Lowen Dastrél, the owner of Gilded Promises and local jeweler in The Circle of Life neighbourhood looked increasingly uncomfortable as our heroes questioned him about the delayed wedding bands.
The wedding was soon and Lowen had ordered the base rings from Shieldstone where they manufactured the most esquisite elven gold rings.
But the rings were now 3 days late and while he had raised this with Long Mile Dispatch, they had assured him everything was under control.
The party was less confident and decided to visit Long Mile Dispatch in Newgate.
Long Mile Dispatch
At the dispatch desk they found Dispatch Clerk, Blaak Tongontickler, a tall, short armed, rude bureaucratic hobgoblin, who assured them that the rings would arrive the following day as he knew the courier had checked in at Shaderest Tavern located on the other side of Wildshade Forest to the east of Daisygate.
The party learned that the courier had two experienced guards with him, with Mira Tornel being the lead guard. But they also learned that Mira had recently become very fond of spending time at a local tavern called The Wrong Tree, much to Blaak’s annoyance, so the party decided to pay the tavern a visit before heading the Wildshade Forest.
The Wrong Tree
The Wrong Tree was fairly new. Built around a local curiosity: A tree growing upside down.
It was mid day on a regular working day, and the tavern was half empty, so it gave the heroes a chance to speak with the owner Kelthar Val, a green Dragonborn with a nasty scar running down the left side of his face and where his left horn had once been, a silver horn of a different shape had been added.
Kelthar proudly explained that he took the silver horn from the silver Dragonborn who have given hime the scare and who he had subsequently killed.
The party learned that Mira was a recently regular and Kelthar had seen her with two other women: A human and a blue Dragonborn as well as sometimes with a musky smelling man. But Kelthar was struggling to describe the man, almost like he couldn’t quite remember. all he remembered was the man was always cloaked and paid in odd currency, sometimes in silver, sometimes in flowers and sometimes in beautiful songs.
The road to Shaderest tavern
The party decided to head through Wildshade Forest to Shaderest Tavern, the last known place of the courier trio.
As they approached Wildshade Forest, they found an overturned horse cart with a dead guard and courier. The small strongbox had been emptied.
As they examined the crime scene they found:
- Strongbox had been well hidden.
- Strongbox was not forced opened.
- The decoy bags with fake coins had been left alone.
- Footsteps of a human and a Dragonborn accompanied by a set of small hooves had come to the scene from Daisygate, but going back, less than an hour ago, was two sets of human prints, the Dragonborn and the hooved prints.
As they hurried back to Daisygate, they heard faint pipe music heading towards Daisygate. Orlando relied playing his guitar and there was a little bit of back and forth until they reached Daisygate upon which the pipes stopped.
Back at The Wrong Tree
Back at The Wrong Tree, the party found Mira sitting with a blue Dragonborn female and a human woman. All three looked sullen and down.
Alfein tried to strike up a conversation and passed on threats from Blaak of firing Mira, but she couldn’t care less and the threats just annoyed her.
Orlando, having heard the failed conversation, started playing the tune he had learned from the pipe music and the three women started bursting out in tears.
Amelia stepped in with an empathetic angle that worked and learned that the three women had arrived with, on their accounts, most beautiful man, hairy, beautiful horns, a voice of the angels etc etc
The party had the idea to see if Amelia’s Wolpertinger could use its fine, magi sensitive nose to pick up the musky trail. And it did and the party left the tavern, and the miserable women, in a hurry.
The trail leads to Thornlock
The heroes hurried after the little pet and it led them to Thornlock. But the little Wolpertinger didn’t give them much chance to pause as it followed the trail straight into the Avenue of Lanterns.
As the heroes ran down the Avenue, they first passed a husband and wife couple where the man angrily exclaimed that he had not been able to stop their daughter leaving.
Further down the alleyway a shopkeeper told his staff that if the staff member who had run off, came back, she could consider herself fired.
And then they passed a brothel where an angry patron was left hanging as his lady had run off in the middle of their negotiations.
All led to a small cozy team room called Bitter Slik.
Bitter Silk
Inside the small shop, the party found a Satyr covered in jewelry, necklaces, earrings, rings, fine silks with three women almost sitting on his lap.
Thistlewink Gleamhoof, the Satyr, bid the heroes join him for a toast to life and all things beautiful.
As he did the heroes felt the charm spell rush over them but they managed to shruck it off last minute.
Alfein, pretending to be under the spell sat on Gleamhoof’s lap (much to the annoyance of his fiancé Orlando) and quickly noticed the missing rings on the Satyr’s fingers.
Orlando tried to use Puppet on the Satyr, but he shook it off like it was a fly.
Amelia saw the move and cast Command on the Satyr, which he also shook off, but now was aware there was hostile intent.
The three women immediately clocked on to the threat and jumped on the heroes, but the experience heroes moved out of the way leaving all three women crashing into the floor and furntiture.
Orlando cast Puppet again and this time the Satyr’s arms shook until all his jewelry had dropped on the floor. Amelia quickly jumped to pick up the rings and found one.
Alfein did the same, but without any luck.
Thistlewink scooped up a big portion of the dropped jewelry and hoofed it to the door and out he ran.
Catch him!
Amelia and Alfein gave chase while Orlando went through the last bits of jewelry on the floor. But the missing ring was not there.
Amelia and Alfein tried to bring the Satyr down with bow and magic, but while their attacks struck true, the creature kept running and turned around and played a magical tune that made the two heroes slow down drowsy.
As they shook off the sleep spell, Orlando caught up and following the Wolpertinger and the laugher from the Satyr, they chased him down quirky little roads and alleys and up and down floors through people’s homes and shops.
Suddenly they found themselves out in the open, in a circular meadow with the Thornlock building rising around them.
In the center was a large ring of daisy flowers hovering a foot or two in the air.
It was the real Daisygate, the portal to the Feywild and Gleamhoof was halfway through it.
Beyond the Daisygate portal, the heroes could see a vibrant world with colours upon colours, many of which they had never seen before. Flowers, trees, lush dewy grass and a beautiful dusk in the sky.
“You are still here? Oh well, it’s just a sad little ring. Here! Catch!”, the Satyr threw the second wedding band to the heroes and jumped into through the gate that closed behind him.
As the heroes had recovered from the chase and the shock of finding the portal they realised: We are lost in Thornlock.!