After meeting with the drow priestess, Vara was escorted back to the cell she shared with Avery. As the hours dragged on, she was given a vision from her patron and a commandment to end the worthless human beside her who put the party in danger again and again. This malicious message was periodically interrupted by another voice, one advising patience and forgiveness.
A sly grin crept across Vara’s face. “I can think of one last use for this fool.” In the pitch black dark of the drows’ unlit dungeon, Vara turned with seeing eyes to her unseeing human cellmate. She assured him with lies that none of the guards were within line of sight of their cell, so he could safely try to pick the lock. As their drow jailers passed the time with cards nearby, Avery withdrew a hidden pick and deftly defeated the lock.
At Vara’s urging, he blindly crept through the open door and followed the wall to the next cell. As he was just beginning to pick Bratak and Desmond’s lock, the guards finally noticed him and rushed to seize him. Before she had much time to react, one of the drow slammed Vara’s door shut again, locking her in. As Avery tumbled and twisted in the dark to escape his captors’ grapple, Bratak unveiled his expert knowledge of door mechanics. “These are half pin-barrel hinges. With the right leverage and the proper application of strength, the door will lift free!” Before they could get a grip on Avery, they had a raging bull minotaur on their hands, and they quickly got the horns. Seconds later, Urs busted through the door blocking him and Aengus, and now the drow had a complete prison riot on their hands. Somehow Avery wriggled free and went dashing into a dark hallway, with one guard trailing behind him. The last of the drow met a swift end as their prisoners swarmed them.
The remaining Wild Rovers quickly freed Vara. They didn’t know how long they had before dozens of drow enforcers came barreling into the room with swords drawn. They hurried out of the dungeon, finding only a few pieces of their confiscated equipment along the way. They burst through a door and, woah, it was daylight out. Their internal clocks said it was the middle of the night, and a magical darkness had seemed to surround this area since they first arrived, so this was very unexpected. Unsurprisingly, they found no drow waiting for them in the light, but there were pixies. Desmond gleefully agreed to play hide and seek with them as the others quickly searched the house.
In a second-floor bedroom, they found the child they came here for. The little elven boy introduced himself as Tobias and was excited to meet new people. He didn’t seem put off by the filth and blood covering his guests and was primarily interested in playing games, like he did so often with his pixie friends. Some tactless party members assured Tobias that they didn’t have time for games because assassins were coming for him! They all needed to leave the house quickly and get far away from there, and they couldn’t protect him until they rested in a safe place.
Suddenly, Aengus and Urs were overtaken by horrifying visions of their worst nightmares (dead nephews and large crowds of humans, respectively). Just as suddenly as the psychic intrusions began, they ended, and the two found themselves surrounded by their confused travel companions. After one or two more strange and dangerous incidences like this, it really was time to go, NOW. They were exhausted and on the edge of death. This child appeared to be the source of some uncontrolled chaotic magic that was rapidly draining them. Tobias assured them that his friends, the drow, wouldn’t be back until the lights went out again, and that could be months. They decided to rush out of there, leaving Tobias behind so that they could rest up in safety before returning for him the next day.
Urs was fond of this child and didn’t want to leave him. As the others hurried out of the house for their own safety, he turned to the boy and quietly asked him if he would like to come along as a pixie, a form Urs intuited the child could assume if he wanted to. Tobias had never done that before, but he thought about it and *poof* he was a pixie. Urs smiled at this magical wonder child and invited his new friend to accompany him covertly, riding on the back of his furry neck. It was their little secret, so Tobias had to be real quiet…
The Wild Rovers + 1 returned to the site of their capture at the top of the cliff where Urs dropped his hammer, and he was both pleased and unsurprised that it hadn’t moved, as you had to be quite strong to lift it. They discussed the possibility of climbing down the cliff once again to their anchored ship so that they could rest in relative safety, but the descent would be dangerous, especially without rope. As they were lamenting this problem, *poof* a tear in space appeared before them, revealing a door. Without much hesitation, Urs threw it open and entered the simple room beyond. The others were thunderstruck and protested that it wasn’t safe, but there was no stopping their ursine friend, so they followed him through the door and then a second. And now suddenly they were standing on the deck of their ship!
Doubly thunderstruck, the others scratched their heads and eyed the massive cliff they conveniently skipped as Urs nonchalantly returned to his favorite spot at the stern and curled up to hibernate. They moved the Laura Ann a hundred yards away from shore, dropped anchor, and followed Urs’s lead yet again.
During his “night” watch beneath the eternal sun, Desmond was surprised by the sudden appearance of three satyrs casually conversing near Urs’s sleeping form. After receiving their assurances that they weren’t there to murder them all, Desmond returned to his post, possibly doubting his sanity.
During the final watch, Aengus spotted a ship quickly approaching… it was the Altair! Avery’s treacherous first mate, Mernand Fandango, and his mercenary crew had arrived for Tobias, and they were turning their ballista on the Laura Ann. Aengus sounded the alarm, and a bleary-eyed Vara quickly seized control of the helm and began barking orders. They had only just raised anchor and readied the sails when *poof* they were engulfed in impenetrable magical darkness. Whether their approaching enemies could see them or not was unclear, but they would be unable to navigate without sight. Aengus crawled to the bow of the ship and found the outside of the sphere of darkness, and from there he acted as the crew’s eyes. Under Vara’s orders, they turned toward their pursuers and began to close the distance.
The ships collided without serious damage to either hull, and Urs was the first to leap aboard the mercenaries’ vessel, axes swinging. The rest of the Wild Rovers began to follow, but in an instant *poof* two enemy combatants’ heads exploded. They quickly cut down several more mercenaries before finally cornering Mernand at the helm. As Urs raised his hammer to deliver a killing blow, *poof* the Altair’s captain vanished. Urs followed through with his swing, demolishing the helm wheel but not connecting with his intended target.
One enemy sailor remained. The Wild Rovers declared themselves the new owners of the Altair and announced they were in need of a crew. The sailor, now in need of work, was eager to apply for a position and introduced himself as Frumpy. They repaired the Altair’s helm using parts from the Laura Ann, and smiled upon their work. They’d stopped Tobias’s assassins and had acquired Avery’s ship. Once they were at full strength again, they would ascend the cliffs to recover them both and—*poof*—oh my god where’s a butterfly when you need one, right? We HAVE to find some butterflies omg it’s been so long since i’ve seen one they are my favorite i wish i could be a butterfly how can we get somewhere fast with butterflies i bet they have butterflies at lo’thar ok wtf are we waiting for GOOOOO!
And so they were off on their grand quest for butterflies. They sailed for two days straight with no rest when suddenly… huh? What are we doing? I remember we’re looking for butterflies, but, like, why? As they puzzled over this conundrum, exhaustion from nonstop sailing overcame them, and they drifted off to sleep.
After getting a full “night”‘s rest, they were awoken by a *thud* on the deck. Their dragon friend Cryxis had returned to say hi and to ask again for a good riddle. Vara posed this one: “What’s round like a circle, flat like a leaf, has two eyes but cannot see?” Cryxis was stumped and very pleased to finally have a worthy riddle to puzzle over. But then he looked up at Urs, cocked his head, and said “Woah, you guys have a pixie, that’s cool.” Upon hearing this, Urs swiftly left the group and went below deck.
“Urs? Buddy? What’cha doing down there?”
“Nothing! Just building a fort!”
“What’s this about a pixie? Did you smuggle one from Tobias’s house?”
“No, definitely not. That’s ridiculous.”
Aengus cast Detect Magic and sensed a brilliant beacon of pure magic emanating from Urs’s neck. After much cajoling from the group and in particular after some serious guilt-tripping from Vara about keeping secrets, Urs finally revealed the truth, that he had brought Tobias with them all this way. Suddenly butterflies made a lot more sense.
As they ascended the stairs to the deck of the ship pondering what to do with this gifted and dangerous child, they were greeted by the—frankly unsurprising—sight of Desmond being willingly tossed by Cryxis across a sheet of ice he’d conjured. Dragon curling was, after all, not the strangest thing they’d seen on this voyage.
2019-07-22