Through the Looking-Glass

Escaping the Underdark

As the cavern rapidly began collapsing around them, the party made a beeline for the exit. Lethe ordered his skeletons to disassemble and jump into the Bag of Holding, while Aberchak doled out a round of healing. With boulders falling all around them, the party darted out of the elder brain chamber and back into the room filled with humanoid experiments. Lethe bought the party some time by casting slow on the crumbling ceiling and the party escaped the room just in time before the tanks of odd liquid shattered, spewing sizzling acid across the floor. The party approached the room where they had battled the decraniated thralls, finding it to be filled with arcing lightning energy from dozens of now-broken arcane cables; Precision thinking quickly spotted a quicker route through a side room that led back out into the antechamber where they had first entered the lair. As they entered the antechamber, they heard a shriek from the other tunnel they had not initially explored, and a large serpent-like beast came screeching towards them, simultaneously fleeing the collapse. Erevan slowed it down with a barrage of magic missile as the party continued their mad dash, jus barely emerging into the large blackrock mine in time before a cave tunnel collapsed behind them.
Realizing the cavern they were in was no longer collapsing, the party stopped to take a quick breather but were immediately interrupted as the snake creature from below burst out of the tunnel, having survived the collapse and now enraged. A weary Precision stepped forward to face down the beast, but before she could fight it she heard an angry chirp from behind her as Pancake flew at the beast, clawing its eyes to defend Precision. Behind them Flinder stood holding a portal open, and shouted for them to hurry through it. Grabbing Pancake, Precision and the others jumped through the portal with the beast in hot pursuit. The creature managed to get partially through the portal before Flinder closed it, severing its head.

A Breather in Vergess

Back in the relative safety of Vergess, the party tended to their wounds and prepared for a hard-earned rest. Aberchak prepared a meal from the flesh of the snake beast while Precision played with Pancake. Lethe used sending to notify Victor Elan of the abandoned facility's nature and the circumstances surrounding it. Flinder told the party that the strange energy he had noticed here before had seemed to cease, which had prompted him to scry on the party which allowed him to see they were in trouble and transport them out. He offered to bring them to the Planespire in the forest in the morning using transport via plants; he would have to rest and recover his magical energies after using it to get the party out of the cavern. He also shoed Precision a slight modification he made to Pancake's collar; now his demiplane was contained in a small green bead on a necklace that Precision could wear, which would allow Pancake to see her even while in the bead. Shortly after eating, the party bedded down and slept for a very long time.

The Planespire

Now freshly rested and recovered from their ordeal in the Underdark, the party prepared to go with Flinder to the first Planespire at last. The druid opened up a portal in a large birch tree and the party stepped through, finding themselves at the entrance to a mid-sized clearing in the forest. In the center of it was a stone pedestal, long-since overgrown, upon which hovered a large pale-green crystal roughly seven feet tall. They could all feel a loud ringing in their ears, and Lethe could feel the arcaltium ring on his finger pulling him towards the structure. The party cautiously entered the clearing, and no sooner did Lethe approach the pedestal did the overgrowth around the structure begin moving, revealing itself to be an animated tree-like being. It moved in defense of the structure, awakening two other trees in the clearing, and began attacking the party. The battle was fierce but straightforward, and a welcome reprieve from the shadowy horror of the previous days underground. Erevan dealt the majority of the damage, realizing very quickly that his proclivity for fire was rather effective against beings made of wood. During the course of the battle Ferdinand was knocked out of the fight, and Lethe noticed that when he disappeared, a small wisp of energy seemed to travel into the floating crystal. Precision got the last hit in, splitting the treant completely in half.
After the battle, Lethe continued attempting to investigate the crystal. For protection, he put up a tiny hut directly next to the crystal and bid everyone get inside just in case. He then carefully reached out his hand towards the crystal, but the instant he came into contact with it he seemed to be sucked inside it, causing his spell to drop instantly. After a moment's hesitation the others followed him through, with Flinder electing to stay behind.

Another World

The party landed in a large forest, but completely unlike any forest they had seen before. The trees were huge, hundreds of feet tall, with blues and purples mixed in with the brown and green of their growth. The ground was incredibly clear despite being in the middle of a forest, with only soft grass and vibrant flowers and very little undergrowth and vines. Every few hundred feet were pools of silvery water that reflected the pink and orange sky above. Overcome by the refreshing beauty of the environment, Precision elected to bathe in one of the pools but no sooner did she approach did two tiny, winged creatures emerge from the trees, asking what she was doing.
The rest of the party gathered to speak to these creatures, who introduced themselves as Zip and Zap. The two spoke cryptically, but eventually after much prodding the party learned through them that they had come to arrive in Faerie, a world parallel to their own. Lethe attempted to resummon Ferdinand but much to his surprise was met not by the tawny owl he had come to expect but rather a four-foot-tall owl-like humanoid creature; Ferdinand's true form while in his home. Ferdinand seemed very miffed to be summoned while in the Feywild and asked the two sprites to help the party get their bearings as he had "an estate to tend to." Zip and Zap then made a deal with Aberchak that they would impart whatever knowledge was requested of them in exchange for a favor. Aberchak agreed, and the sprites told the party that another wizard from "Less-Than" (their term for the mundane material plane) had passed through this area in the past, although they were hard-pressed to give an exact time... indeed the two seemed to have trouble understanding the concept of time itself. They said they had heard the wizard was currently in the court of powerful archfey known as the Prince of Games. While they could not take the party directly there, they could take them to their own archfey mistress Lady Rosepetal. The party agreed, and followed the two sprites through the forest.

Chapter Thirty-Two

"Through the Looking-Glass"

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Previous Chapter: A Friend Forgotten

Next Chapter: Three Shall Be The Number 

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Ingame Date: 29-30^th of Rainseed, 1855
Real-Life Date: July 11, 2021
Protagonists:

• Precision
• Lethe Argie
• Erevan
• Aberchak Haverdak

Featured NPCs:

• Flinder Stoneback
• Zip and Zap
• Ferdinand 

Locations:

• Vergess
• Ernleb Forest
• Faerie