She comes to thrashing and grunting in the puddles as if she's trying to scream but her sleeping body won't allow it. With a gasp, she lurches up to a sitting position and looks around in a rush of adrenaline. She's confused. A moment ago, she had been trying to stand. Trying to run from something just a moment before, but now she can't remember what. The dream is immediately lost to her, leaving only a cloying sense of something terribly familiar that she knows she ought to remember, but can't quite reach. Though she is at the same time blessedly grateful that whatever it was has shrunk back beneath the veil of forgetfulness...
But there's no time to think about that now. She's fallen asleep in the middle of the street! Again! Oh, how embarrassing!!
But wait. No, that can't be it. She doesn't feel hungover. And she's NEVER gone out partying with a gang of children before! It went against her personal code of ethics to let children get pass-out drunk. And gosh, does that one little harengan look familiar...
Resmae!!!
Aros leaps to her feet and rushes over to her friend. "Resmae! Speak to me, buddy! What's happened to you!? You look at least..... A year younger than usual!!!"
(Jim, I have a very important question for you. Is Sammy a puppy now?)
When Halei comes to it's obvious she isn't all there. She hugs her knees to her chest and trembles in fear, staring at a figure that isn't there and her hands grasp at the air searching for some invisible object. She blinks and looks around at her body, lifting up her arms to examine them, her eyes briefly dust across her comrades, but the recognition isn't immediate. She looks utterly lost and confused and buries her head in her arms to hide her face and to take a few moments to breathe deeply, calm herself, and collect her thoughts.
It doesn't take to long for her memories to return to her, and after only a few beats she shakes her limbs, brushing away the remnants of the dream from her mind and body like dirt on her hands. She leaps to her feet to take in her immediate surroundings and her friends to see if any of them might need any help regaining their bearings.
Wildred comes to, the feel of the cold wet stone on his hands...oh no not the castle latrine again he thought..but wait "Andrix......." he mumbles to himself in a quiet tone "Mother...."vague recollections of hearing his mother sobbing unnerved him....."but what's this" he looked down at his hands something was wrong.."I......my voice!!"he shouted but not recognising his own voice for a second instead some high pitched tones coming out of his mouth.He looked over at his new companions...they seen to be smaller he thought...sudden realisation came crashing down on him, this by far topped the castle bogs!!
"What...!?......I!?......"he said in a panic.
Keep your cool wildred your a scholar,this is magic must be no other explanation..he'd heard of the use of Ageing spells but only to change ones complection of the skin,iron out the wrinkles...but this..... this is ......obsurd!?He thought....Must be wild magic has to be but what if I'm still dreaming...he closed his eyes hoping when he opened them he'd be back at the carnival..and was just another wild ride or crazy Extravaganza.....no such luck.....he got up to his feet.
"Right!!"he said with determination.....
(Wildred cast detect magic on himself,also looking for auras around the others hes looking for answers as to what school of magic or anything else to give a clue as to counters or whatever his expertise alows in the way of information?assuming it is actually magic,.....I have a few questions...how old is wildred and has our clothing shrunk with us? Including wildreds staff?the latter just for my own imaginative purposes trying to picture the scene.)
As she bravely hops through the mirror, a mist of clouds surrounds Resmae, and her head starts feels light and foggy. She dreams of being a young bunny again, before her life in the carnival. She is in a bustling cityscape at night, curled up in a little ball in a corner, trying to keep out of the rain. Resmae is alone, cold and wet and trying not to freeze. Giant folk walk past, seemingly unaware of her existence. As she shakes in the corner, she's scared.
Suddenly, she wakes, and she feels utterly alone. She reaches out to Lathander with a prayer. But she doesn't feel that he can hear her. This fact scares her more than anything.
Resmae looks down and sees Sammy. He is curled up on the cold, wet stone, flinching and jittering as if dreaming and asleep. She buries herself into Sammy yearning for the warmth and comfort of him and hoping to wake him from his dream, worried it is as awful as hers was.
She hears her name and perks up, a little head popping out of the puppies body, and sees a young Satyr, takes her a moment to realize..."Aros!!"
Balliol listened as Mr. Light, as expected, failed to answer his questions. But he did offer some information - who knew if that bit about the Alicorn and time would be useful. It certainly didn't make him feel any more trusting. As he was about to step through the portal he looked back at their host.
"I'll be back."
And then he said the poem and stepped through after his companions and into the mist . . .
As the last through the portal he seemed to be the last to awaken. The crossing had not been fun and had not been a simple passage through a door. Instead he found himself reliving a terrifying memory from childhood. Apparently it was a dream of sorts, and an unpleasant one at that. He had been calling for help when he thought he heard an answer. But that answer was the noise of his friends around him as they apparently also awoke in a state of disarray and alarm. He swiftly popped to his feet and looked for any sign of a threat. If the others were only half awake they were vulnerable . . . to the sound of frogs and bugs. Balliol looked around and took the time to see the causeway for the first time, notice its glowing stones and large gaps, and look over the edge at the swamp. So this was the feywild. Ok, he could deal with frogs.
That was when he noticed Wildred. At least he thought it was Wildred. The glasses were usually a giveaway and they were there. But . . . this wasn't the Wildred he had known. He looked around for Halei and Stalker. Oh, crap. Aros and Resmae? Double crap. Breathing slowly he looked down at himself. As expected. Triple crap. After quickly glancing around for any sign of danger once again he shut his eyes. He pictured a carrot and slowed his breathing. And as it always had, the Way of the Carrot brought calm into his world.
But he hadn't known the Way of the Carrot at this age! His calm almost shattered but he held onto his training and his breathing returned to normal. He was at peace. A very youthful peace, it seemed, but peace. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He surveyed his companions again in all of their energetic and nervous youth. The trip had just gotten trickier. He saw Little Willy casting a spell . . . good, the mage wasn't panicking. Nobody was, actually, for all of their confusion.
When things had settled a bit he told the others of Mr. Lights last words. "With all due respect to those of you who were his employees, I don't trust him. His last words were 'Find the Alicorn and free the dormant queen at last.' Perhaps the queen is Zybilna. But perhaps of even more importance, right before that he said, 'Mind the rule of three: future, present, past.' I don't know what that means exactly, but I suspect we may have found the past."
A bit slow on the uptake, Aros comes to the realization that if everyone else has been transformed, that must mean... She raises a hand to her horns and finds sure enough that they are no longer the impressive, sweeping curves they were supposed to be but instead the harmless nubs of a kid. She sighs. It had taken a lot of patience to grow those things.
She listens to Balliol, then replies "Look, I've known Mister Witch and Mister Light a long time. They're good guys! They're not in the business of harming their customers. If they were they wouldn't have any customers left! This..." she says, gesturing around at all of them in their youthful state, "is standard fairyland nonsense. I've seen it a million times! They're probably just trying to teach you all some lesson about humility or being kind to old people or... Proper dental hygiene or something. Just be on your best behavior, don't insult any talking trees or rocks, pass whatever arbitrary tests are given to you by mysterious travelers, and you'll be fine!!"
"Worst comes to worst you'll reemerge on the prime material to find that hundreds of years have gone by and everyone you love has long since passed of old age hoping unto their dying breath that you'd return to them. And you'll wander the world as a lonely wraith until you see yourself in the reflection of a clear running stream or prick yourself with a silver pin or something and you crumble away to dust and disappear forever from time and memory. Or whatever. No big deal."
"My point is, don't worry about it! Mister Witch and Mister Light don't give people jobs they can't handle."
A bit slow on the uptake, Aros comes to the realization that if everyone else has been transformed, that must mean... She raises a hand to her horns and finds sure enough that they are no longer the impressive, sweeping curves they were supposed to be but instead the harmless nubs of a kid. She sighs. It had taken a lot of patience to grow those things.
She listens to Balliol, then replies "Look, I've known Mister Witch and Mister Light a long time. They're good guys! They're not in the business of harming their customers. If they were they wouldn't have any customers left! This..." she says, gesturing around at all of them in their youthful state, "is standard fairyland nonsense. I've seen it a million times! They're probably just trying to teach you all some lesson about humility or being kind to old people or... Proper dental hygiene or something. Just be on your best behavior, don't insult any talking trees or rocks, pass whatever arbitrary tests are given to you by mysterious travelers, and you'll be fine!!"
"Worst comes to worst you'll reemerge on the prime material to find that hundreds of years have gone by and everyone you love has long since passed of old age hoping unto their dying breath that you'd return to them. And you'll wander the world as a lonely wraith until you see yourself in the reflection of a clear running stream or prick yourself with a silver pin or something and you crumble away to dust and disappear forever from time and memory. Or whatever. No big deal."
"My point is, don't worry about it! Mister Witch and Mister Light don't give people jobs they can't handle."
Wildred listens to Aros and looks at her aghast.
"You seem to hold a lot of trust in the misters!?...sorry to say I don't share your optimism!...i must admit it has been a lifelong dream of mine to enter the wilds and study its vast array of flaura,fauna and magical mysteries, but I'd rather hoped on being a bit taller than 4 feet!!..........regardless this is our lot and I for one am just happy we all made it through in one piece.Right now im wanting to have a rest! we havnt rested since before the carnival and im sure we will all beable to tackle the situation a lot better after a well deserved long rest"
(Wildred would like to roll a perception , Take in his surroundings looking for camp hes in need of a rest)
Balliol listened to Aros defend her employers and go on a rant about the things that could happen here. That last bit made him smile. "You misunderstand me. I don't know that the Misters are responsible for our current condition and, in fact, would doubt it. No, I'm talking about Zybilna. Apparently she has disappeared from the feywild and it would seem that a group of hags are a part of it. And it would also appear that your Misters know something of the hags. Perhaps when Mr. Light said, "free the dormant queen" he meant Zybilna and wishes that to happen. But then again, if he knows of the hags he might be a part of it. Whatever it is, he knows a lot more than he told those of us who are here." He shrugged. "I don't know where he stands, but he seems to be concealing information. Did you ever see a little girl with a pig mask at the carnival? I heard someone describe her as a "stalker." Apparently there were several such stalkers luring kids into exhibits. To what end? I don't know. But according to some of your co-workers, the Misters knew about it. Do you know anything about stalkers?"
Before they could respond he added. "Look, I'm not accusing you or any other workers of anything. And it may not impact our time here at all. But whatever was going on at the carnival has something to do with whatever is going weird over here" and he indicated the lands around them. "Any information anyone has would be useful."
"Oh, the pig mask kid?" Aros says with a laugh. "THAT'S what you're worried about? Sure, I know about them! They're nobody. Prankster kids or something, I dunno. The Misters said to just ignore 'em!"
She continues, shrugging. "I don't know any Zybilna. She a friend of yours? Listen, I'm sorry your friend has hags, I hear that itches like crazy, but we're here to find spiders. You help us replace the spiders you killed, and we all continue on our merry way. And I don't wanna hear any more wild accusations about the Misters while we're out here. The Misters are good guys. They look out for kids like Resmae and me who don't have anywhere else to go. They help people."
In this last statement you hear a twinge of anger in Aros's voice. Only a hint, but it rings out in contrast to the tone of joviality you've exclusively heard her speak in up to now. She looks between Balliol and Wildred as if daring them to say another bad thing about the Misters.
Halei listens and pipes in, "hmmm, I don't know if The Misters have the best intentions or not, we can't really do much about that at the moment anyhow. What are we gonna do about our current situation? What's our next move?" Halei bounces from foot to foot, itching to explore this new environment they'd found themselves in. She doesn't seem at all bothered with the possible implications of The Misters.
Stalker, now a dwarven child, still appears dazed and confused.
Your realisation that you are all now children is a bracing one that some find easier to adjust to than others.
Your age is the age that you were in your dream. While it would be fun to make your clothing remain adult size, it is a bit of a complication to implement. Your clothing fits you. Your weapons are also proportional to you, so you can still wield them. Your now childlike state has not affected your mind or knowledge, but physically you have changed. I have overridden the following ability stats on your character sheets. Strength -2, Dexterity +1, Constitution -1, Charisma +2. Your HP has been fully restored.
Sammy remains about the same size as he was, but his features are now more puppy-like. Equivalent in age to an eight-month-old german shepherd, only bigger, blink dog size.
Wildred, speaking to himself, makes some illustrative gestures around.
For Wildred's eyes only...
Your Detect Magic spell reveals the following to you.
The stones' strange blue/green glow has a faint blue aura (indicating Abjuration). The amulet around Resmae's neck has a pale gold aura (meaning Divination). There is a very light grey aura (of conjuration) around you and your colleagues. But it is so faint you suspect this is residual magics still present from the trip here.
For Balliol's eyes only...
Your insight tells you that Aros's respect for the Misters is genuine.
After coming to your senses and realising the gravity of your situation, you turn your attention to your surroundings. The elevated causeway you find yourselves on and the stone of which it is made glowing a faint blue underneath you. Looking over the edge reveals the causeway is at least 80' high above a mist that obscures your view of any ground beneath it.
For Resmae and Balliols' eyes only...
In the distant sky, you spot a great balloon made of patchwork material. It spins out of control as though punctured, causing the wicker basket that hangs from it to swing wildly. The balloon plunges out of sight, disappearing into the fog approximately a mile or so away from the base of the causeway you are on.
Resmae looks around at her surroundings as the others bicker about the Misters. She doesn't understand the bickering, the Misters have always been good to them, why would the new comers think any different? They have barely had enough time with them to even pass judgement. So she keeps to herself as she tries to figure things out, hanging close with Sammy.
"Oh!!" Resmae cries out from her spot on the causeway, trying to get the others attention, "Did you see? There was a great balloon, huge! But it seems to have been punctured and is now down in that fog." She looks pleadingly at the others, "We, we have to go and help! I didn't see who was in the basket, but they'll surely get lost in that fog, and what if they are hurt?"
Hearing her friend's call, she breaks off from her argument with Balliol and Wildred. She looks out over the fog but doesn't see anything. But then again, she doesn't need to. She trusts Resmae implicitly.
She turns to Wildred and says "Sorry Willy, your nap'll have to wait. It's hero time."
She rushes over to Resmae and Sammy and asks "Which way'd they go down, Resmae?"
Stalker gruffly shakes his head and grumbles, swearing under his breath at his new state and lack of beard.
"If I were to place a bet, I bet at some point we'll turn into oldsters." He shakes his head again. "Fey place indeed."
"Whether we can trust Light or Witch doesn't matter at the moment. Let's see if we can follow any of these clues we have...hags, Zyblina...maybe we'll find these pesky spiders as we go."
"I'm all for heading towards the balloon - but any ideas on how we get down? Though I'm not in a rush to get into that swamp. Let's head that direction...carefully...and see what we can see. I can lead as I know a bit about stones and such - though these are strange as is this construction. Or if someone good at finding traps would like to lead, that would make sense, as well."
"It went down over there, maybe a mile or so?" she points in the direction she saw it crash and turning to Stalker and Halei, "Careful is a good idea, that fog looks thick. And it's at the bottom, we can't use it to get down there, though that would have been a good idea." she scratches her head a moment, "But yeah, lets get going." she climbs up on Sammy's back, a task a bit more difficult than she thought it would be and Sammy uses his snout to boost her tail on up.
You are atop of a broken part of the causeway, at least 80’ up, possible more. It is about 20’ wide and about 60’ long. There is no immediately obvious way down.
Aros doesn't wake up gently.
She comes to thrashing and grunting in the puddles as if she's trying to scream but her sleeping body won't allow it. With a gasp, she lurches up to a sitting position and looks around in a rush of adrenaline. She's confused. A moment ago, she had been trying to stand. Trying to run from something just a moment before, but now she can't remember what. The dream is immediately lost to her, leaving only a cloying sense of something terribly familiar that she knows she ought to remember, but can't quite reach. Though she is at the same time blessedly grateful that whatever it was has shrunk back beneath the veil of forgetfulness...
But there's no time to think about that now. She's fallen asleep in the middle of the street! Again! Oh, how embarrassing!!
But wait. No, that can't be it. She doesn't feel hungover. And she's NEVER gone out partying with a gang of children before! It went against her personal code of ethics to let children get pass-out drunk. And gosh, does that one little harengan look familiar...
Resmae!!!
Aros leaps to her feet and rushes over to her friend. "Resmae! Speak to me, buddy! What's happened to you!? You look at least..... A year younger than usual!!!"
(Jim, I have a very important question for you. Is Sammy a puppy now?)
Sammy is a puppy, but the same full size as he was before.
When Halei comes to it's obvious she isn't all there. She hugs her knees to her chest and trembles in fear, staring at a figure that isn't there and her hands grasp at the air searching for some invisible object. She blinks and looks around at her body, lifting up her arms to examine them, her eyes briefly dust across her comrades, but the recognition isn't immediate. She looks utterly lost and confused and buries her head in her arms to hide her face and to take a few moments to breathe deeply, calm herself, and collect her thoughts.
It doesn't take to long for her memories to return to her, and after only a few beats she shakes her limbs, brushing away the remnants of the dream from her mind and body like dirt on her hands. She leaps to her feet to take in her immediate surroundings and her friends to see if any of them might need any help regaining their bearings.
Wildred comes to, the feel of the cold wet stone on his hands...oh no not the castle latrine again he thought..but wait "Andrix......." he mumbles to himself in a quiet tone "Mother...."vague recollections of hearing his mother sobbing unnerved him....."but what's this" he looked down at his hands something was wrong.."I......my voice!!"he shouted but not recognising his own voice for a second instead some high pitched tones coming out of his mouth.He looked over at his new companions...they seen to be smaller he thought...sudden realisation came crashing down on him, this by far topped the castle bogs!!
"What...!?......I!?......"he said in a panic.
Keep your cool wildred your a scholar,this is magic must be no other explanation..he'd heard of the use of Ageing spells but only to change ones complection of the skin,iron out the wrinkles...but this..... this is ......obsurd!?He thought....Must be wild magic has to be but what if I'm still dreaming...he closed his eyes hoping when he opened them he'd be back at the carnival..and was just another wild ride or crazy Extravaganza.....no such luck.....he got up to his feet.
"Right!!"he said with determination.....
(Wildred cast detect magic on himself,also looking for auras around the others hes looking for answers as to what school of magic or anything else to give a clue as to counters or whatever his expertise alows in the way of information?assuming it is actually magic,.....I have a few questions...how old is wildred and has our clothing shrunk with us? Including wildreds staff?the latter just for my own imaginative purposes trying to picture the scene.)
As she bravely hops through the mirror, a mist of clouds surrounds Resmae, and her head starts feels light and foggy. She dreams of being a young bunny again, before her life in the carnival. She is in a bustling cityscape at night, curled up in a little ball in a corner, trying to keep out of the rain. Resmae is alone, cold and wet and trying not to freeze. Giant folk walk past, seemingly unaware of her existence. As she shakes in the corner, she's scared.
Suddenly, she wakes, and she feels utterly alone. She reaches out to Lathander with a prayer. But she doesn't feel that he can hear her. This fact scares her more than anything.
Resmae looks down and sees Sammy. He is curled up on the cold, wet stone, flinching and jittering as if dreaming and asleep. She buries herself into Sammy yearning for the warmth and comfort of him and hoping to wake him from his dream, worried it is as awful as hers was.
She hears her name and perks up, a little head popping out of the puppies body, and sees a young Satyr, takes her a moment to realize..."Aros!!"
Balliol listened as Mr. Light, as expected, failed to answer his questions. But he did offer some information - who knew if that bit about the Alicorn and time would be useful. It certainly didn't make him feel any more trusting. As he was about to step through the portal he looked back at their host.
"I'll be back."
And then he said the poem and stepped through after his companions and into the mist . . .
As the last through the portal he seemed to be the last to awaken. The crossing had not been fun and had not been a simple passage through a door. Instead he found himself reliving a terrifying memory from childhood. Apparently it was a dream of sorts, and an unpleasant one at that. He had been calling for help when he thought he heard an answer. But that answer was the noise of his friends around him as they apparently also awoke in a state of disarray and alarm. He swiftly popped to his feet and looked for any sign of a threat. If the others were only half awake they were vulnerable . . . to the sound of frogs and bugs. Balliol looked around and took the time to see the causeway for the first time, notice its glowing stones and large gaps, and look over the edge at the swamp. So this was the feywild. Ok, he could deal with frogs.
That was when he noticed Wildred. At least he thought it was Wildred. The glasses were usually a giveaway and they were there. But . . . this wasn't the Wildred he had known. He looked around for Halei and Stalker. Oh, crap. Aros and Resmae? Double crap. Breathing slowly he looked down at himself. As expected. Triple crap. After quickly glancing around for any sign of danger once again he shut his eyes. He pictured a carrot and slowed his breathing. And as it always had, the Way of the Carrot brought calm into his world.
But he hadn't known the Way of the Carrot at this age! His calm almost shattered but he held onto his training and his breathing returned to normal. He was at peace. A very youthful peace, it seemed, but peace. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He surveyed his companions again in all of their energetic and nervous youth. The trip had just gotten trickier. He saw Little Willy casting a spell . . . good, the mage wasn't panicking. Nobody was, actually, for all of their confusion.
When things had settled a bit he told the others of Mr. Lights last words. "With all due respect to those of you who were his employees, I don't trust him. His last words were 'Find the Alicorn and free the dormant queen at last.' Perhaps the queen is Zybilna. But perhaps of even more importance, right before that he said, 'Mind the rule of three: future, present, past.' I don't know what that means exactly, but I suspect we may have found the past."
A bit slow on the uptake, Aros comes to the realization that if everyone else has been transformed, that must mean... She raises a hand to her horns and finds sure enough that they are no longer the impressive, sweeping curves they were supposed to be but instead the harmless nubs of a kid. She sighs. It had taken a lot of patience to grow those things.
She listens to Balliol, then replies "Look, I've known Mister Witch and Mister Light a long time. They're good guys! They're not in the business of harming their customers. If they were they wouldn't have any customers left! This..." she says, gesturing around at all of them in their youthful state, "is standard fairyland nonsense. I've seen it a million times! They're probably just trying to teach you all some lesson about humility or being kind to old people or... Proper dental hygiene or something. Just be on your best behavior, don't insult any talking trees or rocks, pass whatever arbitrary tests are given to you by mysterious travelers, and you'll be fine!!"
"Worst comes to worst you'll reemerge on the prime material to find that hundreds of years have gone by and everyone you love has long since passed of old age hoping unto their dying breath that you'd return to them. And you'll wander the world as a lonely wraith until you see yourself in the reflection of a clear running stream or prick yourself with a silver pin or something and you crumble away to dust and disappear forever from time and memory. Or whatever. No big deal."
"My point is, don't worry about it! Mister Witch and Mister Light don't give people jobs they can't handle."
Wildred listens to Aros and looks at her aghast.
"You seem to hold a lot of trust in the misters!?...sorry to say I don't share your optimism!...i must admit it has been a lifelong dream of mine to enter the wilds and study its vast array of flaura,fauna and magical mysteries, but I'd rather hoped on being a bit taller than 4 feet!!..........regardless this is our lot and I for one am just happy we all made it through in one piece.Right now im wanting to have a rest! we havnt rested since before the carnival and im sure we will all beable to tackle the situation a lot better after a well deserved long rest"
(Wildred would like to roll a perception , Take in his surroundings looking for camp hes in need of a rest)
Balliol listened to Aros defend her employers and go on a rant about the things that could happen here. That last bit made him smile. "You misunderstand me. I don't know that the Misters are responsible for our current condition and, in fact, would doubt it. No, I'm talking about Zybilna. Apparently she has disappeared from the feywild and it would seem that a group of hags are a part of it. And it would also appear that your Misters know something of the hags. Perhaps when Mr. Light said, "free the dormant queen" he meant Zybilna and wishes that to happen. But then again, if he knows of the hags he might be a part of it. Whatever it is, he knows a lot more than he told those of us who are here." He shrugged. "I don't know where he stands, but he seems to be concealing information. Did you ever see a little girl with a pig mask at the carnival? I heard someone describe her as a "stalker." Apparently there were several such stalkers luring kids into exhibits. To what end? I don't know. But according to some of your co-workers, the Misters knew about it. Do you know anything about stalkers?"
Before they could respond he added. "Look, I'm not accusing you or any other workers of anything. And it may not impact our time here at all. But whatever was going on at the carnival has something to do with whatever is going weird over here" and he indicated the lands around them. "Any information anyone has would be useful."
"Oh, the pig mask kid?" Aros says with a laugh. "THAT'S what you're worried about? Sure, I know about them! They're nobody. Prankster kids or something, I dunno. The Misters said to just ignore 'em!"
She continues, shrugging. "I don't know any Zybilna. She a friend of yours? Listen, I'm sorry your friend has hags, I hear that itches like crazy, but we're here to find spiders. You help us replace the spiders you killed, and we all continue on our merry way. And I don't wanna hear any more wild accusations about the Misters while we're out here. The Misters are good guys. They look out for kids like Resmae and me who don't have anywhere else to go. They help people."
In this last statement you hear a twinge of anger in Aros's voice. Only a hint, but it rings out in contrast to the tone of joviality you've exclusively heard her speak in up to now. She looks between Balliol and Wildred as if daring them to say another bad thing about the Misters.
Halei listens and pipes in, "hmmm, I don't know if The Misters have the best intentions or not, we can't really do much about that at the moment anyhow. What are we gonna do about our current situation? What's our next move?" Halei bounces from foot to foot, itching to explore this new environment they'd found themselves in. She doesn't seem at all bothered with the possible implications of The Misters.
Stalker, now a dwarven child, still appears dazed and confused.
Your realisation that you are all now children is a bracing one that some find easier to adjust to than others.
Your age is the age that you were in your dream. While it would be fun to make your clothing remain adult size, it is a bit of a complication to implement. Your clothing fits you. Your weapons are also proportional to you, so you can still wield them. Your now childlike state has not affected your mind or knowledge, but physically you have changed. I have overridden the following ability stats on your character sheets. Strength -2, Dexterity +1, Constitution -1, Charisma +2. Your HP has been fully restored.
Sammy remains about the same size as he was, but his features are now more puppy-like. Equivalent in age to an eight-month-old german shepherd, only bigger, blink dog size.
Wildred, speaking to himself, makes some illustrative gestures around.
For Wildred's eyes only...
Your Detect Magic spell reveals the following to you.
The stones' strange blue/green glow has a faint blue aura (indicating Abjuration). The amulet around Resmae's neck has a pale gold aura (meaning Divination). There is a very light grey aura (of conjuration) around you and your colleagues. But it is so faint you suspect this is residual magics still present from the trip here.
For Balliol's eyes only...
Your insight tells you that Aros's respect for the Misters is genuine.
After coming to your senses and realising the gravity of your situation, you turn your attention to your surroundings. The elevated causeway you find yourselves on and the stone of which it is made glowing a faint blue underneath you. Looking over the edge reveals the causeway is at least 80' high above a mist that obscures your view of any ground beneath it.
For Resmae and Balliols' eyes only...
In the distant sky, you spot a great balloon made of patchwork material. It spins out of control as though punctured, causing the wicker basket that hangs from it to swing wildly. The balloon plunges out of sight, disappearing into the fog approximately a mile or so away from the base of the causeway you are on.
Questions, Actions:
Resmae looks around at her surroundings as the others bicker about the Misters. She doesn't understand the bickering, the Misters have always been good to them, why would the new comers think any different? They have barely had enough time with them to even pass judgement. So she keeps to herself as she tries to figure things out, hanging close with Sammy.
"Oh!!" Resmae cries out from her spot on the causeway, trying to get the others attention, "Did you see? There was a great balloon, huge! But it seems to have been punctured and is now down in that fog." She looks pleadingly at the others, "We, we have to go and help! I didn't see who was in the basket, but they'll surely get lost in that fog, and what if they are hurt?"
"Well I do really need a rest!!,But I suppose we could check it out could be it's an old crash site and be good to make camp"
Wildred was so exhausted he couldn't possibly cast any more spells if the group needed without first getting some sleep.
Hearing her friend's call, she breaks off from her argument with Balliol and Wildred. She looks out over the fog but doesn't see anything. But then again, she doesn't need to. She trusts Resmae implicitly.
She turns to Wildred and says "Sorry Willy, your nap'll have to wait. It's hero time."
She rushes over to Resmae and Sammy and asks "Which way'd they go down, Resmae?"
Stalker gruffly shakes his head and grumbles, swearing under his breath at his new state and lack of beard.
"If I were to place a bet, I bet at some point we'll turn into oldsters." He shakes his head again. "Fey place indeed."
"Whether we can trust Light or Witch doesn't matter at the moment. Let's see if we can follow any of these clues we have...hags, Zyblina...maybe we'll find these pesky spiders as we go."
"I'm all for heading towards the balloon - but any ideas on how we get down? Though I'm not in a rush to get into that swamp. Let's head that direction...carefully...and see what we can see. I can lead as I know a bit about stones and such - though these are strange as is this construction. Or if someone good at finding traps would like to lead, that would make sense, as well."
"Let's go check out that balloon then! Maybe we can fix it and we use it to get down?"
"It went down over there, maybe a mile or so?" she points in the direction she saw it crash and turning to Stalker and Halei, "Careful is a good idea, that fog looks thick. And it's at the bottom, we can't use it to get down there, though that would have been a good idea." she scratches her head a moment, "But yeah, lets get going." she climbs up on Sammy's back, a task a bit more difficult than she thought it would be and Sammy uses his snout to boost her tail on up.
Stalker heads off in that direction. "Let's all keep our eyes and ears pealed."
(ooc - how many abreast fit on the 'bridge' where it is not damaged?)
You are atop of a broken part of the causeway, at least 80’ up, possible more. It is about 20’ wide and about 60’ long. There is no immediately obvious way down.