Season 7, Session 2

1630, Sea Season, Fertility Week, Fireday to Godsday

Dramatis Personae

Events

WRH Season 7 Session 2

Yes…

Sea Season, Fertility Week, Fireday to Godsday

In flashback in Boldhome, Oriana[/footnote]She got a little unstuck in time after a couple of weeks not RPing.[/footnote] had been researching why Fire starts, having been asked to by the head of the Elmali Temple/master of the King’s Horse.  She found very little within that Temple.

Xenofos was researching which possible “uncle” Varanis might have been talking to when she tried to reach Grandfather Sartar. His heart wasn’t really into it though, so no luck.

Boldhome Library sucked, as far as they were both concerned, and that had nothing to do with their failures. They decided  to head north after the rest of the party, by way of Jonstown’s Library, reaching the town without incident.  The city of scholars buzzed on..  They went to the Library to look things up.

Oriana did not have a lot of luck in the Library. Xenofos tried to preach to the Ulerians and gets mixed results. No one nailed him, in either sense of the word. He headed to the Library to continue his research and discovered that there were gaps in the records. The Chronicle of the Kings was missing for the year of the Lunar invasion and several years after that.  The Chief Librarian offered scribal fees to replace the missing collection should Xenofos be able to find it.  Xenofos, of course, would not do that work for money, but the chief librarian mentioned he would like it and be generous.  Xenofos checked if anyone had looked into this recently, and the Chief Librarian sais that these chronicles were never needed until living memory has passed.  A Lawspeaker would simply recite it.  The best of those would be the speaker of the Tribal King.

They went to visit Ranulf, King of the Culbrea, who was present.  There was a little embarrassment as Xenofos and his ‘servant’ were ‘recognised’, but  Xenofos got in on the power of his reputation.  Ranulf was apparently asleep at the fire.  Oriana looked around politely.  Xenofos noticed the hammer beams.  Neither noticed that Ranulf might have been faking sleep, and he did snore a little.  Another elderly man advanced towards the pair.  A lawspeaker advanced to introduce himself.  Xenofos asked about the Chronicle of Kings for the missing years…

The man probably knew the whole Chronicle, but fast-forwarded through it with a few confused noises.  He talked about the last King of Free Sartar and the Lunar Conquest and the heroic behind-the-scenes resistance of King Ranulf who gave wise counsel to the scholar King who ruled and then died.  He talked about Starbrow’s Rebellion and the brilliant strategic coup where King Ranulf led the successful reconquest of Sartar but alas Kallyr died, and Ranulf advised a young claimant to step forward and take what was rightfully his.  Xenofos had the impression this was an adjusted version of history to fit political necessities.

Oriana set off for Alda Chur, to get back towards civilisation (and thus caught up with the others and was with them for Session 1).

Meanwhile in Alda Chur… Irillo needed to head out of town before negotiations began for Koraki’s wedding, to avoid bringing any Disorder. Dormal elected to hang out to help with Koraki’s negotiations. Berra stayed to watch over Dormal and Varanis headed off with Irillo to keep that cousin safe.

Next day, Koraki (in a rather awful disguise) came by to talk to Dormal and Berra. He wanted to know why their head negotiator had left town, and they mentioned there was a bit of a curse, but not the details. The guard (Koraki) wanted them to go meet the incoming bride, Berengar, daughter of King Stark, and entertain her with tales of King Koraki. Berra asked about a bard and it turns out that Torogai Bird-Charmer was in town, much to her momentary discomfort. During the conversation, Berra peeled off Koraki’s moustache and moved from it to Dormal and it was moved back and forth a bit. She attempted to take a fake swing at Koraki and fell into his arms, which they both managed to keep a straight face about.  The moustache became a unibrow on Berra.

Berra confessed what Torograi was to her; an admirer who probably just wanted to annoy her. Koraki began to recite love poetry, and Berra sent Dormal out to get the bard, staying away for the moment and doing the exact opposite of flirting with Koraki.  She even put his moustache back on for him after he had swept her off her feet again, but in the end he let her down gently, or at least put her down.

Dormal headed to the other good inn. As Dormal approaches, he heard harp music that seemed to be the stuff of the Red Goddess, but played by a very talented harper who was not her. The lyrics, when he heard them are a bit weird.  There was an acrostic on the syllables of Maalira, and it was also a beautiful piece about how a White Lady could bring peace, sooth Storm Bull, and make Humakt want to put down his sword.

Dormal asked if Torograi would be interested in a commission from King Koraki. He agreed, bought a round for the inn, thus getting rid of all his clacks and then they headed back to the inn where Berra and Koraki were. Torograi’s harp kept playing the Jar-Eel song.  Dormal drew Torograi’s attention to it, and Torograi started off saying how fans were everywhere, but then could not work out where the sound was coming from.  Dormal sped them up a bit and noted that Torograi was playing a theme of Jar-eel’s.  After a bit of spluttering, Torograi said the tune came to him in a dream.  Dormal said it was composed by Jar-eel the Razoress, and not to ask how he knew that.  Torograi instantly asked how, and Dormal says it was Heroquesting.

Xenofos made his way to Alda Chur.

Irillo and Varanis passed by Snakepipe Hollow safely, and got to the top of Dwarf Gully.  Varanis attempted to write a message to the Dwarf, but could not think of how to put down the words so told the messenger what it said too.  ‘Varanis and Irillo have come visiting but Irillo is being plagued a little by some life circumstances and it might not be a good idea to bring his troubles to the Mine.  Does the Dwarf want to send anybody out for trade?’

They waited a while, and then the messenger returned and said ‘The Dwarf took the message and then had me recite it… and said you had chuffing handwriting, and then bade you and the merchant attend on him in person at the Mine.’

They entered the mines and their beasts were taken.  The inner doors open and the Dwarf – well, probably T’Dwarf, but maybe just A Dwarf as he was not in the chair – took them to the throne room, stepped himself up onto the throne, sat himself down, gestured Varanis to a seat, and gestures Irillo into a seat in an Earth Cube of a very fine mesh¹A Grounding Cube,, as Faraday hasn’t been invented yet.  Irillo was somewhat bemused.

Varanis pointed out it was for their own good.

T’Dwarf explained it was ‘a… magical enchantment… to isolate any… curses… from the rest of us.’.  He did not seem to like the idea of ‘magic’.  Varanis asked about taking the curse off, and the dwarf said it would take a lot of study.  Varanis said she was thinking of going to her sister.  T’Dwarf already felt Varanis owed him a favour, and then little Berra was brought in carried by a dwarf.  It was exactly a clay dwarf with terracotta skin and a square-cut beard, but sporting a significant chest, confusing but not horrible to anyone who had met nandans.  Baby Berra was in fact nursing.  T’Dwarf said he’d had to make one or two modifications.  “It was an interesting challenge…  The kids have not been trouble… The mine has a variety of immobilising techniques.”  This was probably about Haran, but possibly also about Baby Berra the teeny vingan.  Varanis got to look at Baby Berra, who had no idea what is going on, and was not good at conversation yet.  Berrita had no clue at all what was going on.²*baby noises* – GM

Varanis asked about the others.  Yehna was apparently a bit worn out, her T’Dwarf altering a few of his people.  Varanis asked if anyone made a move towards them.  T’Dwarf understood someone came but it was already too late, so he didn’t feel the need to have them shot.  T’Dwarf asked about the experimental unit.  Varanis said that X11 needed a name, which would be easier on the humans.  TDwarf asked if that would be them being individuals.  Varanis said that out on their own they would have to function as individuals for a time and having names would make that easier and less traumatic and mean they would be less likely to bring problems back.³“Right, ‘ave you finished inspecting the little one for damage?” – T’Dwarf⁴

“I was a wee bit concerned about the time to functionality, but I’m told this is normal.” – Dwarf
“We’re slow.  There’s a longer period of development on the outside.” – Varanis
“That’s very inefficient, but I’m sure your gods know best.” – T’Dwarf

Xenofos and Oriana reunited with Berra and then Dormal and Torograi made an appearance. Berra made things awkward briefly.

Torograi got Dormal to explain the harp music and then Berra explained more about the song and Jar-eel’s attempts to come back. After the explanation about the Razoress, Berra told Torograi what really happened in the Storm Bull heroquest (but making Maalira the exclusive hero of the tale). He decided to adjust the song, and agreed to go out with them the next day.

In the morning Berra lent her horse to Torograi, because he was a bard and it was the best horse in the party.

When they encountered King Stark’s party, Berra sent Xenofos on ahead as herald, only realising as he made his horse dance warrior-like up to the party that the last time he met Stark, he was arrested. Xenofos was intercepted by Stark’s herald and they exchanged greetings. Somewhere along the exchange, the other herald lost the plot and Xenofos allowed him to save face. Meanwhile, Berra et al. set Torograi up in comfort and Stark’s party was invited to join them. In the middle of the road. Stark’s herald took back a message and they agreed to join Torograi and the others at their impromptu affair. Torograi sand a beautiful song about the beauty of the veiled bride. Oriana joined in on the singing with a song about Fire.

They managed to keep people hanging out overnight, sharing watches. During the middle watch, Berra heard a thud, but could not see anything.  She sent the Ironspike guard to go do the rounds and wake people. Dormal woke to being poked in the ribs with a spearbutt, and being asked “You still alive?” The guard repeated the process with Xenofos and others. Berra does some head counts and initially had one person too many, but then found one too few. Dormal vanished (gone to sneakily check the valuables). Berra knelt down next to Berengar, noticing that her veil was on wrong.  She asked if Koraki had married her overnight, and a blushing Berengar said no, but they were engaged now.  Berra apologised to people for waking them, saying the noise had not been worth the wake-up call.

People went back to sleep and the rest of the night passed quietly. There was to be a negotiation the following day, but Koraki declared when it came to the looks of the young lady that he would marry her “sight unseen”. He was decreed to be exceedingly noble.  And they lived happily ever after.

• 1
  A Grounding Cube,, as Faraday hasn’t been invented yet
• 2
  *baby noises* – GM
• 3
  “Right, ‘ave you finished inspecting the little one for damage?” – T’Dwarf
• 4
  
  
  “I was a wee bit concerned about the time to functionality, but I’m told this is normal.” – Dwarf
  “We’re slow.  There’s a longer period of development on the outside.” – Varanis
  “That’s very inefficient, but I’m sure your gods know best.” – T’Dwarf