Session 5.O-12

1629, Fire Season, Movement Week, Freezeday

Dramatis Personae

Events

The group travelled North along the Lyksos river, following Nayale, who had been sent away with the probably-real box, just in case it was too close to the fake one that they had. They successfully met up where Nayale was, slightly unsure of what they were doing. It seemed that every time they stopped looking at the box or holding it, its existence slipped out of their minds. With some effort, Berra asked Nayale to write down this was happening, and address it to the Wyter Priest, so she would open it again later and remember that this was a thing Eurmali could do. Nayale was to keep the letter for a while, and hand it over when they got to the Regiment.

Naturally, Nayale had not made a fire, so nobody would notice her. The group noticed, as they did make their own fire, just how cold it was getting. It suddenly smelled of snow. The moon was Full Half, meaning that it was waning but still strong, and the Shadow Plateau was close. They debated going back, but to stay on the road they would have needed to cross a ford in the dark, in sudden bad weather. They decided to move on instead, on Irillo’s urging, in case the effect was homing in on them but they could outride it.

As they rode, tiny snowflakes started to drift down. Nayale thought they were more red than they should have been, even in the moonlight. As they considered it, a Heroquest swallowed them. Berra was talking about whether to open the box and find out what was in it, or ride as hard as possible to hand it over to Ornkarth, when Kolyey suddenly found that she was Yanafal Tarnils. She could tell that the new land of the Red Goddess was under threat, and had the choice to Separate it from other things, protecting it while also keeping it from changing the outside. He made the choice to separate the land, to keep the Red Goddess safe.

Berra failed to notice the red shadow of Yanafal Tarnils swinging a scimitar to draw a line in the ground, and was then completely caught up in her own character as the High Scimitar of Yanafal Tarnils. Everyone else did see the shadow, and so had some warning they were being tipped into a Heroquest.

Nayale managed to keep her head despite being the city manager of Glamour, and considered trying to kill Yanafal Tarnils. However, she came down on the side of doing the Heroquest because she could sense the lunar Heartlands might otherwise starve, and that would be bad for Sartar. Meanwhile, Maalira found that she was Hon-eel, and Irillo as Irripi Ontor could help her to dance to the end of the Universe, giving her the knowledge of what to do and how.

Berra, as Darra the Scimitar-Priest, called for seven volunteers to come and die, and she and the other warriors sacrificed them for Hon-eel, who dipped her toe in blood, drew out blood, and began her dance. The others followed her, not dancing so well. At one point, she met herself going back, and as they passed, her sickle went through her sickle. At the end of Time she saw guards between her and the crop she could see. She told the dancers with her to deal with them; Darra, Manager Nayale, and Yanafal Tarnils killed them all, and they turned to cut maize.

Before Hon-eel was a red sheaf glowing with power and gold. Darra, an opportunist as well as a warrior, grabbed it to offer it to Hon-eel. They danced back to Glamour, where Hon-eel planted the maize in the blood of the sacrifices, and the rite was established. As long as the blood sacrificed continued, the people would be fed.

Shortly afterwards the Heroquest ended, and people started to remember what had happened. Maalira felt icky for having used blood sacrifice even if she did not do it herself. Berra, who had no memory at all of what had happened, completely lost her temper when she was informed, shouting at Nayale that she had made a coward’s choice. Maalira was currently the de facto Chief Priestess of Hon-eel in Esrolia, neatly blocking anyone else from being, although this was not a fact at that point known to her. She remembered everything that she had done, and had some gem maize with her, which she carefully hid in her scrip.

Kolyey stoked up the fire and started jumping over it to purify herself. Nayale was obviously crushed by Berra’s words, but nobody addressed that for the moment. Instead there was another near argument about what to do with the box. Everyonw was agreed that it should go back to the Lunars but Irillo wanted to take it to his grandmother to deal with. Berra pointed out that this would take it closer to Rhigos, where it was wanted, and closer to a lot of criminals who were looking for it. Maalira tried to defuse the situation with humour, which did not work.

Nayale started to angle towards her horse, but Berra noticed, and stopped her from taking off then also stopped Kolyey from branding herself with a bronze Death-Rune, and then did a bit of standing still trying to be calm. The group agreed with her general understanding that the box was safest if it went North, and they started to travel that way. En route, Berra talked to Kolyey about Yanafal Tarnils and the importance of Truth and Honour and how they could affect Death, and also the importance of not just doing things that would damage a warrior in the field without getting guidance from the Temple. She stayed on her calm, professional behaviour for a while after that, with all of her reactions very considered. The group continued up towards Rich Post.