The sun had just begun to peak over the horizon and Branwhyn felt its warmth on his face even before opening his eyes. His back rested against a broad tree at the very edge of the forest, he faced the small settlement of White Tree, and he had no idea how he’d come to be laying in that spot. The last thing Branwhyn remembered was being drawn — unintentionally — into the shadow and the near encounter with the dark planet. What unsettled him was not the encounter or the memory of it, but that it seemed so terribly familiar to him. After that, his memory was void. He had lost time, everything from reaching out to touch the planet to now. Though when now was, was unclear. It was perhaps the next morning, but then days or weeks might easily have passed if he were unlucky. His gear was all present, weapons and supplies. Though, a twinned pair of black feathers had been tied to the head of his spear. Each black feather seemed overlaid with shifting ephemeral purples and greens. The feathers been tied to the metal with finely braided sinew, accented with bone beads. The accoutrement was clearly intentional, but its meaning was, for the moment at least, utterly lost upon him. Using the spear to leverage himself up, Branwhyn found he felt surprisingly well rested. With a shake of his head, he began walking towards White Tree.
The overwrote fence that feigned at protecting the settlement looked less intimidating every time that Branwhyn saw it and the lack of defenses was enforced even more in his mind by the lack of challenge upon entering the village. At least the door to the longhouse was shut and bared, forcing him to knock. Though that likely meant Elder Hugo had returned before him, or he supposed someone might have noticed the unlatched door in the middle of the night.
Showing no sign of surprise, Hugo answered the door in person, his eyes sparkling with secret mirth. “Have a little too much to drink last night, did we? No matter, there is more to help with it.” The Elder stepped wide to allow entry.
The leftover stews and roasted meats were set to table soon after Branwhyn’s return. A blurry eyed Corrina nestled against his shoulder, holding her head and squinting her eyes shut. Clearly the lovely parts of the mead from the night before had all worn off, leaving only the nasty ones. He put a stein of water into her fumbling fingers and softly encouraged her to drink. She made a noncommittal noise of discomfort, but did as she was instructed.
Saddling onto the bench across from them, Hugo eyed the young girl knowingly. After a long silence, he put two fingers to his temple and closed his eyes. An intense look of concentration or pain molded his features into a frown, but after it passed he turned fully to face Branwhyn. “I don’t know what Crow’s Perch wants with an alliance, but what I want for White Tree is to become an Ironhold. A true Ironhold.”
“I don’t think Thane Thorsten has a magic wand for that.” Branwhyn made his reply soft, not wishing to trouble Corinna’s hangover. “But, I’m sure they could provide aid, help White Tree build itself up. Though, White Tree will need to supply more than a portion of it’s crops in return.”
Hugo had to have expected that more would be asked for such a grand request, but he seemed surprised nonetheless. “And what would that be? Our daughters? Our first born sons, perhaps?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes; but not as drastic. Crow’s Perch wants allies, partners. It will help to raise you up in exchange for a lasting alliance. They will come to your aid if you are in peril, but you must come to their aid as well. Their enemies will be yours and yours enemies will be theirs. Your sons and daughters may well lay down their lives for such an alliance, but Crow’s Perch offers no less in return. For that matter, until White Tree is better defended and it’s Wardens better trained, Crow’s Perch will bear the heavier of the two burdens.”
Well, this feels like a good time for a roll. This feels like a Compel w/ Heart (7, 9, 1+2). Miss. I could burn momentum for a weak hit, but I like that the initial answer is no. It means we have to go back to the drawing board and figure out some kind of leverage. I think it makes for a more interesting story that way.
“No.” The word was soft, but Hugo had begun to shake and his eyes had gone wide. “No. No. No!” Each word rose in volume and the last was a booming shout. With a single violent motion, he swept the table between them clear. Plates, steins, and food clattered to the ground and he stormed away towards his room. The rest of the household, did their best to ignore the outburst but would look at neither Branwhyn nor Corinna.The girl had shut her eyes tight and covered her ears in the vain hope that it would lessen the sharp hangover pain that had been exasperated by Hugo’s outburst. Placing his hands on her shoulders, Branwhyn gently urged her towards the door. “It’s time to go.” He rose and guided Corinna up as well. “Our hospitality has been withdrawn.”
They only traveled south until they were out of sight of White Tree, then they turned East. When they stopped briefly at midday to refill their water skeins and have a small repast, Corinna was mostly free of her hangover, even though she did not look overly happy to be conscious. “Why are we traveling East? Are we not going back to Crow’s Perch?”
“Not yet, if we return to Crow’s Perch without securing the alliance I’ll have to start anew elsewhere. The failure at Crow’s Perch is likely to stalk me as well, hound everything I do after. Reputation has a way of following.” He shook his head, the idea of uniting the Ironlands welling up and becoming a monumental task, a cyclopian challenge, a task to which he felt sure that he did not measure up. “We need to find a way to convince Hugo and I think the best way to do that is to find the witch who lives in these woods.”
As they walked, Branwhyn set a slower pace than usual so they could easily converse and hoped the slower pace would not exasperate any lingering suffering from Corrina’s hangover. He spoke at length about the events of the previous night, how the ritual had gone wrong, the forces that had sought him out, and that he had seemed to have no hand or control in his own return. Perhaps no hand or control even in his own survival.
Part of what we are working on here is the Vow to Mentor Corinna. I want there to be a roll attached to this bond they are forming, but Compelling repeatedly feels wrong to me. I think we are actually going to use the Forge Bond move repeatedly. While this is not the intended use, I think it represents the mentor relationship well. Also, it clearly won’t count towards Writing the Epilogue. So, Forge Bond w/ Heart (6, 7, 6+2) Strong Hit. I’ll pick up +1 Spirit (+4) and also one more tick on the Vow to Mentor Corinna: 3/20.
The desire had been that the tale would be a warning about the dangers of magic and Corinna did seem appropriately somber in that regard — though that might have been the last edges of the hangover — but the prospect of the shadow realm left a discernible spark of curiosity in her eye. With the story finished, they picked up their pace again and by late afternoon they’d crossed Branwhyn’s trail from the night before. Soon after, they found the place where he’d performed the ritual that had gone wrong and where he’d been pulled him into the shadow. Not trusting the use of magic in the forest where other forces seemed to reign, Branwhyn resorted in the more mundane skills of woodcraft and tracking.
This will be a Gather Information Roll to try and track the rest of Hugo’s trail to the witch. Gather Info w/ Wits (6, 1, 3+3), Weak Hit. The info complicates our quest, but we pick up a +1 Momentum (+10). I don’t have an immediate idea for the complication, so we will ask the oracle for an idea. Theme Oracle says: 95-Warning.
“What is it?” Corinna asked, leaning forward and standing on tip toes in an effort to get a better look. The object in question was a low hanging branch that had been bent back on itself and tied to form an uneven loop. A finely braided sinew wove a spider web-like pattern inside the loop and the inner strands were adorned by beads carved from bone.
Crouched on the balls of his feat, spear held in one hand, Branwhyn studied the object with interest. “A warning of some kind, a territory marker, a totem. Something along those lines. I don’t think it’s for us though, we have an invitation.”
The girl turned her mismatched green and gold eyes on him and only needed her suspicious gaze to pose the question.
“Because I recognize the handwork.” He touched the twined sinew and feathers that dangled from the head of his spear. Standing the pressed deeper into the woods.
The place in the woods that they’d come to was not particularly noteworthy or special. The trees were old and several had grown close over the centuries, but that was true of many forest throughout the Ironlands. The only thing out of place was the abundance of ravens. The massive unkindness noted the arrival of Branwhyn and Corinna with caws and cackles but was otherwise unwilling to be disturbed by their presence.
“I see you got my invitation.” The lilting voice silenced the calls of the unkindness. Though the voice had seemed close, its owner was distant. She wore a long dark dress with a mantle of black feathers that matched the color of her hair. Moving in the spaces between the trees, she walked behind an old oak and emerged from behind an ancient fur, closing the distance between them. Grey eyes sparkled from behind an ash red stripe painted from temple to temple. “Hugo told me the reason you gave for coming to my woods, Branwhyn son of Hugh, Brother to Ravens and Child of the Old Ones. Why don’t you tell me the real reason you’ve come.”
“You have me at a disadvantage Lady of the Woods. You know my name, but I do not know yours.”
A slight smile touched her lips as she continued her slow encirclement of them. “You may call me Morrighan.”
“Morrighan, Sister to Ravens. I am here because I have seen the destruction of our lands, the death of our people. We will be driven from our homes and our children will be the last of our lines. The Iron People will erased from the world, like ash blown by the wind.” Branwhyn told her of his vision, the coming time of trouble, and his conviction that dire portents were warnings and not a future writ in stone. He spoke of his effort to form an alliance of Thanes and Jarls as well as the growing threat of the Broken. “If we unite the Ironlands, we can stand against the dark tide that comes. We cannot wait though and the threat of the those whom I call the Apostles of the Broken can serve as a beginning.”
Here we are trying to persuade another to our cause. Compel w/ Heart (1, 8, 6+2), Weak Hit. I don’t really want to spin this out into another quest and I’m tempted to Burn Momentum since we’re topped out and further gains are going to be wasted. It feels like a bit of a waste though if we aren’t pushing a Miss into a Strong Hit. /sigh. Okay, let’s see what she wants. Theme/Action Oracle says: 88/14 – Knowledge / Inspect. Okay, interesting.
“I am not willing to do your task for you.” Morrighan mused in an almost conciliatory way. “But, if you will lend me your knowledge and inspect something I have discovered, tell me what you understand of it, then I will teach you that which will aid you with the Elder of White Tree.”
They walked long into the night, traveling North into the deeping woods that boarded the Havens. The witch walked before them at a distance, never once caring to look back or make conversation. Branwhyn and Corinna followed in weary silence, checking on each other frequently out of the corners of their eyes while not wanting to lose sight of Morrighan lest she strand them or play some other trick upon them.
At last they came to a menhir like no other that Branwhyn had seen. Jet black, yet like fine brass polished to a reflective finish. It was perfectly shaped to have four flat sides of equal size and it slowly tapered as it jutted upwards, ending in a point. As a whole, it was like looking at squared spear head that was three or four times the height of a human. Reaching out to touch the smooth water-stilled surface, something swam beneath the polished stone and he thought better of the act. Beginning a circuit around the strange standing stone, he caught sight of runes beneath the surface that could be seen only when one faced a side squarely. “Corinna, come see this. Stand before me and look at the stone face straight on.”
Gather Info w/ Wits + Sighted (9, 3, 4+3+1). Weak Hit. This is a good time to burn momentum to push it up to a Strong Hit. We’ll get a good reset out of it. So, Burn Momentum and the roll becomes (9, 3, [10]). Strong Hit and our Momentum is reset to +2. However, for the Strong Hit we get +2 with an additional +1 for Sighted. Accordingly, our Momentum goes to +5.
“This is an artifact left by the builders.” Branwhyn told the girl, resting his hands on her shoulders. “We’ve worked with these runes, what can you read of it.”
Narrowing her green and gold eyes, Corinna scrunched up her nose in concentration. “I see a number nine by three. So twenty-seven. A child numbering twenty-seven? Arrival . . . changed” Pausing she wrestled with the word. “Birth? Cursed? This is a prophecy? It’s all speaking about the future.”
“Good. You’re very close.” He affirmed with a proud smile. “There will be children, numbering nine by three. Their births will be cursed by . . .” It was Branwhyn’s turn to look on in concentration, furrowing his brow. “I don’t know the word, a darkened something. Whatever it is, it marks the beginning of the end . . . of the people of Iron.” He looked to the witch, uncertain of what he hoped from her.
“You are better with the old speech than I.” Morrighan mused, her fingers reaching towards the polished stone without touching it. “It is called an obelisk and you are right to say it was left by the Builders. I had hoped my translation was wrong. You have done in moments, what took me the better part of a year. I had to find other scraps of their writing, seek out the wise, the mad, and even the First Born to decipher some parts. The single word you didn’t know was sun, the Darkened Sun or perhaps Blackened Sun, marks the beginning of the end.”
“The Builders left a marker, fortelling our destruction?” Corinna asked, wonderment strong in her words and with no trace of foreboding.
“Perhaps.” The witch conceded with a hesitant tilt of her head.
“It is best to hold the understanding of prophecy lightly.” Branwhyn agreed, turning back to obelisk and its inscription. “And is it the Blackened Sun or the birth of the twenty-seven that are the markers? What is the nature of the curse? We can’t even be certain it applies to us or that it hasn’t already happened. It leaves us with more questions than answers. It is the way of prophecy.”
“Indeed.” Though only a single word, the lilt had vanished from witch’s voice. “This may seem a small service to you, but it is valuable to me. It would have taken months, perhaps seasons, to find someone else capable of translating the old tongue, not to mention agreeing to travel here. So I consider your service well paid. You will sojourn here for a time, I will teach you what I promised, though my lessons will not be easy. In my woods though, you will be safe. You have my word.”
We are going to Advance here and spend some more XP. First though, we’ll Sojourn w/ Heart (3, 2, 4+2). Strong Hit. We get two options, we will Consort to put our Spirit back to +5 and Plan to pick up +2 Momentum (+7). Finally, we will Advance and gain the Ritualist Path and the Sway Rite. Each is 3xp, total of 6xp, and leaves us with 1 unspent. Also, this feels like progress on the Vow: Form an Alliance between White Tree & Crow’s Perch. Progress 4/10. In preparation for the next scene we are also going to roll Visage w/ Wits + Ritualist (1, 10, 3+3+1). Weak Hit. We’ll choose Shadowed. For ritualist we lost supply (+3) and we also take a hit to Spirit (+4) for the Weak Hit. Test Your Spirit w/ Spirit (4, 7, 3+4). Weak Hit, no change. We’re also reusing Bind w/ Wits + Ritualist (2, 9, 3+3+1), Weak Hit. Ritualist uses up Supply (+2) again and we move the Bind bonus over to Shadow.
~fin~
Wayfarer Stories 