The party left the Freeling Hideaway fortress, and found Peaseblossom, their fey giant friend, in his usual task of sweeping the front steps. Yuna, remembering the magic rock he had which allowed him to planeshift into the Material Plane while looking for his lost hat, thought to ask if he still had it and intended to borrow it to get home. The giant was confused at first but checking his pockets found the stone and said, “This looks like my magic stone, but my magic stone had a swirly design on the bottom and when I looked at it, it would–” and, turning the rock over, he vanished. The party considered waiting around for Peaseblossom to return, but decided to continue on their way.

The party descended the stair and passed through the arch at the bottom, returning to the library in the ruins of the ancient city of Amouradiath. Worried about Keen’s lack of rest, the party decided to have him wear the Hat of True Frog, in the hopes that as a frog whatever was preventing sleep would not effect him. However, when Keen put on the hat, nothing happened. Sirlius realized that Keen must somehow be resisting magical effects, since neither the Ring of Bliss nor the Hat of True Frog was having any effect. As a test, Yuna cast Cure Wounds on Keen, which seemed to be effective. From this the party gathered that his resistances seemed to be related to the form of magic; neither transmutation nor enchantment spells seemed to have an effect.

As they pondered this, the party decided that instead of traveling directly to the Palace of Ice, they would investigate the Laughing Swamps and pick some blackberries for the potion seller in the Freeling Hideaway markets. They set off, Yuna’s guidance leading them safely summerwise through the Feywild and to the edge of the Swamp. As they ventured in they found it to be a vast bog of deep water dotted with a few solid banks, long reeds and small, twisted, gnarled trees. After an hour or so of careful travel, Whisper keeping the party safely to solid ground, they began to notice that the buzzing of the insects all around them had an odd, unnatural cadence to it, almost like it was a language. Magnus cast Comprehend Languages, and discovered that the insects were telling each other jokes. Bad jokes. As the party traveled deeper into the swamp, one by one they were overcome with an urge to laugh – an uncontrollable, irresistible urge. Suddenly Ara and Sirlius began howling with laughter and doubled over, falling towards a pool of dark water. Ara fell in and began drowning and Sirlius was falling after, but Whisper quickly cast Water Walking on the whole party, and as Ara bubbled up to the surface, coughing, spluttering and still laughing, Sirlius landed face first on the now solid-seeming water.

After a minute, the laughing subsided, and the party regarded their odd surroundings with a new weariness. Over the next hours more laughing fits took hold, but they survived without serious peril, arriving at last at the centre of the swamp. There they found a large pond with a ring of trees growing on circular bank at the centre, with small foot bridges of rotting wood leading across. On the other side of the trees they discovered the bank was little more than a muddy sand bar about 15 feet wide; inside the ring was an island, about 10 feet in from the shore of the tree ring. At the centre of the island was a large copse of berry bushes.

The party regarded the water with concern. With Whisper having exhausted her ability to cast spells for the day and having no obvious way of safely crossing the moat that separated them from the island, the party decided to risk a long rest. They pitched tents between the trees and hoped that keeping the tents closed would block enough of the buzzing insects that they would not succumb to the hideous laughing fits, but that left those on watch at risk. Wearily, Keen put on the Ring of Bliss, and the party was relieved to discover that he was no longer resisting its effects; whatever resistances he was developing seemed to have been exhausted by the effects of the Laughing Swamps. A difficult night followed in which the party attempted to keep watch without laughing and disturbing each other’s rest. Eventually, rest was had, and the party rose to consider how to cross the water to reach the berry bushes on the far side. As she watched, Whisper noticed a dark shadow moving swiftly under the surface of the water; something was down there.

Priorities: Berries?

Missing Tieflings Status: Fine, probably

Keen Resistance Level: Legendary

RP Rating: Awesome!