Session 38: Care for an Apple?

The party headed to the Moonwell, first collecting Dewspark to lead them through. They entered the Moonwell, passing through it to the Feywilds on the other side. The party found themselves in a transformed land that mirrored the realm they departed, but much more vibrant and full of color. Where the Silver Lodge was, instead stood a great tree. They found themselves in land held by the Autumn Court, and more specifically, Stag King. Standing outside of the Moonwell on The Feywild side were two Redcap guards, Mother’s Favorite and The Other One. Mother’s Favorite told them that Wistari was meeting with an Emissary of the Stag King.

Dewspark went ahead to see if the party could meet with Wistari, leaving them with the Redcap brothers. The party found that the caps of the fey were red from dipping them in the blood of their fresh kills. Bolvaic challenged The Other One to a stone throwing contest, where they threw stones at one another.

Despark returned and said that Wistari would see the group. She led them back to the tree, which they found had a section hollowed out to be a house. Inside the domain, they found Wistari speaking with a beautiful androgynous fey who was one of the three Emissaries of the Stag King chewing on an apple. The party inquired with Wistari if he was responsible for the death of Maximillian, however, he said that he was not. He was not even aware of his passing.

Wistari explained that he was meeting with the Emissary of the Stag King to discuss the matter of the marriage. With the wedding and the potential of changing of ownership, the protection of the Moonwell was uncertain. The Emissary was pleased to hear of the death as the wedding being called off secured the ownership of the Lodge and Moonwell in amiable hands, at least for the time being. They would have to watch the family, but in the meantime, the problem was averted. However, Wistari’s innocence in the matter meant that the true murderer was still out and at the party.

As the party prepared to leave, the Emissary asked, “Anyone care for an apple?” Despite protests of the rest of the party, Bolvaic said that he did and the Emissary tossed him a fresh apple and smiled at him and told Bolvaic that he expects him to care for the apple until it grows into a new tree and that he would return to check on the tree in the future.

The party left the tree and returned to the Moonwell, finding that little time had passed as the dancing was still going on. They informed Lysandrea and Roslinda about what they discovered and decided to follow up on Rograf to see if he was responsible.

In order to isolate him from the rest of the wedding, Donk headed over and touched Rosgraf and said “You’re it” and ran, and while confused, Rograf did not chase after Donk. Ultimately the party did confront him aggressively, directly suggesting that he was responsible for Maximillian’s death–though Rograf did not seem to know that Maximillian was dead. He eventually told the party that he did not really know Maximillian, but he was hired by him to test the land that Silver Lodge was on, because there was suspected to be a vein of Mithril on the land, which Rograf seemed to confirm.

With Maximillian dead, Rograf had no reason to stay and was driven away by the party after taking his soil samples and threatening him never to tell anyone about his findings. However, shortly after his leaving the party heard a war horn blown and, with the full moon out, saw a group of approaching werewolves as well as a group of Oleander soldiers.   Cornelius Peck reached out to Ilbryen from their ring, telling them that he knew the Legate and to repeat after him to deescalate the situation in the Oleander language, which Ilbryen did not know. However, the mental connection was enough that Ilbryen was able to tell what it was that Cornelius was getting them to say: “Cornelius Peck is in this pagan’s ring. Kill this blasphemer and release me!” Fortunately, Ilbryen determined the meaning before they recited it, but the lycanthropes and Oleander soldiers readied to attack the wedding.