Episode 2 "The Ruined Fey"

Session #16: 10/5/2019

23 Torul 2350 of the 5th Age

Recap

 * The session began with the party catching their collective breath in the aftermath of their battle with the Oni.
 * Velana, who had watched the battle, expressed admiration for the skill of the Good Samaritans and asked her brother if this was what his life was like every single day.
 * Vendrin's father, Lord Arthur Daltumel, exited the castle and stumbled upon the mad scene with confusion. After taking a moment to compose himself and reign in his confusion and dismay, he was able to answer the party's questions.
 * Arthur told them that the halfling that the Oni had been impersonating, Rol Greatheel, had been the captain of the guard for the entirety of the time that the Daltumels had been on Caldor and he desired to know whether or not there had ever really been a Rol Greatheel or if he had been an Oni the entire time.
 * The party retreated into the great hall of Veilhold Castle to recover from the Cone of Cold the Oni had cast on them and discussed what their next move would be. Vendrin told his father of the surprisingly large number of people in Veilhold that seemed to have made deals with Rotten Polly and expressed his concern for his family. He asked that his father confine himself and the family to the castle, with only their most trusted servants.
 * Arthur agreed to do so, but only after attending the festivities that had been so quickly thrown together for that evening. Vendrin relented on the condition that Thokk accompany him and Beatrice as a bodyguard throughout the event.
 * While Vendrin, Kandra, and Thokk recovered from the battle at Veilhold castle, Zeevah and Liosynth went to investigate Rol Greatheel's house and see if there was anything to be learned.
 * Inside Rol's house, Lio and Zevah found the remains of the two four-year-old boys who had been taken, but despite thorough searching, they found no trace of the two infant girls.
 * The party served as a combination celebration of the slain Oni and chance for the Daltumel's to connect with their people.
 * At the party, Vendrin noted that more than half of the people who attended had made some sort of deal with the hag Rotten Polly.
 * Vendrin stopped by Rol Greatheel's house and found no trace of magic, save for medals from the Romalian military for Valor. Vendrin took the medals in the hope that a memorial could be made for the real Rol.
 * After the party, most of the Good Samaritans retired to their rooms at Veilhold Castle, but Vendrin and Kandra decided to dig up some information about the town's relationship to Rotten Polly.
 * Vendrin and Kandra took Zeevahs Loose Stone to the local tavern, the Burned Thistle, and began asking around about Polly.
 * They spoke at length with a man named Speck who had a peculiar accent. They slipped Speck the Loose Stone and he told them that a great deal of the people in the town that dealt with Rotten Polly did so for vain and petty reasons. He said that part of the reason for this is the lack of hope on Caldor and he expressed some hope that Vendrin's parents might be able to turn the island around.
 * Speck told Kandra and Vendrin that he had been born a slave in the empire of Sarust and had escaped in the last rebellion. He also mentioned that one of the parents of the missing children went to Rotten Polly to ask for aid and had not returned.
 * Lastly, Speck returned the Loose Stone and teased Vendrin and Kandra for attempting to charm him, saying it was not necessary, but that if they should try to use the Loose Stone again, they should use a cold drink.
 * Kandra and Vendrin then returned to the castle and went to bed.
 * In the morning, during breakfast, Liosynth outright asked the butler, Bagus Croll, if he was evil.
 * He did not answer.
 * The group then went to confront Rotten Polly at her home across the island.
 * What ensued was a mad battle with all manner of strange beasts. Vendrin displayed his mastery over a new conjuration spell that allowed him to summon several mephits to aid in the battle.
 * During the fighting, Thokk saw Rotten Polly leap over the cliff behind her house shouting "Glingigarian Go Go Gogh" and then disappearing into thin air.
 * Thokk found a crab in Polly's pantry and made friends with it.
 * Zeevah found the children on the second floor of Rotten Polly's house and kept an eye on them after the fighting, with the help of Vendrin's Mephits.
 * After the battle, the party was able to interrogate some of Rotten Polly's commoner slaves. They learned that each of them had been pressed into service as payment for a deal that Rotten Polly barely honored, twisting their wishes back on themselves. They also learned that the previous lord of the island used to be one of Polly's servants, but that they hadn't seen him in a while.
 * The slaves then told the party that they didn't want to bring the babies back to town. They told the party that Polly had eaten the children and then birthed duplicates. Zeevah recalled that hags reproduce by eating human children and birthing children that seem normal until their thirteenth birthday when they change into hags.
 * Vendrin made the awful decision to incinerate the children with a fireball and swear the commoners to secrecy, saying that the real children were already dead.
 * The party then made to follow Rotten Polly through her portal over the cliffside, leaving Hermes and Tennebris to guard Polly's home in case she returns.
 * The party leapt through the portal and suddenly found themselves on another plane, one with a strange magenta and blue sky that had a large tear running through it. As they looked in the sky, they realized that one half of the sky was twilight and the other was daytime. In the distance, they could see a ruined city of magnificent spires.
 * The party was able to deduce that they had arrived in the Feywild, despite the fact that it was nearly destroyed thousands of years ago and that it's nearly impossible to sustain a portal to and from the Prime to the Fey because of the Planes instability.
 * The party made their way to the ruined city and found Mithril EVERYWHERE, laying in pieces on the ground and inlaid into the streets.
 * Zeevah and Lio were able to tell that Polly was quickly rushing toward the center of the city, where the largest tower stood.
 * On their way to that tallest spire, the party was ambushed by a gang of Redcaps that took a huge toll after attempting to beguile them with a head of lettuce.
 * The party defeated the Redcaps and retreated into one of the abandoned dwellings to recover.
 * After their rest, the party made their way to the base of the spire and saw an Eladrin woman being attacked by two werewolves.
 * The party immediately jumped into action to defend the woman. Thokk made it to them first and began swinging away, but was stabbed by the woman who revealed herself to be a doppelganger.
 * The party was able to defeat the monsters despite the fact that some of them lack magical or silvered weapons, Thokk nursed a bite wound, and the party prepared to enter the spire and confront Rotten Polly.