Party heads back to the occultist shop. Find it deserted and wiped clean. In the back room, they find a weakening of the planes. Planar Rip
Objects briefly speed up when passing through this weakening.
Looking at scuff marks and dust patterns, Hanzo determines that things were moved in from the weakening, and things were taken out from the shop entrance.
Going back to the Queen of Hearts mansion, the party rustles up some servants to investigate the body of the Prince of Darkness. They find a pile of a small pile of bodies.
Exposing the body to the sunlight reveals waves of darkness emanating from the veins but being held at bay by tattoos. The body explodes in a blinding light dealing damage.
At this point a servant finds the party stating the Queen is awake and wants to see them.
The party goes to the Queen’s room and finds both her and the Archer there.
They exchange information:
- Queen: There were riots 2 full moons ago (Feywild Riots), the red caps organized enough to become a dominant political force.
- Queen: The meeting yesterday was organized via the redcaps and the first time meeting the priest of darkness. Archer was separated and the Queen was put under some kind of spell.
- Queen: the humans appeared last full moon and remain a problem.
- Party: About 1500 humans arrived through transposition after riots in the city of Lyric in the last full moon. The tinkers guild have built some sort of machine with musical instruments.
- Party: We have a way of transporting between planes. The Queen of Hearts asks for a demo and offers to replace any expense.
Hanzo wields Maurice’s knife, holds one of the gems and carves a tear into reality. The gem magically fuses with the hilt of the knife, feeding energy into it.
Hanzo pulls downwards with all his strength. On the other side, he slices through a person who topples over revealing Ev on the other side.
Hanzo asks who the person who just died was. Ev says it’s not important. As they speak, it becomes clear that Ev is moving twice as slow with a much lower pitched voice. After discussion:
- Time in the Feywild appears to move twice as quickly than on the material plane
- Hanzo moves through the portal to discuss further with Ev
- Louis continues measuring the knife. Moving the knife to expand the tear expends more energy. The inch long gem is expended in about 2 minutes.
The portal closes. The queen of hearts is impressed. The party brainstorms ideas for transporting large groups of people with portals like this.
The party asks the Queen of Hearts to fetch an evil soul. They mention the Princess of diamonds is a hag, maybe they can hunt other hags. The archer reveals that the eyeball in their potions match a cyclops skull, explaining that they are clairvoyance potions.
The Queen of Hearts tells Archer to fetch an evil person so the party can harvest their soul.
- Queen: what is a god? A reservoir of power, a place to exemplify their values, and a person to shape the world in their vision.
- Queen: Contact between the planes hasn’t occurred for hundreds of years, not since the time of the Belle.
- Queen: The man of strings pulled together the seven nation army organizing a resistance that eradicated the Belle’s influence from all 7 Planes of existence.
- Helia: The plane next up from the Feywild is thought to be the Elemental plane.
- Queen: the man of strings established a singular stronghold (Tensegrity) with a presence in every plane. He brought about the age of reason, with diplomacy and cooperation.
- Queen: Powerful artifacts known as the Chords of Powerwere used in the Binding. The house of Spades last held the chord for this realm.
Archer fetches Al, the barkeeper from “The Roly Poly Bat Faced Girl”:
- Al is bound. Harloc insults him, beats him up, heals him, and threatens to kill him.
- Casting “Detect Good and Evil”, Al is found to be neutral.
- When asked why he told the party to go to the occultist shop, he responds with “you were annoying, I wanted you gone, and people that go there don’t come back”.
A plan is hatched to find some redcaps and incapacitate them since they are clearly evil.
The party long rests.
Archer learns of a group of 5 red caps that have recently frenzied, destroying 6 other red caps. They are near a hilly region a few hours ride away.
The party and the archer take a wagon to short rest on their way there.
They find the redcaps around the campfire screaming about BLOOD.
In examining the nearby terrain, they find a rope bridge and plan to use that to trap the red caps.
The party and the archer set up to cut the rope bridge while Helia attracts the red caps. 4 follow her in a frenzy while one gets distracted.
As Helia passes beyond the bridge, Harloc and Cory cut the bridge, dropping 4 red caps into the ravine. They deal heavy damage but all 4 red caps survive.
Louis casts feather fall and the party gets in close range to finish the job. They make quick work of 4 damaged red caps, and the fifth falls in and is knocked unconscious too.
Helia wild shapes into a spider, using rope to help the party get back to the other side of the bridge. The red caps are loaded onto the wagon. The archer is the only one left stranded, who takes the couple hours it takes to walk around the ravine to rejoin.
The party, archer, and red caps head back to the Queen of Hearts and long rest.