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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9736800" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 3: TROUBLE IN THISTLEDOWN PARKPC Roster:Adrielle, human/merfolk scout 1                     Brendan Conaill, human monk 1                     Kruz Taszan, changeling rogue 1                     Shiroko, snow fox hengeyokai wu jen 1NPC Roster:Hoppy, mongrelfolk adept 1Game Session Date: 16 August 2025 - - -"Why are we here again?" asked Shiroko."A guild thief, Cliff Stickyfingers, failed to make his designated appointment," answered Kruz.  "He was hired to snatch something for a client and meet at Thistledown Park at midnight to hand it over.  Problem is, he never showed - and now we have a disgruntled client who paid half up front and a missing thief who could be dead, or could have decided to betray the guild and keep whatever he was hired to steal for himself.  In any case, the Silent Sodality's out in full force looking for him: his home, his known hangouts, any known bolt-holes - the works.  We've been tasked to see if there's anything at his meeting-site that may give us any clues about his current whereabouts.""Here it is," Brendan said, as they approached Thistledown Park.  It was hidden away a block behind a main street, a tranquil place for a family to have a picnic, or feed the fish in the koi pond, while the kids played on the playground equipment or tried to find their way through the hedge maze.  There was also a flower garden, a fountain, and a statue of Thaddeus Galloway, the man who had the park built, never one to step away from an opportunity of self-aggrandizement.As the group of five approached, they could tell at once that everything was not as tranquil in the park as normal.  A family of three stood upon a covered picnic table, looking fearful at something down below them.  A little girl was buried up to the neck in the sandbox, but her laid-back expression indicated she wasn't particularly worried about her current predicament.  Over on the swing set, one of the ropes had come loose from its anchor point and had been used to wrap up the little boy on that swing; he didn't complain about his predicament either, but that was likely because the rope wrapped around his body was also effectively being used as a gag.As Kruz entered the park and walked by the statue of Thaddeus Galloway, he pulled his short sword from its scabbard, ready for any trouble.  And sure enough, trouble came to him almost at once, but not from any direction he'd have expected: Galloway's metal statue bent at the waist and a solid fist came crashing down at the changeling rogue.  Fortunately, Kruz was quick enough to dodge the awkward blow, rolling forward into a somersault and running over by the fountain.  The others saw the statue's attack, but Adrielle also spotted something the others missed: although she saw the statue move and bend to attack the changeling, she also saw it still standing unmoving in its original position, the two images overlapping in her vision.  An illusion, perhaps?  In any case, it didn't look to be able to chase after any of them, and the others had all seen it attack Kruz, so she figured none of them were in any danger from it.  She went over to the playground to check on the little girl buried up to her neck in the sandbox."Did you see that?" Brendan asked the others as he approached, staying well out of the statue's reach, for while he saw it try to reach Kruz with its awkward fist, it hadn't moved its legs, staying rooted on the spot.  The monk had his quarterstaff at the ready as he headed over to the swing set to go check on the tightly-bound boy.Shiroko veered to the right while the others went left, curious about what had the family of three - a father, mother, and young son - so frightened.  Hoppy followed the wu jen; while he considered he owed a life-debt to all four of the heroes who had saved his life from the sahuagin raid, the hengeyokai had been the only one not to have initially flinched at first seeing the mismatched features on his misshapen form; if he were ever in a position where he could only save one of them, he'd likely go for Shiroko.  In any case, by ducking down and looking underneath the adjacent picnic table, they could see what had the family so frightened: a skunk, its white-striped tail raised and a look of irritation in its eyes.Hoping the language of burrowing mammals was the same here in Armaturia as it was back in her homeland, the fox hengeyokai called out, "What are you doing?"  She was surprised when the skunk replied, "Mad."  It wasn't much of a response, but the animal languages were often very primitive.  "Why are you mad?" she pressed."Bird," it replied as it continued on its way, towards the picnic table on which the family was perched, standing among their food.  That didn't make a whole lot of sense to the hengeyokai, so she cast a detect magic spell to see if there was something of an arcane nature bothering the skunk.  She saw no magical auras around the skunk, although the statue was radiating magic.  But Hoppy's sensitive ear - the right one, that of a bugbear - picked up the sound of rapidly-beating wings.  "There, behind the skunk," he said, pointing to where he heard the flapping wings, although there was nothing visible there.  "Like a dragonfly," he insisted.Adrielle approached the girl in the sandbox and was surprised at the expression on her face - she was not only unafraid, she was positively enjoying the experience.  The mermaid in a human's body briefly considered if she herself had ever experienced a level of ecstasy similar to the one the little girl seemed to be undergoing, and came up blank.  "I'll get you out of there," she promised the girl, undoing her weapon belt so she could use her scabbard - not her sword, no sense in taking the risk of cutting the girl with the edge of her blade - to dig her out of the sand.Kruz went past the fountain to check out the koi pond, thinking he might find Cliff's body floating face down in it or something, but the only thing in the water was a group of hungry fish, who all came over to Kruz's side of the pond when his shadow hit the water.  Past experience had taught them humanoid shadows were often accompanied by food: dried bread, usually, but sometimes items even tastier.  Brendan, by then, had made it over to the boy bound and gagged on the third swing, only to have one of the ropes holding up the second swing unloop from the top and snake over his way, winding about him in an instant.  Just that quickly, he was entangled as tightly as the boy beside him, although because he was twice the boy's size the rope was unable to reach up to his mouth.The skunk was over by the picnic table harboring the cowering family and spun about, tail raised to spray them.  "Leave them alone - they mean you no harm!" Shiroko commanded, and the skunk snorted once in derision and scuttled away, heading over to the fountain.  Hoppy, still looking under the table from which it had originally emerged, spotted a hummingbird lowering itself from directly under the table's lower surface.  "There!" he cried, and Shiroko looked over to see the hummingbird follow in the skunk's wake - was this the bird that had been annoying it?  She pulled her wand of magic missiles from a kimono sleeve and fired off a shot.  The hummingbird died immediately, its body falling lifelessly to the ground...but oddly enough, the sound of the rapid beating of its wings continued.Adrielle looked over to her right and saw Brendan bound up by the swing set rope.  Abandoning the ridiculously happy little girl, who didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, she ran over to Brendan, careful not to get too close to either of the other two swings, fearful of having one of their ropes try to tangle her up in the same fashion.  "I'm fine!" grumbled the monk, not wanting to have to be rescued by one of his companions - he'd grown up in the rough streets of Port Duralia, surely he could get himself out of these ropes!  But his first attempt was unsuccessful, much to his dismay.The growl of a wolf alerted Shiroko and Hoppy to the arrival of a new threat to the park environs.  A wolf came striding up from the far side of the hedge maze, drool dripping from its slavering mouth.  The little boy on the picnic table shrieked in fear, and his father pushed him protectively behind himself and his wife.  Shiroko's detect magic spell, still active, indicated to the wu jen the wolf was magical in nature, and she voiced her suspicions: "It's been summoned by someone!"  She activated her daily unseen servant spell effect, having it slide the dead hummingbird over to the wolf as an offering of food, but it ignored the morsel, its red eyes focused upon the three cringing humans on the top of the picnic table.  Thinking to put a bit of distance between themselves and the wolf, Shiroko and Hoppy leaped up on the table opposite the one with the three picnickers on it.Ignoring all of the antics of his companions, Kruz carried on with his original mission: finding Cliff or clues to his current whereabouts.  He wandered over to the flower gardens, which was a series of walkways surrounded by low shrubs and interspersed with a wide variety of colorful flowers.  But as he approached, a clump of flowers and the shrubs around them elongated, trying to entwine themselves around the nimble changeling.  Kruz was having none of that, however - he dodged their attack and backtracked over by the fountain.There was sudden gust of wind - that's what it felt like, in any case - and suddenly Brendan and Adrielle were overcome with ecstatic joy.  Brendan abandoned his struggles against the rope binding him to the swing set and just enjoyed the moment; Adrielle wandered dreamily away from the swings, stepping over the edge of a teeter-totter, only to have it suddenly slam upwards into her thigh.  She stumbled over it, falling onto her back, but she ignored the pain of the attack and focused on the lovely shapes the clouds overhead were making.  That one almost looked like a flounder, and with a little imagination she could almost see a starfish taking form in another cloud not too far away.The skunk had wandered over to a small grove of trees behind the koi park, where it had dug itself a den; now that the irritating hummingbird had stopped bothering him, he was content to go back to the shade of his underground dwelling.After Shiroko concentrated on her detect magic spell, she determined the aura around the wolf was one of illusion magic, not conjuration.  "The wolf is not real!" she called over to the frightened family.  "It's an illusion!  It's safe to get out of here!"  The boy didn't believe this for a moment, but his father scooped him up in his arms and he and his wife fled the park for home, leaving their picnic food abandoned on the table behind them.  The wolf looked after the fleeing family for a moment, then, apparently realizing the game was up, winked away out of its fake existence."Come on!" called Shiroko, jumping down from the table top and heading over to the hedge maze.  Hoppy followed without question (although he looked wistfully at the abandoned food on the next table over with the practiced eye of one who had lived his life not always knowing where his next meal would come from).  As they approached the maze - a small labyrinth of 10-foot-tall growths with an open doorway facing the picnic area - they could hear cried for help coming from inside the maze.  "Another dead end!" grumbled a masculine voice, while a woman from the same general area called out, "Is there anyone out there who can help us get out of this?"About this time, the girl buried to her neck in the sandbox started wailing; whatever joyful attitude had overcome her had apparently run its course.Kruz joined up with Shiroko and Hoppy by the hedge maze.  On a whim, he activated his birthmark, causing the reddish shape on his collarbone to take on the solid form of a crystal orb attached to a silver chain.  Holding it up to his eye, he looked inside the hedge maze through its open door and saw something not entirely unlike the two different forms of the statue Adrielle had seen earlier: two versions of the hedge maze, one interposed over the other, one the actual layout of the maze and the other the illusion making it look like the maze interior had a completely different configuration.  He also spotted something peculiar above the hedge maze and announced, "Hey!  There's a little fairy flying above the maze!""Where?" demanded Shiroko."Right in the middle, about three feet up!"That was all Shiroko needed to hear.  She cast an elemental burst spell at the top of the hedges in the center of the maze, causing splinters of sharp wood to go flying up in all directions like explosive shrapnel.  The pain from the splinters caused the tiny pixie to lose concentration on her greater invisibility spell for a moment, bringing her visible for a second or two.  It was enough to allow the wu jen to know what they were up against."Hang on - I'm coming for you!" Kruz called to the couple stuck in the illusory hedge maze.  The moment of true seeing through his magic gem had passed - it was once more a reddish birthmark on his chest - but he remembered the basic layout of the maze's interior.  "How long have you guys been lost in here!""Got to be nearly an hour by now!" replied the man trapped inside with his wife.Adrielle and Brendan shook off the effects of their blissfulness at about the same time, and as the monk freed himself from the swing set rope, Adrielle got back on her feet and headed over to the little girl in the sandbox, who was now screaming herself red in the face.  But as the scout approached her, she heard growling from beneath a nearby merry-ground.  Looking over that way, Adrielle saw a pair of yellow, glowing eyes in the shadows beneath the playground equipment.  But then she heard Shiroko call out, "It's fairies, casting illusions!" and realized a predator the size of the one apparently beneath the merry-go-round wouldn't likely make it into the middle of a city the size of Port Duralia without having been discovered and run off.  And oddly enough, as soon as she ignored the growling menace, it ceased its noises and its glowing eyes winked out.Brendan cut the rope binding the little boy to the swing.  Adrielle went back to digging the girl out of the sandbox with the scabbard of her longsword, when the girl suddenly shrieked, "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME, YOU BITCH!"  It was a powerful voice, more suited to a dragon than a little six-year-old blonde girl with ponytails, and then Adrielle realized something else: while the curse had come from the girl's direction, her lips hadn't moved as the curse was voiced.  More illusion magic, then.  The scout doubled herself to the task and soon had the little girl free from the sandbox.Kruz found the husband and wife in the back of the hedge maze and led them back to the entrance, although with his true seeing gone he made a wrong turn here and there, and was worried he'd soon be as lost as they were.  But his training held true, and by going back the way he'd come with his eyes closed, to block out any contradictory information being fed to him via illusion magic, he soon had the three of them back out by the picnic tables.  "Tommy!  Sally!" called out the mother, and to her relief the boy Brendan had just freed and the girl Adrielle had dug out both went running to their parents.The pixie's brief moment of visibility gave Shiroko a fair idea of the direction she'd been headed (away from the hedge maze and closer to the fountain) and it allowed the wu jen to cast a hypnosis spell in the area she believed the little fairy to be.  Fortunately, Shiroko had accurately guessed the pixie's general location, and she'd even managed to overcome the little fey's innate immunity to spell energy.  "Become visible and approach me," Shiroko commanded the pixie - and the tiny fey did just that."We do not wish to cause any of you harm!" Shiroko called out to whatever other fairies might be in the vicinity - there had been enough strange goings-on that there had to have been more than just the one pixie involved.  "Approach, make yourselves known, and we will come to an arrangement we can all live with!""It's okay!" echoed the hypnotized fairy.  "Come on out into the open!"Two other fairies became visible and drifted over to the first one, flapping their little dragonfly wings.  Then an actual dragon approached, but this was no larger than a small puppy, featuring the colorful wings of a butterfly.  Brendan got a good grip on his quarterstaff, ready to swat any of these fey creatures out of the air if they tried anything.  But Shiroko seemed to have gained their trust, so he held off his attacks - for now."How did you come to be here?" asked Shiroko."We came through the device," replied the hypnotized fairy, a tiny little pixie named Snowfeather, pointing towards Tommy, the boy Brendan had rescued from the swings.  Tommy held something in his hands, looking like a magnifying lens with a lever that ran across its upper circular arc.  "A giant eye appeared in the Fairylands, and when we went to go investigate it, we passed through an opening between our two worlds, and ended up here.""At first, we thought this was a land of giants," added Thornflower, a tiny pixie with green-tinged hair.  "Then we realized the setting on the device had been made much larger in the Fairylands than it was here.  In passing through, we were shrunk down to these sizes."  That made sense to Shiroko; from what she recalled of the fairy stories from her homeland, pixies were about half as tall as a spirit folk, not the mere two or three inches as they were here.Adrielle asked Tommy to see the fairy glass and he handed it over.  Kruz looked at it over her shoulder and said quietly, "That's the object Cliff was asked to steal for the client.""I was playing around with it, and these tiny flying people and the little dragon flew out," Tommy admitted.  "Then they went away.  I didn't know they were just invisible.""This device has caused a lot of problems here in the park," Adrielle chided Tommy.  "Where did you find it?"  Tommy explained he'd found it in the grass over by the side of the hedge maze.  "Well, I would like to buy it from you," the scout replied.  "I will give you a solid gold coin for it.  That's the same as 100 copper pieces.""That's 100 pieces of candy!" exclaimed Tommy, agreeing to the deal immediately before the foolish woman could change her mind.  Adrielle fished a gold piece from her change purse and handed it over to the boy."You share that candy with your little sister," admonished Tommy's mother."Aw!"Shiroko looked up at the hovering mini-pixies.  "Do you wish to return home?" she asked them.  They jointly agreed, even the faerie dragon whose euphoric breath weapon had caused the sudden changes in mood in Adrielle, Brendan, and Sally.  The pixies showed how to configure the fairy glass so they'd end up back in the Fairylands at their proper sizes, and one by one flew through the glass once it started glowing.  Once all four of the fey beings had passed through, Adrielle shut it off with the press of a button and passed it over to Kruz.  "Here's the item in question," she said.  "We can at least give this back to the Silent Sodality.""We still need to search the park for any signs of Cliff," pointed out Kruz.  He went back to the flower garden paths, now that they weren't enchanted to try to entangle him.  But it was Hoppy who found Cliff's body, over behind the park, lying on the ground behind a large oak tree.  There were claw marks all over his body."What do you think happened to him?" asked Shiroko."I'll give you my guess," offered Brendan.  "Cliff here steals the fairy glass from a wizard, then high-tails it over here to pass it off to the client.  Before the client shows up, though, the wizard finds out his item's been stolen, and he sends some powerful minion to go fetch it - a gargoyle, maybe, judging by the size of those claw marks.  Anyway, Cliff sees the gargoyle - or whatever - coming for him, tosses the fairy glass away, figuring he'll evade the monster tracking him and then come back to fetch it, only the gargoyle gets the better of him.  Cliff's dead, the fairy glass isn't on him - the kid said he found it over by the hedge maze, right? - so the gargoyle goes back to report his failure to his wizardly master.  That means the wizard's probably going to be taking further steps to find his stolen fairy glass - divination spells, invisible stalkers, whatever - so it's in our best interest to get the goods back to the Sodality and let them get it to the client, before the wizard shows up looking to take it.""Yeah, good idea," agreed Kruz.  "Let's get this back to them, quick."  He held it out to Adrielle.  "Here, you can hold it, since you paid for it.""No, that's perfectly fine," countered the scout.  "You go ahead and carry it.""What about Cliff?" asked Hoppy.  He'd been ready to cast a cure light wounds spell upon the slain thief until he saw Cliff wasn't breathing."Leave him where he is for now," suggested Brendan.  "We'll let the Sodality know where he is, and they can deal with him later."And that was the plan they put into motion.  Kruz gave a huge sigh of relief once the fairy glass was out of his hands; now it was someone else's problem.  The higher-ups in the Silent Sodality paid the group 400 pieces of gold for their services, feeling very pleased with the transaction; they could now turn the item over to the client who had paid for its theft in the first place, reaffirming the organization's reliability, and they rested easier knowing Cliff hadn't gone rogue on them after all.  Dying on the job was, after all, always a possibility in this profession, and Cliff had known the risks before he took on the assignment. - - -I had been going through the creature types and realized most fey only worked well at lower levels, so I wrote an adventure specifically allowing the PCs to be up against fairies without having to have them transported to the Fairlylands.  (That will come later in the campaign, since Joe decided to run a changeling PC whose father is a powerful fey.  I've already figured out what type of fey he is, and why he stashed his son to be raised on the Material Plane.)This adventure only took a bit less than two hours to run through.  Fearing such might be the case, I had the follow-on adventure all ready to go, and we went through that one next during the same gaming session. - - -T-shirt worn: My "Duck Dynasty" T-shirt with Phil Robertson that reads, "Everybody is Happy Happy Happy" - which at least was true of those who had been hit by the faerie dragon's euphoric breath weapon.</blockquote>

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