Struggle in the Saphire city

Years after the events in Cirque du Avalaon, the troupe receives individual messages from Queen Ollallee of the Sapphire city. Now an archfey, she asks her former companions to help with a mysterious quest as if they had a say in the matter. Will they answer the call?

**Session notes:**
Everyone, minus Cutty and Utsee, is summoned to appear at the gates of the Sapphire City. We greet one another and show off some of our new toys. Solitaire is enjoying being far more chatty than he'd previously allowed himself to be. The Artist Formerly Known as Geoff explains a bit what it's like to have assumed the role of Mr. Book among the Yugoloths.

While we cross through the city, the townsfolk point and murmur. But the group advances to the palace immediately. (We learn later that there were plenty of missed opportunities to gather information surrounding the current predicaments had we interacted with them at all.)

We reunite with Cutty at the palace, who is himself just returning from a mission. We chat a bit, then go in to see Utsee and Ollallee.
Following greetings, we are all invited to sit at a table and eat together, except Ollallee who keeps looking at the food like she wants some but does not partake. Everyone catches up, establish what's been up since we were last together. We're -supposed- to be pulled from the same time, but it seems that Dante has experienced over a century compared to others' twenty years. Huh. Also, who's Dante?

Wil attempts to mention the Void Hive, vomits up a poached egg. That was weird.

At one point, Ollallee seems to lose control and downs some tea, which she almost immediately vomits as blackness. We're all reminded of the void stuff, except Cutty who is like wait are you PREGANANANT?! Utsee tends to her, and we finally get to the reason we were summoned.

Ollallee is concerned that the pact she made as a child may be coming back to collect, and that the pact may have been made with the Void God. In addition to her inner turmoil, there are reportedly signs that the Void Hive may be manifesting again in the area that had been Kelrath's Grove. Ollallee has sent the bulk of her soldiers to investigate and act as needed. But we are going on another Inner Space adventure in Ollallee's mind to root out whatever is happening in there.

We travel to Wordkin's place, where we had once manifested creatures to do battle in a story telling contest, to have him act as his Avalon counterpart Dworkin did in performing the ritual to send us inside Ollallee's mind. Having Ollallee go to sleep is a task in and of itself, we're told, but the conditions are finally met and we are transported within.

We're outside someplace, and there is a walkway to a tower. A makeshift rope hangs from a window, and a voice like Ollallee's playfully invites us up. Some of the most perceptive notice the sound of rustling leaves despite there being no wind, but no attention is drawn to it.

Ollallee is in the tower room, which is done up as a kid's bedroom. She is, similarly, in the form of a child. We take a look at some of the books she has strewn about, but she becomes dodgy about them and begins shelving them, especially one in particular. Wil and Cutty deduce the title says "Rumplestiltskin" but written in Void script. Solitaire asks about it outright, and it's Ollallee's favorite story, but she doesn't want to talk about it.

While we discuss what we recall about the tale of Rumplestiltskin, Wil erroneously recalls that saying his name three times summons him to the scene and tries it. Cutty reasons that Wil is thinking of Mr. Book, and saying Mr. Book three times calls Mr. Book to you. This, because of Rule of Funny, causes Geoff to teleport to a space beside Cutty. "Oh, hello!" But we work out that the significant relevance of Rumplestiltskin is that the girl in the story made a pact with him where he performed an impossible task and she agreed to surrender her firstborn child in the future. And come time to collect, she managed to get out of the deal by "guessing" the titular name. We ponder whether Ollallee may have herself been promised to some entity in a pact.

Child Ollallee tags Cutty, tells him he's it, and dashes toward what had been a mirror but is now a hallway. She exits a door at the far end, calling that we are to catch her, but if we step on a crack we break our mothers' back. Most of us are given a fly speed by Desi to avoid the cracks altogether. Solitaire opens the door. The next room is dark, with a raised platform in the center, feels circusy. Once we're all in, a light shines on the stage. Ollallee is there. "Remember when we were in a circus?" (It never gets old!)

Wil takes the stage. Does his contact juggling routine with his mechanical homunculus. Does well. Solitaire does his thing, juggling two daggers and a scimitar. Wil tosses in a third dagger. Nat20 performance! Mr. Book takes the stage, has Ollallee take a card. Pulls Wabbit from his hat, and also the card is Wabbit. Wow. But the performance roll is low and he's hit with a tomato. Solitaire says his name three times, summoning him out from under the tomato paste.

Dante has Utsee assist him. He hypnotizes him and polymorphs him into a triceratops. But Ollallee isn't into it. Another tomato for each of them. Desi has Cutty join him on stage, soliloquizes the story of Desi opening up to Cutty, then being replaced by the former Mr. Book, and how that drove a wedge between them, but revealing that it was the real him and how much that meant to him. Excellent performance, and Cutty is moved and hugs him, which Desi uncharacteristically allows.

Ollallee passes through another door that wasn't there moments before. She sounds a little older now as she calls for us to follow.

The next room has a door with three keyholes. Desi finds one of the keys in a hollow in the wall behind us, but Wil and Solitaire become impatient. Desi's key fits one of the locks, Wil takes fire damage from a failed attempt to pick one, and Solitaire successfully picks the two that remain. Ollallee states her displeasure that we're not playing her game properly.

The next room features a statue of a chromatic dragon, looking like it should be holding something. Ollallee says it should hold an orb. Wil puts a contact juggling ball into it, and Ollallee is again disappointed that we "cheated." She misty steps to the next room. We're told to count to 100 before following.

We discuss a bit whether we should be indulging the child rather than using our skills like this.

The next room is occupied by people from Solitaire's history, puzzling him, but he loudly keeps their attention so the rest of us could quietly check the various hiding places for Ollallee. There are obvious hiding spots like cabinets and a barrel, but she's hidden herself beneath a table in the center of the room where the men are gathered. Once she's found, they vanish. Solitaire questions how people from his history are appearing in her memory, but it seems the unseen entity with whom Ollallee was conversing throughout is the one who knows about it all.
We return to her room. Ollallee appears now as her current self, but the glamour effect is gone. She is bleeding down her prosthetic leg, and she appears to be pregnant, which Wil is now able to talk about as the reason he's been visiting the Feywild lately. And Kelrath appears, surprising approximately no one. Kelrath wants OUT, and preferably immediately since someone on the outside is attacking and killing Wordkin. Kelrath also acknowledges the Void God being here, Kelrath not wanting to die this way. But we're not accommodating our old foe, and Kelrath doesn't want to join us in bringing the fight to the Void God's presence, so we're attacked. Initiative.

While we battle, Ollallee uses her turn in the initiative order to hash out the terms of a compact, offering Wordkin's body for the former Archfey to occupy while requiring that Kelrath be limited to their Grove and initiate no action against Ollallee or her rule. We're not on board with this, but it's not our choice. Kelrath pops out of her mind, and we're faced with our own problem.

Ollallee is suffering more greatly, and the Void God emerges from within her, taking the form of a gargantuan dragon. It flies about and unleashes fear effects and various breath weapons, but most of us still have a fly speed from earlier and our own Level 20 and Epic Boon abilities. Also, capitalizing on the moment of funny, Cutty calls Mr. Book's name three times while Geoff is about to be bitten and teleports him clear across the field. Solitaire does the same at least twice afterward as he's usually situated away from the dragon's exhalations.

We unload our strongest attacks into the creature and destroy it, causing us to awaken in the arena where we had left Ollallee with Wordkin. Kelrath is now standing next to her, surrounded by slain Voidlings. A small Void creature is emerging from Ollallee's swollen belly. Cutty and Utsee fail to save against a charm effect. Cutty sees the creature as a baby orc Kelrath is threatening, and Utsee begins acting more feral and wants to protect the Void child. This results in Cutty striking the nature out of Kelrath and reflecting most of the damage Solitaire serves to the creature, before watching Desi pull "Cutty's" child from its mother and electrocute it to death. Mercifully, the charm effects end when the creature is killed and Cutty and Utsee see it for what it is, though the hijacked newborn did appear to have tiny orc fangs...

While everyone checks on one another, Ollallee especially, many begin to be wary of Kelrath hanging around. Ollallee wants to negotiate another compact to secure the safety of her friends and her forces that are currently dispatched to Kelrath's Grove, but we are beyond done with the once-Archfey. We opt to finish this here and now despite an invisibility trick, and Kelrath again falls to our hands and a laser-guided Power Word Kill.

As the dust settles, Ollallee is conflicted about losing (one father figure of many) Kelrath again. Cutty is troubled having watched the son he never knew he had killed by his friends and heads back to the palace alone for time to sort through it all. Dante offers to assist in erasing unhappy memories, but his offer is rejected. Most stay at the arena and partake of a conjured feast.

After returning to the palace, the group engages in a bath scene. Ollallee sends a telepathic message to Cutty who ultimately joins them there.

There is discussion of how long people stay in the Feywild and what they do there. Desi and Cutty get to talk it out, and Cutty agrees to visit the lighthouse and orcphanage in the near future. Ollallee has plans to adopt a goblin child named Hteraj.

And ultimately, the group are returned to Avalon to find that the demon incursion had occurred.