SESSION 9

General Summary

Feywild

As the party is about to square off with Aurelia and her copies, they try to gather insight on her previous words to see if she was misdirecting them. After careful considering they come to the conclusion that this is a simple challenge of their combat prowess. As Aurelia's feet touch the lake, she turns the surface solid allowing for everyone to walk on it and the battle commences. Aurelia leads off with a devastating tidal wave attack and the party understands that she is serious about the challenge. The parties frontline decide to surround the red Aurelia and begin bombarding her with attacks that she seems to shrug off. Meanwhile Reed and Green Aurelia have a shoot off for a bit while white Aurelia was supporting with magic. Aurelia saw through Reed's method of attack and rushes her red copy toward him all the while ignoring the attacks from the party's frontline. When she makes it too him, she strikes him with a strong slash of her weapon and seeing as he used his quick wit to escape, she did not follow through with her barrage. Red Aurelia then focuses on Zenaster who was also hanging in the back, but before she could get to him Zen manages to cast a spell which made the copy run from him giving him much needed breathing room. During the combat they notice that one of the Aurelia's forms a glowing halo over their heads. At first they think nothing of it and then a second one does the same. The party comes up with a plan to attack the sole one without the halo to try and get one to form. Carvey attempts to rush in but is unfortunately caught in one of white Aurelia's spells. Luckily Rowan seizes this opportunity to let out a powerful bardic tale of a dragon. Eventually due to the entire parties efforts the last Aurelia forms a halo and she raises her hands admitting her defeat.
Aurelia congratulates them on completing her challenge and admits that she did not expect them to beat it. As a reward, she allows them to ask her one question that she will answer to the best of her abilities. They ask how to get home and she says that she will create a portal for them to use to return to Mira. Before they leave she asks them for a personal favor. She explains that an intruder is causing trouble within the Feywild but she cannot accurately locate them due to them being cloaked by another gods blessing. She explains that the intruder is most likely a being belonging to a race known as "unknowns" she gives a brief description of them to the party before continuing. She simply wants the intruder taken care of whether they capture or kill them, she does not care as long as they are dealt with. With that she bids the party safe travels through the forests. The party is brought back into their bodies and notice that they've been granted a ring that acts as a symbol that they have received the forests blessing. With blessings in tow they set out of the prayer space in search of Syl to see if he's more willing to help them now.
They are once again greeted by Pippin who was patiently waiting for them outside of the prayer space. He sees that they were given the forests places and was surprised they actually managed to achieve this. They then locate Syl whom they also show they have the forests blessing and he is relieved and happy that they have received the blessing. He is then much more willing to part with some of the forests rare flowers due to seeing they mean the forest no harm. He then takes the party to a hidden grove within the forest filled with beautiful white lilies that faintly glow. He explained that these are Moondew Lilies and are very delicate flowers which is why they are hidden so deep within the Dryad's nest. With Syl's approval, Reed begins picking a few of the lilies as well as harvesting their seeds. He also begins filling his backpack with dirt as these lilies require special dirt to grow in. He also requests if Carvey can fill his backpack with soil too and he agrees. Once they gather all they need, they thank Syl and he wishes them safe travels. The group then decides it's time to move on to Sporeville to see if the blessing will make the guards allow them entry into the village.
Upon arrival at Sporeville again the guards once again go on edge as they draw closer. The party shows them that they received the forest's blessing and they reluctantly allow them to enter the village. They do however, threaten that no one will be willing to talk to them and suggest they do their business and leave asap. They are glared at by the villagers as they pass by and it's very apparent that outsiders are not welcome in here. They head to the biggest house and assume that it is the elders house. They ended up knocking on the door and an elderly eladrin elf answers the door. It turns out their guess was correct, he asks them to state their business they have here. The party brings up that they're here on Daisy's behalf and the elder's eyes light up. He hurriedly invites them into his house and closes the door. Before he begins he pours an herbal blend of tea which used leaves from the feywild. The taste was gentle, yet strong and seemed to relax those who drank it. Once settled in, he asks the party how they came to know Daisy. They explain that Daisy is their friend and that she asked them to check up on the village, they also state that that's how they were able to enter the feywild. He finally reveals that his name is Dandelion Feyborne and that he's Daisy's father. He explains that in the past there was a one way method to leave or enter the feywild and he gave Daisy's mother, Steph, one such flower before she was banished from the village. He then explains his family's history briefly and why Daisy is no longer here. He says that he's grateful that they would come here on her request and he's incredibly happy that Daisy is doing very well. After a heartfelt talk, the party then asks Dandelion if they have had any intruders come through here. He states that he is unsure how there were reports of villagers being attacked by an unknown beast and the only thing they had to go off of was deep claw marks. He suspects that it could be a dire blink dog, however it is only speculation. He then asks if the party is willing to investigate the beast even though the villagers seem to harbor no good will towards them. He explains that they've had trouble with outsiders in the past and that they are not to blame. The party agrees to check it out as the beast is on the way to where Aurelia mentions feeling the intruders approximate location. He thanks them and says that he will of course reward them and pulls out a sack full of precious gems. With the mention of a reward the party is hyped up and begins to head towards the prayer tree after being given the spore pass to show the guards to leave through the back of the village.
They arrive at the prayer tree and begin searching for signs of the beast that Dandelion had told them about. They search for a bit but don't seem to find anything out of the ordinary. Shortly after a woman who matches the description Aurelia gave them appears from behind a tree. She seemed to be looking for something and ignored the party at first. Reed points out that she matches Aurelia's description then tries to get her attention by saying hello. She stops what she's doing and says something back in a language that they don't understand. It's such a foreign language and she also doesn't appear to be familiar with any of the other languages the party speaks. She eventually finds her way to Ren and manages to blurt out the word "looking" in common, solidifying the fact that she's also looking for something. She then thinks for a bit and then makes a fist and enchants it with purple flames, which she points at and again says "looking". Ren puts together that she's looking for something that has the purple flames but doesn't know what to do with that information. Suddenly the prayer tree begins moving and turns out to be a treant. Both Croix and Ren point at the tree and then they begin to fight the treant together. The fight was brutal and the treant hit hard, even summoning two more treants to help it attack. Ren found out that fire was its weakness, and began attacking it full force. The treant immediately discerned Ren as a threat and went to take him down as soon as it could. After more grueling attacks from the treants the party eventually manages to take down the main treant. Upon doing so, the smaller treants eyes began to glow purple and their tops began to erupt with the same purple flames that the aurochs previously had. It also looked like the same flames that Croix used. Upon seeing this happen to the treants Croix becomes more visibly upset and begins attacking them more furiously. At one point things looked dire as half the party was downed. Upon seeing his new friends grievously wounded, Pippin rushes in and attempts to attack the treant to get its attention. Before the treant has time to react he is taken down by Rowan and blended up as if thrown into a wood chipper by Rowan's cloud of daggers. Pippin immediately goes to Reed and Carvey to pick them back up after the battle.
After the fight, the party realizes that the deep claw marks were most likely caused by the treants attacks and found out that this is what was attacking the villagers. Croix sits next to a tree to catch her breath and Ren goes up to her and shows her the auroch antler that Carvey had taken. She seems to analyze it for a bit and nods to the party as if confirming, it has remnants of what she's looking for. The party then decides what they should do with her, they don't want to harm her since she isn't attacking them and actually helped them throughout the fight. Croix then gets up, waves and begins walking away. The party acts fast and runs in front of her attempting to gesture to her to follow them. Upon careful thought, Croix decides to hesitantly follow the party seeing as how they helped her during the fight. The party continues back to Sporeville and goes to meet back with Dandelion to report what had happened. He says that even though they lost the prayer tree, it's more important that the attacks will stop. He then asks them who their new friend is, gesturing towards Croix. The party attempts to lie about her origins but does it so poorly that they end up saying it's better off trying not to pry about her. He dismisses her as she is well behaved and then hands out the rewards that he promised earlier. He hands them a Handy Haver Sack filled with feywild gems that will fetch a pretty penny back on Mira. The party then asks if they could take a short rest in Dandelions house before they set off. He offers them use of his spare room to rest up in before heading out. Reed rummages through the other pockets of the handy haver sack and notices some more items within. He decides to feign ignorance of them and tell the party that they should just act like they don't know about them. Curiosity does get the better of them and they want to attempt to identify them to see if they're magical in any way. Pippin notices the key and says it looks familiar to him and he can probably identity it. They let Pippin have the key and he tells them that its a Mystery Key that has the potential to open up any lock at an extremely low chance. With this out of the way the party starts to head out, but not before taking the letter Dandelion had wrote for Daisy.
The party makes their way back to the prayer space with Croix in tow. They gesture for her to sit with them and they begin to pray to speak to Aurelia. When they come to, they are within Aurelia's realm however Croix is not with them. Aurelia begins to thank them for "capturing" the unknown. The party goes on to tell Aurelia that she doesn't appear to be dangerous and she responds that she doesn't sense the intruders presence back in Sporeville anymore either. She simply asks that they take her out of the Feywild as she shouldn't be here. She also in passing states some confusing things such as "his influence spreading" and when questioned she refused to answer saying that she was sorry but she couldn't tell them more. Suddenly Adenine attempts to take control of Ren's body. Although he attempted to fight her influence he was ultimately over powered by her and his body got taken over. Adenine points Ren's scimitar at Adenine and yells "What happened one thousand years ago?! I WILL have answers!". Upon hearing Adenine's voice, Aurelia appears astonished at first and then her expression changes to that of anger she then says "Now is not the time for this Adenine. If you act out again, I will be forced to take appropriate measures." She then begins to cast a spell on Ren to free him of Adenine's control. She speaks once more to Ren saying "I apologize for Adenine's sudden behavior. Although her anger may be justified, there is a time and place for it and this is not it. She should be ashamed of herself for taking over the body of one who trusts her so much. I believe you may need to have a chat with her regarding what had happened here sometime soon." The rest of the party is now severely confused by what just happened and asked what was going on. Ren says that he promises to explain at a later date, but the specifics don't matter right now. Aurelia then sighs at what Adenine had done and tries to change her tune by stating that it is time for the party to receive their rewards from her. Four items float up from the water and go into the hands of Caeda, Carvey, Reed, and Zenaster. She then asks Ren and Rowan to dip their scimitar and necklace into the lack respectively. Upon doing so, the items seemed to obtain a bit of power from the lake. She then tells the party that she will make a portal going back to their world where they had first entered from. The party thanks her and heads out however Reed doesn't go back. Aurelia tells him that he should wear the bracelet she gave him if he wants to remember his time in the Feywild. He immediately does so and is then woke up back in his body. 

Askr

They then begin to head to the portal with Pippin and Croix following with them. Along the way, Caeda attempts to teach Croix some basic words. Although she isn't the best teacher, she manages to teach her the words "Hi" and "Bye". Just like Aurelia said, there is a portal waiting for them when they make it to their point of entry. The party goes through one by one and Pippin excitedly followed. Croix was hesitant at first however Ren managed to persuade her in the end. After going through the portal they wake up back in Montdon Forest. Since Pippin and Croix have nowhere to go, Ren invites them to stay at the dorm. Pippin immediately agrees to this, and Croix as always has a slightly confused look on her face. Upon returning to Askr, they start to make room adjustments in the dorm. They ultimately agreed to move an extra bed into the girls room so that all the girls were together in one room. Due to the noise they were making Jessica wakes up and upon seeing them all starts to bawl her eyes out. She runs up to Reed hugging him saying she was so happy that he and the rest of the party were okay. She manages to get out the fact that everyone assumed the worst since an entire month has passed since they left. She eventually passes out due to shock. Reed musters his strength and manages to get her back onto her bed and tucked in. He then suggested that they try to see if there's anyone at the AA so they can report that they're still alive. Zenaster and Ren end up joing Reed while the rest of the party ends up sleeping. They make it to a dimly lit AA and notice that nobody is downstairs however a light appears to be on upstairs. Reed calls out and a tired sounding Bryn calls down to them saying she'll be just a minute. Bryn walks downstairs and is surprised to see them all. She states that she is glad that they all were okay and that many people were worried about them. The group asks if she could work with them to hold a surprise that they're all alive. She agrees that will attempt to gather everyone up at the AA around 10am for them. She then offers if she can get the party water or anything and they all agree that a nice shot would be great. She brings out the most expensive shots and chats very briefly. Reed mentions the magic items they got and asks if she can identify them. She states that she's actually very good at identifying magic items and that they're free to bring her the items for her to identify tomorrow. After the small talk the party thanks her and they all go back to the dorm to sleep for the night.

Report Date

28 Feb 2021