23-12-12: Wild Beyond the Witchlight Part 10

We make our way from Brigganock Mine to Lockbury Henge, going back into the storm. As we travel, a tornado forms right near us. We get swept into the tornado and almost everyone takes -14 damage. The tornado deposits us outside of Endelyn's fortress, Motherhorn Castle. We quickly make our way away from the fortress, seeking shelter enough from the storm to take a short rest. There isn't much by way of shelter, but we do find space to make a short rest.

We head towards the fey beacons. Along the way, we run into eight solemn looking goblins ringing bells. The goblins wear headdresses of animal skulls and necklaces of dangling bones. We call out in greeting; they are the dead ringers, they provide services of summoning spirits for the cost of a trinket. Alfred offers an iron fingernail; they summon a korred for us, the small fey who live in Lockbury Henge. We can ask it three questions; its people are not friends with Endelyn, Endelyn cut and stole the hair of the korred's leader, the korreds would fight against Endelyn with us.

We get to the fey beacons. Eight columns of rock, 200 feet tall, 150 feet apart, rise around a deep crater lake. A trudging figure makes its way up from a rowboat while winged beasts laugh around it. The figure climbs some stairs, lights a brazier; as he goes back down, the winged beasts laugh and put the fire out. He doesn't notice us. We call out to him; he's trying to use the portal that is the lake, but it's visible only in the light of eight beacons. The perytons, the winged beasts, are preventing him from lighting all the beacons. The perytons used to be a troupe of actors, but Endelyn turned them into perytons. He's a wood elf prince trying to return to his home in Faerun. We offer to let him join us on our quest to free Zibilna, we'll be returning to Faerun afterward; he accepts, his name is Alagarthas.

Alfred has the idea that Elidon could freeze the perytons. Dorrissa waves to get their attention, Alfred does a cartwheel, and he passes some sling bullets to Dorrissa who starts to juggle them. The perytons alight to watch us; Elidon freezes them in place. We go to help Alagarthas light the beacons; he tells us that if we ever go to the Misty Forest, to tell his people that we're friends of his and they'll bring us to him. We light all the beacons, and a forest scene appears in the lake; Alagarthas jumps in and after a minute, the forest scene disappears.

We find shelter to take a long rest. We start our way towards Lockbury Henge. Along the way, we come across a wagon with a puppet stage with black velvet curtains. It's led by a tall figure. As the wagon approaches us, it stops and the curtains pull open. As we watch, puppets that look like us appear on the stage; the puppets re-enact our going into Brigganock Mine, coming back out, and getting caught up in a tornado. The show ends with the puppets coming down the road, to a wagon, and then the curtains close and say 'To Be Continued.' The tall figure hands us each a ticket that says "Good for one private audience with Endelyn Moongrave, no strings attached."

We find shelter enough to take a long rest and continue on towards Lockbury Henge. We come across a throne hewn in stone with a saying etched in Elvish. It lists itself as belonging to Mazikoth, and says something about 'sit in my throne, disciple, and unravel.' Dorrissa sits on the throne and falls into a magical trance; Alfred and Fiadh can't wake her no matter how they try. She dreams of hurtling through space for an hour. She inherits a piece of Mazikoth's psyche, and now has proficiency in arcana. Mazikoth was a famed astronomer who claimed to hail from a black star.

We finally make it to Lockbury Henge. Eight megaliths stand across the stony clearing; each of the megaliths is a different kind of stone, and each stands 20 feet tall. There's a checkboard in the middle of the circle, it looks like some kind of game in progress; two sets of playing pieces make of shale and chalk are sculpted in the form of tiny korreds. We each notice two sets of small sooty footprints leading up to the shale and chalk stones. Fiadh recognizes the game; she sees that shale and beat chalk in one move. She makes the move to win; two korreds come out, one cheering and laughing, the other grumpy and chewing on pebbles. We tell them we came looking for them; we heard Endelyn did them wrong; the cheering one, whose hair is shorn short, says Endelyn stole their hair; they say the Brigganocks helped Endelyn; we tell them that Endelyn is pitting the korreds against the brigganocks, and neither of them are helping Endelyn. The korred motions the rest of their kind to come out, we're friends. The korred says their hair is stronger than iron, and Endelyn stole is because of that. The korreds show us how to manipulate and control their hair using a dance; Fiadh and Dorrissa both are able to learn the dance.

"Command Hair
Korred
The korred has at least one 50-foot-long rope woven out of its hair. The korred commands one such rope within 30 feet of it to move up to 20 feet and entangle a Large or smaller creature that the korred can see. The target must succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or become grappled by the rope (escape DC 13). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. The korred can use a bonus action to release the target, which is also freed if the korred dies or becomes incapacitated.
A rope of korred hair has AC 20 and 20 hit points. It regains 1 hit point at the start of each of the korred's turns while the rope has at least 1 hit point and the korred is alive. If the rope drops to 0 hit points, it is destroyed."

Argant, the korred leader, gives Fiadh a stone of good luck for finishing their game. They're going to meet with the Brigganocks to end their feud, and then they will help us against Endelyn by hiding in the rocks and waiting for us to call them out for help.

We head toward the Brigganock mine with the eight korred leaders, taking a long rest along the way. Maliviey greets us outside with brigganock warriors, asking why we would bring their enemies to them; we convince them that Endelyn has pitted the korreds against the brigganocks against each other, and they agree to have a talk. Once inside the mine, it doesn't take long for the two factions to realize what Endelyn has done. The brigganocks agree to help us against Endelyn, all we need to is call for them.

We ready ourselves to go through the secret tunnel to the fortress. Gleam says Endelyn won't be happy to see them; Dorrissa applies magic face paint to disguise them. They'll stay in the back of the party by Elidon.

We come out of the tunnel into a small stockroom. We hear someone calling for us from one side of the room; there's a marionette puppet painted and carved to look like a human skeleton; it's tangled in its own string. Alfred untangles it, and it introduces itself as Break A Leg. It tells us that Endelyn has plays on every day, and there's a play going on right now. There's a bunch of unused props in the room, along with a moon disc, which stays in the back due to Endelyn's fear of eclipses. There's no sun disc on stage right now, but there is a sun acrobat who's 'absolutely not a prisoner!' There's a dumb waiter that can be taken upstairs to stay backstage. The 'not a prisoner' acrobat, Glister, is probably being kept in the prison several levels up.

As we exit into the next room, there's a plethora of goblins roaming about working on backdrops, and a woman being costumed by the goblins. She asked who we are and how we got down here, we tell her we're here for the show and got lost. Alfred asks for her signature, she signs her name as Skylla; Alfred and Dorrissa remember this is the warlock from the League of Malevolence. There's also a chained up brigganock on a table. Alfred distracts Skylla while Fiadh sneaks over to the brigganock and lock picks his chains; she convinces him to hide in her pocket. She then makes a big deal about accusing a goblin of releasing the brigganock; Alfred uses minor illusion to make it look like the brigganock is running from the room. Skylla gives chase, but Dorrissa trips her. Skylla curses, tells us to stay here while she catches the brigganock. Alfred steals the papers the brigganock had been working on; they're contraptions to upgrade puppets and on stage things.

We take the dumb waiter up a level to backstage.