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The Doubley-Doos finally reunited with the Rockmore tribe in the southern halfling village of Farlo. While helping the village recover from an attack by Klaas’s troops, a boy from the village went missing. They searched the woods and found signs of the boy’s capture around a tree. Further investigation revealed the tree to be a portal of some kind, and soon the the found themselves transported to the Feywild. 

They continued to follow the boot tracks through the woods, but wandered too near a shapeless mass of babbling mouths that filled their minds with confusing, conflicting thoughts. The mass appeared to be a perimeter trap for a hag living nearby who’d augmented herself with leftover pieces of previous victims

Disguising herself as a beautiful elf woman, she attacked the Doubley-Doos, but they were able to swiftly defeat her and the mouth beast. Fearing this hag may have been the one to take the boy, they investigated her shack. They found evidence that she had eaten people, including children, in the past, but not recently. They also found a number of papers and documents from her victims. Some were communications she’d stolen identifying her as “Vale the Vile.” Others were fearful communications of another hag identified as Cedonia of the Slickwood.

With not much else in the hag’s hut to find, Dormin and Shelby picked back up the trail of bootprints and resumed following them through the woods. After traveling for a few hours, they sensed they were being followed. In fact, they became convinced of it. Something knew they were they. The felt a strange, intense paranoia and fear plaguing them, but couldn’t identify the source. Shump fell behind, overcome with fear, and was attacked by insectile creatures with large pincers. Soon, the whole group was overtaken as the creatures teleported from shadow to shadow. At first the group tried to flee, but when it was clear these creatures were too fast, they stood their ground, eventually running off the attacking forces.

Luck was in their favor when they realized their battle had led them to a clearing in the woods containing an old hut. Suspecting this might be the dwelling of this mysterious Cedonia, Dormin moved closer to investigate.

The hut stood near the far edge in the back of the clearing, near the woods opposite the Doubley-Doos. There was a large fire blazing in the center, and Dormin could make out figures moving about the camp. A half dozen small, blue pixie-like creatures marched to and fro. They were dressed in leathers and armed with small blades. They appeared to be assistants or servants of some kind.

Next to the shack, a young halfling boy dozed in a wooden cage. He looked dirty, tired, and scratched up from his travels, but mostly unhurt. A few of the pixie-like creatures guarded the cage. When Dormin moved to get a better look, he also made out the form of a massive dog guarding the cage. To his horror, although the body was dog-like, the creature had the face of an elderly, bearded man.

Before Dormin could investigate any further, something large shifted in the back of the shack. Dormin hurried back to the party to fill them in on what he saw. As the hag stirred in her shack, the Doubley-Doos began to plan their rescue mission.

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There wasn’t much to really think about for this particular session. I was still trying to test out combat without maps or minis and doing it all theater of the mind. I miss the minis, but I hate making maps. I much prefer the more fluid way that the Powered by the Apocalypse games handle combat — that fluid “jump in when you want to” style of play makes combat seem so fast. D&D as written isn’t quite set up to handle that free of a combat, but I’m pretty happy with how combat has gone so far.

I’m currently using a mish-mash of styles. I’m using the Popcorn Initiative concept of initiative in D&D. Originally I did some homebrew to it to basically stop folks from trying to rofl-stomp my monsters before any of them can go, but I’ve since shifted my position — if they don’t use their turns tactically and instead just try to overwhelm their enemy forces, that’s on them when the enemies hit back in a huge wave.

This session was okay, but our time was so strained and limited — only playing for a couple hours or an hour and a half — that it feels like nothing much got done. I believe this session had to end early because someone was sick? I can’t remember now, but it was an especially short session.

We haven’t actually played this game since, so the battle against the hag hasn’t played out yet. We’re working on scheduling a day, though, so hopefully we’ll get to play with that some soon.

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