Prologue: To Boldly Go Where People Have Not Been in a Good Long While!

Kathryn tilts her head, bemused by the turn this conversation took.

"You guys make no sense at all. You'll help me because it's the right thing to do, but you won't help Eni because you don't know her very well? Even though it's the right thing to do?" She shakes her head in an futile effort to make sense of this reasoning. "I don't get it. We're already risking our lives everyday because of this job. Doing it for Eni's sake makes no difference."

She sighs.

"Let's just take care of Allinandra and her mother. That's a simpler thing to do."

Carlos just shrugs.

Hunter moves in front of Kat, shoulder-to-shoulder and starts to talk with his hands. Let me explain this a little clearer. "You don't get it. There is no 'just' about it. You didn't have to be bound by a Feywild oath to help her, Kat. But now you are, and now in addition to wanting to help her, we have to for your sake as well. Do you understand now? Being honor-bound to do as you said you would is now second to you doing it because you have to, or some otherworldly planar crap will find you and jack your soul up. That is why we're freaking out on you, okay?"

She shakes her head. "You're wrong. I had to swear an oath to save Eni. And I had to do it without asking for anything in return. She's still stuck there because no one else has done so before. This is how you beat that kind of curse; by doing what everybody else will hesitate to do."

He blinks. "Oh..." You're smarter than you--do NOT say that. "That's...one way to look at it. Still, I don't buy it. Don't you wonder if anyone has tried? Maybe her father is just too strong. What if he's too strong for you? What then? I'm calling it now. You're going to need our help, the help of people who won't swear, to do anything to break that curse, whether it means defeating a false hero like Allinandra and her mother, or a centuries-old archfey. You are wrong--respectfully."

Kathryn shrugs. "Finding a way to lift the curse will prove me right. And this starts with Allinandra." She starts walking towards the door. "Come on, let's go."

Zoe looks very uncomfortable at the conflict in the party, needing her hands and hunching her shoulders as if to protect herself from any potential splash damage. "Yes lets. We still need to figure out our plan of attack." She follows the rest out of the Tree area of the Grove. "If we want to stick with Carlos' plan we'll need to figure out the teams. Are we still set on Kat, Liam, and Carlos for the confrontation party? Or did we all want to go out together?"

Liam stays silent throughout the discussion, feeling it's not his place to say anything during the argument. With things moving on he helpfully adds, "Jojo said he has something important to share with us. He's waiting back in our room with the kids."

You guys head back to the room with Jojo and the two children. Lily and Tom are both asleep on the bed and Jojo carefully sets aside a book and motions for you guys to turn right around  and head back down the hallway. He motions you back to the Grove and when everyone is there he says, "I'm happy everyone is okay. Zoe filled me in after you left. There's no way around it--it's bad you guys." He takes up a pose, arching his back and forming an "L" with his arms. "The pendant that Nesme gave us was able to hear everything we said. It's a rather clever enchantment really. I almost didn't recognize it underneath the other one. Whoever worked it has a subtle touch. I've quarantined it for now in the adult wing."

Carlos has been growing increasingly irritated - "There's no point in sneaking around them anymore if they heard about that plan; will only put them on guard the minute they don't see us all come out. I'm going out there and talk to Nesme. The rest of you come along if you want."

He turns away and goes find the necklace.

"Whoa, hold on." Hunter walks over and grabs Carlos by the arm. "I assume you're going to find the necklace, otherwise they won't let...us...out...dammit. Leave it there, it's useless now. It's Eyton's grove, he'll let us out."

[Let's get the pendant. The minute we have it, watch what you say from now on.]

"Sure." - Carlos goes to see the tree.

Kathryn also goes to see the tree.

"Hey, Eyton! Is there any other way out than the front entrance? And are Nesme and Allinandra still waiting for us?"

Liam answers part of Katheryn's question, "Eyton can move us to the Feywild where we can find a tether back to a few trees spread around outside. We'll have to do a bit of traveling on that side and it may not be safe. But it's definitely safer than going out the front door."

Eyton grows a big branch with a purple-white flower on the end. A stream of pollen explodes from the flower all over the party, putting an image of the field outside into your heads. Nesme is not there but Allinandra is waiting in plain view. There is no sign of Ludmilla. Seven mundanely camouflaged elves wait in ambush, spread around the entrance. They glow a light blue, and you can make out bows, swords, and leather armor. They don't appear to be druids at all.

"Those are Woodsinger Clan hunters. They must be allied with Nesme," says Liam, "Eyton, are they guarding the tethered trees?"

Eyton shoots you all with more pollen, changing the view to an overhead one of the entire meadow. Only one tree lights up. Liam grunts in anger, "They seem to have broken the tether's somehow. It's easy if you know where to look. A fire or simply cutting it down with an ax would do the trick."

The overhead view zooms in on the lone tree, showing that it is clear of ambush. If you guys head there, you'd be on top of the hill itself. It would be a good place for ranged attacks into the meadow below. Liam adds, "That's strange, I wonder why they missed this position? It seems to give a commanding view of the battlefield and should have been one of the first places checked."

"Or maybe they countin' on us to take that one. Nesme knows we found you. She knows we pissed at her, and she has to know we'd find Eyton, and we'd have access to the tethers. And now she nowhere to be seen, while having left us a pretty obvious exit." - Carlos muses

"We go out that way, and we likely get hammered. We go out the front door, and we likely get hammered. But we have to be able to talk to them, and---" - he stops himself as he thinks of something - "¿Oy Jo, where did you stash that pendant again?"

"It's in the bedroom where I was working," answers Jojo, "I left it on the bed in the right corner."

Liam bites his lip in thought. "I suppose they might have left a guard in the Feywild. We really won't know unless we go there. I still think it's worth the risk."

Hunter sneezes and coughs with each blast of pollen.

When the first clears, he gasps at the image. Nesme, who is powerless here, gone. Allinandra, who can use the power of her pact to protect her, remains with other armed elves. Members of his uncle's clan. Ludmilla, gone.

More. These people axed a tree. Nothing to him, but to them a principle of their own they were willing to betray to destroy a foe they deemed enough of a threat.

"The Woodsinger Clan. My uncle's. Allinandra used this situation and to poison them against us. The moment we walk out, we'll be accused of cavorting with gnolls, not Harken's Heart."

He yells in frustration, and says to Liam, "We'll go. If they've left a guard, we'll carve our way to Allinandra, and then we can try to reason with my uncle's clansmen."

Kathryn listens closely to what Liam and Eyton have to tell them, and she expresses surprise when Hunter reveals that members of his clan are the ones who are waiting outside.

"Wait, these are your people? Why would they be here?"

"They're here because the Harken's Heart circle like to recruit from their clan. I wouldn't be surprised if they drew them in with cult-like promises. It's really sickening."

[He's trying to pile on another excuse to hate the Harken's Heart. I don't actually know if they're like a cult.]

"Almost all of the druids of Harken's Heart are drawn from the Woodsinger Clan of elves. It's not surprising they could call upon allies within the clan itself. I just don't understand why they didn't leave peacefully with the finger, if indeed that was their plan," adds Liam helpfully.

"I don't get it," says Zoe, "Are we sure Allinandra is a bad guy? She's the only druid there, right? So wouldn't she have been the one identifying the tethers for them? If it's not a trap then she left that opening on purpose, right?"

"What about the pendant?" asks Kathryn. "Maybe we could use it to ask Allinandra about it, and avoid a battle this way."

Hunter stills himself to think about what the others have said. "We're Nesme's loose end. She made sure she would have allies in the Woodsinger Clan at hand to take us out if we didn't cooperate. Maybe she counted on it..."

"The clansmen must be aware of her plan, so we can't count on them to be reasonable. Someone left a way out for us, and it wasn't them or Nesme. I...guess I might be wrong about her daughter. She's giving us a clear advantage. We should use it, but we should be prepared for a bigger ambush in the Feywild in case this is a ruse...okay. Okay, we'll ambush the clansmen and we won't touch Allinandra. We can't anyhow, not until we find out what's really going on with her."

"I don't think we should risk using the pendant. Whether you trust her or not, someone might over hear us. Nesme might even have a spare. If we're going to give her the benefit of the doubt, she's just going to have to trust that we won't attack her when we come out on top of the hill."

"Oy, Jo. Zoe. ¿What you think the range on that pendant would be, eh?"

Zoe and Jojo look at each other. She indicates for Jojo to go first which he does with a nod. "I would be surprised if it was more than a mile or two. The enchantment is good work but I believe it was done as hastily as possible."

"Work like that is common in the Feywild," adds Zoe, "With the right connections it wouldn't take long to find a seller, especially if you go to the Grand Market of Astrazalian or the master artisans of Mithrendain. And that assumes they don't keep this kind of magic on hand as a matter of course. I wouldn't put it past them to have a sophisticated spy network backed up by an artisan or two on retainer to keep a supply going."

"You might be on to something Zoe," says Liam, "Especially with their relatively recent interest in the lands beyond their forest."

"¿And if we use it, can Eyton track where it's being received? Just in case Nesme still has it, and not Allinandra."

"Maybe. We've never tried anything like that before," answers Liam. He walks over to Eyton and places his hand on the tree. "He says he doesn't sense her in his territory anymore which would be the surrounding meadow. He's willing to try what you ask, though he needs the pendant."

Jojo leaves and returns with the pendant, placing his finger on his lips to indicate everyone be quiet. He hands the pendant to Liam who in turn places it carefully in one of Eyton's nooks. After 30 seconds of silence Liam indicates everyone should leave the room and follows suit. When you guys are a good ways down the hall he says, "It's going to take him a while to alter the enchantment enough to do what you ask. He says we'd be better off resting for the coming conflict."

"Let's all double-check and make sure we're ready for whatever's coming. We've got the element of surprise, but the numbers aren't in our favor."

He checks his quiver. Briefly. "Zoe, how are you doing?"