how it went: what happened to Billy
General Summary
Rod, the younger of the Grimmvatten teenagers, was showing off a spell he'd just learned to some younger kids in the plaza. The spell turned out to open a hole into Somewhere Else—and it opened just under a goblin kid named Billy, who promptly fell into it and disappeared. Rod panicked and ran to Saturday's place, just off the plaza, for help. Saturday being absent, the PCs and various NPCs came to help instead; the PCs jumped into the hole to fetch Billy. Immediately afterward, from the specators' point of view, they flew back out again like yoyos (with Billy), and flopped down onto the ground where the hole, now vanished, had been.
1 At this point in the story, Billy makes it clear that he must have been enchanted into playing a kid's game, it's not like he does that normally.
What happened
None of the PCs can remember what happened in the Feywild except Lorenzo, and his memories are like a dream that's already started to fade. Immediately after the party returned, he remembered enough to summarise events for the surrounding spectators, but if he thinks about it later, all he remembers is a series of vivid, unconnected images: A meadow full of beautiful flowers. The flowers are flying around playing hide-and-seek, flapping their leaves like wings. A large green-skinned woman with spreading antlers, larger than human-sized, sits on a boulder, watching Billy play hopscotch on the grass below.1 You have an impression that there were many strange fey creatures surrounding you, but when you try to remember what they looked like, all you can picture is twittering birds in the trees. A tall bony crone, with long claws and skin the colour of swamp, rides on the back of a giant toad. She brandishes a magic wand and yells, “I hate being pretty!” Oska reclines on a bed made of rat bones, and also she’s a cat. The green woman takes out one of her eyes; it turns out to be a purple gem, which she hands to the party, saying, “I’ll be seeing you.” You are all being blown about in a huge wind; your feet aren’t touching the ground. In the middle of all this wind, somehow one of the birds hands Billy a small stone and whispers, “just in case, for later.”what remains
Some or all of this may or may not have happened. What's definitely real about it is what you came back with:- 43sp and 12cp
- a violet gem (non-magical, no resemblance to an eyeball) worth 25gp
- a magic wand, which Oska snaffled. Consulting a magic-appraiser for a mere 1gp will reveal that it gives a +1 to spell attack rolls, and also allows the user to cast one of the following per long rest: charm person, command, or hex. The first two are illegal in Malfa, being mind magic.
debts and new bonds
Cece, the older Grimvatten kid, also gave the PCs 10gp as a mark of the debt their house owes you for cleaning up her kid brother's mess. This formally absolves the debt, but the Grimvatten kids will still feel grateful to the PCs. It didn't occur to them to apologise to Billy. Hye, Billy's older sister, was terrified that the Maveren wouldn't think a goblin urchin was worth saving, and that they'd close the hole with him still on the other side. She asked Virik (an acquaintance from the streets) to make sure Billy came back. She now considers that she owes Virik one. If Billy has a stone from the Feywild, he isn't telling anybody.1 At this point in the story, Billy makes it clear that he must have been enchanted into playing a kid's game, it's not like he does that normally.
Report Date
08 Oct 2023