Session 9 -- Troubled Waters

The party met with Queen Titania of the Summer Court. She is NOT pleased that they are in the Feywild, but she is tolerating them for the time being.

She has confessed to being the one who kidnapped the children, but she does not have them.  She told the PCs that a powerful and malevolent entity known as Malek has been seeping his way into the Feywild from the Shadowfell, and he has demanded the children as tribute to ensure the safety of the Feywild. King Shroudbane of the Gloomspring Court struck that deal with him.

The two courts of faeries are rivals, but they have agreed to work together for this goal. Titania and the Summer Court control the Shrine of the Woods (one of the access points back to Earth -- the one the party arrived through when they used the fairy ring). She will not allow Gloomspring access to it, so she has agreed to get the children and hand them over to Shroudbane so he can hand them over to Malek.  This is necessary because the hill giants won’t allow Gloomspring access to the Shrine of the Hills, either.  Titania doesn’t know what Shroudbane intends with them, and she doesn’t want to know. She’s not happy to be involved in this business at all, but the Feywild is her top priority, not handfuls of mortals who aren’t going to live that long anyway.

Heading up to Gloomspring, the party needed to cross a river, but the river was inhabited by a hostile water elemental. Because of this, the halflings that run the ferry service (from their village on the other side) could not take them across. Rather than fight the elemental, and after unsuccessfully trying to build a boat to cross the water another way, the party decided to help him. He is upset because a magic crystal, the Tear of the River Spirit, had been stolen by dwarves who were crossing the river some time ago. The crystal contains "the life and spirit of the river."

The party tracked the dwarves down to the Tummel Mine, a bit farther south. They managed to locate the crystal in the mine. The dwarves had placed it in an elaborate gold reliquary and believed it to channel Abbathor, their god. Rather than simply stealing the crystal or fighting the dwarves, the party decided to bargain with them. Thanks to a little intervention from Tiv’s patron, St. Michael, the dwarves believed that Abbathor would want them to let the party have the crystal if the party agreed to solve their current problem: spiders. Several nests of giant spiders had been preventing use of 2/3 of their mine. The party cleared out the spiders, and the dwarves happily handed over the crystal. They even managed to grab a few sticks of dynamite to boot!

At the start of the next session, the party will head back to the river to placate the water elemental, make contact with the halflings in the village on the other side, and start searching for the Gloomspring Court.