The Missing Druid

## Task

* Locate Dalee, an elder druid in the Northlight community that recently went missing, and determine what is causing the weird nature of the fauna near Northlight.

## Quest Events

The Wanderers began to make their way to Northlight from the Shattered City, where they had returned after slaying Kyvrin. They had Vraeis Rayne teleport the group to Esselvar to cut down on some days of travel, where they also parted ways with Eldrin for now. From their the group began to trek Northeast. On the second morning of their travels, a small field mouse approached Kelta and hopped onto her shoulder. During the next few hours the mouse ended up falling asleep on her head, however three hours later Kelta began to feel an intense weight begin to grow on her head. In a graceful-ish move she managed to push it off and as the mouse went flying through the air it shifted into a different shape, that of a very large and confused firbolg man. This Firbolg introduced himself through a myriad of sorrys as Ernelis of the Grove. After a tense and confusing conversation, he explained that he was heading to Northlight to visit the druids their and a family member. At this point Warrior McFighter recognized Ernelis as he is the son-in-law of his mentor Dalee. Since the group and Ernelis had a common goal now, they decided to allow him to travel with them, but they had many more questions for him after what had happened, so the group continued to trek to the Northern city of Northlight.

On the next night, Ernelis noted while scouting ahead of the group as a giant eagle that there was a camp of four individuals (2 half-orcs, 1 tiefling, and 1 halfling) just north of them. After some discussion the group decided to head that way, and after a brief talk ended up camping with the group. The group introduced itself a group of musicians that were traveling from the eastern coast inland towards the Shattered City. To pass the time before everyone bedded down, the Wanderers and the group exchanged stories and songs respectively and had a merry evening. During the first watch of the night, Warrior noticed that one of the members of the group was only feigning being asleep. After calling her out, the individual explained she was only doing what the Wanderers were doing and the night went on. After all the watches were complete it seemed like no harm had come during the night, only a friendship blossoming between Kelta and Ernelis (though maybe some psychic harm to Toven who was very confused about the messages Kelta was sending regarding Warrior). However, it was discovered that later in the day all of the Wanderers pockets were 15 gold lighter, except Ernelis who had mysteriously received 1 silver during the night. Irritated, but not horribly inconvenienced the Wanderers carried on with their travels eventually reaching the river were they would need to board a ferry, which cost 2 gold a person. Since Ernelis literally did not have two gold, he decided to turn into a giant vulture and fly across, and Warrior just decided it would be more fun to follow the ferry as a hunter shark. While the ferry was traversing the river, the captain noticed an odd occurrence in the water and pointed it at. At this point Warrior had seen the creatures causing the disturbance. They were fish-like humanoid creatures with green skin and webbed-feet; some of which had two arms while others had four. As the creatures noticed warrior, two took on her shark form and 3 proceeded to jump onto the ferry. In the ensuing battle there was a large amount of chaos as Kaedra was dragged into the water by one of the creatures and multiple ranged attacks hit Kelta instead of the creature they were aimed at. While the fight was chaotic, the Wanderers eventually prevailed relatively unarmed bare a few individuals and continued to traverse across the river.

Upon reaching the other side of the river and saying their goodbyes and apologies to the ferry operator and their brother, the Wanderers decided it would be a good idea to learn about the scientific process. Jothomir was determined to figure out what was going on with Kelta and did a series of experiments with controls to determine what roll the shield played in Kelta getting hit. Eventually it was determined that the shield sucked, and was causing Kelta to be hurt. Kelta with that knowledge decided she would de-atune from the shield at the next rest, but unfortunately she was unable to. The rest of the few days journey went without much a hitch, different people got to know Ernelis more and learned about his family, but eventually the topic of Nightblood resurfaced. The group began to debate what to do with Nightblood as it seemed to be irritated that no one was using it. Though the debate lasted a while, no decision was made and Nightblood was left in the bag of holding.

The next most interesting thing to occur to the Wanderers on the road was when they passed by the burnt down ruins of an old village. It was then discovered that it was the ruins of Warrior McFighters village, which had burned down, but also Kelta's village. Warrior's village had been built on top of the ruins of Kelta's town sometime after the wolves attacked. The group decided not to stop and continued on their journey to Northlight. Over the next few nights different members heard the howls of a distant wolf pack slowly grow closer, and eventually the group encountered this wolfpack. Kelta decided to talk to the wolves first, while Ernelis and Warrior wildshaped into dire wolves. After a bit of talk Kelta learned that this was not her wolfpack and that her wolfpack lived up near Northlight. Kelta was also able to talk the wolves into an agreement to let the Wanderers walk through the wolves territory unarmed, under the condition that Ernelis and Warrior stopped being wolves for a bit. Both the druids agreed and the Wanderers continued their travels.

Not much happened during this part of the journey for the Wanderers except more character development during watch shifts. The first one was a conversation between Aggarash and Toven in which Toven asked Aggarash how they knew they wanted to try different pronouns. Aggarash explained to Toven that they were born one way but raised differently and they felt how they were raised mostly, and for a bit they tried to use magic to have a matching body to what they felt but that it did not work. While explaining themselves, Aggie also discussed how being a half-orc bard also led to clashes with the others of their live, and pointed out how it was an odd combo of words. Toven then discussed how she has always been able to be someone else, and has not ever felt like Adelaide, which prompted the conversation. The next night Aggarash took Toven aside and dropped disguise self, showing Toven themselves in a more feminine outfit with a more feminine figure. That same night Kelta and Clover began to have a conversation over the trauma they both have. Kelta explained more about her life with her wood elf family, and Clover revealed to Kelta that she had been lying about her name and who she was. Kelta eventually convinced Clover to talk to the group about it, and the next night before beginning watches Clover told that group that her real name was Iris Leon, and that she came from a noble family in Esselvar. The group accepted this, and talked about how they already have a club of secret nobles clover can join.

With new revelations and new bonds forming as well with the new member of the group, the Wanderers continued to Northlight. Upon reaching the city edge the group heard a small voice scream out "Papa", and then saw a small Firbolg running towards Ernelis.

Finally in Northlight, the Wanderers were escorted to Dalee's home, where Ernelis's wife was, by Ernelis's daughter, Eiltara. There the Wanderers introduced themselves to everyone and began to get more information about what had occurred leading up to Dalee's disappearance. The Wanderers learned that Dalee had not fully gone missing as she was sent to the feywild as a representative of the council of Northlight, but she had not returned from that for two weeks now. Dalee had been sent as a representative because recently a member of the Unseelie court of the feywild had used the portal near Northlight and kidnapped a child, Asher. This was in breech of a truce between Northlight and the Feywild, specifically the Seelie court of the Feywild. The people of Northlight had decided to make a truce with the Seelie court that prevented the groups from passing through the portal unless coming under a banner of truce. Until now this agreement had been mostly respected.

Now with more information about Dalee, the Wanderers split the party to deal with some other tasks they needed to get done. Aggarash, Clover, Jojo, Toven, and Ernelis found Brandymer, one of the few historians in Northlight. Once they arrived at the entrance and began to talk to Brandymer, Aggarash branded Nightblood and the smoke that usually billowed out of the sword grabbed onto their hand instead. Fortunately once they put the sword back in its sheath, the smoke released its grip from their hand. The Wanderers then proceeded inside to get see if Brandymer could provide them with information about Reshav, the creator of the sword. Brandymer was able to provide them with some information, but since the events were from 1500 years prior there is little surviving information. With the information about Reshav and Nightblood and some more information about the Feywild the group returned to Dalee's house. During this time Kelta, Kaedra, and Garyn went to visit Largo, one of the few experts in the arcane in Northlight. Kelta presented him with the shield and asked him to help her get rid of it basically. After a little bit of study, Largo was able to deattach the shield from Kelta, who felt a lot of relief with the shield finally being away from her. With this the group returned to the house to reunite with the others.

As the Wanderers walked into Dalee's house they met Arthenn, one of the members of the council. They preceeded to have a conversation about a hypothetical situation where a hypothetical group went into the Feywild and what the consequences would be if they were not careful. Eventually it was decided the best way to get into the Feywild without being known was if the council did not know about this hypothetical group and a hypothetical person had the guards around the portal help them with hypothetical errands at dawn the next day. The Wanderers agreed this was the best plan, and began to get ready to leave at dawn tomorrow. The night was spent relaxing and playing games. Ernelis relished in being with his daughter and wife, and Garyn lost at fantasy King's Cup Uno.

Dawn arrived and the Wanderers left for the portal with a happy-sad goodbye to Ravara and Eiltara from Ernelis. On their way to the portal, Toven disguised herself as Arthenn and went ahead of the group to make sure the hypothetical deal was upheld. After it was determined it was the Wanderers stepped through the portal, and after a very weird teleportation experience found themselves in a grassy clearing surrounded by forest in the Feywild. After having a few minutes to take in the different features of the Feywild and the beautiful sunset that was occurring, the Wanderers were suddenly met with complete darkness. All they could see know was tons of eyes, solid green, starring at them from the forest. The Wanderers heard a voice in their heads demanding to know who they were, before it cut off and became a singular voice. This singular voice them became excited and began to talk about/to Toven. During this an eight foot tall archfey emerged from forest. The Archfey introduced themselves as Artana and that she had some sort of relationship with Toven. As the awkward conversation continued between Artana and the Wanderers the exact, explicit nature of the Archfey patron-Warlock relationship was revealed and Artana's dislike of Kaedra. The Wanderers quickly ended the conversation after Artana used her magic to find the path out of the forest for them.

As the Wanderers were leaving the forest several more awkward conversations were had, and Ernelis and Kaedra spent a lot of time trying to keep Aggarash from going into the forest to hang out with the lights of lost souls. During the walk both Kaedra and Jothomir displayed their annoyance with Toven and how she handled their existence with Artana. Finally out of the woods with everyone, the Wanderers continued walking through the Feywild until they saw a village in the distance. It was decided that Jojo would go into town invisible to see what the locals looked like.

While there Jojo found that the city, Iadray as the Wanderers would later learn, was full of Sprites, Pixies, and Satyrs. Jojo followed one Satyr, Donovan, to the edge of town on his walk to the edge of town, where Donovan just looked out over the landscape. Feeling he had enough information, Jojo returned to the rest of the Wanderers and relayed the information he had found. With this new knowledge it was decided that Ernelis, Toven, and Aggarash would walk through town disguised as Satyrs while the rest of the group would be invisible (except Warrior who wildshaped into a rabbit) and walk around the town. The three going through town made it through easily, except for when Toven attempted to give everyone fake names and it was clear she was lying, and got some information about Dalee. Despite that mess up, no problems were had and the groups reconvened on the other side of the town.

The trek did not have peace for much longer as Kelta and Ernelis pointed out a melody they heard on the winds. Several members of the group became entranced by the sounds and those who shook off the charm had to try to stop their companions. The tug-of-war was difficult and seemed to be a losing battle with Jojo until Ernelis in wildshape was able to grab the flute that was creating melody and carry it away, which dropped the charm on everyone.

With the charm broken, the Wanderers began to talk to the individuals who had been enraptured by the music, and attempted to piece together what was happening. Jothomir aggressivlely interrograted the satyr who had been playing the flute, trying to see why someone would do this. However, the Satyr explained it was not his fault. His group had stumbled upon an abandoned house full of trinkets, which included the flute, and he decided to play it for a bit. Now they have no idea how long ago that was because they had all been charmed by the music of the flute. The Wanderers chatted with the group a bit more learning their names and their story, while Ernelis and Kaedra handled the body of one of the elves, who had passed away from the exhaustion of the charm. With some less than cheery goodbyes, the groups parted and the Wanderers continued to follow the path.

The next interesting thing the Wanderers found while following Ascher and Dalee's path was a clearing with three stone columns that had strange patterns chiseled into them. Some of these boulders had appeared to be carved into statues, 6 to be exact, of humanoid forms. While the Wanderers were examining them, Basiliks and shadow-y cats attacked the group. The Wanderers managed to best the beasts, but not without suffering a casualty on their side as Garyn had been turned to stone by the basilisk. Ernelis and Kelta began to try their best to experiment with how to un-petrify Garyn, but neither had experience with basilisk to guide them. While they were fretting, Donovan, the Satyr from Iadray, trotted up to the group and offered his assistance to un-petrify Garyn. He demanded payment from the Wanderers who were able to barter the price to also get 4 of the statues who appeared savable to also be restored. Several of the Wanderers desired to not let him leave, but Donovan was a few steps ahead and managed to get away, causing several people to swear they would go back for him. But the group refocused and provided the potions to the petrified individuals, returning them to their normal form. After another round of questions and introductions the groups parted ways with the group of adventurers the Wanderers had rescued directing the group to a River Nymph up ahead who may be of assistance.

After a bit more travel the Wanderers arrived at the river and encountered Hollatei, a water nymph, and Gwyn, a dryad. Not long after introductions the group asked the two if they had seen a young boy and a firbolg woman come through this area and if they knew were they were going. Immediately upon mentioning the two, Hollatei and Gywn's expressions changed from joyous to concerned and sad. The Wanderers learned that Ascher had passed by a few days ago but was taken by thralls of the Weeping Rowan and that Dalee also headed towards the Verdant Grove despite their warnings. Confused by the situation, The Wanderers asked for more information, which Hollatei provided in the form of a fairy tale. With this new knowledge and despite the warnings of the two, the Wanderers knew their destination was the Verdant Grove, and they asked for how to travel their. Hollatei and Gywn excitedly offered to give the group a boat, which the Wanderers immediately accepted and named Sir Swimsalot.

Bidding their new companions farewell, the Wanderers set forth upon the rive towards the Ammestall Run and the Verdant Grove. Little of interest occurred on the ride down the river, bar a few weird feywild magics, and in about 3.5 days the Wanderers found themselves approaching their destination. Also heading in that direction, the group found a thrall of the Weeping Rowan, who they followed into the grove. After pausing briefly to discuss tactics, the group entered the clearing of the grove. They were immediately addressed by the Weeping Rowan, who could tell that the Wanderers had come not for him, but for Dalee and Ascher. He gazed to a portion of the stone wall covered in vines and ivy, where Dalee was tied up with Ascher held tightly in her arms. From the distance and with the lighting the Wanderers could not tell if they were alive. The Rowan continued to talk to the group, and as he explained his deal the vision of the Wanderers all went dark.