4C. Isulli's Big Day Out

General Isulli would like the party to show him around the surrounding area. He's been spending all his time in cities and towns and he wants to explore nature in the surface world.

Structure

Exposition

FIRST

Ask the party what happens about the dragon eggs when they get back to town. Do they tell Brilies, for instance? Do they tell Brynn?

Then

 When the party goes to sleep, the only one who gets another dream is Marco:
You fall asleep and this time you are sitting in your favorite place in the desert territory you used to watch over (ask Aaron to describe this). Next to him is Mirror-Elyisa again. The sun is shining, but there's just enough breeze that it's comfortable and they're sitting on a blanket. Mirror-Elysia tells Marco, "Hi Marco. I wasn't going to bother you again this soon, but I realized that I forgot to change the dream when I left last time and I feel real bad about that. That's my bad. Sooooo, you get a free night of dreaming whatever you want, just say the word."
If Marco asks her name, she'll say to call her the Benefactor. He can tell his other friends they can use that name, too, since Zinyra already knows her by that. If he asks a question she doesn't want to answer, she'll just say she doesn't want to tell him that and if he's too insistent about it, she'll just leave him in the nice dream in his favorite place.
If he asks why she feels bad about leaving him in that dream, she'll say that she forgot how delicate people are and she didn't mean to torture him. She's certain he doesn't deserve that even if she doesn't agree with his thinking on certain topics. It hasn't been very long since she's had people to interact with like this so she's still getting used to it. 
She'll say, though, that she can't do this for him all the time. If he wants a more permanent solution, he'll have to ask for it and she'll have to give him something to take into the waking world. 

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Brillies will deliberately go to talk to the party before bringing Isulli in to talk to them. She is going to emphasize that they need to be very very careful and respectful. From what she understands, Isulli's wife (?) is a well-respected general in the drow army and one of the queen's closest advisors. Isulli himself was also personally selected for this role by the queen. If he is disrespected or harmed in any way, the wrath of the drow will come down on Rockport and there is no way we could survive. Literally, hundreds of lives are at stake here; let me know if you can't do it.
In addition, we are still working on getting some vital things from the drow, including help getting refugee housing built. Please don't mess this up.
She'll also emphasize that Isulli is a skilled fighter, so if some of the party members want to maybe work on something else (staring significantly at Ulo), that would probably be fine. Isulli just needs a guide to make sure he doesn't get lost and answer his questions; he doesn't really need protection.
Once they've got that sorted, Isulli will greet them cheerfully and say he's in their care. Isulli doesn't have anything in mind that he wants to see in particular, he just thought it would be nice to see some of the surface outside of cities and towns. He's particularly intrigued with the forest; he's only seen gardens so far and he can't believe there are places where so much green has grown all by itself.

Conflict

Depending on where the party goes, they may encounter some strange things. MAYBE make a map for the forest and have the players decide what the route should be. These may include:



If the party wants to collect some items they need for house upgrades, they can roll for that while they walk.

Rising Action

Isulli will ask a lot of questions about what he sees and want to stop to touch, sniff, and possibly taste various things that catch his attention. Some questions he might ask:

1. What makes everything so green?
2. Why is the grass here rougher than the grass in the Neverwinter gardens?
3. What is that creature with the antlers called again? Do you think we'll see one of those?
4. Can squirrels be tamed? Does anyone have a pet squirrel?
5. Why are squirrel tails so bushy?
6. How do you keep the mosquitoes from biting you? How do you keep bees from stinging you?
7. Are any of these plants edible?
8. If we saw them at night, would they glow?
9. What types of trees do you have here? Which ones are good for building?
10. I heard forests can randomly catch on fire even if you don't do anything, is that true?

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Asking Isulli Questions

Isulli will have a lot of patience and also be willing to answer questions about drow society. However, there are a few things that will cross the line into offense, including direct personal insults towards the Queen or Licirri. Physical attacks or magical attacks will cause the tour to come to an immediate end and there will be repercussions down the line.
If they get to talking about drow society, Isulli will admit that drow society has a lot of problems, but, as his Matron always says, slow progress is still progress. And a lot of their problems originated with the fact that they were driven underground with very limited space and resources. It's very unfortunate that they had to come to the surface now when resources suddenly become scarce on the surface, too. However, it's still better up here.
Soem of the issues he'll identify include the fact that men are considered less capable, especially in military leadership roles, when compared to women. Men can't lead households and a lot of times are considered valuable for their looks rather than their minds. The Queen has worked hard to fix that, including appointing him as a general, but there's a way to go yet.
Another issues is the strict control the Lloth temple has on getting pregnant and giving birth. This has given them an incredible amount of power, to the point that there is a lot of corruption in the temple. Isulli thinks the corruption is the problem and that by taking bribes the temple has strayed from the value of Lloth. However, he'll acknowledge that his Matron, Licirri has more fundamental problems with the temple and she's the smartest person he knows.
However, if the trip goes relatively well, Isulli will promise to show them around Neverwinter under the drow in exchange for their help and he'll give them one of the training manuals that he gave Brillies (they will get to add the ability to increase their hit points in the Classroom).

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The Dragon Eggs

The party might want to talk to Isulli about the plan to steal green dragon eggs if they've already done 4A. Nissalisse's Pitch. Isulli became aware of the plan when Brilies asked him about it and it is certainly not a decision he would have made. However, he has actually met dragons at this point whereas most drow have not. Currently, drow view dragons as akin to destructive animals and it's going to take a while and a lot more experiences before they will change their minds. It's one thing to hear people say that chromatic dragons can be reasoned with and aren't all bad; it's another thing entirely to actually get to know dragons themselves. 
Isulli is only one person doing his best and there are a lot of conflicting forces acting on drow decision makers right now. There are so many things that the drow just don't know and they have yet to figure out who is actually giving them good, accurate advice. Drow are not immune from prejudice and, really, they currently distrust everyone on the surface.
Isulli will also point out that the drow, him included, barely know what a tree is, but now are expected to figure out how to defend an entire city from a dragon threat. This was not the plan; they were supposed to take over a largely self-sufficient city and have time to figure things out and expand outwards as needed. Surely the party can empathize at least a bit with the drow's feelings.
If the party points out that the dragons are their own sentient beings and this is the same as slavery, Isulli will agree and say that he would apologize on behalf of his race, but he doesn't think that would be particularly meaningful.

Resolution

• You chose to go on the path to see Robold the Kobold at his mushroom farm.
• Talking with Isulli, you learned that:
• Isulli categorically condemns stealing the dragon eggs, however, he'd like to emphasize that the people making that decision have never actually interacted with a dragon and only heard about them from ancient documents written by people with their own agendas
• He's been trying to set up meetings with the dragons in Phandalin, but that has understandably become a lot harder since recent events. 
• The other problem is that the drow have been completely isolated underground for millenia and have now isolated themselves in Neverwinter. Isulli thinks they need to open themselves up and interact with more people, but there are forces in drow society, specifically the Lloth Temple, who are resistant to change.
• On your walk, you came upon the corpses of hundreds of dead insects, all in various states of transformation. Marco remembered Vyzzyg was looking into Planar Mutations and found that it can happen in small vortex-like areas. If it happens to a creature too fast, it can kill the creature.
• You get to Robold's farm and he tells you that last night he thought he saw some of his mushrooms that were about to die get up and run out of his mushroom hut. He's sure it was a hallucination, but Marco and Zinyra found evidence that it actually happened. Someone made a small depression under the windowsill and probably reached in to unlock the window. Then, you see some pinprick-like specks of dirt on the windowsill that look like footprints. When you looked outside, you find that there are two large, round footprints that stop several feet away from the hut. You are unable to follow them further into the forest.
• Finally, towards the end of your walk, you spot a porcelain tree stump with tea in it and bluebird sitting on the edge. You don't know how you know, but you know that the tea belongs to the bird. You figure out that the bluebird is the same person whose been visiting you in your dreams. Latrans asks the bird for permission to drink the tea and she gives it. Latrans drinks some and saves some more for later. 
• After this, you all go out for pie at Ride or Pie.

Parent Plot

4. Enemies Everywhere