Session Season 6, Prax 20

1629, Dark Season, Movement Week, Fireday to Illusion Week, Waterday

Dramatis Personae

Events

The group set off upstream, taking their raft across to Weis Cut and then riding the last stretch towards Ronegarth.  X11 found it oddly familiar, a little like a small dwarf mine in its organisation and safety features.

Varanis noted that the guards had the ‘Oh not again’ feeling when Varanis asked to talk with the duke. They were also quite alarmed on seeing an Iron Dwarf, particularly one dressed in enchanted iron.

Xenofos and Varanis sat with the Duke at his high table where they engaged in small talk. After the meal, they joined the duke for a quiet discussion. Varanis asked him about antelope riders, and he said he saw a few now and again, but would have to look at records. Then, to the shock of all in the room, Varanis asked for his feelings about the Red Goddess trying to come back.

Duke says he felt the Lunar Way and the Lunar Empire were diverging. He claimed never to have been well rewarded by the empire and made a sign of white Moon with his fingers over the parchment, a shockingly treasonous activity even when alone and far from home.

Duke Raus sent for information about sables, finding records of some who had passed his territory about a year ago thanks to his superlative staff. He also said his contacts could advise about the Feroda river and the waters of Kitoi. 

He asked about Varanis’ river connections and was not very impressed when she remembered Salt and Teeth only after mentioning Blue Tree.  He left them with the promise of further help in the morning.

The next day Raus called the group and several servants to him.  He walked to the riverside, disrobed and showed himself as Daka Fal, in a silver mask and loin cloth.¹Despite the cold of the day.  Brrr.  He stepped over a long iron sword placed there earlier, and stopped with one foot on each side of it, paused on either side of Death. Other shapes walked over the sword, and everyone could see them.  Xenofos saw little other than vague outlines, but Varanis saw the Duke dying, and his spirit going into the river.  She tried to follow, and found out she was the endless Zola Fel.  X1138 watched the Zola Fel transforming into mercury, and someone walking on it and being lost despite the density of the material, which was faintly upsetting to anyone who knew the buoyancy characteristics.  Varanis could feel the message going through the river and flowing, and also faintly the anger and pain of the Blue Tree clan’s river.  X1138 decided that this was a messaging form over a long distance, and a mere research problem.

Varanis woke to find she had walked into the river.  Daka Fal was helped into warm clothes. He seemed to be wet despite staying on the riverbank.  The servants did not touch the sword, and Duke Raus indicated nobody else was to either.  They went back to Ronegarth for a meal, and to warm up properly.

A Priest of the Zola Fel, a giant catfish, appeared in the river later in the afternoon. He provided them with directions to Horn Gate, which was where the headwaters of the Kitoi river had used to be. Varanis decided that they need to go as soon as possible rather than wait for better weather. Duke Raus offered to join them, as a shaman, because he owed the Colymar a favour. They agreed to set out in the morning.

Late that night, X1138 started to scope the place out, trying to see if there was an underground route in and out by tapping and echolocation. Sword Daine interrupted to find out what the dwarf was up to. He was not enthusiastic about X11’s unsubtle snooping. As X11 worked out, the man was not laughing. So, his warning was not the thing humans would call a joke.

They travelled over Freezeday, with the weather being better than expected, as if a spirit of the weather was smiling on them.  Duke Raus said that if he looked correctly he could see the tails and tatters of an ancient river’s spirit.

They rode into Horn Gate, which had once obviously been a grand place, and was now not.  It had an ancient plan quite unlike anything they had seen before – a radial city with five spokes going into city.

Xenofos and Raus discussed the ownership of the area, which Raus said he had always been very careful never to press.. Xenofos was worried that looking around might alert the thieves, and Raus concurred. They parted ways so that Raus could meet with the Impala leader and not be openly associated with the group, and Varanis made arrangements for them to sleep indoors.  Xenofos entertained the public with some lovely music.  Waterday Eve passed uneventfully and with the dawn it was a propitious day to deal with matters of lakes and rivers.

Wandering around the lake at the centre of the city, Varanis looked into it with the Rivereyes spell.  She saw impala riders swimming under the surface like mermen. Far away at the bottom of the water there was a huge boulder with strange markings on it.

After trying to get the impalas to help her go swimming, to no avail, Varanis was joined by the others.  They end up talking to an impala who called himself a fish.  He told them there were eggs in a haunted cave under water. They told Raus, who offered to help them get to the cave as a way to demonstrate his power and bring the impalas into line.  He would teach them some useful magic, while they helped remind the impalas that he was not to be trifled with. He would be summoning a spirit of the lake at some point too.

X1138 tried to bargain with impalas to get rock hyssop for the Duke’s attempt, and was surprised that the. Impalas would like to have salt, not coin. Nutrient packages did not cut the mustard, and in fact lacked tradable condiments altogether.

Raus attempted to get one of his ancestors to teach Xenofos and it went sideways at first, despite the presence of a powerful shaman²Almost as if something was pushing back at him, but in fact randomly rolled.. It went right the second time. Varanis came by a new scar when she was cut by a flint. Both learned how to bring sharpness to their swords.³Bladesharp 4.

Then the Duke parted the water with some ceremony, and the adventurers began to walk in toward the cave. Xenofos got stuck part way and needed to be pulled free, leaving his boots in the mud. As they reached the cave, Xenofos cast lantern on his shield, and they went into the tunnel.  The cave that held the eggs had a lake in it, and was full of foetid but breathable air.  The eggs were on a bank across a deep pool of water, but before they could get there, six burly spirits manifested to protect their charge.

The group prepared themselves for the fight⁴ by applying spirit blockand bladesharp. Xenofos also threw his javelin, injuring one of the spirits. It turned to him and the other 5 converged on Varanis. Xenofos tried to beat out Cragspider’s rhythm on his shield but failed. He threw another javelin at same one as before, and managed to cast bladesharp, before it closed on him.  The other two hit thei chosen targets with bladesharped blades, and Xenofos did the same, destroying his foe. However, the rest of the spirits attacked Varanis. She shredded one, hurt another, and was knocked back reeling by a third.  

Xenofos attempted to summon the hollri that owed him a boon, and fail. Everyone made an attempt to kill the spirits, but it was not enough and Varanis was possessed by a lunar ex-soldier, turning on her comrades.

Xenofos, standing in the water and defended by X1138, managed to call the hollri who destroyed the eggs by freezing the water, and them. X11 rendered Varanis unconscious by application of violence in the form of a fist to the jaw and she was exorcised by Raus⁵who secretly imprisoned the spirit for later questioning when they dragged her out. They stayed a little while to recover.

“Considering I’ve been home for a whole 10 minutes, I think I’m quite coherent.” – Xenofos

“I was just thinking I could worship, but… wrong character”- X1138
“What’s worship?”- Xenefos
“It’s when you put t’cannon on a floating thing. Wor-ship.”- X1138

“For fuck’s sake.” – Xenofos, not actually quietly

• 1
  Despite the cold of the day.  Brrr.
• 2
  Almost as if something was pushing back at him, but in fact randomly rolled.
• 3
  Bladesharp 4
• 4
  by applying spirit blockand bladesharp
• 5
  who secretly imprisoned the spirit for later questioning