Eliah shakes her head in disbelief. "This place is getting weirder by the hour... I wasn't hearing things, right?" She takes a few more moments to examine the only clue remaining, concentration evident on her face.
She shrugs. "I suppose we should continue on."
Max nods and follows Farja on the westerly course.
The river takes you up the plain, with trees dotting the shore in small knots from time to time. They are large, ancient trees, twisted to adapt and follow the sun.
After nearly an hour, the group begins to hear the sounds of waterfowl. At a DC 2o perception guess, you'd wager there's at least ten honking voices.
More cleaning and repairs are done with what little the group has, with Kenith using little metal divots to secure things in place around the inn's frame.
Lupi begins to pore through the foreign books in the study and tries to memorize the numerical system.
Meanwhile, Niu begins to hear... whispers... that seem to be almost on the edge of his collective consciousness.
They're in Sylvan, and seem to be calling him outside.
Heading downriver reveals a small plum of smoke in the distance. It's pinkish and appears to be coming from a singular hut that stands a couple of paces from the river.
After a few moments of silence, an exasperated voice pipes up in the language of fey, followed by the typical chorus . "Alright!" "We're coming!" "We'll be right back, Lupi!" "Right back we will be!" "That's right!" "Not left back, right back!" "Yep!" "Couldn't've said it better myself!"
"Bwuh? What are you-?! asks the halfling, slamming her book down to follow this suspicious activity.
Pharysene sings upstairs.
It isn't hard to lose the others for Niu, though, and the conglomerate feels the creature calling him out for a decent ten-minute walk into a small circle of stones, where something akin to a cloud hovers in the middle.
"Ah," it says in proper Sylvan. "It's been so long since I've had a proper guest. Greetings." Its voice drips with honey.
"How are you and your slaves coming along? I take it you, too, have fled the Verdant Coupe?"
Max listens and says, "10 honking voices, which I have no idea what means, ahead."
Xarl listens to the sounds as well.
"The question is how much will these creatures feed those who need it."
"I am the Evening Marquis, of course. Have you not heard of me in your time away from Thistle Downs? You have fled the turmoil, haven't you? I mean, why else would you have run with such a menagerie? And which count do you speak of?!"
The gas cloud seems equally affronted, and all of a sudden the air seems... sinister, somehow.
"Hm... If you know nothing of the Verdant Coup or Thistle Downs, perhaps I must reconsider... Kindred spirits in some senses, yes, but this bears the question: Why are you here?" the voice is gaining a different sort of air now. It grows deeper and more monstrous.
Eliah climbs up a large boulder, taking a perch near the top to scout their surroundings as best she can. Peering into the distance, a thin line of smoke stands out against the streaks of sky visible between the trees. "Is that what I think it is..?" She shades her eyes with one hand, squinting and learning forward slightly in an effort to see more clearly.
Suddenly, a triumphant shout breaks the calm forest air. "Salty!" She yells, still looking to the horizon for a moment before breaking away and hopping down to the ground. "There's smoke! And a cabin!! Not a half-mile off!" Her arms reach towards the sky in excitement before dropping back to her sides. "Finally, we can get a clue to where we are! Maybe even find a way back to civilization!" She punches the sky, doing a short spin in her excitement. "Come on!" She scoops up her pack and gestures for him to follow, hurriedly continuing towards the structure.
Salty licks his tusks...
"I hope they are friendly... or edible..."
He follows after her, potions in both his hands.
Tuich stops and listens intently. "Quite a few of them. Ten, maybe a dozen? It seems dinner tonight is no longer a concern," she says, grinning in Max's direction.
She pulls her sling and three pebbles out of her pocket, then makes a quick hand motion and intones "మేజిక్ స్టోన్" at the rocks.
"We don't know!" "Nope!" "No idea!" "Not the faintest!" "We think the Count sent us here!" "To keep us from defeating him!" "He's a bad man!" "Yes, a big bully!" "We think he sent the others too." "We don't know that, though..." "They claim they don't know who he is!" "What's a Thistle Downs?"
"Of course, there's always refugees from other places, but Thistle Downs is a magnificent court in the Fane Furrows in the land of Droob, near the third star and partially based in the shadow plane. We had such fun... Of course, then the verdant coup started from the lower lines, what with the gremlin infections and the bursting of the Creeping Mites and the Quickling King. It was a power grab, and so recently but long ago."
"Oh!" "Dear us!" "That sounds terrible!" "Yes, terrible!" "It sounds nice before the coup!" "Is it near here?" "How did you come here?" "Hear, hear!"
Fajra starts getting ready to cast.
" Now after I create this eye it can travel and show me what it sees. The only problem is that in order to 'see' I have to devote all my concentration to the eye. I will be able to tell you whats going on but I will have no idea whats going on here."
Fajra says while gesturing and creating the eye.
"Very well I will make sure that no harm comes to your body while you focus on seeing ahead."
"I. Forgot...How strange...this feels."
Fajra comments in a slow monotone.
"Thistle Downs is in a First World mirror realm, both far and near, if you must know. The walls of this place were thing during a horrible storm some time ago. It's been quite lonely, since..."
There's a bit of unsettling laughter.
"But you're here, now, and you brought your lovely, capable-of-reproduction slaves."
The laughter increases. "And they react so beautifully. I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of greeting them the other evening, right?"
Getting closer, there is apparently a large garden surrounding a decently-size thatched hut, though both the thatch and the garden's gourds seem to be a bit... sickly looking. It's as if whomever lived inside had the opposite of a green thumb.
In fact, said gardener was out in her small field, her mop of hair covering her eyes and a large, woven and ragged scarf draggin behind her.
Your sensors take you downriver a little while to a place where the water widens. There are offshoots that pool into shallows whilst the center seems uncharacteristically deep. In these waters, there is a flock of stork-like creatures the size of hawks, though they have six legs apiece and seem to glisten with grease. Their beady eyes move to and fro.
Even as you watch, a small humanoid form streaks from the sky into the center of their midst, splashing into the river behind them without a word. Their wattles shoot up into the air and they turn on the creature in their midst.
You feel... watched, somehow, from the grass, but nothing shows itself during the sorceress's channeling.
The creature emits a moderate evil aura.
The cloud bubbles, even more elated. "Not your slaves, you say? Ha! Then they are free agents, flitting about, placing their mark on... ooohh... splendid."
It paused.
"Testing their reaction to my claws, of course... One can never guess how one will, you see. Hm... though fear is no indication of purity, I suppose, you have a couple of staunch shiners, hm? But they're gone, now. They have left every day thus far... mhmmhmm."
The thing circles. "Are you attached to these non-slave pets? I can cull one or two for you, if you like..."
The little blue cloud grows increasingly alarmed at the direction the conversation is moving, but tries not to show it. "Yes, attached to them!" "You mustn't hurt them." "We don't like bullies." "You like fear?!" "Cull them!?!" "What!!" "No, you mustn't." "We wouldn't like that." "No, no we wouldn't."
"Oh, little conglomerate, speaking to you is so chaotic! If they're not your slaves, these pets are free, yes? And why the sudden fear, hm? I was merely asking how fond you are of them... though I can see at least a little..." There is distinct disappointment there.
"And I think I understand. They're still too few, hm? I suppose the feeding will have to wait a little longer. I hunger for the fear, you see. It sustains me... so I suppose that elevates me above the yeoman bully, yes?"
It shifts to float lower. "I don't suppose you can bring me more, can you? I'm so lonely. So hungry. And fey of a feather flock together, do they not?"
The other cloud bristles, stretching in offense.
"This meeting has not gone as I had hoped. While I could never touch you, dear brothers, an affront to me could challenge my magnanimity. What's to stop me from visiting your pets, if not your company?"
The air in the area starts to take on a different energy, and Niu's constituents aren't sure they like it.
The cloud seems to wibble in response as it backs away farther. "Hey!" "Don't try to ensorcell us!" "Stay back!" "We'll stop you!" "That's right, we will!" "Don't you try to intimidate us!" "Yeah!!" "We'll stop you!" "Hrmph!"
"Then swim home, little fish. Your challenge has been accepted."
The gas ball intones ominously, a laugh emerging. A tail of gas motions.
"Go on. Think of this as a game."
There's a sound like hundreds of tiny creatures all bristling at once, and then the cloud summarily departs.
Normally I would say...
"Ahoy those in the house!!! "
The back of Tuich's neck tingles as she looks around her, gaze flitting momentarily across Fajra, the sorceress' eyes rolled back in her head as she continues to focus her senses elsewhere.
"Something..." she mutters as she tightens her fists around her fighting scarf. "Max... anyone... do you feel... something's not right?"
Max says softly, "I feel like we are being watched, but I can't tell from where."
The more she talks the better her speech becomes. She is getting used to the strangeness.
" Something strange has landed. A small humanoid. From the sky.'
Suddenly her eyes widen. "Wait... landed on the ground or in the water? I was knocked senseless when I hit! How far away is this, if it's someone like us we shouldn't let them drown!"
Without waiting for an answer, Tuich starts off in the direction the eye took.
Max glances at Farja and then out of the corner of his eye he sees Tuich take off toward the sounds.
"For the love of.. Okay looks like we are heading over there. I'll take point..well Tuich is..Xarl can you watch the backtrail, please?"
With that he takes off after Tuich trying to catch up to her before she gets into more trouble.
Back at the ruined inn, Tuich, Kenith, and Pharysene mixing mud and dry reeds in a shallow hole with bare feet. They hadn't gotten far into the task, to be honest, before the swarm made its way back.
Kenith quirked his eyebrow and groaned, and Pharysene was the first to politely ask the swarm to slow down and speak with one voice at a time.
Fajra is a bit rusty with trance spells. While she is getting the hang of doing two things at once in her head and out loud. She still is only saying out loud about half of what she intends
A different voice speaks up this time, but still with the same measured tone and gait. "There's a horrible creature, a big gas cloud that wants to scare you all!" (The discussion after this announcement is in the language of the fey, and seems to focus around some of the voices demanding that there be clarification.)
The pause is a bit longer this time, but finally a new voice starts to speak in the same intentional way. "There is a creature that claims to be like us—" "It isn't, of course." "Shh!!" "— no, but it thinks it's like us. And it called to us, and told us that it feeds on fear... and... we worry for you all."
As the final pronouncement is made, it's as if a floodgate has broken and the babble of voices starts up again, this time in jumbled concoctions of Common, fey-tongue, and incomplete sentences. The word "bully" is heard more than once, as are the words "count" and "protect".