Witchlight Part 5: The Soggy Downfall

Standing on the pier, the group was just about to fight Agdon Longscarf and his gang of brigands.

Date: May 30, 2026

Characters present

• Farvex Dusk: human warlock
• Shadow Claw: tabaxi cleric
• Philomena Gainsborough: satyr/centaur wizard
• Johan Andersson: elf druid

Character level: 2/3

Battle of the Bunnies

Vex’s plan had been to cast Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on Agdon, activate his Witchlight Monarch charm to grow a pair of butterfly wings, grab Agdon’s scarf and drag him into the water¹. While that certainly would’ve looked super cool, Agdon was just too fast. He pulled out a branding iron, the head of which was glowing hot with the shape of three rabbits jumping, and pressed it against Vex’s shoulder. Immediately as he did so, Vex could no longer see him. He then stole Vex’s Weird Al CD. Other harengon were approaching from two boats, and each boat had a longbow sniper firing arrows at them. On a distant boardwalk, Johan appeared, shouting his greetings at the party. Apparently, he had indeed just popped up somewhere else in Hither after stepping through the portal. One of the snipers hit him right in the chest. Vex threw a spectral card² at the sniper rabbit in return, and it hit perfectly, slicing its jugular vein. It fell to the ground, blood spraying from its neck.

Johan, hurt, turned himself into a pink pony and ran closer to the party. Philomena and Shadow cast spells at the rabbits approaching from the boats, some of whom were carrying bagpipes and playing that song the rabbits had been singing earlier. Philomena apologized after killing one of them with an ice spell. Johan, back in elf form, created a fog cloud around the rabbits, obscuring their vision as they approached, walking carefully to not fall over while traversing the network of boardwalks. Agdon Longscarf hit Philomena with his iron, and it was enough to drop her unconscious. The remaining sniper was hiding behind a barrel, and Vex activated his charm, sprouting massive monarch butterfly wings. He flew into the air and took out the sniper with another well-aimed card.

Johan ran up to Philomena and healed her with his druid magic, after which he conjured tangled vines and, for some reason, potatoes, on the ground where Agdon stood. His scarf got caught on the vines, and his eyes grew wide with fear. He didn’t seem to be able to take the scarf off, and now he was stuck.

“Do you really think your patron is good?” Agdon said to Vex. “She tortures people!”

“I have a hard time believing that, especially from the mouth of a thief and brigand,” responded Vex. He landed before Agdon, whose men seemed hesitant to approach.

“Zybilna hung me up by my scarf on a giant tree, and left me there for ages!”

“How long?” asked Philomena, who was just walking up after being healed.

“A really really long time.”

“But more specifically?”

“A really really really (really) long time.”

“Well,” said Vex." I suspect a master thief like yourself might be deserving of such a punishment."

Philomena walked over to Agdon and tried to pull his scarf off. All it did was choke him.

“No, please don’t kill me!” Agdon rasped. He begged on his knees. The rabbits watching seemed to find it pathetic. “Don’t you know what Zybilna does to people? Before her, I was free to rob and steal and do whatever I wanted. Then she came, and demanded my scarf as punishment. My own scarf that I made from lightning clouds and speed! When I refused, she hung me up on that tree, until Bavlorna came and took me down. Zybilna is needlessly cruel!”

“You must’ve done a lot of thieving for her to do that, but I’m sure you deserved it all the same,” said Vex. “And you,” he said, turning to the other rabbits, “We’re bringing Zybilna back, like it or not. This is your chance to turn your lives around and do good. If you stay on your wicked path, you will be punished much like your leader here.”

The rabbits weren’t exactly enthused, but some of them at least seemed to consider Vex’s words. In either case, they were done following Agdon, who wasn’t as much of a wily, swift, and stand-up hare as they had been led to believe. They returned to their boats and took off.

“But what will I do now?” asked Agdon through tears. “I couldn’t even give up my life of crime if I wanted to. I made a deal with Bavlorna when she saved me, and now I have to steal for her.” He took out the stolen CD.

“Hey, my Weird Al CD!” said Vex and snatched it back. “But look, we’re on our way to annihilate Bavlorna. We know her weakness. Once she’s gone, you’ll be free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t hurt others.”

“Yeah, see those potatoes?” said Johan. “Imagine that, but way more of them. You can put them in the ground, and more of them will grow! That’s how I spend my time back home.”

Due to a surprisingly high persuasion roll, Agdon’s eyes lit up. “Yes, I could become the biggest and strongest farmer in all the land, and I could rule over all the other farmers who will tremble in fear of my superior yields”.

Despite his obvious megalomaniac tendencies, the party let him go. They headed on down the boardwalk, and came to the biggest tree stump they’d ever seen. It was the tree that Agdon had been hanging from, cut down by his harengon cronies. Now the top of the stump had been turned into a small town where a whole bunch of harengon lived. One approached them, saying that she had a sick child and needed help.

“But why do you need help?” asked Johan. “Isn’t your daughter the one who’s ill? Oh, you mean you need help with your daughter. Well, good thing I’m a doctor!”

“A doctor? I thought you were a farmer,” said Vex.

“I am, but then Rosalina got sick. She’s my cow. She needed a doctor, so I thought I’d become one.”

The rabbit child had a cold and was just being dramatic, but Johan’s magical broth healed her right up. The rabbits thanked the party and offered them some random trinkets. Vex got a fey whistle like the one they’d encountered at the geyser. It wasn’t very useful in the feywild, seeing as just about everyone except the party could hear it.

The Old Lady and the Toad Dudes

Having rested up for an hour or so in the harengon stump town, the Beatles headed on toward Downfall through the muddy swamp. The other side of the stump was fortunately not as flooded, and they could trudge through the mushy ground just fine. After a while, they spotted a house ahead of them. It looked like a tavern, with a warm yellow glow coming from the windows, a smoking chimney, and the comforting smell of a good meal all around it. The only thing strange about it was that it was walking around on a pair of legs³. The door opened, and a voice from within welcomed them inside.

The voice belonged to one Tsu Harabax, an old human innkeeper. She invited them in, following the rule of hospitality, and Vex figured it meant that she wasn’t on Bavlorna’s side. She overheard the group discussing this among themselves, and added that she did indeed not like Bavlorna. She expected the group to follow the rule of reciprocity and give her something in return for the stew she served, but when she learned that they were on their way to fight Bavlorna, she said she could ask for no more. She also told them that Bavlorna—or Lorna Slackjaw as she was called around these parts—didn’t like visitors. She could, however, be enticed by hearing a tragic story. Furthermore, she was always accompanied by a group of miniature versions of herself, called Lornlings. Something the group would have to look out for. They thanked her for the info, and stayed the night.

The next morning, Tsu told them that her tavern had walked a bit off course, and they were now downriver from Downfall. They could get on a raft and travel upstream, and check out the magical waterfall on the way. That they did, with Philomena using a long stick to slowly push them up the river, and they did indeed come across a magical waterfall. The river split (or rather merged, since they were going up it) in two, with one path leading to a waterfall and the other continuing up. They looked where the water from the fall crashed into the river below, and each of them saw a different magical vision in the water. Johan saw a satyr trapped in a cage (or a “dude chilling”, as he phrased it); Shadow saw a woman in iron boots chopping meat; Philomena saw a nasty, slack-jawed, toad-like woman in a pool, attended by miniature copies of herself; and Vex saw talking bullywug heads on pikes. Johan thanked the water for his vision and threw a golden coin into it as payment. It hit a frog right on the head. He cast Speak with Animals and apologized, but frog just made fun of him and hopped off.

Continuing up the river, they eventually came to an open lake. Or at least they thought it was—the fog was now so thick that they could barely see twenty feet ahead. Figuring that they must be reaching Downfall, Vex cast a spell to disguise himself as a bullywug. A group of bullywugs rowed up to them on boats and greeted them in Sylvan. They were all dressed as dandies. Vex’s disguise immediately became ineffective when Philomena introduced them and remarked that Vex and Johan didn’t speak Sylvan. Then they looked at Vex more closely, and saw that his appearance was an illusion. They wouldn’t believe that he was Agdon Longscarf either. But when he took the form of a dusty old man and said that he was “an old wizard who definitely had nothing to do with Zybilna”, they finally believed him.

The party had hoped to get directly to Bavlorna, but the toad people insisted on taking them to meet their ruler, King Gullop XIX. The toads escorted the group to land, where they found a broken hot air balloon being repaired by yet another bullywug. One of the toads, called Bloff, explained that the traitor Wigglewog had stolen a balloon and burnt down their balloon factory. The group followed the toads along a row of stepping stones across a body of water. The toads hopped right over, but the Beatles had to walk on the stones. Philomena went first, and discovered that one of the stones was actually a living stone creature, and it was not happy to have been stepped on. She apologized, and the group went on.

They could see the balloon factory on the other side. It stood out because it was the only building on fire. The group heard screams from inside, and rushed to help. They burst through the door to find two bullywugs filling up buckets from a tank of water and throwing it at the fire. The water, that is; not the tank. Philomena and Vex tried to use their spells to snuff out the fire, but it didn’t work. It wasn’t just fire—it was little living embers running around and burning everything. The embers set Philomena and Johan on fire. Vex teleported to the tank and threw a bucket of water—not just emptying it, but throwing the entire bucket—at the embers. Shadow tried to kill them with spells while Philomena put out the fire that she was on. Johan jumped into the tank, splashing water everywhere. Vex had some experience putting out candles by throwing cards at them, and decided to try the same on the embers. The card went wide and broke a window.

Johan stepped out of the tank and threw some water in the air. It turned into a cloud that began to rain on the embers, putting out every single one of them⁴. The toad people thanked the group, but Johan wasn’t listening. His attention was focused on the floor where a small circle of mushrooms had appeared. Inside the circle was a broken pen. He could feel himself drawn to it, and picked it up. He cast Mending to fix the pen. He tested it on the floor and discovered that he was able to write—an ability that had apparently been taken from him eight years ago at the Witchlight Carnival.

“Look, a fey crossing!” exclaimed one of the frogs and pointed at the circle.

“That circle will transport us back to the material plane,” said Vex. “Hurry! We might not have much time. Let’s send back Lionidas!”

“Now I can write prescriptions again,” said Johan. “I’ve done what I came here for. There are people back home whose lives depend on me. Rosalina, I’m coming!” He stepped into the circle and disappeared.

Before it could vanish, Vex shoved Lionidas into the circle.