14 Kythorn 1491
Phee and Morgort make their way over to the island. Mell follows more warily, seeing as the last time she jumped into strange waters, she was harpooned in the chest.
Peke Peke asks if it’s bath time. Sure, little buddy. And bath time comes with duckies. Mell proceeds to fashion an epic duck hat and puts Peke Peke into it and paddles over.
Phee flits up into a tree to get a better look and spots an iron brazier full of coal, currently unlit. The rest of the party hikes up the hill to the brazier and proceed to light it. After a minute, they look back over the waters and see a white horse with a horn standing on the beach the party first arrived on.
Mell grins devilishly as she realises what needs to happen next. Casting feather fall, she launches herself at Yndrus and tries to yeet him off the side of the hill. Unfortunately, her tiny body does little to move him as he plods down the hill the standard way, so she gives up and swan dives off his shoulders in glee.
The party decides they’re not done with Loomlurch, and they sneak off into the woods to return there, aware that Skabatha will surely have creatures out looking for them.
They come across a misty lake, and Mell gets excited, stating she thinks perhaps this is the lake the unicorns hang out at. She whips out her unicorn horn and ties it to her head. Phee follows suit, with a stick from the ground. Yndrus also follows suit, trying to affix his staff to his face but deciding to settle with a sprig of mistletoe.
As they approach the area, Phee is full of glee in the area, something peaceful and safe emanates from the place. Both her and Yndrus are enamoured and distracted by the place, while Mell keeps her head and peers around closely, using her monocle and asking Peke Peke for info. The shroom wasn’t particularly helpful, but Mell does spot a warm firey glow reflected on the surface of the water, though the location upon the land itself is shrouded in darkness. A concealing illusion, perhaps?
Phee and Morgort reach the unicorn first and chat about why the party is there, their vendetta against the hags. The rest of the party arrives, and the unicorn speaks to them as well. The unicorn introduces themselves as Lamorna.
Mell asks how the unicorn has kept the place so untouched and they state it’s been difficult. She segues into if the Alicorn helped them protect the place in the past and turns out that it’s the unicorns mate. The party is flooded with images. The Alicorn being stripped of their horn, and the horn being used to attack a beautiful castle.
At this point, the unicorn fixates Mell and the horn on her head. Mell, deeply embarrassed, maintains eye contact, takes off the duck hat with Peke Peke, then the horn, and apologises.
Lamorna stares, and asks how? Mell tries to explain, spilling out her search and the need to find the Alicorn, her suspicions of where he’s being held hostage.
There’s a static in the air, energy building, and suddenly the party is blown back with a powerful wave of psychic energy. The poor creature was deeply distraught.
Phee dropped to her knees and holds onto Lamorna.
The unicorn apologises profusely and tells the party a story.
Suddenly, an assassin leaps out of the shadows and plunges two daggers deeply into Lamorna’s chest. She howls and collapses, and Phee leaps at the culprit in a rage.
Mell howls and shrinks the assassin, to reduce their damage output, and Yndrus rushes to heal Lamorna. In a blink, the unicorn teleports away.
Phee slaps the wee shit around a bit and the assassin reassesses, drinking a potion and disappearing from sight.
Mell narrows her eyes and follows their impressions in the grass, aiming her Shatter spell where she thinks they are. A booming crash emanates through the area, and the assassin blips back into existence, prone on ground.
Phee tries to charm the bastard, but he remains resistant. Mell steps forward, menace in her voice, and drops a hand onto the diminutive shoulder of the assassin. Using her Suggestion, she states that he’s got two options; have a clean death now, or tell us who hired them and why and he will get a head start escaping from his employers.
Phee asks for some of Lamorna’s hair, to make a friendship bracelet.
She can’t leave the lake, but gives the party info on a former thrall of the hags, by the name of Amidor who can safely lead us to the Palace of Heart’s Desire.
Furthermore, she gives information about the Palace:
There exists a library on the second floor, contains Zybilna’s most treasured tomes. Had a massive stock of informational historical magical information.
You may want to avoid a dragon like creature, a Jabberwock. That creature is one of the reasons I can’t leave this place. Avoid it. Once it sets its eyes on prey, it rarely gives up the hunt.
Lamorna informs the party
The domain of Prismeer once was ruled by Zybilna, until she was usurped by her step sisters. She was vain and deceitful at times, but she kept the realm safe. With her absence, that is no longer the case. When the Hourglass Coven captured my mate Elidon, and stole his horn, they used it to trap Zybilna in her palace.
It is likely that his horn may be instrumental in undoing these wrongs. Up until now I had no idea of Elidon’s whereabouts of him apart from knowing he was a prisoner of the hags.
Another blast of psychic rage exuded from the unicorn, but it was more controlled.
The Suggestion from Mellow to Zarak get them talking. He claims that he is part of a group known as the League of Malevolence. After being pressed for more information it is revealed that he has been sent after Lamorna’s horn in order to free from stasis a mage, Ringlerun, in the Palace of Heart’s Desire as another member of the League, Kelek, desires their magic staff.
More questions later and The Party has learned that the Hourglass Coven used a Unicorn Horn and a cauldron to freeze time in Zybilna’s palace. Another name drops in conversation, Zargash, and the assassin pictures a disturbing image of the entity that this priest worships - Orcus, the Demon Lord of the Undead.
The more they learn, the less confident Mell is that these folks are likely to want to free Zybilna and are after unfreezing the palace for their own nefarious gains.
Exhausting their questions, they shoo the assassin on their way cause the party aren’t a pack of murder-hobos.
The party hatches a plan to save Eliodon. They go in as a trio, avoiding the dangerous dragon boxes, grab the Boggle Oil for Squirt at the market, then Phee heckles a box to distract said dragon while Yndrus and Mell sneak off to grab the rocking horse. With Yndrus’ Pass Without Trace, Mell will shrink the horse and book it out of town. Perfect!
They arrive in Loomlurch to a more subdued market. They stroll up to Chucklehead and Phee greets him warmly, but one creepy hug later and she’s over it.
However he holds up his end of the bargain and they have the Boggle Oil! Phee sniffs it, it’s not great.
The party then decides to send out Phee’s Familiar to see if they can spot Skabatha Nightshade in the area before they head for the Alicorn. They seemingly phase out of existence in front of Chucklehead and head off to execute their plan. Mell and Yndrus sneak around toward the Alicorn, giving a wide berth to the tin scarecrows.
A major faux pas had occurred; how does the dragon familiar give the party a signal if they’re invisible? Well, the solution was Phee waiting a short time, telling her Familiar to display the signal, and hoping that Mell and Yndrus see it. Fortunately, they do.
Phee starts her part of the plan and starts wailing on the box in the opening foyer, gleefully pelting it with rocks. Morgort hears the commotion and strides in from the edge of town to help with the diversion. Cradlefall has now appeared, its head poking out to glare at Phee and launches itself at her. I t’s not great. Lots of poisoning and pain and biting.
Morgort smashes into the foyer and slaps the crap out of Cradlefall while at that moment Phee burst into enraged flames, burning the little dragon quite badly.
Thankfully, diversion works like a charm and Yndrus and Mell snatch the rocking horse and book it to the tree line at the edge of the village.
But the diversion is pretty dicey, Cradlefall quite dangerous in their injurious state. Phee frantically slashes at it in an attempt to survive. She does enough damage to cause it to flee, billowing one last poisonous cloud on the way. Phee goes down and Morgort lashes out with a deadly stroke of her glaive, and misses by a hair. It tries to flee, and Morgort chases. It whips around and spews more poison as Morgort cleaves open its neck with her blade.
She yanks her blade free from Cradle’ss corpse as the door to the foyer deeper into the tree swings open and four tin soldiers pour out. Morgort books a hasty retreat, grabbing the unconscious Phee on the way. Yndrus, having managed to reach the tree line with Mell, dashes off to help Phee and Morgort, appearing as they are fleeing the tin soldiers. With a smile and an awkward wave (having gotten the attention of all the enemies) attempts to Misty Step away, barely, dangling off the edge of the bridge he’d been on, clinging to the vined edges of the bridge for dear life.
Morgort, looking down at the broken passenger she’s carrying, shoves a healing potion down her throat and she comes choking back to consciousness. She sputters “did it work?”
Meanwhile, Mell is struggling with the rocking horse on her own, morphing into Yndrus’ form for greater moving advantage, dragging the recalcitrant child’s toy along with her.
Phee leaps from Morgort and hides in the woods, Morgort attempting to do the same. Strategic retreat!
As Mell crests the bank of a river she’s trying to cross, and spies the four soldiers running towards her and grins maniacally, muttering “I haven’t had a chance to be a part of the action today!” And casts Shatter. It’s devastating. Yndrus, from his precarious position, morphs into giant spider form and descends upon the soldiers.
The party manages to take out the last of the soldiers, Morgort helps Mell with the rocking horse just as it re-enlarges. As the party bravely runs away with the horse, the shade of Skabatha appears at the edge of the bridge to Loomlurch, screaming obscenities at them.
As the party runs, and Morgort struggles, Mell rips out the horn she’d been carrying and jams it into the the socket on the rocking horse.
There’s a radiant white light, and a beautiful Alicorn has appeared in the place of the rocking horse. The shrieking of Skabatha stops and Phee exclaims excitedly that the witch is scared.