Grizelda Erevyn Falco, you tell Tumble what you want is “th' power t' keep it all." She shakes her head. That’s a big ask. Entropy. Centers not holding. I find it’s best not to be so roomy in one’s Fey requests. They aren’t tricky, like devils, but they lack—context. Carefulness. What is the biggest threat to you losing these things?
Well, Cinderrabbit is on ice (or possibly on fire) but his stealthy little ship is still out there. Corbeaux is still out there, getting berths and leading that sly boat up on unsuspecting sailors. Also? How did a ship that size, with a full crew of twenty men, sidle so close? You heard the thunk of grappling hooks landing, and looked over to see the ship right there, already kissing close, the boots of the first five invaders already on your deck. How?
That little boat with the wave illusions that you borrowed once, that boat couldn’t even do what the Dark Rabbit managed. No, as long as that ship is out there, piloted by evil Red Feathers? No ship is safe. Not even yours.
Also, Falco, not for nothing but—What if your ship could do that? What if your ship could slip around unseen? What could you not protect and keep safe (or acquire!) with that kind of power?
Tempest, you tell Tumble you will ask nothing of Liltha, and she gets very very serious and says, You want to be a cat for her? No. No no no. She has courtiers, professional amusers, to amuse her. You want to ask her to fix Fela? No. No no no. Fela has a mouth and can make words with it. If you won't take such a huge risk for the drow, then yes, set that aside. How to find your father? Mm. Yes. Liltha has Fey Augury, which lacks the time constriction. She could assess a specific plan for you. Do you have a specific plan? Would you bleed or kill for this Augury?
It’s expensive for me to take pilgrims, and if I send in tourists who want nothing and offer nothing? She will sour on me. No. If you do not have a deep and serious need, I will not send you. Perhaps another Warlock would help you step into her court to be a cat, but not Tumble.
She looks at all of you: Before I take you in, know what you are asking for. Information? A spell? An item? Know what you are prepared to pay. A year of your mortal life? A valuable memory? An act of service? Vital information about her enemies? You killed the Undruideads. This is a trade good. Spend it well, and have more than that coin in your pockets. Who else will you kill for her?
She turns to Bingle, And what do you want?
Then Grizelda is there, being delightful and frothy. Hey, Tempest, this is another Warlock! You could hit her up, if Tumble will not take you. Of course, she is probably a hag….
Fela, no probably about it. This is a Hag. You try to tell them. THAT IS A HAG. The Siren mouths concern, and pretends to care, and then asks the hag if she is a hag.
Why, of course I am not a hag, the hag says haggishly. That seems good enough for Tempest, who smiles at you, and Fela, you never noticed before how sharp her teeth are. So SHARP. Oh she prances around all silly, like a sweet girl with no cares, but this is because she has. no. cares. Her eyes are the eyes of a predator. If you scrape aside that sugary-girl-shallow smile, what you find is teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth teeth. She knows it's a hag. She is in league with it.
Falco just laughs, and says, I been thinkin’ o’ Inno and how she bit t’ biggun. I think she musto done it t’ herself. Ye made her so damn sad that she picked t’ stay in a fey prison over goin’ home when she knew you’d never take a girl like her to Templetome. A devil? Good fer one thing, an’ don’t she know it. But yer as lucky as a Hin, Fela—the girl your father'd approve fer ye still has a body, fer all it’s gooey and missin’ a few chunks. Ye can still hit that. After all, what’s a bit ‘o rot between friends. He is in league with Bramble! In bed with Bramble. Probably with the hag, too! Vile! VILE!
Tumble picks her teeth at you, and Bingle takes your hands and looks up into your face and says sincerely, You really are so disappointing. I should have carved you as a fart when I made our Symbols. I talked to my patron, earlier, and Saliber gave us leave to save a space for you in Hell because of all your failures. Then she drags the hag outside for an evil palaver. You see them crouched close, silhouetted against the dark-bright orange sky. A storm is coming. Gray clouds, fat with lightning, roil across it.
Fela, they are all in league with her, this hag. They mean to kill you, and then Pristine will take you to the Fingers. Should you smite them and make them die? YES YES YES, says the second dandelion in Marisol’s sweet voice. YES YES YES, says the third dandelion, in Saliber’s stern-bright voice of justice. Now you wear a sagging crown of dead flowers that stink of rot. You have burned up all your god-asks on the only question that matters, and you have your answer.
Tempest, Fela is really, really, really, really sick. The whites of her eyes are gray. Spittle is collecting in the corners of her mouth. As for Grizelda, well, look at her. She’s so damn cute! She just doesn’t seem like a hag. At all.
Bingle in The Drift Bingle, you reassure Fela and step outside to hurl mind-chatter at Grizelda. Banx steps out, too, In case she is a hag, he Messages to you, which she is not. She just isn’t! LOOK AT HER KIND EYES, HER BIG GOONY SMILE! You think Fela has a bad sickness, one that definitely feels more magical than physical.
Grizelda sits on a low, wrought iron bench to look into your face and you point back and forth to each other and whisper-mouth truths into each other’s smart wizard brains. She listen to your stories, nodding, and then she tells you what you need to know, as quickly as she can: First off, Basili Bluelips wasn't looking for you, and Grizelda herself had NO idea that you existed on that fateful day. Like all of Nexa’s agents on the Prime, Basili sought the people of the Blood. She says, Nexa’s aims are ever these: to bring down the wards at Saltmarsh, kill Liltha’s protected pet people, destroy Lily Market, make Liltha suffer. So Basili was seeking YOU in that he was seeking all the gnomes who have the Blood. The Village. It was too well hidden. He found YOU without every realizing how close he was. POP, you were stone. POP, into his little bag of holding you went.
But dearheart, she says solemnly, you were not dead or even sleeping. Nexa is too cruel for that. You were ALIVE in there. Unable to move or speak or even blink. Buried alive in stone. Basili brought you to the Drift and set you up as a prized decoration in Nexa’s garden. You had been lifting your hands to protect yourself when you were frozen, and so Nexa balanced a silver tray on them, and used you as a catering station.
This tracks. Fela saw you in her dream of the Drift, saw you holding up a platter. She took food and drink off of the tray your stone hands held. You were in the Drift — well, a long time. One Hundred years, on the Prime. But time is cold and slow there, so for you, two years maybe three or four passed?
This tracks. Remember when that ring's wild magic tried to turn you to hold the full hnuderd, but it could not stick. You rolled back until you were your own age—or perhaps a couple of years older? HA! You are probably a year older than Banx, and HE thinks he is a year older than you!
Grizelda did for truly real simply happen upon you. Not in the meadow. In the Drift. She saw the desperate madness in your stone eyes. She put an ear to your stone heart and heard your endless screaming. Oh Bingle, after all that silence and stillness, entombed in stone, you were mostly mad. Mostly. But I thought — cracked. Not broken.
My mission was to gather intelligence. Find out her latest plot to bring the wards down, and I did get some good facts. But the best thing I did, the very best, maybe my best thing ever—Was steal a weapon. Can you guess what it was? Bingle! It was you! You were the weapon. A girl of the Blood, a vigorous girl who was willfully screaming to be let out, to be heard. A good, good girl with such a brave, loud heart, who would not sink into silence! I stole you, and I restored you, and I took you home to heal.
Fela in The Drift Gnomes are long-lived, and what is Time to the Fey? In time, I knew you would return to yourself. Bingle, you were very very loud though. The village was all fluttered and fussed. Some wanted me to take you away, forever, because you could not be stifled. Your father refused and your mother cried and said no no no. Your sister punched Tess Bellblimpkin in the nose. It was all very divisive and dreadful, and the fact that they had aged a hundred confused you, made it harder for you to find your way back to yourself. I never wanted to lie, but you are from a place made up almost entirely of secrets. In the end, I offered a compromise; I could, I said, return you to sanity immediately, though it was perhaps not morally correct. But they could agree to this. I plane-stepped you to the Summer Court, where a Market Fairy of my long acquaintance peeled out the years you spent stone. Here. She presses a small glass bottle full of black bile into your hands. These are yours. You can leave them in the bottle, or sip them, small small, over time, until you have it all back. GO VERY SLOW, if you decide this, Bingle.
Then, I took you home, and you were told you had been stone in the meadow for the hundred, because you couldn't understand how they could be so old. You were still rather loud. You still were quite controversial.
This tracks. You remember how glad many were to gather up the “money” and send you forth. How do you feel about this? Your father lied, and Bongle lied, and you mother let them, quietly. But they also fought to keep you, Bingle, even at your loudest. Your sister punched one of the Bellblimpkins, who honestly, if any family ever needed punching…
Now, here is the part where you might be mad with me. Liltha and I, at great magical expenditure and effort, made a Destiny around you, my stolen weapon. You followed one before, so you understand what I mean, yes? A Destiny is huge expensive fey magic that can put people in the right time and space to create an outcome. That random one was a Destiny that led to the Brineweave, that anyone could have followed, honestly, but I think it came into your hands because of the Destiny I forged with Liltha.
The Destiny we made was to call any people together who would defend Saltmarsh. So you see, I meant well. We had no idea what it would call, beyond you. But oh, how well it went! We got an assassin with deep ties to the Drift—Her mother is one of Nexa’s Warlocks, so imagine how easily she could infiltrate! It called a mighty, true-heart of a Paladin with a mark and a grudge against Nexa. It called a powerful herbalist who would do much for access to Tullie’s waste, and look now, she is Liltha’s own. And we got—Falco. Which.
Okay, I never got that one. Rando McPirate? I thought, Well, he’s just some amiable Hin who happened to tag along with the Destiny-called ones. But now, hearing your story? Without Falco, who moves the world to find Bramble and save Lily Market? No one. And now you have this Siren, and who knows how she fits in. When you make a Destiny, you have to let it loose and trust.
And that’s everything, nutshelled as I could make it. And of course I’m not a hag, though yes, Liltha has one, and she is awful, of course. A pact is a good muzzle, I suppose. Also now that you mention it—Yes! Yes. There is something haggish about the illness plaguing Fela. But—has a powerful Hag TOUCHED her recently? The condition Fela’s malady resembles can only be created via touch.
OOC
OKAY we are not doing PvP, but we have come to a place where Fela is likely to attack the party SO here is how I propose we work it.
Ptwids, roll a DC15 con save. Unfortunately, Fela is not “conscious,” so the +5 from the Aura does not apply.
If you pass, Fela can convince herself not to attack her friends this round, but she will still think they are evil. You can make up anything she might think they say to her or do that is terrible and say they say it or do it -- whatever her worst fears are.
If you fail, I will run Fela mechanically, though I won’t be doing her internals or anything like that. I would just roll the dice and tell you the mechanics, and Ptwids could do with them what you will. This does mean you guys might want to attack Fela back. I would be running her mechanics. If this is too uncomfortable, you can RP an attack or response and decide together how it would end — Like you could decide you would all work together to subdue her and RP it instead of playing out, and I would roll dice to see how successful your efforts are, with DCs lowered or raised based on RP.
HOPEFULLY YOU JUST PASS THE CON SAVE THOUGH PTWIDS! ROLL HIGH!
