Session Sartar Arc 10

1628, Earth Season, Movement Week, Wildday?

Dramatis Personae

Events¹Serala logging again

Everyone tries to figure out what the best, most workable plan is.  Eventually, a plan is hashed out.  Whether it is in fact the best plan is debatable, but it goes thusly:

• Finarvi and Serala gather our stuff, ride out of the city and set up a camp somewhere sensible.  Varanis’s groom will remain with them to watch the camp.
• We put out the Cloth of Do It Yourself, Berra.
• Finarvi loiters near the Humakti Temple ready to help Berra get out of the city when she acquires the not-relics.²assuming there is something standing in for the original relics
• Varanis loiters in the market and buys a chicken.
• Once Berra is on the move, Serala notifies Varanis by having Mouse steal her chicken, so Varanis can cause a distraction in the other direction to the escape.
• We meet back up at the camp, so we can then proceed to the swamp in good order.

As far as we can tell, no-one saw us and all is well.

Finarvi heads off to do some serious Temple-Loitering, with Mouse circling overhead to keep a view on what’s going on.  Serala remains at the house.  While Finarvi Temple loiters, Berra sneaks in and grabs the loot and gets out, collecting Finarvi on the way.  The hawk has to point out the approaching Berra to the oblivious Finarvi.  Berra asks Finarvi to look like he is obviously smuggling someone person sized out of the Great Gate.  Then meet her in about four days at the North Gate of Wilmskirk and Berril will get a message through.  

Meanwhile, back at the Market, Varanis is aware she is being followed by three Vingans.  Varanis hands over the chicken to one of the Vingans once she has exited the market.  Mouse then does, indeed, steal the chicken.  Varanis does a fake-escape, which works far too well as she actually escapes.  So she is forced to circle back to buy another chicken to pick up her Vingan tail again.

Everyone meets back at home.  

Finarvi goes at the designated time with a handcart and a fake Berra to try to get busted ‘smuggling’ her out, meanwhile Varanis and Serala go to collect the horses.

Ariun and Sanra come to play as we approach the gate..  Sanra thinks she recognises the guy with the handcart and goes to stop him.  After stabbing the grain sack, she turns on Varanis, who was trying to snap her out of it, and arrests both her and Finarvi, marching off to the Air Temple, which is where Sanra believes her superior is.  On arriving, Tennebris is also Hero Questing, and is inhabiting the Lunar Officer of Officers.  There is shouting and arguing until Tennebris and Serala snap out of it.  Tennebirs sends Varanis to fetch Eril to him in ‘20 minutes’.  This leads to discontent from Eril and everyone else making themselves extremely scarce.

There is apparently report of argument in the Palace, between Tennebris and Eril feeling that people are interfering where they have no business being.

The group spend the next three days being very well behaved and quiet and Finarvi get some serious crafting done, managing, with help from other local crafters, to repair Varanis’s helmet, and adding horse hair crest from all the various horses.  

And we finally head out to Wilmskirk.

And we meet Berra on the way, and find she’s plotting to avoid the bit of the Heroquest where Eril kills lots of people.  She is instead going to hire some Humakti ducks and try and do a different bit of the Heroquest instead.³The Indrodar Cycle  

We see some Colymar bandits heading our way – this time it is Berra and Varanis that enter the Heroquest, Varanis being a bodyguard to Eril.  Some of the Colymar have silver eyes, unsurprisingly at this point, and Varanis is seeing some of them as Lunars.  Eril tells his bodyguard to ‘deal with them’, referring to those that don’t look Lunar – otherwise known as the non-Heroquesting Colymar.  Varanis tries to round them all up and get them out of the way.  Berra, meanwhile, is talking proper posh and explaining to the rest of the group that they need to get with the program and let her by.  

This all goes swimmingly for once, and everyone continues on towards Wilkskirk.  Well, mostly swimmingly.  Leika is going to be hearing about the fact The Helmet has been restored.  Oh dear.  

Arriving at Wilmskirk, Berra goes to hide herself while the other three go into the town to see Lord Silor.  Varanis has been here before, so there is no issue with getting in.  We are seated at the top table for food and given a good room to share and time to get settled in before we go to speak to the Lord.

Silor, it turns out, had a letter from his brother – but one one saying that the Heroquest was actually *starting*. He is not terribly impressed to find out that the Heroquest is already running as people got hurt last time.  Silor adds in significant detail about Eril’s early life; disliked by his father, perceived by his brother as a manipulative little brat.  He had pride, but no generosity of spirit.  In retaliation, his father assigned him a companion – a six year old girl, child of an unfree mother called Thenaya.  Someone who could never be in his battle band, but he took the duty seriously and protected her and taught her.  This in turn taught him and made him a nicer person.  The girl had to be left behind when Eril’s duty called him away.  All very sad…  

Fighting between duty and love is, in Silor’s opinion, the essence of Eril.  If Berra cannot do that, then ignore the love and concentrate on the cold.  

Silor also fills in the next section of what happened.  Eril came to Wilmskirk and bought some thralls before heading on to the tula, where he asked Silor to provide fighting men, who he took away with him – a significant percentage of the tula’s defence.  Eril returned alone 4 days later, and was exiled by his father.  The tale apparently ‘only’ needs half the friends to die – when this was last performed, they took trollkin and only a few died.

Varanis tells Silor that Berra intends trying to take a roundabout route and avoiding the deaths.  Silor asks for details and Varanis provides them, that Berra will try to substitute part of Indrodar.  Silor’s advice is that if we find ourselves as zombies, try not to win…

• 1
  Serala logging again
• 2
  assuming there is something standing in for the original relics
• 3
  The Indrodar Cycle