Witchlight Part 1: The Carnival

In short, the gang had a good time at the carnival.

Date: May 2, 2026

Characters present

• Farvex Dusk: human warlock
• Lionidas: leonin monk
• Philomena Gainsborough: satyr/centaur wizard
• Shadow Claw: tabaxi cleric

Character level: 1

Snips, Snails, and Pie Eating Contests

The group, all dressed in their new fairy wings, were at the carnival. It was in a large forest clearing filled with tents, booths, and excited people of all kinds. Just ahead of the party, a giant walking maple tree was throwing helicopter seeds at a crowd below, who were trying to catch them. The party joined in, and all failed to catch any. The tree felt sorry for the party, and threw some more seeds at them. This time, Vex and Philomena caught one, and were rewarded with a magical charm that made them easily amused. They would go on to laugh when least appropriate.

The gang met a goblin who apparently collected buttons. Those of the party who had buttons to spare (who doesn’t?) gave them to the goblin, who gave them to a monkey who was very pleased. Vex kept his spare suit buttons in his magical top hat of holding, which was much bigger on the inside than the outside. It also had a randomly rolled personality—this time it was overprotective and summoned a magic hand to pat Vex on the cheeks.

The party’s first stop was the lost and found. After all, they had all lost something at the carnival. There they found Dirla the displacer beast, who didn’t have what they were looking for. That would’ve been too easy. What she did have was two human children, left there by their parents for Dirla to look after. After an incident where Dirla accidentally scared one of them away and the party retrieved him, Dirla gave the party a small mirror ball. She said it belonged to her missing kitten, whom she hoped the party could find. The party went to check out some giant dragonflies.

The dragonflies were offering rides, and the party all wanted in on the fun. They noticed that one dragonfly, carrying a frightened dwarf, was flying erratically, nearly throwing the dwarf off. Philomena noticed that a kenku nearby was seemingly casting a spell on it. She pointed it out, and the party was so intrigued by the kenku that they forgot about the dwarf.

The kenku was called Kettlesteam and was apparently a sadist. She said there was no greater joy than the joy of ruining things for others. After a charming spell and some mild persuasion, Kettlesteam revealed that she was actually a warlock of Zybilna (there’s apparently lots of those about) and was really just trying to make a ruckus. She too knew that something was wrong, and wanted to speak with Mr. Witch and Mr. Light about it. She had overheard them talking about something called the Hourglass Coven, and was now trying to draw them out of wherever they were hiding by making as big of a mess as possible. If that involved injuring dwarves, then so be it.

The party left Kettlesteam, who was no fun, and decided to go snail racing. Despite the reputation of snails, these ones were fast. And huge. Each party member got to ride on one. Lionidas won on his snail, Breakneck, and got a magic wand as prize. Next, Vex won a bag of pixie dust in ring toss.

Philomena insisted that they go to the unicorn carousel, in no small part because there was a centaur there, which excited her a little too much. The centaur, however, wasn’t quite as excited, apparently having been turned into a centaur by a hag. She was unable to talk about it, but suggested they talk to the unicorns. After solving a puzzle involving figuring out the true names of the unicorns, the party did get some info. They learned that Zybilna had been frozen in time by the Hourglass Coven—a trio of hags. They had divided the realm of Prismeer among themselves into three pieces, called Hither, Thither, and Yon.

One hag was called Skabatha Nightshade. She lived in a doll house in a dead tree in the woods. For whatever reason, she had lost the ability to remember the first creature she sees when she wakes up. Another hag was called Bavlorna Blightstraw, and she lived in a swamp. Her weakness was people moving counterclockwise. Finally, there was Endelyn Moongrave. Her residence was a theater on a mountaintop. The group didn’t learn of any of her weaknesses, but apparently she had predicted that she would die during an eclipse. The party pondered this information for a few moments, and then decided to check out the swan rides.

After getting pulled around on a lake on a raft by a swan who enjoyed debating philosophy, the party played a game where they tried to catch the tail of a small fairy dragon while blindfolded. Then they joined a pie eating contest, which Lionidas won. He ate more pies than anyone ever had before. After that, they faced their deepest fears in a spooky minecart ride. After looking into the proprietor’s magical eye lantern, all their fears appeared as illusions during the ride. They saw an illusion of the safety bar breaking their legs, because Lionidas was afraid of losing the use of his limbs. They rode through a tunnel so narrow that they could barely fit, because Shadow was claustrophobic. They encountered a giant spider with chainsaws for legs because that’s what Vex was afraid of. They all agreed it was terribly frightening. Finally, they saw their names on tombstones because Philomena feared death. All the tombstones had lovingly carved epitaphs except Lionidas, whose tombstone just said “Lionidas”. After the ride was over, he was still so frightened that he’d have to make another wisdom save later, and maybe gain a level of exhaustion.

After that, the gang stared down a cyclops in a staring contest, and floated around the carnival in giant bubbles while we ate cotton candy in real life. The end.