The Queen of Virid

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the party making their way to the city at the bottom of the strange, gaseous lake. Kully asks the guards to take them to the Queen, but they don't have the authority and don't know where she is in any case. They direct the party to the palace. 

Within the palace, they find a bunch of courtiers of the elemental faeborn race of Virid and the major domo, Glafko. After they prove their bona fides by relating how they rescued Desira's winged steed, Zephyrus, from the Cloud Castle, Glafko tells them the Queen is her folly at the center of the Silk Garden where her colonies of silk making spiders live. There has been a revel going on within that hedge maze for months, and the Queen hasn't emerged. 

Our heroes enter the maze and have a few strange encounters before reaching the green crystal folly at its center. They have a fight with a dragon-like creature with a snout and long tongue like an anteater that has the power to shrink people. Then they meet an elemental woman made of rock who seems to be pondering deep thoughts and wants to be left alone. Finally, they meet a raving elf named Melfon who warns of the end of the world. He says he read about it in a book called The Triumph of the Wizard of Azurth, but he believes it to be prophecy. He gives the book (really more a dime novel) to the party.

Finally, they reach the folly and find more intoxicated revelers and in a smaller flower garden, Queen Desira. Desira confides that she's been distracted of late and some of her advisors have become frustrated with her. She attributes it to being in love. When Dagmar asks who she is in love with, the Queen says they'll meet him soon.

After a bit more small talk, her lover arrives. A shadow man steps form a path into the center of the garden, and Desira greets him warmly.