Chapter 11 of Greetings Adventurers, creatively entitled, "Into the Feywild", introduces us to a number of forever memorable characters, from the sweet-as-peaches Lahni Caplain, to the chilled out Skud Derringer, to the nerdy Frank Ubell, to the merry fellow himself Old Ben Dilladong. It shows where our heroes go after a Seven Year Gap, with two of our number founding The Tower of Grey. It also sets up a brand new story arc, Arc Three, which is almost immediately more sprawling and much larger of a scale than what we've seen before.
It begins with a "brief" recap, detailing the events of the story so far, from the mouth of Prince Thom Harper. He was helped by his friends: Steve Meloncamp, Jaela, Queen Aludra Wyrmsbane, and Bucky, as well as the still adventuring together Toby Treacletart, and Rowan Grey. The two have moved to Greenham, where they've founded The Tower of Grey. Rowan is the main founder, the CEO, the ideas woman, while Toby is the one who takes care of the business, makes things run. You know, the boring stuff. Together, they take on jobs as adventurers and heroes, saving those who need saving (and if they pick up a couple gold coins along the way, that's just an added bonus, innit?)
Aludra, meanwhile, has been plagued with bad dreams of her son, Bucky, being murdered at the hands of Trant Thumble, in the Great Colosseum, which was destroyed when Caer was made into an apocalyptic The Abyss. Nothing to do about that now, though. The Tower of Grey are visited by a monk named Lahnik "Lahni" Caplain, who asks them for help in finding her missing brother Lannie Caplain. After seeing her fight, they agree to help her if she joins them, and everyone is cool with this arrangement. Also introduced is Frank Ubell, an accountant from the Ferrim Pecunia bank. He is there to make sure the party doesn't spend too much money, and is just... the coolest dude /s. Lahni tells them that she suspects her brother to be in the southern continent of Ssathra, the the crew loads up into their airship, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and head southward (also, before they go, Toby begins making a clone of Lahni, as he has done with himself, Rowan, and every other member of the Tower of Grey).
They land in the Monastery of Uthgar, which is abandoned, save for a single Water Genasi named Skud Derringer, the sole survivor of an recent attack that killed everyone else at the Monastery. He can control bones, and accidentally brought his Old Master back to life, but more as a skeleton zombie monster, than a dude. He asks the others for help destroying him, which they do, and as thanks, Skud offers them the most valuable thing in the treasure room: an orb that also serves as a map of several planes of existence. It shows them images of key locations around the planes, but there isn't much time to dwell on that right now, because Pyre is attacking. You remember Pyre, right? The Ancient Red Dragon that took over Mastwick, and everyone always talks about dethroning, but no one ever quite got around to, especially since he wasn't that big a threat to anyone? That Pyre? I knew you remembered. Pyre wants that fuckin map, so he goes all dragon-y on the heroes, until they are able to escape back to their airship and safely head back home.
On the way, they decide to hire Skud, though not exactly to help Lahni find her brother. It seems that mission will have to be put on hold, because Rowan gets a message from her half-sister Queen Ashayara Dayne that her son, Prince Thom Harper has gone missing, and they will have to go investigate. Lahni is cool with this detour, so they use a quick Teleportation spell to pop on over to Pelor's Hope and investigate Thom's room. There, they find a tuning fork, attuned to The Feywild! Outside, it begins to snow, despite the time frame (it's summer). The party jumps over to the Feywild, which is supposed to be a nice little woodland fairy-tail sort of place, but is right now all fucked up and horrific. They are immediately attacked by a horde of spiders!
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Feywild, a rotten crew of beautiful misfits meet in a jail cell. They include Rikety Nell, Large Reggie, Thirst, and Viscount Ambrosious Quorin. This team is recruited by another prisoner named Nook Nimmlock to help him with his mission. See, Nimmlock works for Lady Arnaesis, who's the recently taken lover of Melora, the Queen of Spring. Arnaesis asked Nook to find a jewel called the Jade Pyramid to gift it to Melora as a gift, and Nimmlock was successful, but was kidnapped and jailed before delivering it. The gang helps Nimmlock break out, and they return to his home and collect the Jade Pyramid. Eventually, they make it to the Castle of the Spring Court, where Melora and Lady Arnaesis live. Their celebration is short lived, however, when Nook hands over the Pyramid to Arnaesis. It's revealed that Lady Arnaesis is actually Adira Harper, Prince Thom's aunt, who's been missing for a while. She uses the Pyramid, not as a gift for Melora, but instead as a trap for her, emprisoning the goddess in a beam of light. Also, a massive portal opens up outside and Lolth emerges! Then, at some point, Nimmlock escapes and gets trapped by some spiders, which is where the Tower of Grey catch up with him.
They save him from the spiders, with the help of a giant named Old Ben Dilladong, who takes them back to his shack for the night. The next morning, he points them in the direction of the Castle, saying that if they ever need his help, they should just sing a song for him. After some shenanigans, the party makes it to the island that the Castle resides on.
We have a flashback to a time when Bigby, a mythical wizard, calls together The Circle of Seven, which consists of Tephiroth, Tyffani, Neev, Eckhart Dayhammer, Aelar, and Adira Harper again. And Adira's cat. Together, they defeat the growing power of the dastardly Orcus, and that's the end of that. It's meant to showcase how powerful these characters are, since they're all level 20.
Anyway, Nook Nimmlock is killed when he's pulled under the water by some writhing tentacles, and the rest of the party make it to into the Castle (after fighting a team of Power Rangers-like security guards). In the center of the Castle, they run into Eckhart Dayhammer, in a fight with Lolth. He tells them to go on ahead to save Melora, which they do. Lahni uses the Orb to place it on the Jade Pyramid, which fuses the two object together, and frees the god. As a thanks, she grants them all a boon: to Lahni she gives a single bag of magic beans. To Rowan, she blesses her Oathbow, making it stronger. To Toby, she gives a Tome of Intelligence, which increases his intelligence by 1. To Skud, she finds no desires in his heart, but does give him her blessing, which allows him one reroll per day. Also, Lolth attacks them again, but Melora destroy it. She tells them that Prince Thom Harper is being held in Elysium.
There's a stinger at the end of the Chapter where Thirst stole Viscount Ambrosious Quorin's Staff of Law, and VAQ asks the Tower of Grey for help getting it back. They do and kill Thirst, but not before some fun body switching shenanigans in which Toby and Rowan switch bodies, as do Skud and Lahni. It's a lot of fun, but it all gets sorted in the end.
There was also a bit of a flash sideways where Aludra and Jaela take Bucky to see an Oracle in the Razortooth Mountains about the visions she's been having. She tells them that "The circle is broken, and Elysium, Arboria, and Mount Celestia, are all in peril. The very gods themselves will be undone." This seems to be in reference to three locations that three gods live at. Pelor lives in Elysium, Bahamut lives in Mount Celestia, and Avandra lives in Arboria. So that's weird...
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| Chapter 10 - To Slay a Lich | Chapter 12 - The Grull Redemption |