Witchlight Part 4: Welcome to Hither

Having just stepped through the mirror in the Hall of Illusions, the group found themselves transported to another world.

Date: May 23, 2026

Characters present

• Farvex Dusk: human warlock
• Lionidas: leonin monk
• Shadow Claw: tabaxi cleric

Character level: 2

Into the Feywild

The party stood on a wide stone road that glowed faintly blue in the foggy twilight. Ahead, the road had collapsed, and they saw that it was actually a massive bridge stretching across a vast, misty swamp. Behind them was a thick wall of fog. Once they’d found their bearings after their short but distant journey, the group debated where to go. It seemed that the only options were north, to where the bridge was broken, or south into the fog. Going forward would mean they’d have to spend all of their pixie dust to fly across the gap in the bridge, so they settled on the fog.

Vex led the way, and the others stayed close to not get lost in the fog that was now so dense that they could barely see their own feet. Vex almost stumbled on a small milestone right ahead of him. It said “Queen’s Way”, but the chiseled text had been scrawled over in black ink saying “Hither”. Below that was what the party suspected to be the rule of threes that Mr. Light had mentioned. At the very least, it was three rules:

Rule of Hospitality. When a friend, an enemy, or a stranger enters your home, you are expected to be gracious and accommodating to them until such time as they prove, by their words or actions, undeserving of such hospitality.

Rule of Ownership. You must not steal from a friend, an enemy, or a stranger. To take something that doesn’t belong to you without the rightful owner’s permission is a crime and an unforgivable breach of etiquette.

Rule of Reciprocity. When a friend, an enemy, or a stranger offers you a gift, you are obliged to accept it and offer something of comparable value (be it a gift or a service) in return. Such reciprocation need not happen immediately.

This text had likewise been scrawled over with a massive “fuck Zybilna”. The group continued south down the road. A few paces later, Vex walked straight into a another milestone. When he looked closer, he realized it was the same one, defaced in much the same way. Turning back, the party saw that they were right where they had started—by the collapsed bridge section overlooking the swamp. The group tried heading south again just to make sure it hadn’t been a magical fluke, but once again found themselves returning to their starting point every time they stepped into the wall of fog.

Examining their options, the party looked out over the swamp. It was foggy, though not as bad as the thick wall behind them, and far down. As they looked, Lionidas realized that there was something—or rather someone—they couldn’t see.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where’s Johan?¹”

They all looked around and discovered that Johan wasn’t there. When they thought about it, they hadn’t seen him since they all stepped through the mirror.

“Maybe he appeared somewhere else,” said Vex.

“Yeah, like he stepped into the mirror wrong or something, said Lionidas.

“That’s definitely possible,” said Vex. “I read a book once where a wizard was trying to teleport, but he got the words wrong and teleported diagonally. Anyway, let’s keep a look out for him. I’m sure he’ll pop up.”

Looking out over the swamp, they saw a precariously leaning tower, a massive stump connected to a network of piers, and tall hills.

They also saw a hot air balloon swinging about wildly in the wind and eventually crashing down near the leaning tower. They decided to go and investigate that—whoever was in the balloon could’ve been injured and, even if they weren’t, could probably use their help. But first, they’d have to find their way down. Looking over the edge, they spotted a group of large mushrooms growing on the side of the bridge, and carefully made their way down from mushroom to mushroom until they could set foot on the muddy ground. As they did, they spotted a giant crane which flew away in fright. Walking in the general direction of the balloon, they soon heard singing up ahead.

With sticks and stones, we’ll break your nose;
We’ll beat you blind and steal your clothes.
But none among us can compare
To one wily, swift, and stand-up hare

Scarf that’s glorious, thief notorious,
His deeds are truly meritorious!
With a wink and a grin, he’ll show his cunning:
At flash of his scarf, he’ll take off running.

Quick as a bolt, his long scarf trailing,
Grasping, grasping, you’ll end up flailing.
You’ll pout, you’ll moan, you’ll huff, you’ll sneer;
Thanks to Agdon Longscarf, brigand prince of Prismeer!

“Quick, hide!” said Vex in a hushed voice. Lionidas dropped flat to the ground. Vex and Shadow both ran for the same stump—the only hiding place in sight—but Vex was first, and Shadow ended up standing on top of the stump when the squad of singing harengon (rabbit people, about five feet tall) arrived. There were six of them, and two of them were wrangling a giant snail, much like the ones that the group had ridden during the carnival. Their leader held up a fist, signaling for the others to halt.

“You there!” The leader of the rabbits pointed at Lionidas. “This is a robbery! But we don’t want anything you’re carrying. No, all we will take from you is the feeling of receiving your greatest gifts.” She held up a hollowed-out gourd with a golden cap and explained that it would take their memories if they chose to touch its golden knob.

Lionidas, lying before the group of harengon—who all had their clubs raised—stood up and spoke.

“How can I give away something that’s already gone? I mean, that feeling happened, and then I didn’t feel it anymore the next day.” He went on trying to debate the rabbit leader for several minutes. Shadow also spoke:

“The greatest gift I ever received was this symbol.” He pointed to the blue dragon emblem on his shield. “If you take that from me, you will awaken the wrath of Bahamut.” The rabbits looked at each other and began to laugh. When it became clear that neither the mud-covered lion nor the cat on the stump were willing to give away their remembered feelings (except Shadow’s memory of being beaten by his father), the rabbits attacked. They did so with disastrous incompetence.

The first thing that happened was that Lionidas ran up to the leader and clawed the shit (and life) out of her. The others reeled as she fell to the ground, her body quickly disintegrating and leaving behind nothing but bones. One of the rabbits wrangling the snail was so distracted that he lost control of the snail. It had been distressed by the fighting, and managed to kill its rabbit handler. Don’t ask me how one gets killed by a giant snail, but it happened. As the rabbits approached Shadow, they spotted Vex hiding behind the stump. He stepped out and spoke, using his magic wand to amplify his voice:

“Get back! I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the flame of Anor, monarch of the Witchlight Carnival, sovereign of all England! The giant snail will not avail you, rabbits of Hither! Go back to the shadows!” This was too much for the rabbits. They bowed before him and begged to be spared. He let them run, but told them to leave the gourd behind. Once they were gone, Lionidas inspected the gourd. As he removed its cap, motes of light flew out of it and scattered in the sky. The group caught their breaths and continued in the direction of the crashed balloon.

A Trek Through the Swamp

On the way, the ground got even swampier. Bubbles grew from the mud and erupted in multicolored gasses ahead. Lionidas—the secretly blind—tried to hold onto Vex to avoid the bubbles, but Vex slipped away from him after he stepped on one of the bubbles, which erupted with a green gas that made them both cough. After that, Lionidas quickly popped another gas bubble, which caused him to grow a crown of mushrooms on his head. Now, this was a real pickle for Lionidas. He relied mostly on his empowered sense of smell to navigate, but now all he could smell was mushrooms. He took a guess and walked off in the wrong direction, disappearing into the fog. The others made it across the bubbly mud with little trouble, and discovered on the other side that Lionidas was nowhere to be seen. They called out to him, telling him to follow their voices. When he finally made it, he was covered in slime and could only speak gibberish².

Shadow and Vex debated what they were going to do. Lionidas was becoming something of a burden to the party, and their quest was too important to jeopardize. They decided to let him continue with them, but if they found a way back to the material plane, they’d drop him off. Out of character, we were pretty sure we wouldn’t find anything like that anytime soon, and so Lionidas was actually safe.

They found the balloon stuck with its basket hanging about thirty feet off the ground from a slithering, thorny black plant right next to the leaning tower. Someone unseen in the basket heard them coming and whispered for their help. It introduced itself as Sir Talavar, emissary of Titania the summer queen. Once the party had explained their business and Sir Talavar recognized that they were on the same side, he explained further. He and one called Wigglewog, who had not survived the crash, had come to Prismeer to ally with Zybilna against the fomorians. To their horror, they had discovered that Prismeer had been taken over by three hag sisters called the Hourglass Coven. Hating each other, the sisters had split the realm into three parts and frozen Zybilna in time, along with her castle, using something called Iggwilv’s cauldron. Bavlorna Blightstraw was the witch controlling Hither, and she lived in Downfall, the area by the giant stump to the north. Wigglewog and Sir Talavar had run into Bavlorna, who had imprisoned Sir Talavar in the birdcage. Wigglewog had grabbed him and made a run for it, crashing the balloon during their daring escape. Also, they had to be quiet because there were two giant boa constrictors sleeping before the tower’s entrance.

Vex snorted some pixie dust off of Shadow’s shield, allowing him to fly up to the basket. He discovered that Sir Talavar was some kind of small pink-purple fairy dragon, and he was trapped in a birdcage. Vex brought him down so that shadow, who had spoken little of his apparent criminal past on the streets before, as he put it, “swinging too far in the other direction” and becoming a priest, could pick the cage’s lock. Despite his particular set of skills, he found himself unable to do it. The lock was simply unpickable. Sir Talavar said that it was Bavlorna herself who had locked him in the cage. Since meeting (and brutally murdering) her was already the party’s goal, they brought the little dragon north toward the place they now knew went by Downfall, just like that German movie.

On they way, they ran into a group of bugbears wandering about, carrying baskets full of eggs. They initially mistook the group for slave owners due to Vex’s carrying around Sir Talavar in a cage, but Sir Talavar was quick to explain what had happened, and emphasized that the party were trying to help him. Then the bugbears calmed down and suggested they seek out one Jingle Jangle who lived on Telemy Hill. They snickered quietly to themselves when the they learned that party hadn’t heard of her. Apparently, Jingle Jangle had keys. All of them. That sounded just like what Sir Talavar needed, so the party listened to their directions and changed their course. Before they left, the group also told the bugbears of their planned journey to Downfall and their quest to kick Bavlorna’s ass. The bugbears told them of the bullywugs (ugly frog people) whom they’d likely encounter in Downfall. The bullywugs had formed their own imitation of a fey court, which they called the Soggy Court. The party made a note of this and headed for the hill.

Telemy Hill and Beyond

Telemy Hill wasn’t far and, much to Lionidas’ relief, there weren’t any magical bog gases on the way. It was a tall hill, looking almost like a mountain from afar, and had a narrow path winding up and around it. The Beatles followed it, and were greeted by a grove of pine trees, swaying contentedly in the windless air. They said they were the voices of the hill, which was apparently alive, and asked how long the group intended to stay. The party explained that they were there to see Jingle Jangle. Jingle Jangle was there, the trees said, but she hadn’t been herself lately. It would seem that a group of rabbits had stolen one of her happiest memories. With the group having confronted a similar fluffle and released the stolen memories, they suspected that would no longer be an issue. They thanked the trees and continued up the hill, finding a keyhole-shaped cave opening. Following the path down, they came to a cozy cavern decorated all over with keys of all kinds. In the room was a goblin wearing chainmail made of keys and wielding a flail made from a large padlock. It was, doubtlessly, Jingle Jangle. The party introduced themselves, explained why they were there, and let Sir Talavar explain his situation.

“Oh, Jingle Jangle thinks Jingle Jangle has just the right key!” said Jingle Jangle.

“Really? How come you have Bavlorna’s key to her birdcage?” asked Vex.

“Pure coincidence, really. Jingle Jangle was in Downfall earlier when Jingle Jangle saw Bavlorna through her window. She was locking that poor Sir Talavar in the birdcage, and then she threw the key out the window!”

“Wow, it’s really lucky that you were at the right place at the right time.”

“Luck, or maybe fate. Jingle Jangle thinks it’s her fate to find and collect every key in the realm.”

“I think it’s my fate to defeat the hags and free Zybilna,” said Vex. “And I think it’s Lionidas’ fate to drown in the bog—he’ll be trailing behind us as we make our way through the mud, and his feet will get stuck. We won’t hear his cries for help because we’ll be whistling a jaunty tune, having for a brief moment forgotten that Lionidas is there with us. Once we realize what’s happening, it’ll be too late. We’ll turn back and call his name, but the only answer will be his last breath bubbling up through the mud.”

“Jingle Jangle, uhm…” said Jingle Jangle. “Jingle Jangle isn’t so sure about all that, but Jingle Jangle thinks the first part may be true.”

The key was indeed the right one. Sir Talavar was most thankful for being released. He gave the party a magical dagger that went to Shadow, and hurried off to inform his queen of what had happened to Prismeer. The group got to spend the night at Jingle Jangle’s residence on Telemy hill and rest up. She was thankful for what they’d done with the stolen memories, and she felt much better now that her lost memory had been returned. She told them that she used to have a phobia of being locked in a room without the key, and made a deal with Bavlorna to help. But hag deals are rarely favorable, and she ended up obsessed with keys. She also explained that there was a way from Hither to Thither, and that a scarecrow named Clapperclaw could show them the way.

The next day the party said goodbye to Jingle Jangle and the swaying trees of Telemy Hill. They were once again on the path north to Downfall, though their detour to the hill had brought them a good way east. They walked into marshland once more, and this time it was even wetter than before. They had to hop between solid but soggy bits of land to avoid getting knee-deep in water. They walked across a field where a battle must once have taken place, filled with bones and suits of armor. Suddenly, two suits rose from the marsh and stood up. They had helms that looked like the heads of owls. They didn’t attack. They just stood there, much like the party. Vex waved at one of them, and found that it waved back. Walking closer, he noticed that it was mirroring his movements. The other mirrored Shadow.

Lionidas walked right past them, and after some discussion about what to do, the DM said something along the lines of “you can probably just walk past them,” but we didn’t think that was quite creative enough, and pretty much turned it into a puzzle ourselves. First, Vex tried walking backward so that the suit or armor would walk into the water behind him. This worked, but it wasn’t deep enough for the armor to get stuck. Next, he cast Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on the armor, and it fell, rolling on the ground, laughing in silence while Vex hopped over it. Then there was the one mirroring Shadow’s movements. Shadow wasn’t quite sure how to get past it. He and Vex discussed what might happen if they simply removed all the armor pieces one by one. Vex carefully lifted the helmet (Shadow couldn’t do it, or it would’ve tried to rip his head off as well), and the whole suit of armor collapsed into the marsh.

They were getting a good bit closer to Downfall when they heard the sound of rushing water nearby. Deciding to investigate, they came across a well with water bursting out of it like a geyser. The ground around it was covered in water. Shadow saw that there were some small items floating on top of all the water spraying out of the well. They were all interested in what it might be, but the water sprayed thirty feet into the air and Lionidas wasn’t willing to spend his pixie dust on this. But Vex had an idea, and he threw himself into the water and flew up. He missed grabbing any of the items and fell back down to the ground, using Feather Fall to avoid hurting himself. In the end, Lionidas was able to bring the objects down to the flooded ground with a wind spell. Just as they picked up the items to investigate, three wisps of light appeared before them.

“The rule of reciprocity!” it said. “if you take any of our things, you’ll have to give us something of equal value in return.”

The items were a whistle that only a fey creature could hear, a sundial that only works with moonlight, and a sock that produced one piece of coal every night. The party returned the items, except Lionidas who wanted to keep the sock. Vex remarked that with the sock, it would only take them a few weeks to have enough coal for a barbecue. Lionidas offered up a regular sock in exchange, but the wisps were unimpressed. Having returned the items, the party introduced themselves and mentioned their business with Bavlorna. This pleased the wisps, who said that they were the spirits of people whom Bavlorna had killed. They also explained that Bavlorna had corrupted the wells, allowing her to turn the whole place into a swamp. One of the wisps, speaking with the voice of a child, offered the group a magical boon that would help them with any one thing they did in the next hour. The party all accepted.

The water from the well was raising the water level unusually fast. Soon, the water was up to their knees. They all lost their footing and began to drift away. Luckily, the DM rolled up a random encounter with a raft, and the party all got on. They also found a long stick that Lionidas used to steer. That way, he could feel useful, even though they were really just drifting down the stream. After a while, they crashed into a pier in a place that looked like it might be Downfall. Jingle Jangle had mentioned that they’d have to pass through Brigand’s Tollway, where the harengon bandits would demand they pay a toll. As they walked up the pier, they noticed that there was a small, hunched figure draped in a dark cloak walking beside them.

“Johan? Is that you?” asked Vex. But it wasn’t—the creature cast of the cloak and revealed himself to be a harengon with a particularly lengthy scarf. It was Agdon, the brigand prince of Prismeer. And his friends had been lying in wait, but now they came out of hiding and drew their weapons.