The party now in the Feywild, find themselves on the bridge, that seems to be crumbling in some areas. Bow goes to explore over the edge and finds a little frog down in the swamp below. He names it Sir Hoppington, and steals it back to the group. Meanwhile, Bother and Arawa are trying to figure out the best course of action to explore this area and try to find what they lost. Bother notices a hot air balloon seeming to crash in the distance. Thissalus runs forward, perfectly unknowing where he is and happy to make progress. Thala is surprisingly quiet during all this.
The group hop down, with Thissalus heading down first. He happens to leave out how gross and muddy it is as Arawa tries to find a clean-ish place to touch down, but she gets muddy anyway. The rest of the group soon follow. As they touch down on the swampy ground, a large crane stretches its wings and takes off. This alerts a nearby brigand of harengons to come up and try and hustle the group for their precious memories. Despite their catchy song, the party is able to intimidate the young bandits to back off. The do learn about the brigands’ hero, Agdon Longscarf, the self proclaimed brigand prince of Prismeer.
The group continues their journey through the swamp, eventually needing to wade through deeper waters as the swamp seems to rise up around them. In time it settles back down, but it makes the group think about how they’re going to sleep if the water can rise at random like that.
They soon approach the tower where Bother saw the ballon go down. Sure enough, caught on the pointed tip of the tower is the balloon, its basket dangling precariously over the side. They hear a voice trying to whisper from the top, so Bow flies up to see what’s going on. While he’s gone, Thissalus explores around the tower and sees two large serpents sleeping, guarding the entrance to the tower.
Up in the balloon’s basket, Bow finds a metal birdcage, inside of which is a faerie dragon. The mustached creature introduces himself as Sir Talavar. He explains that he is in the employ of the Summer Queen and was sent to investigate what happened to Zybilna, the Queen of Prismeer. However, instead he found the land ruled by the Hourglass coven, and was captured by one of its members, Bavlorna Blightstraw. Thankfully, a courteous bullywug helped him to escape, but unfortunately lost their life in the crash. Sir Talavar beseeches the group to free him so he may report to the Summer Queen what has happened in Primseer. The group is unable to open the cage as it seems magically sealed, but Sir Talavar mentions a goblin named Jingle Jangle who works for Bavlorna and would likely have the key.
They carry Sir Talavar with them as they continue their travel through the swamp. They pass by a clan of hobgoblins on stilts, and eventually find their way to a large well. Nearby are will-o-wisps that upon seeing the group’s intentions to confront Bavlorna, agree to help the party. Arawa in communing with the spirits realizes they are the inhabitants that tried to stand against the hag, but lost their lives. The well tower they patrol was once a drinking well where citizens of Prismeer would meet, trade, and socialize. After Bavlorna’s coup, they now spit out the gross swamp water that raises the water level randomly and suck it back up.
The wisps agree to keep the well from doing that while the group sleeps. However, their rest is disturbed by something else. Thissalus thrashes in his sleep and slowly transforms into a werewolf of some kind. The party tries to calm him down but end up needing to fight him. After some time, Arawa taps into the presence of her Archfey patron and scares off the wolf for the night. The group decides to finish their rest, and resolve to find their harengon friend in the morning.
