Act 1, Scene 1: Through the Pink Curtain, Into the Mushroom Forest
FEY ADVENTURE, “Saving the Fairie Queen”
(Feywilds / First-World, Introduction)
"You enter a winding, inconsistently sized burrow of earth, roots through the ceiling hanging down, spots of pink mist hanging here or there, then more and more and thicker mist…
"At one point, the tunnel forks, a stopping place: The fork to the left is deep black smells like some strange perfume, at once sharp and cloying. Sweet and musky. Underdark
"The fork to the right has a faint playful pink mist dancing about, smelling of roses and bubblegum, with little lights bouncing around, tiny will'o'the'wisps doing loop-de-loops. The tunnel almost seems alive in its own right. Feywilds / First-World, Introduction
"Ride some chutes down (through a thin, wet pink mist), winding and curling this way and that, then through the most intense pink of all, dense and almost suffocating,
"finally dumping out in a heap of loose spongy chunks, in the dark…. You sit there slightly dazed, and your eyes adjust to a vaguely luminescent pink curtain across the room. It's hard to see anything else.
[SO IT IS DARK HERE] "And scratchy little voice says to you directly, 'Say the Password'--["I am worthy to pass through" or "I am worthy" etc...]. Owner of the voice will wait unspeaking for an answer."
A final encounter: need victory to enter, with nine or so Gremlins (Vexgit)...
"[Describe the Vexgit and the space, 30x40 room of smooth sweating rock]. They stand before you, valiantly hefting their little war hammers. One says, "We are the Guardians of the First World--Face us if you dare.'
"You see now a shimmering, purple gossamer web, as if spun like a subtle and virtuoso spider: Very find strands connected seamlessly, across the middle of the room, blocking your path to the gremlins.
The Vexgit, Defenders of the Realm,
before a slightly waving curtain of pink mist
THE NATURE OF THE PORTAL
The Vexgit here are one with the pink of the portal, and their sole purpose is to vet anyone coming through. No one can enter the portal without their say-so, and they will defend it with their lives if they feel otherwise.
Across a long earthen room, with a HAMPERING WEB in the middle as well as a HIDDEN PIT.
These traps are the pride and joy of the Vexgits here. They will celebrate if they are triggered. WooHoo!
The Entrance to the First World is a "field" portal, and also a "merit" portal. One must either say the password or defeat the Portal Guiardians in combat. The portal stays put, and new guardians eventually find their way to it, if the others are defeated, to guard it.
(INCLUDING MAGIC ITEM AND TREASURE)
- They keep bits of broken stuff all about the room; things long since smashed;
- When the party arrives, they'll be in the middle of smashing the purple glow=rocks, and a new set of goods from an intruder
- the helm, armor (full plate--see treasure for this level) shield, sword, as well as a belt pouch and backpack (with a magic item and gold)
- of a recent victim, whose body disappeared (as bodies do in the First World)
THIS MIGHT NOT BE TRUE: There are numerous other things smashed and destroyed:
- Chairs
- Tables
- Barrels
- Wooden spoons and forks
- Knives
- Buckets
- A large crossbow
- A suit of leather armor
Vexgit defeated and curtains opened:
“Behind the curtains, a ledge looking out over what seems like a vast cavern, stretching across to the limit of vision. The scene is lit in a golden twilight from above, with glowing gossamer filaments strung like high webbings across the sky (or is it a high ceiling), reminiscent of the araura borealis you saw once or twice back home in Zephyra, but much more vivid.
“So you stand at the edge looking out over the great twilit cavern, and in this great open space are endless stands and bunches of giant mushrooms, some 15’ tall, with stems larger than tree-trunks and enormous caps of red, with white spots.
"Some of them are even taller, with high, thin stalks that raise the mushrooms up over the canopy. These mushrooms have perfect, disk-shaped caps that are lit up as if in a black-light. There are tiny beings of some kind on the latter mushrooms. [these are crabcaps]
“The cavern smells ubiquitously of fresh mushrooms, but then also something slightly... off... like mildew or mold perhaps.
"The glowing light from above gives it all a strange appearance. The enormous mushrooms are a perfect combination of awe and whimsy, their red spotted caps leaning this way and that, as they stretch out into the distance.
"Little Globes of golden light, pixie dust, or little junebugs or fairies, sparkle and twinkle and dance about here and there among the mushrooms, bobbing and darting this way and that, along with whispy pockets of pink mist, slightly swirling.
“Down below, some 30’ or more below the ledge on which you stand, it looks as though there’s a path that leads away among the mushrooms.
Fey Creatures of the Mushroom Forest and "Skulk Valley" -- rescuing the Queen ...
"Chirping and trilling creatures send a field of sound--like the din of crickets--up through the forest." . . . . (This is the AMANITA REDFROG, sand the FUNGAL CRICKET.)
3.1.2 Fairy Queen... The Mushroom Forest 3.0.0... FQ, Saving Queen Jalla'Harta, Background Information @3.1.3
The Material and the Fey:
The great cavern here is a mirror to a material cavern of roughly the same size, a home to slippery algal rocks that lead down from the ledge to a great cavernous lake. The slick wet cavern walls have been replaced by hangings of gossamer gold that give the landscape a subtle golden glow. In the material world, this underground cavern is very deep, more than a hundred yards below ground, with a long tunnel that eventually leads to the Gutter. Ostensibly, there is a portal somewhere, but the Skulks know not where it is. Their own portal closed up behind them, and they are dying to find the way out: Some kind of joke played by the pixies perhaps, but with grave consequences. Now no one knows how to get out, and no one can get in, and there is poison in the well. In the end Amanito will rescue our Heroes, if they begin to look in earnest.
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