Honey, I Shrunk the Monk [Session 57]

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Current Situation 

• Day 2 the Feywild: (1 long rest at Skabatha's house) 
  
• Deal set, the Maybesitters have run into a friend of Ander's and Rascal's, and continue to make their way to the realm of Thither to seek out - and steal - Slackjawed Lorna's hourglass.

Session Summary

• With Din still laughing at everything and Ander distracted overall, Elyana shoots Din with Eldritch Blast, hitting her for a solid amount of damage. Din looks sufficiently hurt and yells out at Ander in annoyance. Elyana then snags Ander's collar, asking, "What the hell?!" He didn't expect Ely to be angry, and while he looks guilty, he then sort of brushes it off, saying Din was in a bad mood and was going to start a fight anyway. He then does smirk a bit, saying, "But it was fun, huh?"
• Ander helps Din up, healing her a bit with a bit of an unfamiliar white light, Dhann not recognizing it as any sort of healing magic he's ever used or seen. 
• Din does apologize, but remarks the group is kind of mean, and Ander does tell her, "I told you they wouldn't like it." 
• She then says that "Engle sent me. He wanted me to let you know you're being followed. Well, tracked - more like hunted. He was worried and wanted you to know."
• Rascal clarifies that Engle is his trainer/guide, and that he's a Unknown and their guardian, of sorts, while in the Fey.
• Din tells the group that what's hunting them is a Unknown and Engle caught its scent a couple of days ago. It's perhaps only a day away. The one hunting the group is a Rasa Minor, a lesser being. 
  • The Rasas are a loosely ordered society of demons bent on creating chaos throughout the world. They have little foothold on the material plane. But here, in the Fey, they are bound by fewer restrictions. In fact, they've learned they can affect the material plane from here which is why they are often the subjects of nightmares and fairy tales. They are essentially, the boogey-man, the monster under the bed or hiding in the closet in the material plane.
  • The demon is a meld of different forms, with a dinosaur lower body and clawed, webbed feet, as well as suckered tentacles sprouting from the shoulders of a great apelike torso, surmounted by two hideous ape-like heads. Their gaze brings madness and confusion to any who confront it.
• It seems to only be hunting Rascal, as he's from the Feywild. To move faster, it might be utilizing "folds" in the Fey plane to move even faster.It's discussed whether the group should face this creature before attempting the heist for the hourglass, and Din mentions that the Rasa will most likely avoid any area in close proximity to any of the three sisters. Potentially, going for the hourglass first will buy the group some time in deciding how to deal with this minor demon tracking Rascal.
• Z checks the compass and sees that the compass is very sure in pointing to the north. The needle isn't wobbling as much as before, showing they are perhaps getting a bit closer to their destination
• It's settled that they will continue forward toward Thither to see if they find that first, or the Rasa finds them. The twilit light of the Fey morning has brightened into a proper day and everything is quite lovely along the walk. After about an hour, Z flies back to say he sees a crossroads and a really small house on the furthest corner. A proper, two story house.
• Ely looks trough the spyglass and sees that the trees and signpost look quite large compared to the house. The wall facing the group looks to have been ripped off of the house by some storm. Three rooms on the second floor, three on the ground floor. No one seems to be in the house at this time.
• The compass is pointing directly at either the crossroads, or the house. There is no debris around the house or in it.
• Dhann asks if it's actually a halfling house or even a dollhouse, and Ely isn't able to tell if the house is smaller, or the trees are larger, but it's possible. 
• Dhann asks Ander if he was looking for a Rasa when he showed up at Helm's Hall covered in muck and smelling terrible, and Ander says yes. He'd found a nest, but no Rasa.
• Fifteen more minutes of walking, everyone can see the house, and it's definitely a dollhouse. Only about two and a half feet tall. The compass still points at the crossroads, or the house behind it. Din doesn't think the house is Lorna's. She's supposed to be in a totally different region. 
• As they walked through the Feywild, Ely found herself studying his face from a distance. She watched his expressions change as he spoke to Ander, or even that dumb dragon girl and she kept expecting his nose to twitch or a sharp fang to flash when he smiled. She has this whole different side of him to learn about. How his freckles dance around his face when he laughs. How his shoulder rhythmically bobs just above her own when they walk. Feys, he’s so tall. When did that happen?
• And now, making their way to a village in the middle of a bog, inhabited by frogs, she relaxes and lets herself link arms with him, giving his elbow a squeeze. “Your hair is much too long.” Ely teases, “you could do with a trim.” And she ruffles it and it feels nicely familiar.
• Continuing forward, the crossroads very much feels like a crossroads out in the middle of nowhere. It feels almost like being in a story. The house is in the northeastern corner and the compass points directly to it.
• The breadcrumbs are still winking a subtle path behind them, showing the group the direction in which they came. 
• The house is two floors with a grand staircase in the middle. There are smaller staircases on each side of the house also leading up to the second floor. 
  • The bottom floor:
    • The right side room is a kitchen. There's kitchen furniture inside.
    • The middle room, with the start of the grand staircase, looks like a dining room and parlor. 
    • The left side room is more like a sitting or living room.
    • All three rooms have a door leading "outside."
  • The second floor:
    • The left and right side rooms are both bedrooms. 
    • The middle separates the two, as a large bathroom. 
    • All three rooms have windows leading "outside."
• The furniture inside the whole house looks like perfectly shrunken proper furniture.
• Z walks around the house to look at it, and from behind, the wall is totally blank. No windows. 
• Barrett casts Detect Magic to inspect the signpost. There's nothing written on it, and doesn't seem to be inherently magical. It might have some sort of illusory magic on it but nothing jumps out as obvious. Touching the signpost, it's very real. The surface feels rougher to the touch, though, while the signpost actually looks newer. That seems to be the only illusion about it.
• The dollhouse, however, has enchantment magic on it.
• Barrett and Z approach the house, and as they do, the house seems to grow, while to everyone else, the two of them have shrunk and fit perfectly into the house. 
• The Monk and Tabaxi explore:
  • Everything inside the house seems real, not a toy.
  • The door in the back/middle is locked. 
  • The dining room has a large china case and all the cutlery and dishes are delicate and lovely. A typical dining room. Barrett frisbees one of the plates out of the house and it grows to be a "normal" size relative to everyone outside. Ely catches it, and it's a china plate. 
  • The kitchen is a normal kitchen, and even has actual food in it.
  • Upstairs from the kitchen is a narrow staircase trek, to a bedroom. Looks like a children's room of some kind. There are two beds with a chest in between them.
  • There are a fairly large number of wooden toys that look very much like the exact same kind of toys at Skabatha's. In fact, all of the decoration in this house look like they were tooled by the same hand.
  • The back window has no traps, and the scenery outside is very tropical, like a jungle. Opening the window, it's muggy like a rainforest and Barrett can even see birds flying in the distance.
  • Z and Barrett check the compass to see that the needle is spinning wildly like a top.
  • The group wonders if this isn't the house, or a replica of, the house that the Hourglass Coven sisters grew up in.
  • In the bathroom, it's just got typical bathroom things. The window in here shows what looks to be a distant cliff and desert in between the house and cliff.
  • The bedroom on the left is definitely not a children's room. It looks to be a bedroom belonging to an adult or parent. The window in the back of this room shows dark swampland, and Z knows from his stories that Lorna is rumored to live in a bog of some sort. 
  • As a test, Barrett throws a wooden toy out the window of the children's bedroom, into the rainforest. It falls as expected and lands on the ground. 
  • Back at the swamp window, Barrett doesn't find any traps and so he opens the window. The stink of a bog wafts in, rotting leaves and black water. He can hear frogs and crickets. 
• The rest of the group follows into the house, and Din stays out, saying she'll meet the group later if they want, but she has no interest in approaching any closer. "I'll be to the north." In dragon form, she flies off.
• While the rest of the group makes their way into the house (Dhann returns the plate to the dining room), Barrett jumps out the swamp window. He then goes up two wooden steps to a porch. About 200' northwest, he spies an old dock.
• Z tries the door, and it's locked. Rascal joins him, and the two of them are able to pick the lock with ease.
• Now that everyone is by the swamp door, it's noticed that the compass is pointing surely across the water, deeper into the bog.
• Making their way to the boat, no one sees anything suspicious or that they should be concerned about. The boat isn't tied to the dock; a simple looped rope keeps it affixed to a pylon. Boat and dock look rickety but the boat is serviceable.
• Getting into the boat, the gang make their way deeper into the swamp, following the compass. It's much closer to night time in this area than the place they left the dollhouse in, and the swamp makes it all darker. It's slow going, and quite unnerving. 
• The water trail begins to narrow underneath deep foliage and the air is very still and stuffy. Barrett notes the trail seems to be marked by notches in stumps and trunks. Frogs and swamp creatures are warbling all around as the gang makes their way.
• About an hour in, a thick, heavy fog begins to obscure everything, making navigation much more clumsy and difficult. Voices croak in the distance, and in front of them, two rowboats begin to show, with two figures in each of them.
• From the further, second rowboat, a Sylvan call in a very croaky voice comes through the fog: "Welcome to Downfall, travelers!" Dhann translates for the group. 
• The figures become clearer as giant frogs, known as Unknown. The one in the very back, that called out, is dressed quite finely compared to the others. He has a webbed hand waving in a friendly way. 
• Dhann calls a reply, "Thank you for the greeting! Who do I have the honor of speaking to?" and the same voice replies, "King Goloop!" with a nod. "Welcome, we're happy to have you. We don't get many visitors."
• King Goloop makes small talk with the group in Common, asking polite "get to know you" questions. He asks what their business is, and Ely says they're supposed to meet their friend, Lorna, in the bog. With that, there is a pause and Gollop glances at the other Bullywugs. He welcomes the group to stay in their village while they are in Downfall on their business.
• Ely's pearl and Barrett's scare are glowing, but the Bullywugs don't seem to pay this any mind.
• When asked why they should dock, the group is told that going by balloon might be the best way to reach Lorna. The King points over at a draped and deflated balloon over a nearby tree. Not enough fuel seems like the main problem.
• Boat is possible, but balloon is the easier way. The Bullywugs balloon supplies to Lorna every four or five days but no one likes to actually go visit her. They harness a special swamp gas, stored in barrels, to power the balloons. There's a backup balloon, but it needs repairs. 
• The group decides to wait for a day and help the Bullywugs repair their balloon. It sounds like something Z could fix in less than a day. The Bullywugs are very appreciative of this offer and they invite the group to join them for dinner. 
• Two guard-looking Bullywugs at a dock greet the King as "Captain" rather than king. 
• Closer to the shore, the village seems to be right up on the bank of the swamp with cloth huts and a place that looks to be a landing pad for balloons. Everyone arrives on the shore safely and the group is officially in Downfall.

-

Elyana knew it was inevitable; that this would happen and she would get to see Rascal in the flesh and not the fur. But contrary to what anyone might’ve assumed, he was not familiar to her like this; boyish face, long lanky build, black leather layers. There’s a memory somewhere of a little tuft of red running through fields, pudgy arms wrapping around her neck or chasing after a pair of tiny legs in blue shorts. But was not this. This was new.

As they walked through the Feywild, Ely found herself studying his face from a distance. She watched his expressions change as he spoke to Ander, or even that dumb dragon girl and she kept expecting his nose to twitch or a sharp fang to flash when he smiled. She has this whole different side of him to learn about. How his freckles dance around his face when he laughs. How his shoulder rhythmically bobs just above her own when they walk. Feys, he’s so tall. When did that happen?

 And now, making their way to a village in the middle of a bog, inhabited by frogs, she relaxes and lets herself link arms with him, giving his elbow a squeeze. “Your hair is much too long.” Ely teases, “you could do with a trim.” And she ruffles it and it feels nicely familiar.

-

Next time on...

Dinner with the locals and finding some more information on Lorna, and the village, is next on the list!