Nate: When we saw something shiny in the tree before – was it the sprite?
Curt: You think it was some part of the sprite’s clothing, like buckles or rings.
Anna: You got tricked by BUCKLES!
Sartus casts polymorph and animal messenger on the elephant to turn it into a crow and then sends it to the Queen with a message: “Our journey continues, and all is well.”
After traveling for a while, Freki reappears in a puff of brimstone, directly behind Bec. But not before the others made much progress slashing, climbing, and surviving with aplomb through the rougher terrain. He claims to have been trapped in a force maze.
That evening, the party stops at beautiful tree:
As the sun sets, the fruit begins to glow, captivating everyone.
Sartus says it is a dormina tree, which he has never seen in person before, but the fruit of which will send anyone who eats it into a euphoric slumber.
Oz does not hesitate to eat one of the fruits right away, and falls asleep smiling. Callie also has a bite of a fruit, and takes one with her for later.
Bec, ever the sensible one, casts a tiny hut spell to secure shelter for the party near the tree.
Oz and Callie have euphoric experiences!
Callie has visions of adventures with all the people she’s known. She digs a hole with Tybalt Nightbreeze, then plays dragon poker with Sima Cordelia and wins! But Sima says she cannot pay Callie what she owes until she is freed from her captivity—and Callie realizes that Sima is chained to a wall in a cave. She hears a voice asking, in an unfriendly tone: “Who are you? How did you get here?”, turns around, and sees a person with an eyeless mushroom face! Who then swallows her!
Oz dreams he’s a pirate, raiding pirate ships and fighting pirate battles. While swinging across to a target vessel, he realizes that strangely, the deck is devoid of life. Proceeding below decks to investigate, the stairs down become a tunnel through the trees into the Feywild…
The others—Callie, Bec, Cal, and Freki—appear as well. They all find themselves on a forest path, with harmonious dwellings integrated:
This servant:
emerges from a door and asks them to come inside. She claims that Ambriel Estanesse, Queen of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, wants to speak with them.
Bec dispels the servant! But they decide to enter the door anyway.
The queen is seated at a long table eating fairy wings:
When she lowers her hood, they get a better look at her:
But when her mood changes for the better, her appearance transforms:
She offers the assistance of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts if they agree to swear oaths:
- Feytouched swear an oath of service: assistance in future for a particular to-be-named task, for no more than a year and a day.
- Godtouched swear an oath of exile: never to return to Elyrian lands.
Alternately, when Sartus requests an alternate bargain, the voices of the Courts speak! They suggest for the Feytouched to bond with the court, to gain its power but participate in its politics.
Ozborn swears: “The sun in your kingdom shall not shine again upon this face,” the vow sealed by a painful wave of psionic energy from Janus Ilaris representing the Unseelie Court, summoned by the queen in flesh and blood.
Cal is shocked to see the ghost, and refuses to swear an oath with him. He offers to swear an oath with the Queen, but she smiles sadly and says that in 7 days’ time, she will no longer be capable of enforcing such an oath. (The more astute and empathic amongst the SPI infer that the queen thinks she is going to die!) But the queen summons Orsob, a satyr, to represent the Seelie Court, and Cal swears the oath of exile by drinking a cup of tea with him:
Callie swears the oath of service with Orsob, because she feels now is not the time for waffling!
Freki waffles, claiming he doesn’t know which side he is on, but that his “oath” is to protect his friends before all else.
Bec tells the queen about the spot they saw in the blighted area, where the beetles went into the ground, on a hunch that it might be related to the queen’s pain. The Court acquiesces to the Queen indulging this theory once Cal and Oz had sworn their oaths.
The Queen manifests everyone spiritually at the blighted area. The agents show the queen where the suspicious activity took place, and she studies the ground. She reaches into the ground, her arm elongating as she reaches deeper and deeper… “I feel you… you will pay!” she hisses.
In response, everyone feels a psychic flash in their minds, and sees the same mushroom face that Callie saw in her vision. “I SEEEE YOOUU…”
The queen screams and withdraws her hand, as mushroom tendrils rapidly crawl up her arm and onto her body.
Reacting quickly, Freki pulls out his greatsword and takes his one chance to stop the spread of the contagion, by swinging at the queen’s arm… trips… and his sword comes down on her head.
Everyone wakes up screaming, covered in mushrooms.