Letter home from the Court of Aether

Well, finally back in someplace…civilized? It’s a Fey city, so “civilized” is relative.
Of course, when we arrived, we made inquiries into an inn to use as our base. We were directed towards Bottom Feeders, which despite the troubling name is a very pleasant place. It’s run by a kobold, Meltek, who was a friendly enough sort but not overly trusting with strangers. She also seemed strangely vague about things. One of those things was a friend of hers in the market who had previously sold his business including “his good name.” Well, you don’t make deals like that with the Fey. We went to the market to see if we could help, not least because it seemed a good idea to develop a reputation for ourselves in this town. We met a couple people before we got to him, if “met” is the right word. A nubgrub gremlin named Zeevu wanted us to play tricks on people, and being a gremlin, they probably didn’t mean nice ones. We also met a mitflit named Yakazak who was wandering around wearing a homemade cave worm costume and going on about the Cult of the Cave Worm. More about this later.

We found Meltek’s friend, whose new business was in the process of failing and who could not remember his own name. We eventually got from him that he had sold his previous business and his good name to a satyr named Gerphinollo, whom we went looking for. Gerphinollo was doing a great business, despite not selling anything remotely useful. I, too, bought something from him under a strange compulsion. Ten metres or so from his tent and I could not imagine why I had done so, and it seemed that this was a common reaction. During a lull in shopping, we got the whole story from him, but he seemed to have no interest in doing a new deal to restore Cadji’s (for such was Meltek’s friend called) name to him. Eventually I think N’drak mostly convinced him that he was really terribly bored and that he should really try something new under his own name (my memory of the details is a little hazy), and he gave up his business and returned Cadji his name. The latter was very grateful and gave us some potions, as that is his actually useful trade.

We later went off to the redcap barracks. I don’t recall exactly why we decided to go off to this unpromising place, but I think we were looking for information about the Cult of the Cave Worm and these, er, people would be the most likely to know something. In the barracks yard, we saw the redcap whose cap we had knocked off into the abyss outside the city while fighting with him and his extortionary mates. He had a new but colorless cap, and the other redcaps were bullying him mercilessly about it. He proclaimed that he would not only color his cap with the blood of his enemies, but he would color it with the blood of the Cap Killer himself. And, noticing us, he ran over and announced that we would help him do it. Well, we have killed monsters before, and we needed an in with the redcaps if we were to ask them for help, so ok. The redcap’s name was Interhoff and the Cap Killer turned out to be the redcap’s boogeyman, an unknown creature that hunted and ate them. There was a lead indicating a sort of cave under the city, and off we trotted.

The cave ceiling was covered with all sorts of odd mineral deposits. Then I think either Kolkar or Aetoin noticed that one of them was moving and had a pile of bones and red caps beneath it. We went into fighting stance, and this was when that mineral deposit unfolded itself into some kind of carcinized aberration. It went after us, and this was when Interhoff stabbed me most painfully in the back and retreated. “Well,” I thought in my agony, “what did I expect from a redcap?” Unfairly, as it turned out. Just as well that we decided to fix Interhoff later and deal with Mr. Crabby first, despite our lack of melted butter. It was a fairly tough fight. I tried to sing bravely with a hole in my back. Crabby tried some kind of mind magic on one of us, I think Aetoin, but a dwarven cleric is made of sterner stuff than a redcap and it got absolutely nowhere. (Yes, we figured out that it had cast some kind of command spell on Interhoff, who being a redcap had no willpower at all. This ability doubtlessly contributed to the thing’s hunting success.) Eventually we were able to pound it to death, and the mentally recovered and very apologetic Interhoff filled up his cap with the thing’s ichor, turning it a unique blue.

We got some medical treatment from Aetoin and went back to the inn for some badly needed rest. The next morning, a royal carriage awaited us. We were whisked away to an audience with the beautiful and terrifying Queen Frilogarma. This Fey noble had done something that got her exiled from the First World, had built this city, and had defended it against the depredations of the giant cave worm we sought. Interhoff was also there, and his blue cap was possibly a bigger source of amazement than we were. Anyway, it turns out that Her Majesty does not care for cave worms and cares even less for those of her subjects who would worship them. So we have been tasked, along with Interhoff, to dig out this cult and eliminate it with extreme prejudice.

We know they are having a meeting somewhere soon and will probably seek out Yakazak again. I suspect that his continued survival is because it is beneath Her Majesty’s dignity to notice a mitflit in a cave worm onesie. The effect is rather that of a plush toy.