Day 12: Flamerule 17, the New Moon

Lonelywood

In the morning you push your newly refurbished rowboat to the open water. It glides smoothly and with little effort thanks to the skids Naupegus added. After you’ve jumped in, Elva starts to row and both of you notice how the boat speeds along at twice the speed of what you’d expect. After a short time, Elva hears a voice, the same she heard in her dream – it is the voice of the Quagswag:

“Where would you like to go?”

Elva answers, “Lonelywood.”

The transportation is instantaneous.

Lonelywood

Map

You arrive in a mist of ice fog. As it clears you see docks fifty yards ahead of you, lining the shore of what must be Lonelywood. Unlike Bremen, it is mostly free of ice. The docks are abuzz with fishermen loading and offloading their boats. The town is built on the edge of a thick forest and the ice fog that streams from it and over the lake gives the village an eerie appearance.

Most of the fishermen here pay you no attention as they go about their business, but one, who seems to be the harbormaster, is intent on watching you dock. As you approach, he directs you.

“Welcome to Lonelywood. Haven’t met you before. Thom Allaway. How’s the weather in Termalaine? Let me guess: Cold."

You don’t correct his mistaken assumption.

“Tie up over here, keep out of the way of the fishing boats and no one will bother yours.”

After you dismebark, he hands you a wooden token.

“This is for your moorage fee. A copper a day for a rowboat. You can pay Miss Xotal at the Lucky Liar, to the north. That token lets her know how much. Can’t miss the Liar. It’s the only place people will be drinking this time of the day, in public anyways.

Walking along the shore, you notice the town’s oldest buildings and docks bear carvings of dragons, lions, and goats. Many are built in with high-peaked gables which tower over the roofs. You reach the Lucky Liar in short order. Just beyond that, are the burned remains of a temple.

The Lucky Liar

The tavern’s bar is erected in the center of the common room, with stools and tables surrounding it. The tavern’s sturdy wooden beams are engraved with dragons and lions, and bare-chested warriors fighting them, giving the art a gladiatorial touch. A slight woman notable for her raven-black hair, flies through her work deftly, dishing out ale to one customer as she carries on a conversation with another. She introduces herself as Danae.

You pay a copper for moorage and inquire about Finna Bristlehead.

“I think she I saw her a few days ago. She had some business with the speaker.”

Danae offers directions to the speakers house and you set off back along the shore.

Danae Xotal

Nimsy Huddle,
Town Speaker

The Huddle Residence

You are greeted at the door by a halfling child who introduces himself as Scoop. As he fetches his mother, you watch three other halfling children scamper from room to room and climb a ladder up to the loft, chasing one another with wooden swords, while a fire crackles in the hearth in a cluttered kitchen.

The house was clearly built for humans, but most of the furniture is sized for halflings, with a few big chairs for visitors of taller stock. Nimsy Huddle calls you in to meet her in the kitchen, she’s extracting fresh cookies and offers you some.

You ask about Bristlehead and Nimsy informs you she was here but set off to Easthaven to see about her accounts, as she made an offer on the old town inn, “The Ramshackle. I expect her back any day.”

Noticing your weapons, she asks if you’re looking for work.

"Our loggers are being terrorized by a white moose, and the beast has eluded the hunters we’ve sent to kill it. We depend on the forest for our survival. I wouldn’t be a very good town speaker if I let a dumb moose get the better of us. Some eyes from the outside on this problem might be helpful. ”

Elva inquires if it has killed anyone, and Nimsy says it has killed one logger and put several more in the infirmary. She’s willing to pay you 100 gold collected from the town for a bounty on the moose’s head. Numchucku successfully negotiates to 125.

“Of course, if the other hunters find it first, you won’t get anything. You could also sell the carcass to a local butcher for another ten gold or so, provided it’s in the proper condition.”

Inquiring about gear, she directs you to Pavel’s.

Pavel's Used Goods

This seems to be the closest thing that Lonelywood has to a general store. You find a wide array of goods here, from the mundane to the extraordinary, and generally at good prices – better even than what you found in Bryn Shander. You buy some provisions: Some javelins to kill the moose from a safe distance and a sled to bring back the carcass. Inquiring about magical weapons, the weasly-looking Pavel Reese tells you that he seldom has items of that variety for long, but directs you to the Rangers Lodge for magical bows if you’re so inclined. He buys the golden spear tips from you for what, you can only guess, is a fair price of 250 gold.

Ranger's Lodge

This is a simple one-room cabin on the northwest outskirts of town. Inside, there are several bows of seemingly good quality, along with a bevy of finely fletched arrows for sale. Your eyes are drawn to two bows that hang from the wall, beneath an arras of a white unicorn on a green field. Between you and these finest bows: A glowering half-elf female who stands at a workbench, checking the flex of another bow she has in the works.

"Those two are enchanted, the small one more so than the long. Six hundred each"

She begrudgingly introduces herself as Elestren. You notice her left wrist is bandaged, a fact she tries to conceal when she notices your glance.

Elestren Hawke

The Fey Eladrin Tomb

With the goods here out of your price range, you thank the ranger and set off towards the woods. A few minutes out, Elva senses you are being followed. Stepping out from behind a tree, is Elestren.

“You’ll never find it,” she says. “Not without me. It rarely walks on this plane, only to attack. I’ll help you find it and kill it, and I’m not after whatever Huddle offered you as a reward. But there is something I need and I’ll need your help in getting it. Deal?”

Following Elestren, you come to a large, circular indentation in a snowy hillside. Under the snow, large, evenly-spaced rocks, outline the indentation. A ten-foot-high berm hugging the circle’s eastern edge has evergreens growing around and atop it.

“This is the place, the portal. It will take me some time to enter the trance and transport us to the Feywild. Don’t let go of my hands during that time. Once we arrive, don’t lose sight of these structures or of each other. The lands around here may look mostly the same, but in the feywild they will change beneath your feet by the minute. If you lose sight of this place, you may never be able to find it again.”

After some time in the circle, you begin to sense the world around you altering, slowly. The sky, though still dark, is lit by stars that seem to shine a bit more. The snow seems whiter somehow, more pure and it reflects the starlight, making it possible to see without torch or darkvision. Dancing lights in the air around you multiply and draw closer and reveal themselves to be pixies, seemingly curious about your arrival. The smell of the spruce tips in the pure air is intoxicating. You can feel the Feywild coursing through your blood.

Now, even the land in front of you changes, being traced and redrawn in misty lines. Rising from the middle of this circle now, is a triangular moondial of beautifully carved crystal that stands twenty feet tall. It shelters what looks like a sarcophagus buried under snow and enclosed by a half-circle of pale blue crystal pillars that were once only vague outlines of rocks buried in snow. North of the berm is a delicately carved gazebo made of marble, and south of the berm is a row of outward-facing, white marble statues atop granite pillars.

These six elevated, white marble statues, arranged in a line, depict slender, robed figures facing northward. The engraving on their faces has been worn away by the wind, but pointed ears make the statues identifiable as elves.

“We’re here, the Fey Eladrin Tomb."

Elestrin leads you past the statues and onto the berm. Here, a granite sarcophagus rests in a half-circle defined by five crystal pillars. Clearing the snow off the lid reveals an engraving of a brazier.

She directs your attention to the top of a pillar. You notice a carving near the top, then notice one on each of the pillars. These images depict a twig, a pinecone, a flame, a feather, and an elfen ear.

“Don’t worry about the ear. Find the rest.”

Spreading out into the nearby woods, you are quickly able to gather the materials. When you return, Elestren has cleared the brazier of its snow and pine needles, and you note a thin pool of oil at the bottom. She has you place your materials inside it.

“This is where I’ll need your help.” She produces a slender dagger. “I’m going to cut off my ear”

“Put that blade in that fire. Cauterize the wound once it’s off – quickly, then bandage my whole head tightly. I hope to stay with you but I may pass out for a time.”

She wastes no time slicing off her left ear. Through what must be great restraint, she wears only a grimace and lets out only a small grunt through the pain. She tosses her ear unceremoniously into the brazier. With the torch used to heat the dagger, Elva lights the brazier, then holds the knife to Elestrin's wound. The flame in the bowl glows blue, unlike any flame you've seen before, it changes to a white opalescence and seems to flow like thick custard. After a minute, the flames flicker and die.

Despite the flames, the objects are not consumed in the fire but become denser, with such heft that they seem to be made of steel. Elestrin hands them to you, "Keep those, they may be useful."

She wraps her severed ear in a piece of burlap. "It didn't work." She says no more on the subject and moves on to taking position to hunt the moose.

You notice the sarcophagus has become unsealed, only a hair, but it is now possible to open to the lid further. Inside, an elven mummy opens its eyes and sits up.

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