"I don't know about you all but I'm headed to the Birch Queen's Fair" Cyrus starts walking along the river bank.
Bren shrugs and walks after Cyrus.
"Ah well. At least we can't be any more ignorant." Smiling quietly to herself, Eglantine links her arm through Bren's and walks with him.
Catriana approaches the menhir and inspects it.
Eglantine stands well back. "It looks mystical to me. I'm not going near it."
"There's some kind of spiral design here with some dry blood on it," Catriana tells the rest of the group. "Maybe it's some kind of sacrificial altar or something similar."
Catriana tries to remember if she ever heard about something like this before.
Her thoughts going in circles, Eglantine plunders her memory for anything she might have read or heard about such rituals around the caravan fires of home. A home which suddenly seems an incredibly long way away. She goes to look at the menhir.
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Eglantine:
"The carving is really old..." Eglantine somehow knows this.
"Not the blood, obviously. That's a lot more recent. Blood sacrifice. Now I really feel like an alien."
Catriana tries to remember if she knows anything about the relief, but doesn't seem to.
Bren snorts. "Maybe this was just a place where they slaughtered their animals."
Eglantine pulls out her dagger. "Anyone else think this place wants an offering from us?"
She holds the dagger over her own arm, ready to draw blood.
"Whoa! Eglantine, we're not that interested in finding out the purpose of this place. Let's keep moving, I sense an evilness in this place."
"Well, the fey aren't sacrificing themselves up as this isn't fey blood as far as I can tell, so cutting yourself up is going to produce any results here Eglantine."
"It's your party. I don't know this world. How are your feet Cyrus - still holding up without boots?"
Eglantine snaps out of her unusually meditative frame of mind and puts away her dagger.
"Eek!" Cyrus looks down at his feet and blushes as though his fly were open. "I guess I should've taken a pair of boots off those fey, huh?" Cyrus slinks away embarrassed and with sore feet.
"You have very nice feet Cyrus. No callouses and your toes aren't hairy."
"I do enjoy the feeling of sand between my toes."
"Now that would feel like work to me. Ring sand. It would be different by the sea. I'd jump waves. There's just one problem with bare feet - are you ticklish?"
"It would be nice to know what is this place for though. Too bad we released that witch without taking more information about our way..."
"Have you got enough songs to swap Catriana? The fey are hard bargainers."
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As dusk comes, a strange sight awaits you over a rise. A tent of gold and scarlet silk stands on a low hill along a small road. In front of the tent are a handful of eladrin knights and ladies speaking and sitting on small chairs. They share plates and goblets carried by at least a dozen small, almost invisible grey servants.
Passive Perception 16:
Elias cautions the rest of the group, "Ware my friends, the servants may look unthreatening, child-like even... but I feel certain there is more to them than that. They seem to not wholly be 'here' if you see what I mean, as if they were all a-blur. Also, the boars... they are for riding. We must be careful."
"No hand-springs then." Eglantine jokes out of sheer nervousness.
Elias murmurs "Hmm, mm, yes..." to Eglantine but seems not to be listening. He regards the servants further, "They're feeding acorns to the boars... some things are the same regardless of size or plane then..." he adds with a smile.
He then turns to Eglantine, "No, no handsprings just yet. But it may transpire that we may be asked for yet more demonstrations of knowledge of skill."
"As much as I don't like the sight of those boars again, we should try and talk to the Eldarin, shouldn't we?"
Bren frowns at the fey.
"A joke. We're just a joke to them."
Elias comforts Bren, "Try not to think of it in such terms. Their humour is different to those of the mortal world. It would seem they have scarcely noticed us."
"I think we must give speaking with the fey a chance at least."
"We should indeed parlay." Elias adds.
Eglantine stays back, following Elias and Catriana's lead.
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As Elias, Catriana, and the others approach, the fey fall silent and still, and more details can be made out (though still not of the gray servants). There is one woman and four men (all fey).
Sitting in an elaborate chair is a black-haired eladrin woman, twirling an ebony wand set with two diamonds at either end. The four men attending her all sport hunting jacks of studded leather and carry spears and bows.
An elderly eladrin with golden hair and purple eyes wears a tabard of white marked with blue diamonds. He has a set of mithral bracers as well as a circlet of pure gold worked into a dragon shape. He carries a boar spear and has a hand crossbow at his belt. He hails the party, "Greetings to you, noble strangers. You have traveled far. What brings you to our fields?"
Passive Insight 14:
Eglantine says nothing, and bites her tongue.
"We kindly seek a civil audience with Ambertan."
Diplomacy Check, 1d20+9=22