but I'm hoping that it doesn't end up being a problem. It'd be annoying if Endelyn's paranoia made it harder to kill her. And we are killing her. I wasn't convinced that it'd be necessary when the day started — I didn't know anything about the hag — but I've since then changed my mind. Anyway, after we got all our tasks and information, we all set out, and promptly got swept up in a tornado. The fact that we're in fucking fairy-tale land is probably why we didn't die. It sucked all the same. I was deposited atop a large column of rock. Skoll, Nia, Gleam, Elkhorn, Amidor, and Pollenella were all with me — the only one we got separated from was Juniper. I managed to track her to a cave at the end of the day; I was worried that she'd just start eating whatever or whoever if I didn't. And it turned out the fear wasn't completely baseless, because she had killed two black bears by the time I found her. When I stood up, I noticed that our column of rock was one of several arranged in a circle around a lake. Across the lake, on another pillar, was an ornately dressed elf. We had found the great prince Alagarthas. Nia spoke to him psychically and asked what his deal was right as he lit the beacon atop the pillar. Alagarthas is from the Misty Forest, which is thankfully a place that I've heard of. He had thought that he had been in the feywild for about a year; then, he told us what year he left his home: 1366. We need to hurry up and save Zyblina and get the fuck out of here. If I get back to Valentia and more than a few weeks have passed, I might have to beat old man Madryck's ass. But everything is fine. Or it will be, at least. In the meantime, Alagarthas said that he was told by Endelyn that the lake could teleport him home if he got all of the beacons lit. The issue is that lighting the beacons is a several-hour long process; also, there's a group of perytons that had been attacking Alagarthas every time he made a move. Sure enough, we saw perytons swoop down and stomp out the fire right after Alagarthas lit the beacon. We didn't talk to Alagarthas for more than a few minutes on account of him being a dick. Skoll was interested in talking to the perytons, though, so that's what he did. It turns out that the perytons where once a group of pantomime performers called the Greyhawk Mummers. They were invited to perform for Moongrave; however, they eventually got "overconfident" with their success. Moongrave didn't like this, so she turned them into big birds. They agreed to help us, but only if we put on a performance for them. I knew that their help would be useful — we were down a mount, and they seemed adept at flying through the stormy weather. Even still, jumping through idiotic hoops to please the people in this place was starting to get old. But Skoll was willing to do it and very politely asked for my help. I agreed to participate. Unsurprisingly, Nia stayed out of it. It wasn't a terribly elaborate performance. Skoll got up on my shoulders with a cloak so that we could approximate a beast to be slain; Amidor played the knight saving the damsel Elkhorn, which I'll admit was a pretty funny decision on Skoll's part. The perytons enjoyed the performance and agreed to fly us around Yon. This meant that we actually ended up helping Alagarthas, in a roundabout way; there were no perytons around to assault him once we left. Good on us, I guess. We came across a few things that slowed us down on the way to the korreds. The first was a group of goats that were calling out in fluent Elvish. I was curious enough to land; the rest followed. The goats were pretty funny. They called themselves the "Goats Three" and informed us that they had recently gained sapience. I didn't ask how. Now that I'm thinking about it, I probably should've. Whatever the case, they had several "prophecies" to give us. They were no Madame Yva; still, they had their own puzzling statements. The first prophecy was about the eclipse thing, which we already knew, but it was still helpful to have Moongrave's fear confirmed by another source. The second goat had another prophecy: > Play to her passions. Stay on script. A cat, a horn, or a shadow ripped. Moongrave likes plays, and she likes to take shadows from people; we knew both of these things from Gleam, who had her own shadow taken by Endelyn. I guess it's good to know that she likes cats and horns also. I think that's what the prophecy meant, anyway? And then the last: > The fool's scepter is the key. No idea what that means. I gave the goats some mushrooms for their help. They said something about us avoiding a terrible fate by honoring the rule of reciprocity, the ground shook, and then they were off. This place is fucked up. The next thing we came across was a throne carved out of a boulder. We decided to check it out; the goats had been helpful enough, after all. The throne, however, was not helpful. It was covered in pulsing runes and Elvish script that read: > I am a traveler from a distant land > My name is Mazikoth, Keeper of Stars > Sit on my throne, disciple, and unravel Mazikoth is a name that Nia recognized. Since he wasn't like, evil, or anything, I sat down on the throne. It was a mistake; I fell unconscious and proceeded to have an extremely stressful dream, which I think was about being on a star hurtling through space. I heard a voice in my head — likely Mazikoth's, if I had to guess — and then I was awake. According to the others, I was out for an hour. Skoll and Nia had been trying to wake me up the entire time; Nia said that she was a few minutes away from sticking a psychic blade in my brain. Elkhorn had thought I was dead. I felt pretty bad about wasting everyone's time, especially after learning that time is of the essence from Alagarthas. That being over with, we got back on the perytons and continued on our way. However, it wasn't long before we saw something that had us stopping yet again: a distressed goblin girl flying a jeering, sentient kite. The girl's name is Feenia. When we asked her why she was upset, she said that she didn't want to fly the kite anymore. We learned that she was cursed by Endelyn for stealing theater props. The curse was that she had to continue flying the kite, lest she rapidly grow old. So, yeah. We're killing the hag. The curse itself came from the bows on the kite, which couldn't be taken off while the wind was blowing. Skoll could calm the weather, but said that it would take 40 minutes — this upset Feenia, and the weather worsened as she cried. From this, we deduced that Feenia's emotions were influencing the weather. Nia tried to calm her down by showing her the wizard finger puppet that she got at the Witchlight Carnival. It only made Feenia cry harder, though — she said it was scary. The wind picked up; I tried next. I wound up my music box for her to listen to, and — though it was kind of hard to hear over the wind — it managed to calm her down a little. Skoll stepped in next and gave her a little wind-up frog toy that he had taken from Nightshade's place. The wind died down. Nia took the bows off before disposing of the very rude kite. We asked Feenia where her parents were. She told us that they live in Motherhorn, which is where Endelyn lives also. She got separated from them once Endelyn put the curse on her. Feenia couldn't tell us much about her parents — only that they run the cranes at the theater. Not a lot of information to go on, but hopefully it's enough to help us find them. We took Feenia with us. There wasn't much else to do otherwise. And then we found Mudlump. Or rather, Mudlump found us. The thing that Amidor failed to mention about Mudlump the tyrant beekeeper is that he's a giant cyclops. We could have killed him, I'm sure, but we had a child with us whose emotions are tied to the weather. It wouldn't do us any good to scare her. No one could understand or communicate with Mudlump until Skoll transformed him into a cave bear. I don't know what the fuck Skoll said to him, but he ended up having to explain what love is. I'm glad that I didn't have to explain it to the guy, since I probably would've said something embarrassing or stupid. Skoll thankfully kept it vague enough; when Mudlump demanded that he be given love in return for letting Pollenella stay with Amidor, he wasn't expecting anything grand — just someone that he likes hanging out with or something that makes him happy. Amidor was upset with Skoll for "misrepresenting love," but no one gave a shit. Because he likes stressing me out, Skoll solidified the arrangement with a handshake — another fey deal. So now Skoll somehow has to bring a cyclops "love" by "next twilight," which is just wonderful. I love when stupid things happen. Once we were away from the cyclops and nearing the korreds, I called Gleam over — I needed to make sure that the korreds weren't dangerous before we brought a kid to the meeting. Gleam thought that things would be fine, so we continued on. We arrived at a circle of eight stone megaliths, at the center of which was a small game board. None of us could place exactly what game they were playing. Despite this, it seemed like there was only one move left to make — so I made the move, and then two korreds appeared. The first — their queen, Argantle — gave me a fancy gemstone for winning the game. I gave it to Skoll when I caught him eyeing it. He gave me a rock in return, because of course he did. Queen Argantle was receptive to an alliance; however, she wanted our help with something first. The korreds have been having trouble with another group of fey called the brigganocks. They're working with the hag, apparently, building "contraptions" and "mechanisms" for her. The brigganock mine would lead us to Motherhorn, and the korreds would come with us — they're a durable sort, apparently, and are willing to "go in and commit violence." But first we would need to clear the brigganocks out of the mine, one way or another. Like I said, we don't think we need all that much help with combat. But since the brigganock mine is what would lead us to Motherhorn, we were going to be heading in that direction anyway. I figured that we could help Queen Argantle out since we'd be in the area. That said, the brigganocks will have to wait until after we rest. I hate the idea of sitting around when time is fucked up here, but it's been a long day, and we need time to recuperate. Queen Argantle set us up in a cave for the night. She even summoned a rock elemental to watch over us. Between that and Juniper, any wild animals should be leaving us alone. Despite my fucked up nap on the throne earlier, I'm dead tired. And yet I doubt that sleep will come easy — not if the last few "nights" have been any indication, at least. I would very much like to kill a hag tomorrow. Hopefully freeing Zybilna will be a straightforward endeavor after that. Then, I can get back to Ezmerelda; as embarrassing as it is, I'm pretty sure there's a reason that sleep has been giving me trouble. I worry about her. I know she can handle herself, but still. I also know how stressed she can get. But there's no use writing myself in circles about it. It's time to rest. --- ## 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]]):** 01/01/1493