A brief recon with Ellywick and Eye taking point showed no signs of more orcs in the area and so we headed back to Phandalin for our reward. And a warm bed where it wasn't raining, I'm really starting to enjoy the village and its friendly people. My kind isn't always so welcome.
It seems Ellywick got caught up in a web of lies, pretending to have a crush on Sildar Hallwinter. Which, of course, is too amusing not to poke her about. And we found out a bit about Sildar's old friendship with a man called Daran Edermath who lives in Phandalin.
The mayor appreciated how we solved his orc problem of course. And realised the benefit of the village being in the Raven Queen's favour rather than the opposite and thus he welcomed the shrine I've had constructed. He was less interested in the Tresender family signet ring we found in the Redbrands hideout, despite it being platinum and part of local history. Not that he seemed to know or care that much about history in general. If this man is still alive when his time has come, I pray I'm nearby and can rectify the situation.
In any case, our task was to get to the druid Reidoth in Thundertree and so we headed north along the edge of Neverwinter Wood. And for the first day, everything went smooth. It wasn't until night that things started to go... Wrong? Sideways, at least.
During my watch, I saw a woman appear among the trees near the woods themselves. She was a stunning presence, naked, with golden hair, and certainly a spiritual air about her. Dryad is my best guess, but I can't be sure.
I woke up Ellywick, as I gather she and Rupert are the ones least likely to make a delicate situation worse. Getting Rupert up too, we spoke to the woman, who introduced herself as Niena. And she's very obviously some form of the fey. Apparently, her friend in the forest, Nanna, wanted a kiss. Maybe I should have suspected something from Rupert's friendliness at this point, but I didn't.
The friend looked like a beautiful elven woman, which really made me suspicious. Fey always have an ace up their sleeve, a way to manipulate or another angle. Having to kiss a beautiful woman didn't seem enough of a sacrifice. Rupert being immediately forthcoming gave away that they had influence over him and I was prepared to call on all the wrath of the Raven Queen that I could. But I didn't have time to stop the kiss from happening and the elven woman simply turned into a hideous and malformed creature and only by generous imagination resembled a human woman. Rupert seemed less than pleased after the kiss, but as the two beings returned to the forest, I drew a deep sigh of relief. Still, there's no telling what that kiss did to Rupert. A day later, he's still under the spell of Niena, so how long can the hag's influence stretch?
We kept our distance to the trees the next day, despite Rupert's reassurances that we weren't in danger. and eventually, we arrived at the ruins of what was once Thundertree. With a stroke of luck, the first house we knocked on was inhabited by none other than Reidoth - the druid we were looking for.
It appears that besides being able to give us the location of Cragmore Castle, Reidoth was able to give us quite an update on Thundertree itself. There were three things that he warned us against: