Loneliness of the Lone Research Asst - 06/03/2024 - Archie

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Intoxified Aided Magic?

A scrap of paper fell from the sky with a note written on it intended for my young wizard friend, and occasionally student, Mittens McKittens. The note was written by Eric, the research assistant to Dr. Killian, an important arcane master in the Feywild’s Witching Court. Eric required help with what suspiciously appeared to be magically induced loneliness. Mittens, it seemed, had an experience with this too.
The note mentioned that a representative of the court would be waiting for Mittens at Portal Plaza. The note also mentioned, in a different handwriting, that wine should be brought to the rendez-vous. All of us who caught one of the notes for Mittens were able to verify later that it was a pixie from the Witching Court that dropped the notes from above, and was also the representative that would transport us to the Witching Court. Furthermore, said same pixie was responsible for the additional comment about bringing wine.

I went and bought a nice bottle of wine anticipating that young Mittens, a minor, would have found it difficult to purchase wine himself. On the off chance that a group of us adventurers were to enjoy a tipple, I thought it might be nice for Mittens to have a supervised drop himself. Knowing of my young tabaxi friend’s fondness for milk, I bought a bottle of Kayleys along with the wine. From time to time, I enjoy a drop of whiskey mixed with cream, a hint of chocolate and vanilla.

We found our Witching Court chaperone, the pixie, sat slouched on a nearby bench in Portal Plaza, thoroughly inebriated. Beside him was a rather large and empty bottle of wine. The bottle was almost as tall as the pixie himself. At that present moment, I rather foolishly assumed that wine was no longer a required item to bring to the rendez-vous, if indeed it was necessary to begin with!

A moment into introductions, the pixie had to step aside and regurgitate. After asking for the wine we brought, Mittens offered him some curdled milk, which the pixie drank without question. The young wizard claims he had no idea that gone off milk was not the same as alcoholic milk. Mittens though is quite cheeky and in his worst moments precocious. I question the veracity of his pleaded ignorance. I also question the veracity of alcohol’s requirement in casting the Planeshift spell - a claim made by the pixie. Whilst a tipple is enjoyable, an increasing consumption improves only one thing; the drinker’s drunkenness. Contrastingly the drinker’s proficiency at basic, let alone complex arcane tasks is severely reduced with increasing intoxication. I find it highly unlikely that the pixie really required to be in a state of inebriation to cast the planeshift spell. This said, several bottles of booze later for said pixie, and the gathered adventurers had been magically snapped to the Witching Court, where we arrived just outside Dr. Killians shop, The Floating Melon.

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Extreme Arcane Security

I had visited Dr. Killian’s shop on a couple of previous occasions. I was aware of the pervasive magical security measures that the eccentric academic had threaded throughout his shop. It is an easy argument to make to suggest these measures are all highly unsafe measures. I had never seen quite so potent a level of abjuration and transmutation warding before. My more senior (wizard-wise, but not age-wise) wizard colleague, Glint merely cast a simple Detect Magic spell on the glowing tomato on Dr. Killian’s desk, and he was immediately true-polymorphed into a dragon fruit.

Worried that the level of magic to dispel the true-polymorphication was greater than my own arcane talents could provide, it was fortunate that the seasoned dwarf bardic adventurer Felix was with us. Like our recent pixie acquaintance, Felix is a seemingly high functioning drunk, but much less infuriating, and pleasantly much more cheerful. Felix with a magical strum of his lute brought Glint back to his fire-genasi self.

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Something Lonely

When we met Eric in the basement of The Floating Melon, he was glad to see Mittens, but also conflicted by a powerful desire to be alone. Eric mentioned the desire to be alone, and then appearing in a lonely space. In the space, was a stone and foggy labyrinth of corridors and rooms. Eric said he would wander in the lonely space, and find himself totally lost within. Dr. Killian had rescued him from the lonely space twice. The doctor made it so that Eric couldn’t be retrieved by the mysterious pull of the lonely entity that had transported Eric to the foggy, walled place.

Eric had left his journal inside the lonely place, and wished to reunite with it. When asking Mittens about his similar experience with the strange sensation of deep loneliness, a strange thing occurred before our eyes. Mittens started recalling his experience, and we could see his demeanour change to mirror Eric’s similarly withdrawn manner. At that moment, and without Dr. Killian’s protection, Mittens vanished, replaced by a piece of paper with a poem of loneliness written on it. When the rest of us began reading the poem, we couldn’t get through the first verse before we also vanished.

We reappeared in the location Eric described, and we were all separated from each other. All alone. All feeling this deep sense of isolation, whilst being surrounded by stone walls and ceilings, and an unending fog. There was no way of knowing where or if the others were nearby. There was evidence of past individuals. I myself appeared in a room with a chair and a broken table. We found survey notes for the underground structure of the Witching Court. We found the owner of said work too. Ms Brightpath. She was emaciated and catatonic. The environment had somehow kept her alive despite the lack of food or water, but the loneliness, despair and no hope of escape had affected her greatly. We adventurers, when we managed to escape the location, discovered that our felt five hour duration spent in the lonely place was only ten minutes in the real world. Ms Brightpath, the surveyor, had been lost from the Court for several months. It must have been an eternity for her all alone.

There was another individual, elven it seemed from the bone structure, who had spent a dreadful existence in this lonely place. Who this person was is unknown. Glint’s discovered mummy was also unknown (note to self: relay a Sending message to Eric about these people! There could be people in the Court who could identify the missing individuals! If so, it might give closure to people inside the Court).

We managed to find Eric’s dream journal, and we managed to reunite as a team in the lonely place, which lifted the arcane influenced sense of loneliness for us. It helped for Ms. Brightpath too. In fact, our own magical summons that we had casted also played a part in reducing the effects of the lonely magic, as well. Company is better than solitude.

It seemed the entity behind the lonely place had had enough of us when we managed to reunite. We concluded that our reduced sense of loneliness vexed the entity, and so the entity presented us with a door from which we could escape the lonely place. I appeared to notice the door before my companions for some reason. Whether this was a mundane reason or not, I am uncertain. Was I simply the one most desirous to exit the place? Uncertain. What I can say though, is that the long life Ms Brightpath unfortunately lived in solitude would have been a monkey’s paw version of my desire for life and healthspan extension for short-lived humanoids.

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My Companions in Battling Loneliness

Felix - I had heard about the dwarven bard from Kavel, and one time from Mendal, too. Felix is indeed a powerful magic-user as evidenced by his potent use of the Dispel Magic spell. He is equally a powerful vocalist and conversationalist too, by account of Mittens. Mittens, in an exhausted state, mentioned that Felix had provided an inexhaustible supply of company and merriment, when they found each other in the lonely place. But by Mittens’ account, it was not a merry experience to walk for hours to an unknown endpoint, accompanied by a non-stop musical performance and chatter.

Glint - My senior wizard, and fire-genasi colleague had the unfortunate experience of being true-polymorphed (which is to say; permanently!) into a fruit. The irony here is that Glint himself is capable of casting the Dispel Magic spell with the potency to dispel a true-polymorph spell. However, as a fruit he did not have access to his magic to do so! Much gratitude to Felix for the powerful enough Dispel Magic spell.
During our time in the lonely place, I saw that my friend had in his possession a most wonderful arcane figurine of an elephant, which of course, if you are familiar with such figurines, you know that the possessor can use the figure to summon the creature it resembles.

Daily spell preparation is ever an important aspect of a wizard’s morning routine, and one which is best shaped by advanced knowledge of what a wizard might require in their day. With no preview of what your day may involve, evergreen spells are usually worth preparing; Shield, Misty Step, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Polymorph. I myself consider Bigby’s Hand essential for its versatility. I now consider Sending a most valuable spell. Glint became quite displeased to find he was the only wizard in the lonely place with the spell prepared, let alone known.

Levuka - My elven druid friend did me the favour of summoning horses to ease the pain in my feet from all the walking we did. This was greatly appreciated. Levuka herself also possesses a wondrous arcane figurine. This one is an onyx dog. I had seen the good boy before during our time in Sigil where we performed on a popular game show. It was good to see them both again. It was also, to Levuka’s great credit that she did join us at The Floating Melon, as she was not with us at the beginning, and had to encounter the drunk pixie and negotiate wine payment to be brought to the Witching Court all by herself

Mittens - Time spent with my young tabaxi wizard friend on this adventure has highlighted more spells for the young wizard to consider high priority for him to learn and become proficient with; Dispel Magic, and now Sending (he is of course not alone on the last one!). Mittens had come across a scroll of the True Strike spell - I have advised him that he should not consider it necessary to copy that spell into his spellbook.
Precociousness is ever present in his personality, as evidenced by the incident with the spoilt milk. But, as ever there is progress both as a wizard, and as a person. Mittens’ is old-hat with summon magic now, and his demonstration of compassion to Ms Brightpath saw him wisely suggest she consume some food before being transported back to the real world; which saved her life.

Myself - I continue to enjoy the versatility that the Creation spell enables. There was some disagreement in the party as to my usage of the spell, but I believe that magically creating some armchairs for both Levuka and myself to rest on and await more members of the party was well judged. Levuka’s tea was good too. I must see if I can purchase some leaves in the market. At the same time, I might be able to find a substance that can remove the brown stain on the inside of the nice hat I received from Eric. My prestidigitation cleaning could not remove the stubborn blemish!

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