S1 E60: A Game of Chess between Queens
General Summary
In which a great many things begin to connect, and future choices become clear.
- The gang has some tea and philosophical conversation with a strange hat maker and a poorly-disguised rabbit regarding whether the crumpets are the best, or nearly the best, and send the party to talk with Chet, the cat of the wood, with a single stern warning - whatever you do, don't fall off the edge of the Feywild. Chet in turn sends them to the eggman, whose tale they have to sit through and then prove their worthiness.
- This turns out to be a battle against an incredibly ugly dragonlike creature called a Jabberwock, and though it's no pushover it poses no real threat. As it dies, it dissolves into a beautiful indigo-blue Vorpal Sword. Eggman tumbles off the wall but is caught before he breaks; a bit nonplussed, he explains he has to break because the tickets to get in to the chess match are in his hollow innards. Bipedal horses rush in to repair him but are unable to do so. He assures them that he will nevertheless be just fine.
- They also encounter a sentient Carrion Crawler who directs them to take a bit of mushroom from one side to grow larger, and from another side to grow smaller, necessary to get into the palace, which appears to be a door larger than a mountain. But when they get there, it's more like 15 feet, and from experimenting with their mushroom pieces they manage to figure out how to get in, and once inside, shrink down.
- Inside is a sort of motte-and-bailey construction with a wild faewild fair going on all around a checkerboard tower inside, smelling faintly of cotton candy and birthday cake. Inside is another circular space, arranged like a boxing arena with raked seating in darkness surrounding a brightly-lit raised stage where two women intently play chess with oversized - and highly familiar - pieces made of resin or ceramics. They recognize Camazotl, the tiger gargoyles from Rael's Garden, Minchin, Elandir, and a dragon that, though the same rusty red color as the other pieces on that side, looks a lot like an amethyst dragon, but there are dozens more in play and twice as many stacked on the perimeter of the board - too many pieces for any normal game of Chess, surely. The inner room is crowded with the press of strange fey creatures of all shapes and sizes surrounding the two players - one, a young and alluring woman all in elaborate gowns and flowing skirts all of white, with fiery red hair and icy blue eyes; the other older, thinner, unlovely and unkempt, heavily tattooed and clothed in red-black clothes, her black hair long and unstyled but threaded through with mouse skulls and crow feathers. They realize that these are not just the red queen and white queen of some fey-touched children's fable, but are in fact, The Raven Queen of the Shadowfell and Titania, the Summer Queen of the Feywild.
- Mae received the tear from a third sister, the Lady of Pain, and all three of them together make a triad, the three sisters. The gang has a moment of sudden realization that the three sisters of the wood are in fact, these same three sisters. And on the heels of that, that the struggles of Tergaith against the Far Realm rise to the level of such beings as these; that they are known to the three sisters and indeed, favored by at least two of them (as the tear came from the Lady of Pain, and Titania is kind and welcoming, even gracious; She explains that the Raven Queen favors them too, in her fashion, though hers is a melancholy existence not given to laughter or joyful outbursts.
- Titania readily agrees to help them, even setting aside her turn for the moment in the game which she explains is over the liability for the damages Borem has caused in each of their respective realms, and certainly not them actually controlling him, the party, or anything else outside their respective realms; but they do play favorites, and influence events to their benefit when it aligns with their interests. To that end, Titania explains that Borem is, at the moment, making a mess of a demiplane of delight outside of Wonderland called Prismeer, the land of the Archfey named Iggwilv - a trickster and performer, but that isn't important at the moment as her lands of Yon are now contaminated with the Lake of Boiling Mud and his Far Realms influences and destructive cult following. First, there will be a feast, a great feast to honor the Scale Squad's many accomplishments so far, and after that, when they are ready, Titania will open up a back way into Prismeer, and they can use the tear to save not just their own world, but perhaps the material plane itself, and all the dimensions of all the planes, from the threat posed by the incursion of the far realms into the world.
Rewards Granted
- Vorpal Sword
- Level 15
Character(s) interacted with
- The Rude (Rune?) Hatter
- The Where-Rabbit
- The Sleepy Teamouse
- Chet, the Tabaxi of the Wood
- Waxplug, the awakened Carrion Crawler
- Eggman
- Titania, the Summer Queen
Comments