Tarva Adventure I: Feyland
Contents:
December 15, 1987 = Melian 16, 3023
December 22, 1987 = Melian 16 - 19, 3023
January 6, 1988 = Melian 19, 3023 (cont.)
January 12, 1988 = Melian 19 - 20, 3023
Fey Royal Family Tree
January 19, 1988 = Melian 20, 3023 (cont.)
January 26, 1988 = Melian 20 - 21, 3023
February 2, 1988 = Melian 22 - 24, 3023
February 9, 1988 = Melian 24, 3023 (cont.)
February 23, 1988 = Melian 24 - 25, 3023
March 22, 1988 = Melian 25, 3023 (cont.)
April 4, 1988 = Melian 25 - 26, 3023
April 12, 1988 = Melian 26, 3023 (cont.)
April 19, 1988 = Melian 26, 3023 (cont.)
April 26, 1988 = Melian 26 - 31, 3023
May 3, 1988 = Melian 31 - 32, 3023
May 17, 1988 = Melian 32 - 34, 3023
May 24, 1988 = Melian 34, 3023 (cont.)
May 31, 1988 = Melian 34, 3023 (cont.)
June 14, 1988 = Melian 35, 3023
June 21, 1988 = Melian 35 - 36, 3023
June 28, 1988 = Melian 36 - 38, 3023
July 3, 1988 = Melian 38, 3023 (cont.)
July 5, 1988 = Melian 39, 3023
Tarva Fey Family Tree
November 27, 1989 = Melian 40 - Willan 29, 3023
December 15, 1987
Melian 16, 3023
Tarva is walking through the woods, aware of rumors about the local
warlord being possessed by a demon (the last village was delighted to
tell them to her), and hearing wild animals as it gets dark, when she
sees a campfire. Going close, she slips by the dwarf on guard and sees
several people relaxing after a large meal and talking amongst
themselves. The sight of a Dioncecht cleric is very welcome, so she
calls out, “May I come in?” Much startlement, she enters,
introduces herself to the druid, asks for shelter for the night, and is
introduced to everyone. The people are:
[David Gillikin]
Her Reverence Gillian Woodridge,
human female, druid of Dioncecht, from Cynaria, leader of the group;
Alexander Ravenscroft, human
male, mage, worships Git, from Pennoch;
Kaleb Oakheart, human male,
fighter, worships Arianhrod, from Cynaria;
[Brian Davidson]
Sir Feldspar of the House of
Burin the Maker, dwarf male, fighter, worships Git, from Massalda;
Hoss Cartwright, human male,
fighter, worships Git, from Cynaria;
[Frank Coleman]
Tarva Streamside, human female,
fighter, worships Dioncecht, from
Cynaria;
[Non Player Characters]
Moonara, human female, mage,
worships Arianhrod;
Mandasity, feline female,
Moonara's familiar
Tarva is fed from the repast -- Jeffery
Griffin, a mage who had just left the group, as a parting gift, Teleported to Pennoch
and brought back a catered feast -- and invited to accompany the group.
Naturally, she accepts. She has just missed Jeffery, and also Collin, a druid of Rhiannon, and Lynn Mu, a fighter, all of whom have
gone to Pennoch. Gillian had informed Tarva that the general was, to
their certain knowledge, indeed possessed by a demon, and that patrols
had twice attacked them before, each with a possessed leader.
Sir Feldspar doesn’t notice, but Alexander, also on guard, sees someone
moving furtively, and calls warning. This gives us time to stand and
draw weapons before soldiers of the possessed general attack us. There
are five of them. Four attack us -- one for each fighter plus one on
Alexander -- and the fifth stands back and, surprise, starts magicking.
The various mages and the cleric are casting Protection spells. The
fighters are fighting. And all in all it is a fairly typical melee.
Tarva gets in one hit, fumbles, misses a few times, then gets a second
hit, this time to the head. Moonara has Lightning Struck at the
demon, and to the surprise of all, succeeded twice. Which makes him
angry. Rumor (DM comments) suggests that this is the same demon which
has encountered this group twice before, and had his host body
destroyed by the dwarf both times, so he has it in for Sir Feldspar.
And all of us, naturally.
Sir Feldspar positioned himself so he could fight both his foe and the
one on Alexander. After Tarva's foe died, she charged the demon and hit
him to the head, also. This didn't kill him, but did annoy him even
more that the lightning strikes. So next round he turned Tarva to Stone. Moonara pulled a
wand and turned the last normal fighter to Stone, so Sir Feldspar
would be free to get between her and the demon. The demon called
down a Lightning Strike
which hurt everyone except Tarva (being stone) Everyone else went
running up to the demon. Gillian cast a Holy Stone spell and
turned Tarva back from Stone
To Flesh.
Kaleb criticaled on the demon('s host) and almost killed him while
tearing his throat out, Tarva asked Gillian if we should bind up his
wounds and hope the demon had left him, and Gillian replied that we
must kill him. So Tarva did, Kaleb was going to, but he was suddenly
busy fighting Sir Feldspar, whom the demon had possessed. So Sir
Feldspar is trying to kill Kaleb, and Kaleb is trying to subdue Sir
Feldpsar, and Tarva steps in and hits the dwarf to subdue and knocks
him out.
Gillian yells for everyone to stand way back, but it’s too late.
The demon is really pissed at this slip of a girl who keeps getting in
his way, so he takes over Tarva. And casts a spell, which causes all of
us to experience a very unpleasant feeling (freefall?) and see only
rainbow swirls of light for about a minute. At the end of which the
demon has left Tarva, and the entire group (including three mules, but
minus two pack horses) is in the middle of rolling plains. And, instead
of it being first watch, it appears to be the middle of the afternoon.
Obviously we've been Gated
somewhere.
Tarva falls to her knees and thanks Lord Dioncecht for releasing her
from the demon. Apart from her reaction of complete revulsion to being
taken over, this informs the rest of the group that she is no longer
possessed, and thus need not be subdued.
First things first, and to a Dioncecht Druid that means Healing. Tarva quite
agrees, and insists on using her Faith Healing abilities
to help her leader. In short order all of us are healthy again.
The next order of business is to bury the dead.
Tarva had:
0
the guard
for 41 points at 10
ep/hp =
410
the
demon
for 42
points at 94 ep/hp = 3,948
Sir Feldspar (to stun) for
14 points at 38 ep/hp = 532
faith healing:
50
--------
4,940
and has thereby caught up to the third level she started at.
December 22, 1987
Melian 16, 3023 (cont)
We finished burying the bodies of the foes (including the one stone
statue) and sacked in for the day (night). Which is to say, that
while it was just turning night at the time of the fight, where we had
come from, it was now about mid-day. Gillian declared that we would
adjust "jet lag" by watching and sleeping until the next morning,
reguardless. Sir Feldspar was badly affected by the extreme
brightness, sharpness, and clarity of the air and land, so Gillian
gave him a potion for headaches and he slept until after dark. The
sunset was spectacular. Nobody recognized the stars. A couple of hours
after sunset a half moon faded in several degrees above the horizon,
and of a dark red color. Halfway to dawn a second moon faded in at a
different part of the sky, of a more golden color, less than half full,
and not lit appropriately to match
the other moon.
In trying to find out what we obtained from the f:ighters, the mages
have discovered that, either because this land is completely magical,
or else because we, as gated creatures, are magical in this land, the Detect Magic spell always registers "yes", thus making
it useless. The Lore
spell can, presumably, be used to detect for magic, in that if
it doesn't tell you what the item does (and a hint about who made it)
then you can assume the item isn't magic.
Melian 17, 3023
Come morning the mules are delightedly eating some exotic plant which
nobody recognizes. Sir Feldspar tries a nibble as well, and Moonara
saves some samples. We decide we need to find water, and head for the
highest hill we can see. From its top, we can see a dark line at the
horizon to the east and white blobs (sheep?) on the hills off to the
west. Also, Tarva thinks she can see a shimmery blue line going across
the grass from east to west, passing north of us about a mile away.
Nobody else can see it, but Gillian decides to let Tarva lead us to it.
Right next to it they still can't see it, but when Tarva asks Moonara
if Mandasity can see it, Mandasity says it is a road. To Tarva it still
looks l:ike a shimmery blue area about twenty feet wide, but when she
steps into it she also can see the road. So can the others when
they step on it. So we walk on it to the east.
Eventually we reach a crossroads with a milestone written in Ogham.
Tarva, natch, has no hope of reading it, but after star:ing a while she
suddenly "knows" what it says; in fact, it is clearer to her than to
the people who do know Ogham. East: To the Wood of Broceliande; West: To the Black Tor; Northwest: to the Hight Seat of Charien; Southeast: To
the Groves of the Satyrs.
Broceliande is known to Tarva, as a Storyteller, as a forest in Feyland; so now we're pretty sure
where we are.
Sir Feldspar's headache has come back, but much worse, and probably not
light-related, because Gillian had a pair of snow goggles left over
from the trip to the northern continent, which she is having him
wear. She gives him some more pain-reliving potion, and we camp
for the night.
Melian 18, 3023
In the morning Sir Feldspar no longer has a headache. The mules, who
were much more bothersome and irritable than usual all the previous
day, are now fine, but also have additions: horns. So does Sir
Feldspar, but his are much shorter. This is what comes of eating that
weed, which we eventually find is named Hornfeld.
A couple of fey show up and are laughing at the mules with horns.
Sir Feldspar discovers them and tries to talk with them, not alerting
us. He finds that one of them can speak Hobbit. In discussion,
Sir Feldspar manages to impart a lot of info to them about us, in
particular that we are lost, gated from elsewhere, need water, even
that he has horns like the mules. He is unable to obtain: names ("you
may call me Rainbow," says the
one who speaks Hobbit); places ("looks like the grasslands to me");
directions, either back to our world ("you don't like it here?") or to
someone who could so direct us ("oh, the king, or queen, or anybody in
the high court"); or how to find water ("1 could summon a water horse
for you, then after you kill it you'd have its water"). When the rest
of us show up he doesn't bother to translate, meaning that we still
don't know what is happening, nor what misconceptions are being
perpetrated.
Sir Feldspar is requested to introduce the other members of his group.
The rest give their names, but Tarva asks to be called Goldie, Sir Feldspar is about to
(finally) discuss with Gillian what he has been conversing about in
Hobbit, and to make sure the fey don't get bored and leave, he sends
Tarva off to bring them some wine. So, the one person in the group who
might recognize some of the names and events, from her storytelling
knowledge, is deliberately excluded. By the time Tarva gets back
they have at least managed to determine that the one fey also speaks
Pennoch, So they can switch to that and have Gillian and Alexander, if
not Sir Feldspar, understand the conversation.
Of course, Tarva still can't. She takes the wine to each of the
fey. The second one, who isn't speaking, bows and thanks her in a
lovely, fluid language, then catches her hand and kisses it. So she
curtseys, and, in lieu of being able to speak, starts singing a soft,
lovely air. Tarva is a Vocalist and has a Voice of 17, so this makes a
reasonable impression. They go off and sit and sing to/with each other
for the remainder of the encounter.
There is some discussion between Rainbow and Sir Feldspar about our
being able to find the road so quickly; Feldspar tries to give the
impression, without lying, that all of us, including himself, are able
to see it. Somewhere in there one of the speakers manages to bore or
tick off Rainbow, and he tells Tarva's fey that it's time to
leave. Her fey stands up and pulls her up also, then says
something to Rainbow and points to Tarva's face. Rainbow comes over and
searches her face, then tells Gillian that if the group does manage to
find water, it will be because this one (Tarva) finds it for us. Tarva
and her fey say goodbye passionately, then the two fey leave. We return
to marching down the road towards Broceliande.
Melian 19, 3023
Next morning a new fey pops up in front of Sir Feldspar. This one
speaks Cynarian, so we can all speak with him. He also takes Tarva's
face ("Goldie", Sir Feldspar remembers to introduce her as) and
explains that she has some fey in her bloodlines. Then, being
introduced to the rest of the group, he gets as far as Gillian and
interrupts: "Gillian the Lost? You've come back? Which side
are you on this time?"
Gillian explains to this fey (who is calling himself Rush) that she was aware that she
had been in Feyland before, but had absolutely no memory of it
whatsoever. Had he known her? Could he direct her to someone who
did? What did he mean by "sides"? Which side had she been on? And similar
questions as Rush evades the earlier, and then the later ones.
"Well, it's not my place to say..." "I heard all sorts of rumors,
I don't know which ones were true..." "How long ago were you
here? I don't understand." [Probably the one true statement
in the bunch: fey don't handle time the way we do.] "I
don't get involved in high politics..."
He invites us to his home to meet his sister, Glory. So we troop over there, some
hours away. His sister is very taken with Alexander. Rush continues to
evade questions, but does say that the next trooping (moving of the
court from one location to another, often accompanied by excursions
into the real world) will be in three nights, and they, the ones who
avoid the courts, will be having their trooping also, which will be
much more fun.
Tarva interprets this as meaning it will be much more chaotic, and
suggests strongly to Gillian that they go find a court [there are
several political factions here, at various levels, ranging up to the
split between the king, Oberon, and the queen, Mab, and each one has
its own court] to be with for the trooping. Of course, this raises the
delicate question of which side Gillian had been on, and whether any
court we find would be automatically hostile because of her past
actions, whatever they were. On the other hand, staying here will
seemingly never give us any information on the past events, nor lead us
to a way home, so it's a risk we'll need to take eventually, anyway.
January 6, 1988
Melian 19, 3023
Gillian agrees we should go to an established court for the trouping,
and manages to find out who is currently court at each of the
destinations of the crossroads milestone:
Woods of Broceliande: Her Majesty
Queen Mab
Black Tor: His Highness Crown Prince
Beliard
High Seat of Charien: His Grace Dwke
Aubrey
Groves of the Satyrs: nobody
Gillian decides that the one who sounds most attractive, His Grace Duke
Aubrey, the noble who had been in Cynaria, was too far away, and
selected the Woods as being the closest court, and thus the one to head
towards.
Before we left another fey showed up, talked to Rush a bit (Tarva,
tried to concentrate on their conversation, couldn't understand it, but
seemed to get a general empathic feel for the contents), bowed
sincerely to Gillian, and left. Rush said he was, or at least used to
be, Lord Arlich, the bard at
the court of the Countess Melassande.
From his friendliness and courtesy, perhaps we should try to seek her
out. Of course, this raises the question, which we already have for
everything else we want to do, of "how"?
Rush leads us back to the road and leaves. Tarva suggests checking to
see if the road is 'faster' in either direction, so two others start
out back to back and walk twenty paces. They both seem to be moving at
the same speed. So on we go towards the woods. Tarva at once explains
to the entire group that in addition to being introduced as Goldie, she
would appreciate being referred to and called Goldie as long as we are
here. They all agree to be careful about that. Tarva occasionally steps
off the road and walks beside it, just to see if it is slowing us down
or speeding us on our way. As far as she can tell, neither.
Then suddenly five fey rise out of the grassy hills about us and start
shooting longbows at us. Kaleb gets out his bow and starts shooting
back, as does Tarva. Hoss Teleports
over to beside one of them. The mages Shield themselves;
Gillian hides in the grass beside the road. Tarva criticals on hers and
he drops out of sight. Hess kills his, then takes on the third one on
that side of the road.
Kaleb exchanges arrows for quite a while with one of the two on the
other side -- both are shooting at him. Tarva switches to the other
one, but bloopers, drops her bow, spends a round picking it up,
bloopers again, drops it again, spends another round picking it up, and
finally gets a shot off and hits the fifth fey. By this time Kaleb has
switched also because the fey he was shooting at has disappeared, and
the fey Hoss went after exchanged blows for a bit, then also
disappeared.
Sir Feldspar did not have any weapons which could reach them at that
range, so he drank a potion of Moonara's which turned him Gaseous. He appeared
behind the fifth fey the same round that Tarva finally hit him. Next
round he attacked, getting a free round from surprise. And the
following round he had the advantage of surprise also, because a potion
turns you, but not your belongings, gaseous, and the dwarf is up there
on the hill, nude, fighting with his bare hands. (Well, he did have a Strength spell on him,
and his hand to body attacks were doing a minimum of six points each
round.) When the fey turned around and saw who/what [don't forget the
horns on the dwarf] had hit him, he lost another round to astonishment.
Then he disappeared also.
Tarva
had:
4,940
hit:
fey for 44 hp at 27 ep/hp = 1,188
faith
healing:
50
--------
6,178
Tarva made fourth level
Tarva rolled a 6 on her hit
die, she now has 30 hit points. She has an
additional plus to hit from level (total of +2).
NOTES;;
1) Why do the fey have roads if they
can all teleport? Maybe the road isn't really a road? Maybe it can move
us faster, if we can discover how to ask it?
2) It would have taken Sir Feldspar
eleven rounds to reach a fey on foot; in gaseous form it only took six
(well, nine: one to drink, one to turn, six to move. one to turn back)
[come to think of it, it wasn't that smart a decision; ah, well].
3) How did the fey know where we
were? Who we were? Are these people from the "other side",
already out after Gillian?
January 12, 1988
Melian 19, 3023 (cont.)
Left behind by the teleporting fey, ancl on the body of the one we
killecl, we found: one plain longbow, one ornate longbow, one quiver
with 9 arrows, several other arrows fired at us, one longsword, one
broadsword, one dagger with a gem in its hilt, one plain gold ring, one
mithril ring with an aquamarine, one gold earring (pierced) with an
aquamarine, one platinum armband, one necklace of gold plates, each
with an aquamarine, joined by gold chains, with some unknown writing on
the inside. Tarva is keeping the longsword, as a spare, on a mule, and
the ornate longbow, storing her original bow on the mule. The other
weapons are being kept, as are all the jewelry. Nobody is wearing any
of them, yet.
Tarva asked Hoss how he managed to reach the fey so quickly, and he
explained about his inate ability to Teleport. Then Tarva
asked the group in general why the fey needed a road if they could all
teleport; nobody had a good answer, although Moonara did suggest that
teleporting had a weight limit. Alexander took a sample of the road
"sand" and put it in a flask. He then tried to Lore the road. He
was successful, but didn't learn anything. He then wasn't successful In
Loring the ornate
longbow, and Moonara failed also. Finally, he failed to Lore the mithril ring.
Moonara succeeded, but didn't learn anything. Loring costs a lot more
spell points than Detect
Magic, so they aren't going to do any more just now.
Hoss and Tarva took the body a ways off the road and left it in the
grass. We decided we didn't have time to bury it. Marched on the rest
of the day. At camp that night Tarva asked Moonara if she could look at
the necklace. After studying it a while, she suddenly knew the writing
said, "Gloriana".
Significiant because this was the name of the first Queen of the Fey.
Moonara and Tarva had a short discussion on how it was that Tarva
couldn't read, but could read things like the necklace. Moonara was
wondering if wasn't a defensive reaction on Tarva's part -- feeling
insecure because other people could read and she couldn't, she pretends
that she can so read, but only after making sure that nobody else can
read the same language, and thus catch her out. Clever thinking. Of
course, the names she "read" off the milestone were verified by the
fey, Rush, when he was talking about which noble was courted at which
road destination, so maybe Tarva's not faking it after all.
Melian 20, 3023
The next morning Tarva thinks that the group isn't moving as fast as
they ought to be. Stepping off the road and walking alongside, she
can't tell that anything is different, it's just a feeling she has, and
thinking back on it, she sort of felt the same way yesterday evening.
About three hours into the day we hear hoofbeats behind us. As we get
off the road, two fey appear racing on their horses. They draw up about
400 feet from us, are joined by three more horses and fey, and all
come up to us. Two of the fey are riding on a single horse, and the
fifth horse is carrying a (familiar) body. Their leader hails us in an
unknown language, and Gillian responds in Cynarian that she is sorry,
but none of our group understand him. He knows Cynarian, but none of
his escort do. He is Lord Auster,
travelling with his escort as an emissary from his liege, His Highness
Prince Beliard, to Her Majesty Queen Mab.
We all get introduced, Tarva as "Goldie" and Gillian as
"Gillian". He doesn't seem to consider her name significant. He
is much more interested in Tarva, and in her being part fey. She
responds that she was not aware of having any fey blood until the group
came here -- a brief digression while we discuss how the group came
here -- but that now that she does know, she is very interested in
finding out more about herself and her ancestry.
Lord Auster says, "If you go to one of the Wells, the Keeper of the
Well can tell you; I think the Queen's Moon must be full for
women."
Sir Feldspar sticks his oar in to say, "So if we go to this Well
and—-", and both Tarva and Lord Auster interrupt him. Tarva says,
"We?!" and Lord Auster says, "The lady must go alone, of
course." There is a Well at Her Majesty Queen Mab's current
court, but the next full moon will have both moons full, which will be
the trooping, so there won't be any opportunity to talk to the Keeper
then; and there is no telling where the court will troop to, thus no
idea of whether or not there will be a Well there. Tarva asks how
long it will be before the Queen's moon is full again, and he doesn't
know: ask a stargazer. Tarva is getting the idea that fey aren't
really good with time, or maybe even numbers.
Lord Auster asks us if we know whether the dead body was fond of
aquamarines, and Gillian sidesteps the question. Sir Feldspar
asks Lord Auster to let us travel with him, and surprisingly he agrees,
hopping off his horse to lead it and walk with us. His escort
stays mounted. Sir Feldspar asks Lord Auster to have his escort
sing for us to entertain us as we walk. Showing surprising
restraint (Tarva is incredibly embarrassed), he merely states that his
escort don't do that, then turns and pointedly asks if any of the
Ladies wish to pick a subject to converse about while we walk.
Tarva uses her storytelling career as a starting point to ask about
local politics.
He gives very detailed answers. Politics here is immediately
related to the royal family tree (for which see later). He
describes that to us, with side notes on which royalty are friendly,
amicable, or bitter enemies. Appearantly, in Faerie, King and
Queen are not a relational state, but rather two separate and roughly
equal powers in the land. Heirship passes not down a given branch
of the tree, but rather to the next eldest within the royal family
within the eldest generation, by gender. His Majesty King Aileron was the
first king; before him there was no Faerie. His Majesty King Oberon is his
oldest living son, and is therefore the current king. Her Majesty
Queen Gloriana was King Alieron's first daughter, and became Faerie's
first queen as soon as she was born. She died in childbirth and,
there being no other eligable royal females in that generation (that
is, immediate daughters of Aileron), the current Queen is Her Majesty
Queen Mab, as the eldest of King Aileron's granddaughters.
King Aileron did have another daughter, Her Highness Princess Morgana, but
her mother was only half fey, and therefore Her Highness Princess
Morgana is not a pureblood, and cannot aspire to the throne.
Appearantly this does not sit well with her, but Lord Auster is careful
to loudly tell the sky that he means Morgana no offense. Her
Highness Princess Morgana also appearantly has more contacts with
humans than most fey. Lord Auster also has had contact with
humans: he was Her Majesty Queen Mab's lover once, and offended her,
and was stranded in Albion (our original world) for several years; was
in Cynaria, which is why he speaks that language. There was a passing
comment about the midsummer stars which sounded relevant towards the
way he got back home. Sir Feldspar asks a personal question about how
Lord Auster feels about being an emissary to his former lover, and gets
snubbed.
We stop for lunch, and Lord Auster brings up the subject of the dead
body again. If he knew that the body was partial to aquamarines, he
explains, then he could conclude it had been Lord Fenal, and he could just drop
it here, rather than carry it into Her Majesty Queen Mab"s court. Lousy
way to start an emissary, showing up with a dead body, but not knowing
who it was, he was duty-bound to show it to the guard so they could
identify it. If it was Lord Fenal, however, nobody would mind, as he
hadn't any friends, and all his sister, with whom he had fought, would
be concerned about would be the family heirloom, a golden earring with
an aquamarine. Had we seen that? He is very carefully phrasing his
statements and questions so that we will need to neither answer nor
evade the question of how Lord Fenal ended up dead. Gillian admits to
searching the body and turns over the earring. Sir Feldspar asks if it
wouldn't be better for us (!)
to return the earring, and in a massive understatement, Lord Auster
merely says that he doesn't think that would be wise.
There is more discussion on politics. The proper titles and honorifics
for each generation are given, with the exceptions for the current king
and queen, and the two immediate heirs. On the subject of titles, Lord
Auster tells Gillian that it would be very tactless for anyone to use
religious titles while in Faerie, and especially at one of the courts.
Gillian is confused and wants to know why. Lord Auster gets
embarrassed, and while he is hunting for a kind way to answer, Tarva
suggests that she explain it to Gillian, later, in private.
Lord Auster's escort bury the body, and are now able to ride one per
horse again.. Back on the road, Lord Auster mentions that the road does
seem to be slower than before he met us, have we done anything to
insult it? Alexander confesses to taking the sample. He dumps it back
out, and, at Tarva's simpleminded suggestion, apologizes to it.
By evening we reach the forest, pausing at a stream to freshen up prior
to finding the Queen's court.
Tarva asked Lord Ashter about Robin
Goodfellow (Puck) and he
responded that Puck was an extremly mischievous, non-royal fey of
strange powers. Then, like for Her Highness Princess Morgana, he says
loudly to the sky that he meant no offense. But he'd rather not
continue talking about him.
We discussed the upcoming trooping. Determined that we probably would
not want to participate in a wild trooping (as Tarva had guessed);
could not avoid trooping by hiding (he seem shocked at the idea; did
not seem to think that "safe" was a word to associate with trooping,
but once again didn't seem to have ever considered the two concepts
together before; noted that Tarva's folktales were correct that the
troopings did sometimes go on "joy-rides" into Albion (as did Her
Majesty Queen Mab herself on occasion); and that he really couldn't
describe one -- we'd just have to wait. Sir Feldspar tried to ask him
what he would be doing during the trooping, and it came out sounding
like he was asking what Lord Auster's emissary business was. Again,
Lord Auster showed great restraint in his answer.
NOTES:
1) In spite of trying to wring his
brains, Lord Auster can only remember that Gillian sounds familiar, not
why. Tarva likes him: he's friendly to her and very restrained towards
Sir Feldspar, and Tarva is going to suggest to Gillian that she
(Gillian) tell Lord Auster everything she can about her previous visit,
and ask for help in finding out who knew her, and vwhat side she had
been on.
2) At one point, Sir Feldspar got
Lord Auster's attention by saying, "Sir," to him, and one of the escort
glared at Sir Feldspar when he did that. From this, Tarva concludes
that it is VERY bad manners to address anyone with anything less than
the full honors to which they are entitled. Tarva is going to address
him as Lord Auster until he tells her differently. This strikes her as
being a particularly important point, especially if we're about to be
interacting with royalty, particularly especially if we're going to be
asking for help and favours, and most particularly especially if we
(Gillian) might have been here before, thus might have past
acquaintances, thus might have enemies, who might be itching for an
opportunity to claim to have been insulted, and thus justified in
removing the blot upon their honor in a fit of righteous anger at being
improperly addressed.
3) The reason for not mentioning
religious titles is that fey do not have souls, and thus cannot be
resurrected: once dead, that's it. They do, of course, have very
long lives if nothing violent happens. However, not having souls, they
have no part of any of the four original gods (that being the source of
the seven souled races in Albion) and thus no interest in the existing
sixteen gods (the first four seem to be gone). Certainly none of
them have any god-granted powers -- there are no druids in
Faerie. And so to use a religious title is a slap in the face
reminder of their limitations, or an attempt to insult them by implying
that the differences between fey and souled make the fey lesser
creatures. Never mind what Gillian's intent is, see the paragraph
above about giving enemies an excuse to claim insult.
4) Tarva is going to speak privately
to Gillian, first about souled versus soulless creatures, then about
Sir Feldspar, whom Tarva considers to be somewhere between rude and
dangerous, given our situation. Also, it seems to Tarya that Gillian
is abdicating a lot of the responsibility of being in charge of the
group, and letting Sir Feldspar make decisions -- which affect the
entire group -- about such things as what to tell strangers.
5) We ought to be able to determine
who this Lord Fenal is, find out which faction(s) he belongs to, and
from that start to determine which side Gillian is definately not on.
Partial
Family Tree of the Royal Family of Faerie
(+) deceased
(B)
Baron(ess)
?
(C)
Count(ess)
?
(CP) Crown
Prince(ss)
Your / His / Her Royal Highness
(D) Duke /
Duchess
Your Grace
(K)
King
Your Majesty, or, Your Royal Majesty
(L) Lord /
Lady
My Lord / My Lady
(P)
Prince(ss)
Your / His / Her Highness
(Q)
Queen
Your Majesty, or, Your Royal Majesty
Royalty is obtained through being a decendent of the royal blood line.
Rank is determined by the number of generations removed from the origin
of the Fey. The first royal generation consisted of Aileron by himself.
His children are Princes or Princesses. Their children, his
grandchildren, are Dukes and Duchesses. Aileron's great grandchildren
are Counts and Countesses. And his great great grandchildren are Barons
and Baronesses.
Thus far, it does not seem to be necessary to be full-blooded fey; at
least, Princess Morgana is only 3/4 fey, and she is still a Princess.
However, in addition to these titlings, there is the matter of the
ruling King and Queen. To be one of the two rulers, one must be a
full-blooded fey, be in the earliest generation for which fullblooded
members of one's gender are still alive, and be the eldest of these.
Oberon is the only (thus eldest) living full-blooded male in the second
generation, and there are none in any earlier generations, therefore he
is the King. Mab is (currently) the only (thus eldest) living
full-blooded female in the third generation, and there are none in any
earlier generations, therefore she is the Queen. Rulers are titled by
their ruling rank rather than their generation rank.
The heirs to the rulers are determined in the same way: each heir is
the person who would be ruler, by the same laws, if the current ruler
was not alive. Beliard is the eldest living full-blooded male in the
third generation, and there is only Oberon in any earlier generations,
therefore he is Oberon's heir. Titania is the eldest living
full-blooded female in the fourth generation, and there is (currently)
only Mab in any earlier generations, therefore she is Mab's heir.
It is customary to title heirs as Crown Prince and Crown Princess
rather than by their generation rank.
If Oberon should happen to have a full-blooded female child, that child
would immediately become the Crown Princess, displacing Titania,
because although much younger than Titania, she would be third
generation to Titania's fourth.
NOTES:
[1] Aileron was the first
king. Before him Faerie did not exist. He had four wives, in the
indicated order.
[2] Charis is a very powerful
mage who is still alive, active in Faerie. She is the sister of Charen.
[3] Beliard is the oldest
male in the third generation. Aileron
is dead, and Oberon is
the only surviving male in the second generation, thus Beliard is the heir. He is amicable
with Mab, and hostile with Oberon and Aubrey. He is the liege of Lord Ashter. He made Gillian a Lady.
[4] Melissande is the liege
of the bard, Lord Alrich.
[5] Oberen is the current
king. He is the only surviving male of the second generation. The DM
did not list his mates or children. He is very close to his nephew Aubrey, and hostile with Mab and Beliard.
[6] Aubrey is the second in
line for the kingship, being the second eldest male of the third
generation. This may be part of the cause of the hostility between him
and Beliard. He is rumored,
both in Faerie and in Cynaria, to have visited Cynaria long enough to
marry one of the royal house, and Cynarian legend has it that this fey
blood in the royal line has kept the rulers long-lived and immune to
senility up until the last king (Mor).
He is very close to his uncle, Oberon.
[7] Gloriana was the first
queen. As the first female in the royal family, she became queen as
soon as she was born. She died while giving birth to Mab.
[8] Charen is a powerful mage
who is still alive and active in Faerie. He is the brother of Charis.
[9] Mab is the current queen.
She is on good terms with her daughter, Titania, amicable with Beliard, and hostile towards Oberon. From comments about her
taking successive lovers, and always doting on the children, Tarva
presumes that there are other matings and offspring than this tree
shows. The youngest two are still crib-sized. At her court are: Lady Dulciana, a powerful mage; Lord Ealdwine, the court bard; Lord Suffex, the court healer; Lady Dawn (see Beliard on tree); and
Titania (see [10]).
[10] Titania is the oldest
female of the fourth generation. Appareantly this makes her the heir
and Crown Princess. If Tarva understands things correctly, this means
that none of Oberon's "many"
offspring are both female and full-blooded fey. Titania is currently on good terms
with her mother, and is staying at her court. Her companions include Lady Allissandre, her best friend,
and Lord Virren, her current
lover.
[11] Fenella was only half
fey, the other half being human. This means that none of her offspring
or descendents can inherit.
[12] Morgana is a second
generation female, and thus would have the queenship before Mab, except
that Morgana is not a full blooded fey. This has created quite a lot of
bitterness. She does not appear to be actively attempting to "correct"
this fault, but may be applying covert strateqies in that direction.
The DM did not list her mates or children. All of the offspring, of
course, are only part fey. Morgana, and her offspring, associate with
humans more than most fey do, and some of her mates may have been
humans. She is a powerful mage. One of her offspring is a Math druid
(!).
[13] While Meleen was
pregnant with Melissande,
Gillian saved her life.
[14] Isella has had many
lovers, trying to have children, but has not been successful.
[15] The Epona Paladin died while in Faerie -- is his soul trapped here?
[16] Merlin was going to take
Gillian home; did take Prince Hal
home.
[17] Tabetha is a human mage.
[18] Teran is a Math druid.
[19] Ariel is one of the
children raised by Gillian. She is also next in line to the throne
after Princess Titania.
[20] Princess (later Queen of Cynaria) Susannah
Eillona Regan married Duke Aubrey
in 22,742 (Second Age) while he was living in Albion. He brought
two of the children, one from each set of triplets, back to Faerie with
him, after promising that they would be raised properly by Cynarian
standards; thus the interest on Duke Aubrey's
part in having Gillian, and later Prince Hal, at his court. The other four
children and their mother have been dead more than 25,000 years back in
Albion.
[21] Cristant is presumably
the true heir to the throne of Cynaria. She is one of the children
raised by Gillian. She could use Prince Hal's sword, and thus is presumably
a good.
[22] Tammis is one of the
children raised by Gillian.
January 19, 1988
Melian 20, 3023 (cont)
Tarva had a talk with Gillian, who did know all about Feys not having
souls, but hadn't considered the aspect of any of them deciding to be
insulted by a supposedly implied attitude of superiority (as expressed
by her title) on our part because we do have them. We then talked about
leadership, and Gillian agreed that she had been remiss, and that she
would do better. She explained that she had been distracted by
worring over what danger she was leading the group into, simply by
being herself here in this place where appearantly she had been
before. But. then she reflected that this was no different than
in Cynaria, You mean the demon, asked Tarva.
Oh, no, the demon was only a minor problem (! shock on Tarva's
part). The Goddess of Undead has it in for druids of the Healing
God. and there are all sorts of undead running around Cynaria, all of
whom will home in on a Dioncecht druid like bears to honey. Some
of the more powerful ones might even have been explicitly targeted at
Gillian. (great) Tarva thinks she's right: this is not more dangerous.
Whew! She hadn't heard about that aspect of our quest. "Hi, we
have a demon after us and the Goddess of the Undead is sending her
minions to trash our leader; want to join?" is not quite the way it was
put to her. But Gillian also agrees that the dwarf had been
getting out of hand, and had been endangering the rest of us, and
promised to deal with it. Then Tarva suggested that Lord Auster
seemed very nice, and open, and willing to help, and maybe Gillian
ought to explain to him everything she could about her problems with
her memory.
Gillian does go talk to Lord Auster, asking him about proper court
protocol,, finds out that we'll never reach the court if we don't have
him, or someone, to guide us, and then tells him that the rest of her
name, the part he can only almost remember, is "Gillian the Lost".
That, he recognises in a flash. His entire manner changes.
He starts calling Gillian, "Lady", and explains that he was at Her
Highness Queen Mab's court when it happened, but of course he has heard
the ballads:
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Beliard's favorite couchmate, Lady Meleen, was pregnant, with his
first child when she was attacked by assassins. She managed to
get away and hide, but was bleeding to death. The assassins knew
she was in the cave somewhere, and just caused a landslide to cover the
mouth and left. Then Lady Gillian appeared out of nowhere and
heard the cries for help. There are several versions here: one
has Lady Gillian waving her hands ana making the landslide go away; one
has her digging for three days until she could finally get a hand in to
Lady Meleen (but Lord Auster has no idea why that would be important or
useful); and another has her calling on her weird power source [god],
who teleported the victim out of the cave. Anyway, Lady Gillian
stopped the bleeding and saved her life. Then, more versions:
either Lady Gillian turned into a bird and flew for help; or she turned
them both into birds and helped Lady Meleen fly home; or she sent a
unicorn for help. And His Royal Highness Crown Prince Beliard
made Gillian a Lady out of gratitude. Then Lady Gillian
spent a lot of time at His Royal Highness Crown Prince Beliard's
court, and also, later, time at the court of His Grace Duke
Aubrey.
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Beliard's daughter, Her Grace Duchess
Mellisande, the one whose bard, Lord Alrich, bowed to Lady Gillian, was
born shortly thereafter. So, from this we, or at least Lady
Gillian, ought to be in real good with Her Grace Duchess Mellisssande,
and probably with His Royal Highness Crown Prince Beliard, and
therefore ought to have some in with Her Majesty Queen Mab. On
the other hand, the assassins, and their instigator, probably aren't
too pleased,, And somehow there is still the stay at His Grace
Duke Aubrey's to take into account. Plus, at course, while this
is tons more information than we had before, it is still second-hand,
and probably lacking all sorts of key points. Tarva thinks a
visit to the court of His Royal Highness Crown Prince Beliard is in
order.
So Lady Gillian comes back and informs the group of all of this, and
apologises for being a poor leader recently, and passes out commands of
how people should behave during our visit to court. Then we go
into the woods, immediately get lost, and follow our guide, who seems
to be making decisions on which way to go every few yards, following no
discernable path, or blazes, or anything Tarva can notice, even though
she is concentrating on it. She does notice, and so does everyone
else, a feeling of being watched. For Tarva, there's nothing
hostile about the feeling; but for the others, especially for the
dwarf, there certainly is.
Eventually we reach a cleaning, full of brightly colored illuminated
globes floating near the tree limbs, singing, dancing, and an armed
troup which surrounds us until Lord Auster manages introductions.
His group goes away, someone who speaks Cynarian meets us, is confused
by Lady Gillian's ignorance, and escorts us to places to stay: one for
Lady Gillian and a second, several minutes away for the rest of us.
The rest of the evening is filled with pleasantries in preparation for
the banquet: Tarva asks if it is possible to obtain a suitable gown
(she certainly doesn't own anything except the clothes on her back),
and some of the others follow suit. Lady Gillian gets the
(almost) royal treatment with five servants, the rest of us have one to
share. We are escorted to a bathing pond, which Tarva, at least,
is in sore need of.
Sir Feldspar seems to have a nudity taboo. He went to the bathing
pond fully dressed, then wrapped himself up in his cloak whil taking
his clothes off. These contortions attracted much
attention. Then, in a fit of bravo, he flung open the cloak,
yelled, "All right, then. Go ahead; look!" and ran into the pond with
such a yell that the guard came runnng to see what monster was
attacking. Naturally, the fey didn't understand a single word
that Sir Feldspar had said.
A servant comes to Lady Gillian and says that Her Royal Highness Crown
Princess Titania would like to see her, now, and that if she wishes she
may bring any one companion.
January 26, 1988
Melian 20, 3023 (cont.)
Gillian chose Tarva to accompany her to visit Her Royal Highness Crown
Princess Titania. It wasn't a very useful audience. Tarva didn't say
anything. Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Titania asked Lady Gillian
several questions, never invited any in return. Said she's heard that
Lady Gillian has lost her rank insignia. Lady Gillian explains about
not having any memory of the first visit, and of not having the rank
insignia when she reappeared in Albion. Pity, says Her Highness, then
you don't remember what it looked like, so you can't have a mage locate
it for you. She wants to know what Lady Gillian has heard about her
past visit; does not volunteer anything of what she herself knows or
has heard. Talks flirtatiously about Lord Auster and complains that
mother (Her Majesty Queen Mab) has been closeted with him all day (a
slight exaggeration as we've only been here an hour or two). Is very
interested in the rare silk Lady Gillian's dress is made of. And that's
about it. .
Tarva returns to Lady Gillian's "room" with her, where we find Erlend, waiting for her. Erlend was
the servant assigned to take charge of our entire group. He appears
rather embarrassed, and asks if he can speak to Lady Gillian, with or
without Tarva, alone. Gets approval and dismisses the rest of the
servants. Tarva offers to leave, but Lady Gillian tells her to stay.
Erland is very embarrassed.
He explains that the fey are not very familiar with dwarvish customs,
and do not want to offend, but that they are very worried, because of
the display at the bathing pool, with him deliberately drawing
attention to himself through his initial contortions, then using his
cloak as a backdrop to display himself, then loudly issuing some
command to the assembled fey, and finally throwing himself into the
pond with a shriek. And several of the fey are worried that failure to
meet his demand to be serviced might result in his getting violent,
and, honestly, none of the females are at all attracted to him.
Erlend is bright red.
Lady Gillian is starting out to be apologetic, but Tarva cuts in and
asks for permission to explain what happened, since she was there.
Tarva then weaves this elaborate fabrication (after all, she is a
storyteller) describing how it is that dwarves, who live underground --
small digression with details on living in caverns -- are racially
afraid of water, because in an underground hall there is no away to
avoid drowning if the water does flood the place. And therefore it was
an act of extreme courage for Sir Feldspar to enter the water, which he
did only because we insisted he take a bath as proper preparation for
the banquet. And all the actions Erlend had described were the
dwarf psyching himself up.
Erlend is very impressed with this, and asks that we tell the dwarf
that, as far as they are concerned, there is no need for the dwarf to
do any more bathing; and he, Erlend, will inform those interested of
the dwarf's bravery.
Lady Gillian's servants are concerned that she had nothing pretty to
wear. They allowed as how her special silk dress was made of nice
material, but didn't like the plain design (necessary attire for all
holy servants). With her permission, they borrow her travelling habit
to use as a model for making compromise clothing which would match both
their sensibilities.
At Lady Gillian's request Erlend guides us back to the other dwelling,
where Lady Gillian has a private talk with us before the banquet.
Erlend had time to compliment Sir Feldspar on his courage, which
confuses Sir Feldspar greatly. However once we are all alone Tarva
explains how the fey had interpreted his actions, and how she had
"corrected" their understanding. Lady Gillian assures him that no
more baths will be necessary. She then asks all of us to try to find
out about anything we can during conversations during the
banquet. And she pulls out a circlet and gives it to Alexander
with the instructions to wear it, use it to find out things, and learn
how to use it.
Erlend took us to the clearing for the banquet. Pointed out several
important people up on a small hill at one edge. Her Majesty Queen Mab
was there, with a cradle for twins rocking in a near-by tree with the
new Counts Tammerlane and Mabon in it. The Lady Dawn in attendance to Her
Majesty Queen Mab, Lady Dawn also being His Highness Crown Prince
Beliard's wife for his second daughter, Countess Linadel. Lady Dulciana, who is a powerful
mage. Lord Ealdwine, the court
bard. Lord Suffex, the court
healer. Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Titania, attended by her best
friend Lady Allissandre, and
her current paramour Lord Virren.
It is a very friendly party,
and various people come up to meet individuals in our group. One pretty
redhead takes Hoss off to the side for a "language" lesson.
Alexander has several -- six or seven -- lovelies hovering around him;
he is polite but uninterested.
Moonara and Kaleb are so obviously interested in each other that they
are left alone. Three handsome men named Finn, Sorrel, and Herron take Tarva off for dancing,
drinking, and so forth. Tarva thinks that Sorrel and Herron are fey
while Finn is Phonecian: Sorrel and Herron have fingers all the same
length (a frequent fey attribute), can't speak with Tarva, and have
"fey-sounding" names, while Finn does speak Phonecian, has a
Phonecian-sounding name, and has different length fingers. Also, Sorrel
and Herron have above normal human stats for Comeliness, Charisma, and
Voice, while Finn's are "merely" high in the human range. Several Lords
are politely vying for lady Gillian's attention; but while she is happy
to dance with them, it is clear that she is interested in nothing
further.
Lord Ealdwine, the bard, then sings one of the Ballads of Gillian the
Lost. Erlend maintains a whispered, "it won't do justice to the
original", translation for us. The only difference from what we
had heard before is that the assassin was also a bad magician -- "like
Morgana's breed" -- who called down the landslide by magic; that
Gillian heard the call for help across the worlds and gated herself in;
that Gillian used good magic to remove the rubble; and that she called
up a fire-breathing steed to carry them back to His Royal Highness
Crown Prince Beliard's. [Tarva comments quietly on the fey making no
point at all about the most remarkable part of that event: Gillian the
Lost being able to go unerringly straight to His Royal Highness Crown
Prince Beliard's castle on the first try, when she had never been there
before.] Everyone is staring at lady Gillian by the time the ballad is
over.
Eventually Her Majesty Queen Mab decides to leave and gathers up her
entourage -- which, by the way, includes the Lord Auster who led us to
the court, and who used to be her lover -- and makes a grand
processional around the clearing, stopping to speak to people here and
there. She stops adjacent to Lady Gillian and nods to her. Lady
Gillian nods back. Her Majesty Queen Mab then goes to Tarva,
holds her under the chin, tilts her face several directions, and
says, "Who are you, child?"
Split-second decision time. Lying to royalty is probably very bad.
Tarva says, "I am Tarva Streamside, daughter of Terrance and Laicy
Streamside of Bard, Cynaria."
"That is in Albion?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Which Fey were you descended from?"
"I don't know, Your Majesty."
"When you find out, you must be sure and tell me. I am interested
in these things."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
And then she and her entourage moved on and left. When Her Majesty
Queen Mab was speaking with Tarva, it seemed that none of the group
could understand what she (the Queen) said, but all of us could
understand what she meant. That is, we all heard gibberish but obtained
the meaning anyway, each in our native language.
Melian 21, 3023
The next day a page finds Tarva and announces that Her Majesty Queen
Mab requests her presence, if Lady Gillian does not need her. They
check with Lady Gillian, then go to a clearing where there are several
silk tents. Tarva is put to work helping to pack Her Majesty Queen
Mab's belongings, in preparation for the trooping. Anytime Her Majesty
Queen Mab addresses people in general, Tarva can understand her
also. Private conversations are different. Every once in a while Her
Majesty Queen Mab will give something to one of the helpers, declaring
that it isn't needed for some reason or another. To Tarva she gives a
blue velvet gown with embroidered roses, and matching sash, stating
that "blue is not my color". It is way too long for Tarva (5'7"
vs 6'2"), but can be hemmed up. Tarva also receives a crystal
vial of perfume which smells like the unfamiliar but lovely flowers the
group had passed in the woods on the way to the court.
While Tarva is busy with this, Erlend is talking with Lady Gillian. He
has to report to Lady Gillian that the robe borrowed yesterday is
missing: it must have gotten lost somehow during the wild caverting
after the banquet. Her Majesty Queen Mab has been informed, and has had
the servants punished, but has also granted permission for Lady Gillian
to punish them further, if she wishes. Lady Gillian says no. And if
Lady Gillian does not wish to use these servants any longer, that would
be quite understandable, but they are just about the only ones who are
both trained and capable of speaking to Lady Gillian. Lady
Gillian says she would like to keep them, and is declared to be most
generous.
Somehow the conversation turns to the trooping, and Erlend lets slip
that there miqht be a fight. Oh, we must be careful to stay with the
court, or there is no telling where we might end up. And we won't go by
the road, but not exactly cross-country, either; it is hard to explain.
But speculation on his part puts Lord Auster in Her Majesty Queen Mab's
court just now so as to prevent fighting between Her Majesty Queen
Mab's court and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Beliard's court, should
both try to establish their new court at the same place at the end of
the trooping.
Sir Feldspar spent the day talking to the two children, Skip and Rose, that had been assigned to us
because they spoke Cynarian and could help Keldi, the servant assigned to the
rest of the party, with guiding us around. They tell him all sorts of
folktales, mostly cautionary tales to keep them close to home. He
relates all this to Tarva, and she talks to the kids, deciding that
they are changelings from Cynaria (based partly on their knowing the
language, and partly on the style of the folktales that they are
repeating for her when she asks them to), and that Skip remembers a
little bit of his life before here.
Tarva asks Alerander to write a sentence in Pennoch without telling her
what it says. She then tries to read it, but unlike the mile post and
the necklace, she gets no sudden flash of understanding. Shucks. After
dinner we go back to the group's lodging place. There is no party
tonight: people are too busy getting ready for the trooping (and last
nights' was to honor Lord Auster -- and, of course, Lady Gillian). Lady
Gillian asks the fey to leave for a while; Sir Feldspar goes out with
the kids to keep them company.
Alexander and Moonara try some more Loreing of magical
items. Alexander
Lores the ornate
longbow as being +2 to hit, and with an extra 100 feet in the long
distance part of its range. That is, while ordinary longbows are 1' -
150' close range (+1 to hit), 151' - 300' medium range (no
modifications), 301' - 450' long range (-1 to hit); this bow has the
last part (only) changed to: 301' - 550'. Neat. Of course it's not
Tarva's bow (yet).
They then try the rank insignia necklace we also took from Lord Fenel
but although Alerander successfully Lores it, he gets
nothing. However, after succeeding with the longbow, he and Moonara are
fairly sure this meerly means that it isn't magic. Then he tries and
fails on a gold ring (also obtained from Lord Fenel). Moonara tries on
it and it is a ring of Demon Detection, 60' radius, wearer must
concentrate one round.
None of that needed to have the fey around. But what Lady Gillian did
next certainly didn't. She told Alexander to put on the coronet and
locate her missing robe, using the god symbol as a focusing object. It
showed Alexander a whole procession of such robes back through the
ages, but not Lady Gillian's present missing robe. Lady Gillian also
asked Alerander to try to see Albion, and Alexander is going to work on
that.
NOTES:
1) Tarva hasn't asked, so she doesn't
know what the coronet is, although she does gather it is only useable
by mages. She is really curious about that coronet.
2) I donrt know who is getting more
surprises: Tarva or Lady Gillian. Well. actually I do know. Since Tarva
is such a new character, everything is a surprise, and therefore almost
nothing is. Whereas Gillian has been around for a long time and
thought she knew herself. Thus everything about Lady Gillian comes as
quite a surprise.
3) Since Lady Gillian has not yet
told anyone else the gist of that conversation (with Erland),
Tarva can't react to any of it, but I do include it here. One, I think
the robe nas been taken to teach Gillian's scent to some monster. Two,
I think Lady Gillian should have called all the servants in and healed
them. And I can't say anything.
4) Lady Gillian didn't follow up on
this conversation about the trooping with any of the obvious questions,
like: how often have there been such fights? how serious are the
fights; are they all-out to the death of one side, or ritualized with
set rules and formats and definitions of win and lose? (assuming there
is still a court) what does the losing court do/go? How does Lord
Auster being at the court of Her Majesty Queen Mab prevent a fight:
does it mean that if there is a conflict. one of the courts will
automatically back down? Which one (1 presume it would be His Royal
Highness Crown Prince Beliard who went elsewhere (if that's what
'backing down' means)? Or will the presence of one of His Royal
Highness Crown Prince Beliard's Royal retainers in the court of Her
Majesty Queen Nab [I'm getting real tired of typing all those titles
every time; I hope it's good practice] somehow prevent the two courts
from even trying to end up at the same place (sort of like 'like'
charges repelling)?]
5) 1 was sure they had done the
elaborate longbow Tarva is carrying before, but David and Nancy said
no, so who am I to argue?
6) Why hasn't Lady Gillian followed
up on who might be able to put someone like Lord Fenel up to something
like that ambush? Surely it is now time to start finding out
which cliques are composed of what nobles, so we can anticipate future
attacks.
February 2, 1988
Melian 22
The first thing that happened is that Tarva was chastised for causing
Skip to have nightmares through recalling his previous life. So
she said she wouldn't do it again. Quiet preparations and naps all day
for the trooping.
We all gather in the clearing and those lighted globes are hovering
overhead. Her Majesty Queen Nab wanders over to a tree, plucks a leaf,
says something (probably magical), blows it out of her palm, and then
proceeds to follow it. A long procession forms up after her. By
the time we get in it, we can no longer see the front of the line.
There is much singing, and a timelessness to the proceedings, such that
one moment it seems like only five minutes since we started, and the
next we remember how many long epics have been sung. At one point
we can see a lot of bright flames off in the distance: must be another
trooping. We don't come close.
For a while we are following the border between a very thick, heavily
overgrown section of the forest and the park-like section next to it:
large trees, widely spaced, no underbrush, overspreading canopes.
Suddenly, with no noise, a monster bursts out of the thick woods and
rushes at Lady Gillian. No noise means just that: a Sphere of Silence
surrounds the beast. Lady Gillian is bit (for 4d6) and knocked down.
Those in back of her saw, while those immediately in front noticed one
of the trees which had been knocked down. Eventually, as they
become aware of it, various group members, and a few fey, go to Lady
Gillian's aid. Keldi appearantly has an inate ability, because she
steps up to the monster and, with the touch of her hand, Burns it.
Oh, the monster. About as tall as a pony, massive, cloven hooves, no
eyes, long snout ending in a shallow dish-shaped depression filled with
crocodile teeth, wide shoulders, long thin muscular tail, red foam
dripping from mouth, about 10' long. Erlend runs about 50' away and
unlimbers his bow. Two other fey nearby who are armed, one with spear
and one with rapier, move in to help; the rest all run away: poof,
gone. All either Far-Traveling or properly hiding (Fade into Scenery)
almost
instantly.
Now that it has knocked her down, it is trying to both bite and trample
Lady Gillian each round. Alexander, unable to use magic inside the
circle of quiet, runs out of it, dragging Tarva with him. She doesn't
recognize the beast. He casts Strength on her while
she gets her bow
out. The monster whacks one of the fey to the head with its tail. Lady
Gillian finally remembers that she is a druid, and therefore has inate
abilities as well as spells, and Shape-Changes to her
sacred animal
form, a raccoon, which has a much better armor class. Tarva manages to
get two different arrows into its head, but only for 1 and 2 points
respectively. Shucks. Kaleb criticals on it from the side and
disembowels it: 44 points of damage immediately and 7 per round from
blood loss thereafter. Then Sir Feldspar hits it for 14 to the head and
kills it. Just in time: Lady Gillian was down 98 out of 100.
The Silence spell
is still in effect, however. This is strange, since
if it was an attribute of the beast, it should have halted with its
death. Lady Gillian gets out of the Silence and Heals herself.
She offers to Heal the
injured fey, Kinnan,
and he isn't sure that her magic is one he wants to subject himself to.
He is perfectly willing to have a Faith Healer work on
him, however, so
Tarva does what she can. He finally decides to let Lady Gillian Heal
him also, which she does.
Lady Rhevana, the fey with the
rapier, speaks with Lady Gillian, using Erlend as a translater. She
thinks Lady Gillian has some enemies, and explains that the monster is
a Borisen, but it was acting
very unusually. First, they hunt in packs, but this is a single
one. Second, they hunt by scent, and since this one picked out
Lady Gillian and attacked her directly, it would seem that someone had
given it Lady Gillian's "scent", a combination of smell and psychic
id. Third, they aren't usually any problem because they can be
heard far away, being very noisy and clumsy beasts, but this one was
silenced. Fourth, the red foam doesn't usually appear until they
have been savaging their prey for some time, yet this one was foaming
from when it first appeared. And, putting all these together, she
thinks Lady Gillian has an enemy. Lady Gillian agrees.
While this is happening, Sir Feldspar is hacking away at the body of
the beast, hoping to find an artifact which would explain the silence.
Moonara tried to cast a Dispell
Magic on the Silence,
and it didn't
work. As she's 14th level, that's a pretty good indication that
somebody fairly powerful is after Lady Gillian.
Her Royal Highness Princess Titania rides up with a very protective
bodyguard. She finds out what happened, then goes over to the borisen,
stares at it for about ten minutes, and slowly the earth opens up,
absorbs the beast, and grows together again. Then she rides off. The
trooping resumes, only this time there are a lot more armed guards
around Lady Gillian's party, and all the children have been chased away.
Towards dawn we arrive at the top of a mountain, although appearantly
without doing any uphill hiking. There is a depression at the top, a
valley with streams, grass, lots of black rocks. Very few trees,
houses, some holes in the rocks which look like they might lead to
underground rooms. This is the Black Tor. Almost everyone
goes to sleep immediately. Some of the fey are checking for boobytraps
possibly left behind by the last court.
Melian 23, 3023
The next day they find lodgings for us: two adjacent rooms, one for
Lady Gillian and one for the rest of us. That night there is another
festival, if anything more boisterous than the last one. Everyone
seems to be fairly pleased with the trooping, although they had been
very nervous when first appearing at the mountain top, slightly less so
when they found nobody else there, and not relieved until they had
chanted a Magic Circle
into place. The royal party is situated against
a cliff face during the feast. Her Majesty Queen Mab is quite intent on
Lord Auster, who will be returning to his liege His Royal Highness
Crown Prince Belierd soon.
Lord Ealdwine, the bard, comes forward with a ballad of the fight with
the borisen, with all the details as if he had been there, but making
it sound like it took ten times as long as it did. Much glory for the
valient fighters Kaleb and Sir Feldspar. Later, upon command, he brings
out a special harp case and sets up a harp made of ferrelwood, inlaid
with lapis lazuli, sapphires, and jet, with the neck carved into the
likeness of a handsome, black-haired, grey-eyed man. Her Majesty
Queen Mab comes out and touches it, and it plays the most beautiful
music anyone has ever heard. All by itself. After that the party
starts getting really wild. Tarva manages to claim Ealdwine for the
night.
Melian 24, 3023
The next day is a Dioncecht span day, so Lady Gillian is diligent about
prayers that morning. Tarva was not there at the break of dawn, but
will come ask for special prayers later in the day. Lady Gillian then
hunted up Erlend to ask about a True Well -- there is none here. Next
Lady Gillian wants to talk to a mage about restoring memory, and about
ways to cause memory loss. Erlend arranges for her to see Lady
Dulciana, the court mage.
Tarva had:
6,178
role playing (previous
run):
370
hit:
borisen for 18 hp at 75 ep/hp = 1,350
faith
healing:
50
----------
8,248
NOTES:
1) How does Lord Auster know where to
go (to find his liege lord)?
2) Tarva will talk to Lord Ealdwine
after they wake up in the morning.
3) The lack of a Well means that
Tarva, at least, is going to do some traveling, as she intends to be at
one by the next full Queen's moon.
4) Well, my predictions about the
missing robe seem to be dead on target.
5) I'm a little concerned about
Erlend now, because he was almost flippant with Lady Gillian, and while
that might be an aftermath of the previous night's revels, it might
also indicate an official change of policy towards us. and not one for
the better. I'll hope not. and try to watch for it.
February 9, 1988
Melian 24, 3023 (cont.)
Tarva's sojourn with Lord Ealdwine proved moderately useful. He
speaks Phonecian. We discussed songs, which Tarva knows a lot of
in Phonecian. Tarva directed the talk off into creation myths and
he related several from other places. Faerie, however, does not
have creation myths: first there was Aileron, then there was Faerie,
then everyone else. Not that Aileron was the "father of his
country", mind you, having only had five kids. Perhaps one of the
elder fay would remember hearing about the beginning from Aileron.
There will be plenty of time to find them and learn. People don't
age here. That's an attractive thought, says Tarva. Others
have thought so. Lots of visitors have simply stayed on. Is
Tarva planning to stay? Tarva doesn't know, it depends on her
family. Ah, yes, and who is her family? Tarva doesn't know
yet; Lord Auster recommended talking with a Keeper of the Well.
Good idea, although the Well itself has more to do with it. Is
there a well here? No, but there was one back in Brocelieon,
before the trooping. Yes, but it requires the Queen's moon to be
full, she had heard, and the only one of those since we got here was
the double full moon of the trooping.
Ah, he hadn't known about that requirement, though he had heard that
the Well usage depended on phases of the moons, changes in the road,
etc. How does the road change? He doesn't know that,
Nobody does. If Tarva finds out, tell him and they'll make a
fortune, No, she meant, in what ways does the road change?
Well, it doesn't change width, and it doesn't change in composition,
but everything else is variable. At times it goes faster or
slower or even backwards, and where it goes to changes. Or maybe
it is the road is always there, but the places change around, Do
the Wells change around? No, but where they are sometimes
do. He's not really very sure about any of this.
They discuss gates. He thinks it's too late to just appear back
at the same instant they left [implying that a short sojourn (or
perhaps one with no trooping) would automatically return one with no
time passage in the outside world], but now we'll have to find someone
who can control the gates to put us back when we want. Do the
gates move around, or are they like the wells? Neither.
They don't actually exist anywhere. Someone who can gate can take
you to a gate, if one exists, and then send you through it. Or so
he's heard. Tarva gets him to teach her some fey songs, which she
can memorise even if she doesn't know what the lyrics mean.
Meanwhile, Alexander is sculpturing (in some rock he found) while Keldi
poses for him. Since she is posing nude, this draws an
appreciative (of her, not the statue) crowd, He tries to pump
her, about the borisen and about Lord Fenel, but she claims ignorance.
Lady Gillian has asked for an interview with a mage, and this afternoon
she has one with Lady Dulciana, the court mage. When she gets
there she finds out that Vine, who has been helping to guide Lady
Gillian around, is Lady Dulciana' s daughter. Lady Gillian asks
about Wells, Lady Dulciana comments that usually Wells are gone
to by single people; she was at one with a group, but only because the
purpose was to certify that Her Majesty Queen Mab's latest brats were
fullblood, and therefore could inherit. Thinks to herself outloud
that that was about the time the brats' father disappeared, and maybe
he was the price, Wells have a price? Oh, yes. Or, at
least the Well Keepers do. And it doesn't do any good to go
looking for a Well. You have to arrange with a Well Keeper to be
escorted to one. On the subject of Lady Gillian's memory, Lady
Dulciana is much less helpful. Could be any of several ways that
the memory was lost; without any hints of who, where, or what, no way
to determine how. Probably can't get it back without knowing
that, either.
Lady Dulciana and Lady Gillian don't share any languages, so Erlend was
there to translate. While he is guiding her back, they are
intercepted by Lady Rhevana. She has the kid Skip along and,
after dismissing Erlend, uses the boy to translate. She wants
Lady Gillian to know that whenever Lady Gillian does discover who sent
the borisen, Lady Rhevana will help Lady Gillian with her
revenge. Whoever silenced a borisen was endangering all fey, and
therefore deserves to die; but even more so whoever sent the borisen
near Lady Rhevana really deserves to die.
At supper that night, Lady Gillian tells the group about her dress
being missing, and about the servants being punished for it.
Tarva wants to know if they were hurt. Lady Gillian doesn't know,
so Tarva, probably with much rudeness, bluntly asks first Keldi (no)
then Erlend (yes) if they had been punished. Asks Erlend if he
has been hurt. He effectively tells her to butt out.
Lady Gillian goes on to start talking about her discussion with Lady
Dulciana. Gets to the bit about the price of the Well, and
announces that it is anything from someone's life on down. Tarva
is shocked, Erlend is surprised, doesn't know where Lady Gillian heard
that (appearantly doesn't draw the same conclusion [even though he had
to translate it] that Lady Gillian did from Lady Dulciana' s musings
over the "brats' father"), but has a different opinion of the price:
grandfather's best ring, or a week's servitude, or something like
that. He thinks it is usually a capricious choice. Lady
Gillian does not get as far as explaining about having to make an
appointment with the Keeper because she is interrupted by new events.
A female fey is escorted to Her Majesty Queen Mab by two armed
guards. Her Majesty Queen Mab seems very unpleased to see
her. The entire banquet has gotten very quiet. Erlend and
Keldi are whispering to each other and paying very close attention to
what is being said. Tarva asks Erlend who this is, He says it is
the Countess Ariel, one of the
three middle chi1dren of Duke Aubrey, and hush. Countess
Ariel finishes her audience with Her Majesty Queen Mab and starts,
still escorted, towards the food tables.
Then she sees Lady Gillian, Her entire face lights up and she
runs to Lady Gillian and hugs her, chattering rapidly in fey. Her
Majesty Queen Mab starts at this and begins to get up, but Lord Auster
(!) reaches out a hand and shakes the babys' cradle, causing them to
cry, and Her Majesty Queen Mab to instantly turn to them
instead. Very sly trick, that. Tarva has an even higher
opinion of Lord Auster.
Countess Ariel is drawing back at Lady Gillian's lack of response. She
now says something quizzical, probably about isn't Lady Gillian glad to
see her? Lady Gillian responds, in Cynarian, that she's sorry but
she can't understand her. Countess Ariel switches to
Cynarian. Lady Gillian explains about her lack of memory.
Countess
Ariel becomes noticably cooler. But she does stay with us for
supper, and then spends the night with Lady Gillian.
Several things get discussed between them that night. The
silenced borisen and missing dress. Countess Ariel seems to think
Her Majesty Queen Mab is a likely suspect. The missing rank
necklace. Countess Ariel thinks daddy can locate it. Why
Lady Gillian left the way she did: His Grace Duke Aubrey had asked for
one of Her Highness Princess Morgana's clan (specifially, His Grace
Duke Merlin) to help Lady Gillian return to Albion, and then Lady
Gillian was just gone. They had always wondered why.
Countess Ariel is the oldest of the three children Lady Gillian
(should) know. Brother Count
Tammis and sister Countess
Cristant. Countess Ariel is the next in line for the Queenship
after Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Titania. His Grace Duke
Aubrey's court is at Rath Haraede. Countess Ariel was Far-Traveling to see who
was courting at what spots; appearantly this
happens after every trooping, and the hostilities are kept in check --
sort of a diplomatic immunity -- during a grace period.
Countess Ariel will be going back home as soon as she can: 24 hours.
She is planning to gather up a mage from daddy's court and come back
for us. She can't carry anyone while Far-Traveling.
Lady
Gillian spent much time at His Grace Duke Aubrey's court, raising the
three children. Countess Ariel does not think much of Lady
Gillian's initial rescue of Mellissande; probably because of the
annimosity between her father's court and His Royal Highness Prince
Beliard's. Thinks there are plenty of other reasons for someone to want
to bump Lady Gillian off.
Also after supper, away from the fey -- Elrend and Kyla are now keeping
far away from us -- Tarva asks Alexander about the circlet. Made
by Gwydion, an ancient mage of
Brynara (of which Cynaria is the only surviving part). Prince of
Don,
and a member of the race of the Children of Don (well, that makes
sense). Found in a cave by Gillian, Kaleb, Colin, and
Jeffrey. It was in a cave in Cynaria, put there by Lynly Fire Eyes (famous, another of
the Children of Don; there are songs about her that Tarva knows).
There is a curse on it; or, more accurately, "was''. Tarva
didn't learn what the curse was, or how they got rid of it. They
had to defeat several servants of the Dark Lady to get it. It
can't be lored, but seems to be a Circlet of Memory. Can give the
wearer memories of anything or anyone that was seen while the circlet
was worn, by anyone. Goes back ages. It also trace things
it has seen (Alexander is fuzzy on this). It has an unknown gem
mounted in it.
The mages do some more Loring
of gathered loot. A dagger from
fighters back in our world turns out to be +1 to hit. After much
discussion, the other fighters disdain to use such a small weapon, so
Tarva has it also. At least she is dexterous enought to parry
with it while striking with her longsword; so if her shield runs out of
points she can switch. Tarva feels kinda strange carrying both
the magical weapons that have been found so far, what with being the
newest member of the group and all, but oh well.
NOTES
1) At some point, remind Lady
Gillian that she was in the middle of telling Tarva about Wells; and
what she had learned from Lady Dulciana, so Tarva can learn about
appointments being necessary.
February 23, 1988
Melian 24, 3023 (cont.)
There was a marvelous thunderstorm somewhat after midnight. It woke
most everybody up. Sir Feldspar tramped through the rain to make sure
Lady Gillian was ok, then came back and dripped everywhere. Tarva took
care of Skip and Rose while he was gone, but after he came back, and
dried, they went to him -- perhaps because Tarva likes lightning and
kept saying, "Ohhh! wassn' t that a nice close one," rather than
anything truely comforting.
In the other house Vine was terror striken. After she calmed Vine down,
Lady Gillian noticed that Countess Ariel hadn't stirred at all. So she
went to investigate and found the Countess unconscious, burning up,
barely breathing, and with her throat swollen nearly to the size of her
head. A detect spell indicated poison, of a type with a fey name that
Gillian didn't recognize. A neutralize poison spell took care of the
danger.
After Countess Ariel woke up, Lady Gillian explained what had happened.
Countess Ariel is very impressed with how Lady Gillian's powers have
grown. Vine is terrified and sure she has been poisoned also. After the
rain lets up, Lady Gillian sends Vine for Moonara, Sir Feldspar, and
Tarva, then has Vine go back to the other house. Lady Gillian
then explains what happened. We conclude that the poison, which must be
administered through eating or drinking, was probably doped into the
fruit in Lady Gillian's house. Tarva volunteers to eat one to see if
the rest are poisoned, but is turned down. Tarva points out that the
symptoms, throat swelling and poor breath, are perfect for keeping a
magic user from rescuing herself, and the general concensus is that the
attack was intended for Lady Gillian, and not for Countess Ariel [plus,
the curse on murderers of the Royal Family would surely strike anyone
who was responsible for her death, so it is doubtful that anyone would
try that anyway].
It doesn't seem safe to stay in Her Majesty Queen Mab's court. The
question is how to leave. Properly, we should ask permission.
However, the chances are that she would not grant it: especially after
she hears that Lady Gillian can prevent death by poisoning -- an
unheard of ability here. Also, Lady Gillian is concerned that Tarva may
also be considered a valuable commodity, since she can also do healing.
So, the decision is to leave without asking first. How, asks Tarva.
Countess Ariel will call "daddy", who will send a court mage, Lady Shauvan, who will teleport them
to his Grace Duke Aubrey's court. Only, it will have to be done
before the guards return to "escort" Countess Ariel (they left when the
deluge started), or before the court starts stirring.
And then there is the question of who is going? Lady Gillian's party,
of course. But the servant Keldi and the three kids will get in trouble
if they let Lady Gillian and the rest of us go. Countess Ariel offers
to sleep them (she's a mage), but Lady Gillian won't run the
infintestimal risk that they might not be wakeable. There's also the
risk that they might try to stop us, or raise an alarm. Lady Gillian
decides to take them with us. Ah, says Tarva, we can't nap them, so
instead we're going to 'nap them. Countess Ariel liked the pun even if
nobody else did.
It also gives Tarva an idea, and she asks Lady Gillian if we can sleep
anyone we're taking with us, cause Countess Ariel can 100% wake anyone
she herself sleeps. Aha, that is ok. Tarva doesn't mention the
possibility that we might be interrupted after sleeping them and before
Countess Ariel can get away. Vine, however, as the daughter of the
court mage here, should not be taken. And therefore can't be slept.
Tarva and Sir Feldspar start back to the other house. Tarva tells Vine
that Lady Gillian wants her, then asks Sir Feldspar to take the other
kids outside to play. Tarva then tells everyone else (our party plus
the servant Keldi) that Countess Ariel was poisoned, that Lady Gillian
saved her, and that Lady Gillian wants to check us and all our
belongings, and we should all go over to her lodging, taking all our
stuff, and don't alarm the kids. Meanwhile, Lady Gillian has sent Vine
off on an errend.
So we gather it up and go over, and Countess Ariel casts a sleep spell
and gets Keldi, Skip, and Rose, but Tarva saves. The situation is then
explained, Countess Ariel contacts her father, and we sit around
nervously until Lady Shauvan appears. With Countess Ariel translating,
she arranges us into groups and teleports us to Rath Havande, where His Grace Duke
Aubrey is courting.
After everyone arrives, the 20+ guards relax and Count Tammis comes
dashing up to hug Lady Gillian. Excited chatter about what Lady Gillian
doesn't remember of when she took care of him and his siblings.
Assignment of rooms: a suite for Lady Gillian, a smaller suite for Sir
Feldspar, a separate room for Moonara and Kaleth, a separate room for
Tarva, and a separate room for Alexander and Hoss. Keldi's, Skip's, and
Rose's sleeping bodies are taken off elsewhere.
Melian 25, 3023
We all gather for breakfast, Count Tammis making sure that everyone has
an escort -- he is Lady Gillian's. Tarva's is named Lord Corby. Halfway through
breakfast Countess Cristant comes running in and hugs Lady Gillian and
we have a repeat of the memory loss explanation and the introductions
of the companions. Count Tammis comments that Alexander looks like Prince Hal, are they related?
It turns out that these fey know Prince Hal because after Lady Gillian
disappeared from His Grace Duke Aubrey's court, he went looking for
another Dioncecht holy servant to continue raising them and found
Prince Hal. He also has mysteriously vanished (as Lady Gillian did),
but he left his sword behind. This is probably his holy sword, and not
something he would abandon voluntarily. Oh: he went back to Albion
"normally". He said he needed to return there to learn new spells, and
His Grace Duke Aubrey arranged for His Grace Duke Merlin to gate him
through. And indeed His Grace Duke Merlin did take Prince Hal to a
Dioncecht temple -- somewhere, in some woods. But when His Grace Duke
Merlin went to meet him, at the arranged time and place, he wasn't
there. In fact, the temple had been completely demolished. While
looking for magic (a hobby of His Grace Duke Merlin's), he found the
repository for weapons (weapons are not allowed in a Dioncecht temple,
except by special invitation), and in it was Prince Hal's. So he
brought it back and gave it to His Grace Duke Aubrey.
Yet again before breakfast is over there is an interruption. This time
everyone stands as Duke Aubrey comes into the hall. Another repeat of
memory loss and introductions. He kisses Moonara's hand; comments on
Alexander's resemblence to Prince Hal; and kisses Tarva's hand, then
give her another kiss in her palm. Lady Gillian asks to see, after
breakfast, Prince Hal's sword.
NOTES
1) There is a well here.
Presumably Lady Gillian will tell Tarva this. Otherwise. Tarva will ask
about the nearest and find out for herself.
2) Not that there's been a chance,
but Lady Gillian still hasn't finished telling Tarva about the well
requirements: particularly about needing an appointment with the Keeper.
3) Prince Hal. This is the closest
anyone has come to having a clue about the disappearances of the heirs.
We need to talk to His Grace Duke Merlin and find out where that
Dioncecht temple was, then plan to investigate it.
4) Cynarian rulers. Lady Gillian's
job, mostly, I suspect, but she has to talk them -- especially Countess
Cristant, who as eldest is almost certainly the heir to the throne --
into coming back to Cynaria and staying there, and then talking His
Grace Duke Aubrey into letting them go.
5) Children of Don. Perhaps Alexander
can use the circlet to see if there are any here in Faerie. In
particular, Alexander told Tarva that the circlet can show the present
location of any still-living person it has previously been keyed to, as
long as that person is on the same plane. And the last view it had of
its maker, Gwydion, was him going into a mound of earth -- highly
similar to entering a sidhe, which is one way to get into Faerie.
6) Prince Hal's sword is probably a
holy sword. Perhaps it can talk, or communicate telepathically or
empathically. Perhaps it knows more about Prince Hal's disappearance.
and could tell us if we asked it. Tarva needs to make sure she touches
it first; partly because she's a worshiper of Dioncecht, and while Lady
Gillian is one also, of course, and a holy servant besides, Tarva is
also a fighter, which the sword might feel more comfortable being
handled by. And more importantly, if anyone who wants Lady Gillian out
of the way somehow has access to the sword, they could well have
expected her to be very interested in it, and booby-trapped it. and far
better Tarva should set such a trap off than Lady Gillian.
March 22, 1988
Melian 25, 3023 (cont.)
Tarva and Lord Corby flirted quietly with each other, and thus managed
to avoid the generous helpings of foot-in-mouth being served up.
Alexander asked His Grace Duke Aubrey about the badge-of-office Lady
Gillian had had last time around, and that Countess Ariel had said it
was magic, so maybe His Grace could locate it? His Grace Duke Aubrey
looks surprised and asks Countess Ariel how she had known it was magic?
A bright red blush, and about a minute of sputtering, but no
answer. He says he will see her this afternoon. And he tells
Alexander he will search for Lady Gillian's necklace when he has a
chance.
Then Sir Feldspar gets into the act, saying things in strange ways,
asking nosy questions, and coming close to insulting several
people. He asks His Grace Duke Aubrey if Lady Gillian and
Countess Ariel could be excused, since they had a rough night. His
Grace undoubtedly thought it was somewhat out of place for Sir Feldspar
to be asking this for his lady, rather than letting her make her own
wishes known; and certainly considered it rude for a guest to be making
decisions for his daughter. But he was very restrained in his reply,
merely reminding Lady Gillian that she was free to ask for anything she
wanted. Lady Gillian and Countess Ariel did indeed leave, and Count
Tammis got up to escort Lady Gillian to her rooms.
His Grace Duke Aubrey asked Tarva who her fey ancestor was, if it
wasn't a secret. And she told him that currently it was a secret to her
also. But that she had been told that the Keeper of a Well could find
out about her family for her. He agrees. Is there a Well here? Yes,
well, not "here", but nearby. And she had been told that she needed to
come to the Well on a night when the Queen's moon was full. He agrees
with this information also. Is there anyone at His Grace's court who
can tell when the Queen's moon will next be full? Ah, now that is a
good question. Most likely Tarva can do as good a job as anyone else of
watching it get bigger and bigger each night, and guessing for herself
when it will be full.
Sir Feldspar broke in here, asking some questions which were moderately
relevant, if not put the way Tarva would have preferred them to be. But
then somehow the conversation drifted off into the possibility of the
moon never making it to full: either going only partway before
beginning to shrink again, or else "skipping" over fullness. Tarva is
not at all worried about this.
Eventually she gets control of the converation again and asks
about getting in touch with the Keeper. His Grace Duke Aubrey explains
that Keepers don't tend to socialize with the courts.
There is another interruption from Sir Feldspar here, leading to a
digression on fey who do not troop, but stay in one place all the time.
His Grace Duke Aubrey, returning to Tarva's implied questions, goes on
to explain that the Keepers seem to know -- he doesn't know how -- when
someone has need of their services, and that prior arrangements are not
necessary. Also, he says that things get somewhat wild and uncertain
around Wells. Noticing Tarva's look of incredulity, he expands on this
to note that while visitors might consider all of Faerie to be somewhat
wild, even the fey felt that way around Wells. Shortly after this His
Grace Duke Aubrey also left.
Countess Christant invited everyone to go on a walk with her -- outside
in the woods. A rath, we found out, is a completely underground castle.
Sir Feldspar accepted, then, shortly afterwards, asked permission to be
excused. Countess Christant was looking ready to be insulted when
Alexander reminded Sir Feldspar that they were shortly going on a walk,
and was he planning to be gone long? Obviously, Sir Feldspar had
forgotten about the invite, but recovered and indicated he would return
quickly. All he did was go down to Lady Gillian's rooms and stand
around outside for a while.
Kaleb made some misspoken remark which Moonara thought was insulting,
then Hoss said something in reference to it which seemed to cinch the
case that it was an insult. Now, feeling insulted, Moonara asked to be
excused and left the room. However, Mandacity jumped up into her seat
and glared at Kaleb and Hoss. Tarva asked to be excused so as to dress
more appropriately for a walk in the woods, and while changing checked
to see that Moonara is ok. Cattily, the two of them discussed the men
in the party, much to their players' embarassment. Outside, we walked
along for a couple of miles, then are jumped by three cockatrices. One
on Countess Christant, one on Hoss, and one on Tarva. Kaleb had seen
them coming and already gotten his sword out.
The first round one scratched Hoss while he was drawing his sword, but
Kaleb is next to him and criticaled and did 60 points of damage,
killing it for 31. The second round the one on the Countess turned on
Sir Feldspar instead, and managed to scratch him. He doesn't save, and
is turned to stone. However, strikes being simultaneous, he hits also,
for 15 points, to the head, so they're worth 90, killing it for 32.
Meanwhile Tarva has gotten out her sword and dagger and is using the
latter to parry. It managed to hit her anyway, but she does save. She
hits back for a mere 3 points to the body, and is teased for not
killing it with one blow like the other fighter. Next round it attacked
her escort, Lord Corby, and he saved. He does 4 points and Tarva does
10. Alexander came up and cast strength on Tarva at the beginning of
the final round. It attacked Tarva again, but she does parry its blow,
then hit back for 14 to the head, killing it for 45.
Kaleb went off to where he saw the cockatrices come from and discovered
a nest. Three eggs (Countess Christant said cockatrice eggs are a
delicacy), a small round crystal thing, a silver pen in the shape of a
feather, and a gold ring with blue gem.
Meanwhile we have this statue. Countess Christant calls her daddy, and
the court mage (Lady Shauvan) shows up with a packet of His Grace Duke
Aubrey's stone to flesh dust. Tarva bandages up wounds and we all walk
back to the castle.
Gillian is still napping, watched over by Count Tammis. Sir Feldspar
goes into his rooms and finds that the sleeping fey and children we
kidnapped have been taken from it. In a black humour, he goes in and
announces to Alexander and Hoss that he is going to look for them.
Trailing him into the hallway, they loudly try to talk him out of it,
but to no avail. The commotion wakes Lady Gillian, but by the time
Count Tammis checks there is no-one in the hall.
At lunch Sir Feldspar comes in late, and then demands (!) to know what
happened to the children. Countesses Ariel and Cristant are both there,
and both deny any knowledge of events related to the slept persons.
Countess Cristant offers the theory that her father had expressed a
desire to see them before they were woken; but refuses to consider Sir
Feldspar's "request" that she interrupt him to ask.
Countess Ariel says she has not yet woken them. She gets up to leave,
and Alexander intercepts her and offers apologies for getting her into
trouble. She takes him along for a more private discussion. Lord Corby
invites Tarva for a (presumably private) tour of the castle, and she
accepts. Kaleb and Moonara go off to make up. This leaves Hoss and Sir
Feldspar (Countess Cristant having also gone off on other duties). Sir
Feldspar, mother-henning all the way, decides that he hasn't seen Lady
Gillian in much too long, and worries that she has disappeared along
with the children. With Hoss muttering doubts behind him, Sir Feldspar
goes back to Lady Gillian's door and knocks on it. A female fey
answers; they don't have any languages in common.
So Sir Feldspar at the door is trying to communicate with this female
fey, with whom he has no common languages, that he must see Lady
Gillian. She, of course, has instructions to see that Lady Gillian is
not disturbed. Eventually, she tries to close the door, and Sir
Feldspar throws it open and barges in. Of course, she screams.
Count Tammis had ordered lunch brought in for himself and Lady Gillian.
Now he springs up and, drawing his sword, enters the sitting room from
where he and Lady Gillian were eating. There is about to be a major
ruccus, Sir Feldspar seeing a naked sword, except that Lady Gillian
enters right behind Count Tammis and begins to calm things down. When
Sir Feldspar sees Lady Gillian, asks her if she's all right, and is
told yes, he begins to calm down himself. Lady Gillian sees the bandage
on Hoss's face, goes over, heals him, heals Sir Feldspar, asks what
happened, gets by way of an answer that Sir Feldspar wishes to see her
in his rooms next door as soon as is convenient for her. Lady Gillian
uses her druid ability to detect "unhealth" and finds one other person
within range who was hurt. Sir Feldspar allows as how Lord Corby and
Tarva were both also hurt. Lady Gillian decides that it would be
politer to not go barging in on Tarva -- that if Tarva had been
concerned then she would have sought out Lady Gillian on her own. Count
Tammis says something about rudeness not being the complete rule... Sir
Feldspar withdraws while offering repeated apologies, still without
having described the cockatrice attack OR the missing children.
Tarva
had:
8,248
role playing (previous
run):
200
hit: cockatrice for 58
points at 26 ep/hp = 1,160
faith
healing:
50
----------
9,658
NOTES
1) Tarva needs to go out each night
and see how the moon is doing.
2) Sir Feldspar is likely to get
himself thrown out or killed or something, if he keeps up this
appearance of calculated insults to nobility. I guess Tarva will
have to talk to him -- especially after she hears about his encounter
with Count Tammis -- if Lady Gillian continues to not want to.
3) We still need to investigate His
Majesty Prince Hal, Hand of Dioncecht's holy sword.
4) Tarva wonders what cockatrice live
on. It doesn't seem reasonable for them to be carnivours: pretty
much anything they hunted down and killed would turn to stone before
they could eat it. Hummm. it probably doesn't affect dead flesh, so
they could be carrion eaters, perhaps, but Tarva would vote for
herbivores.
5) Moonara saved out the magical
parts from the ones we killed. I think they can be used to make more
stone to flesh dust. It's clear to Tarva, even though nobody else
has mentioned it, that we owe His Grace Duke Aubrey one shot of such.
April 4, 1988
Melian 25, 3023 (cont.)
Tarva spent the entire time being kept close company by Lord Corby.
Countess Ariel latched onto Alexander, except for the brief time she
had to spend with her father, explaining to him how she came to know
that Lady Gillian's rank necklace had been magic. Moonara and
Kaleb spent most of the morning making up from their row at
breakfast. Count Tammis stayed with Lady Gillian. And Hoss
stayed with Sir Feldspar. who was impatiently waiting for Lady Gillian
to come see him.
While waiting, he inspects his room and finds a secret door, leading to
a passageway which runs off in both directions. He determines
that at least one of the other doors in the passageway (not hidden from
that side) leads to another room of the group (Hoss and Alexander's),
and sees some peepholes, but they are set too high for him to see in.
He shows Hoss the passageway also.
Lady Gillian comes back and starts telling the group to dress
especially nice for dinner. Sir Feldspar complains about the long
time it has taken her to respond to a request for a discussion, then
tells her the slept children and maid are missing,. She isn't
very concerned,, or else his attitude has upset her. Anyway, he
doesn't get around to telling her about the secret passageway.
Dinner that night is a festival in honor of Lady Gillian. She and
all her party are seated on the dais with the upper crust. We
meet the court healer, Lacly Holly,
and the court bard, Lady Evadrie
as well as His Grace Duke Aubrey's current favorite, Lady Sorria. After-dinner
there is a dance, from which couples split off gradually. Same
couples as mentioned above, except that some sweet young thing catches
Hoss, and Count Tammis merely escorts Lady Gillian back to her suite.
Sir Feldspar, being the only dwarf in the entire country, ends up alone.
Melian 26, 3023
But he doesn't stay that way,. When he wakes up in the morning,
there is a 125 pound feline lying across his feet. When he starts
to move, it playfully digs its claws through the covers. He tries
petting it and it gets more playful. Next he throws the blankets
over its head, pushes it off the foot of the bed onto the floor, and
makes a break for .the door, grabbing his sword on the way. The
feline catches him at the door and starts to do serious damage.
He bops it once with his fist on the nose, which does not discourage it
in the least. Next he tries to subdue it with his sword, but
rolls a critical and disembowels it. Next round it bleeds to
death. It shreaked when it attacked, and now Sir Feldspar is also
yelling. All the rest of us come running in. Countess Ariel
turns white, gathers up Alexander, and splits. Then Lord Corby
does the same thing with Tarva, Lady Gillian sends for Count Tammis,
who also turns white and explains that he thinks this is the special
pet (familiar?) of Her Highness Princess Morgana, and he'll stay here
to try to explain to his "aunt" how this disasterous event came about.
NOTES
1) Why did the cat show up at
all?
2) Why did it show up in Sir
Feldspar's room, the one person in our party with no experience with
pets, who could be predicted to try to kill it (Tarva would not have
expected him to try to subdue)?
April 12, 1988
Melian 26, 3023 (cont.)
A few steps down the hall however, Lord Corby decided that, having been
in the room with the dead cat at all., it was better for us to still be
there, rather than have the dwarf vouch for our uninvolvement. So
back we went. Countess Ariel and Alexander had obviously come to
the same conclusion, for they also returned. Tarva arranged us
near Lady Gillian, so that she might do some defending if it came to
that.
Then His Grace Duke Aubrey teleported in with Countess Ariel and
Alexander. He sees the cat, asks pointed questions, then falls
silent as Her Highness Princess Morgana teleports in along with Lady Milicent, one of her best
friends and another high level mage.
Immediately Sir Feldspar, who to this point had not relinquished his
sword, lays it in front of him and goes to both knees, saying that he
alone is to blame for the tragedy at hand. His Grace Duke Aubrey
and everyone else has also gone to their knees: all the rest of our
party following suit just as fast as they can. Her Highness
Princess Morgana tells us all to rise, and we do, carefully in rank
order, except the dwarf. She then tells him to get up: he's too
far down at best, without kneeling.
Then she plays cat&mouse with Sir Feldspar. She asks him for
his version of what happened. Asks if anyone else saw it, and
Alexander reports what he saw through using the circlet. She then
reports on what she saw (no explanation given as to how), which is
roughly the same thing, but from a very different viewpoint, with
motivations and conotations added in by conjecture as if they were fact
(and worded so as to make it impossible to immediately unweave the
conjectures from the facts, thus making it also impossible to defend
against the conjectures), and making large (and dark, sinister) points
out. of each minor discrepency in the relating of the stories.
She taunts Sir Feldspar (more cat&mouse) by demanding that he
answer her and defend himself, then, if he does speak, accusing him of
trying to cowardly excuse himself. Sir Feldspar kept his temper
admirably.
Her Highness Princess Morgana reached down and touched a finger to the
gaping wound in her cat, then reached out towards Sir Feldspar. He did
not try to dodge. She cast a spell, spending two rounds at it,
drawing her finger in a bloody circle around his forehead the entire
time. The only results any of us could see is that his horns
turned hot pink and had curlicue designs on them.
During all this time, when Her Highness Princess Morgana spoke, it was
as if each person heard her in their own native tongue. Her
Majesty Queen Mab had the same ability. Now she said something to
Lady Milicent, and we did not understand. She then told Sir
Feldspar to leave and wait in the hallway. His Grace Duke Aubrey
yelled at him as he started to go, commanding him to bow to his betters
before he left. Sir Feldspar did this, carefully getting the rank
order correct. One of the guards went out with him.
Her Highness Princess Morgana then questioned other people, starting
with His Grace Duke Aubrey, about how the dwarf had ended up here, what
else he had done of a suspicious nature (several references to his lack
of social graces), and what had happened at Her Majesty Queen Mab's
court. The main question seemed to be, had Lady Gillian had
anyone in her company the entire time we were there? to which the
answer was, "no".
Lady Milicent then told us in Cynarian that Her Highness Princess
Morgana wanted to be alone. So we all filed out into the hallway.
Lady Milicent asked Lady Gillian to introduce her other party members,
that being Alexander and Tarva, just then. Tarva got to go through once
more the not knowing who her fey family is, yet. Tarva holds onto
Lord Corby's hand quite tightly. Tarva could just barely hear,
through the door to Sir Feldspar's suite, the sound of weeping.
His Grace Duke Aubrey and Lady Milicent have a long conversation in
fey. Tarva can tell that Lady Milicent is feeling worried and sad, and
His Grace Duke Aubrey is feeling angry and sad. Dragging Lord
Corby with her, Tarva goes to talk to Lady Gillian, trying to see how
she can help her. Not much.
His Grace Duke Aubrey offered Lady Gillian a choice. If Her
Highness Princess Morgana left the disposal of the dwarf up to him,
then he would let Lady Gillian choose between imprisonment, or released
to her on her word, and with her being immediately and personally
responsible to answer for any further actions of the dwarf's. Of
course, Lady Gillian choose the latter.
About ten minutes later the door opens from the inside. Those who
are in position can see that there is no longer any body on the floor.
Her Highness Princess Morgana announces that she expects to see us all
at breakfast, then leaves on the arm of His Grace Duke Aubrey, followed
by Lady Milicent. Count Tammis stays behind to advises Lady
Gillian on what she needs to do with the dwarf, considering that she
has given her word.
Since we are expected at breakfast, Tarva drags Lord Corby away to go
freshen up. She stops at the door across the hall from her room
to roust out Moonara and Kaleb, give them warning about the meal and
who will be there, and a very brief synopsis of the events. Then,
in her room, she warns Lord Corby that, of all the party, she (Tarva)
had the most contact with the nobility at Her Majesty Queen Mab's
court, and even spent several hours away from the rest of the group
working directly for Her Majesty Queen Mab. Tarva thought Lord
Corby ought to know, just in case there was a witchhunt and he needed
to disassociate himself.
About this time Hoss shows back up and is dragged into their room by
Alexander, who tells him what happened, then wants to know about the
secret passages. Hoss won't tell, because Sir Feldspar told him
not to, until Lady Gillian is also dragged into the conversation.
So off we all go to breakfast. The personal servant attending on
Duke Aubrey is the maid we kidnapped from Her Majesty Queen Mab's
court, Keldi. She seems to be pointedly ignoring us. Her
Highness Princess Morgana wants to be introduced to all of Lady
Gillian's party. Then, naturally, she wants to know who Tarva's
fey family is. From the wording of her questions, it is fairly obvious
that she could tell Tarva a lot more about the Well and the Keeper and
.the Moons, probably even to exactly how many more nights it would be
until it is full again. But Tarva won't do anything more than
state her ignorance; she won't come out and ask questions of Her
Highness. Information which does fall says that the Well here is
probably the only one that Tarva could reach in time; and there were
conotations that it would only be a few more days.
Lady Gillian volunteers the knowledge of Sir Feldspar's investigations
of the secret door and passages, and Her Highness makes much of this —
conjecturing that there cannot be an innocent reason for this
behaviour, and appearantly trying to prove that Sir Feldspar was send
to His Grace Duke Aubrey's court from Her Majesty Queen Mab's court
for the explicit purpose of killing Her Highness Princess Morgana's
cat. And indeed much is made by Her Highness Princess Morgana
about guests who search for secret doors, explore the secret
passageways thus revealed,, do not share this information with the
leader, and command other member(s) (Hoss) to likewise keep it
secret. At a hint from Her Highness Princess Morgana, His Grace
Duke Aubrey looks vague for a moment, then announces that if the dwarf
tries to leave his room (presumably meaning by the secret door) that he
will be in for a nasty shock.
Oh, Sir Feldspar did not accompany us to breakfast. Wisely, he
determined, and Lady Gillian and Count Tammis concurred, that the
general invitation did not include him. He has been left in a
small (same size as Tarva's) room with, at Lady Gillian's request, an
armed guard outside. His possessions, after being searched and
weapons removed, will be brought to him later, as will breakfast and
beddings, a washbowl, etc.
NOTES
1) Tarva is going to try to
defuse her situation by volunteering the information that she is the
person most likely to have been booby-trapped, due to her greater
proximity, while away from other group members, to the nobility of Her
Majesty Queen Mab's court.
April 19, 1988
Melian 26, 3023 (cont.)
Tarva goes up to His Grace Duke Aubrey immediately after breakfast and
announces that if he is concerned about people being charmed or
possessed or whatever while at Her Majesty Queen Mab's court, well
Tarva was, as far as she knows, the one of the group who had the most
contact with nobility there, a lot of it when nobody else was around,
and therefore she is probably the one most likely to be booby-trapped.
Her Highness Princess Morgana tells Lady Shauvan to play guard to
Tarva, and requests Tarva to have Lady Gillian gather all her party in
or near their rooms until called for. Lord Corby goes with us also.
Which is nice, since Lady Shauvan doesn't speak any of our languages.
Several of us gather in one of Lady Gillian's sitting rooms. Tarva
takes advantage of the enforced idle time to ask questions she has been
saving up since she first stumbled onto this group (less than nine days
ago!). She gets incredibly vague answers, but patiently listens to each
one, then goes back to ask her original question again, modified by the
little bit of information she did receive. The result of all this is
that Tarva now knows a lot more (but not all) than she did about Lady
Gillian's quest.
Like: what is the quest all
about? Lady Gillian is very worried about the state of her
home country of Cynaria (in this she is hardly alone), and wants to do
something to restore peace and the rightful rulers to the country. She
has a prophecy:
Seven Cantreds, Seven Torcs,
Seven Noble Lines
Sevenscore and Seventy
And Seven passed by Time
Children in the weedlots
The Blood amid the dirt
Playing but not winning
Flesh stony but unhurt
Secluded in the Hollow Hill
Feeding with the kine
Soulbound to the tallest spire
Unknowing of the Signs.
Illatari
Shadowed
holding The
Ring upon
Tuatha
Don
fanged one's
home a hand of peace
passing days
never
daylight
A Seashell
that have not gone: pierces
dome:
for the God:
I am sunshine
I hold
strong
I the Torc
under
ground
against the wind
of sunbright gold
I am deaf
I am
mankind
I the blade
but to the sound
bound
within
of might untold
In the Tomb of looked-for hope
The Wand and Ring She keeps
Cursed be thief and sinner feckless
Where the hallowed woman sleeps
Walking mountain twist the high ways
Misting airs conceal the low
The One between the Two is hidden
Where the unlead cannot go
The Sky can show the Pathway
The Song can ope' the Door
The Stave can stay the Cursing
The Children wake once more
A sacrifice on Cynis's Height
To raise the land with God-touched might
A peaceful torc awash with red
A deadly hate with loving fed
A blade uplifted o'er the flood
And Unity of Land and Blood
From this prophecy Lady Gillian has gleaned a list of quest items,
which, she hopes, will enable her to restore the country. There was a
previous group working on fulfilling the prophecy, lead by Dame Aowyn.
What happened to the last
quest? They had found most of the quest items, but then
lost them as a result of the blundering caused by Liriel the Simple's
misuse of a wish ring. Tarva is astonished to find out that The Lay of Liriel the Simple and the Ring
of Power, which she learned back in Tiran, is directly related
to Lady Gillian's current actions. Lady Gillian went off on a tangent
wondering if it might be possible to leave Feyland in such a way as to
arrive at the spot that Dame Aowyn's group was wished from, at such a
time as to be waiting (sort of in ambush) to recover the items just as
soon as the wish took effect.
What quest items do we have?
None.
Where had the group just
been, and why? From Avery, a town with a neutral coven of
Math worshipers, for the purpose of finding out more about the circlet.
Where is the group trying to
go, and why? To the castle, Caer Perevyn where Liriel's wish
ring use had teleported everyone, for the purpose of consulting the
sage (same one as the first group used) and the Child of Don rumored to
live there.
.
Why was the demon so
determined to go after the group? The group had needed to
cross territory claimed by the demon-possessed war lord, so it was a
matter of luck whether or not he would pick up their trail. Once he had
encountered them, however, he was committed to wiping them out so as to
remove any sign of a successful resistance to his control of the region.
What had happened in the
previous encounters with the demon? The previous fights
had ended with Sir Feldspar destroying the demon's host body.
Why had the demon never tried
possessing any of our party before? Perhaps the two other
people along, Jeffrey and Collin, had had something to do with keeping
the demon from possessing anyone in the group: the one was a
warder-specialty mage and the other a druid of Rhiannon, and either one
might have had a spell which would have protected the group from
demonic
possession.
What are the powers of a
demon? How many of them are we battling? How can Tarva keep
from EVER being possessed again? Lady Gillian was very
vague in her answers to all thes questions. Lord Corby, noting
how vague all this was, and how upset Tarva was, suggested to her
quietly that we ask the mage (meaning Moonara).
Next, Tarva wanted to know why, when the first fey recognized Lady
Gillian and asked if she was "Gillian the Lost", Lady Gillian had said
yes. So Gillian went into a rather inconherent rambling story of the
first trip through the mushroom ring (chased by a bear), then
adventuring with Elanor on
quests to take out a temple of the torture goddess and exploring the
northern continent. Something about rescuing a druid of Morrigan. (Tarva thought that
Morrigan, and all her worshipers, had vanished at the end of the First
Age.) And shortly thereafter, when the group was running away
after accomplishing their goal, Lady Gillian fell through a panel in
the wall which was really a one-way portal, and thus they managed to
escape before their enemies caught up, or the entire city was
destroyed, or something; Lady Gillian's getting lost through the portal
and thus saving the group was the fulfillment of a prophecy given to
her by a sibyl much earlier.
Then they call for us to come down to an examination room, leaving
behind all weapons and jewelry. There is some consternation as none of
the Cynarians even considers taking their torc off -- that's not
jewelry or clothing: it's part of them. But reason prevails. We all
troop off, meet Lady Milicent and Lord
Charen. She's going to check us, and he's going to check our
belongings. All are taken to a waiting room except Tarva. On the way
there Moonara manages to go off alone with Lord Charen for a moment --
to tell him about some items she has hidden in her luggage which she
doesn't want to become general knowledge.
Lady Milicent gives Tarva a potion to drink, then has her lie down on a
couch. She asks questions about Tarva's past, and Tarva slowly looses
control of her muscles, her mouth, and her mind.
Meanwhile, in the waiting room, Lady Holly has brought in potions for
Lady Gillian, Hoss, and Kaleb. They are taken out one at a time. Then
potions are brought in for Alexander and Moonara. Eventually we all
wake up in a recovery room, in roughly the order and sequence in which
we were put under. Lady Holly's assistant has wine for us to wash the
bad taste out of our mouths. Lady Gillian doesn't feel well, and
Moonara and Alexander have bad "hangovers". We are escorted back to our
rooms so we can freshen up before dinner. Lord Charen told Lady Gillian
that Her Highness Princess Morgana wished Lady Gillian to accompany him
back to Her Higness's court that evening after dinner. Lady Gillian
agreed.
There are less conversations at dinner than usual. Moonara and
Alexander are just barely pushing their food around on their plates.
Countess Ariel (on the dais) watches Alexander (not on the dais: only
Lady Gillian and Tarva are up there for this meal) with some concern;
then asks Tarva what is wrong with him. Tarva asks Lady Milicent about
the potions we had, and why they seemed to affect different people
differently. Lady Milicent explains that they were used to overcome any
resistances we might have naturally had to the checks they were running
(she used different terms), and that mages had more resistance thus had
to be given a stronger, and thus more side-effecting drug. As indeed
Tarva had to he given a different drug to overcome her part fey nature.
Tarva then hesitantly asked Lady Milicent what the verdict was.
Lady Milicent apologized for not telling us sooner, especially since
she knew it was worrying us, and announced that all of us, and all of
our possessions, were clean. Of course, the dwarf is yet to be
inspected.
Since Lady Gillian is leaving, she -- after much discussion with others
-- puts Tarva in charge while she is gone, and also has Tarva in charge
of making sure that Sir Feldspar gets meals. Tarva gets permission to
drop everything else if the moon becomes full before Lady Gillian
returns. Tarva then tried to ask Count Tammis about how to care for Sir
Feldspar. He hurriedly suggested that we talk about it later.
After supper, Lady Gillian stops by Sir Feldspar's cell a last time to
make sure he will stay there unless she, one of the noble family, or
Lady Milicent sends for him.
After Lady Gillian and Lord Charen teleport out, Count Tammis tells
Tarva that his father no longer considers the dwarf to be a guest, and
thus will not arrange for services for him (other than a guard at his
door). They won't let him starve, of course, but it would be best if
one of Lady Gillian's group were to show up at the kitchen in person,
and ask for the food as if for herself, and not involve the staff in
"knowingly" supporting the dwarf. Lord Corby shows Tarva how to
find the kitchen, introduces her to the staff, makes up some story on
why she might be hungry at odd times (all this in fey, of course), and
walks back with her and a tray to Sir Feldspar's.
NOTES,;
1) Ask Moonara about the demon
attacks, and about protecton from possession.
2) Tarva is going to keep pressing
Lady Gillian for details until she has a reasonably coherent picture,
which Tarva can then turn into a set of stories.
April 26, 1988
Melian 26 (cont.)
Countess Cristant pulls Tarva aside and tells her that Aunt Morgana had
mentioned something about the Queen's moon being full in ten to twelve
days. The countess had noticed that Tarva seemed concerned about this,
and thus thought she would pass on the information. Tarva thanks her
quite sincerely.
Melian 27, 3023
The first day without Lady Gillian around Kaleb and Hoss go outside for
some weapon practice. Tarva gets Lord Corby to help her find a weapon
master who is willing to instruct her in how to use dagger better. When
we meet at supper that night the others hear this and ask for
instructors of their own in weapons they're interested in.
His Grace Duke Aubrey asked Tarva to look at the carvings Sir Feldspar
had done in his room. It was a repeating pattern of Apples of Dioncecht
alternating with Flames of Git. Pretty, but fairly meaningless. His
Grace Duke Aubrey wanted to know what the significance, if any, of the
designs were. Tarva gave her guess that it was intended to indicate a
spirit of cooperation between followers of the Lord of Healing, such as
Lady Gillian, and followers of the Lady of Flames, such as Sir
Feldspar. His Grace Duke Aubrey is apparently satisfied with this,
because he invites all of us to go hunting with him early tomorrow
morning.
That evening Lord Corby takes Tarva out to check on the conditions of
the moon. She repeats to him the estimate given to her by Countess
Cristant from Her Highness Princess Morgana. Lord Corby is very excited
and explains to Tarva that there is a pool lottery for betting on when
the moon will become full. He drags her down to it and they find that
of the three days Countess Cristant indicated would be most likely, two
are still unclaimed. Lord Corby puts jewels on both of them -- Melian
38 and 39 (Melian 40 was already taken), telling Tarva that he'll split
with her since she provided him with the insider information.
Melian 28, 3023
We are rousted up (much too early in Lord Corby's opinion) by pages and
informed it is time to get ready for the hunt. There is nothing
particurally noticable about the hunt: we do not go venturing into
other worlds, and the White Stag is not sighted.
Melian 29, 3023
After a couple of days, which is how long Lady Gillian thought she
would be gone, Hoss becomes concerned that we haven't heard from her.
Melian 30, 3023
We hold a group meeting to discuss this. Tarva is of the opinion that a
Fey's sense of time is so vague as to make nothing of the difference
between a couple of days and a week. However, Hoss is very upset, so
Alexander agrees to ask Countess Ariel if she has heard anything.
However, Alexander points out, Count Tammis is much more likely to have
heard if anyone has, so Tarva agrees to ask him. He (Count Tammis) had
said that any of us could drop in on him if we needed anything.
Alexander asks Countess Ariel and she hasn't heard anything and is not
the least concerned.
Tarva goes to see Count Tammis and he looks very depressed. She starts
by explaining that some people from our world tend to be
watchcandle-watchers, and are concerned because Lady Gillian had said
she would be away two days and it has now been -- and Count Tammis
interjects "four days", making it very clear that he misses her very
much. Tarva asks about the possibility of sending a message to Gillian,
and Count Tammis says that his father would have to do it. Tarva
doesn't think it is worthwhile to bother him.
Somewhere in here Count Tammis gets the impression that we are
concerned about Lady Gillian's absence, and infers that we think that
either Her Highness Princess Morgana's court can't keep her safe, or
that it would actively harm her. Tarva spends quite a bit of effort in
dissuading that notion.
Then Count Tammis begins to suspect that it was the dwarf who put Tarva
up to this question, and is prepared to be very angry, but Tarva can
truthfully say that he was not involved in this discussion at all.
Then, for the first time, she hears about Feldspar's breaking into Lady
Gillian's rooms, and is shocked; which probably helped defuse the
Count's anger.
He says something about being sure that Lady Gillian is thinking about
all her companions: pitifully obviously excluding himself. So Tarva
tells him that it is none of her business, but it seemed to her that
when Lady Gillian left, the person she most regretted leaving behind
was him. He blushes and looks less miserable.
That night, about three in the morning, Lady Gillian returns. She goes
to Hoss's room and informs him that she's back (and has a hard time
keeping him from yelling, and from racing off to wake everyone else).
The servant she sent off to inform His Grace Duke Aubrey returns to say
that he is not disturbable, but that Count Tammis will be along
momentarily.
Melian 31, 3023
Early in the morning Hoss comes bounding around to wake us all up and
tell us that Gillian is back. Only, his roommate, Alexander, is at
Countess Ariel's, so he can't tell him. Kaleb and Moonara are dallying
outside, so nobody answers at their door. Hoss does tell Sir Feldspar.
And then he gets to Tarva's door and wakes her and Lord Corby up. He is
bubbling over with excitment and rather miffed that Tarva doesn't share
this with him.
Later, shortly before breakfast, Lady Gillian is (reluntantly) awakened
by her servants, and comes around looking for someone to leave messages
with. Hoss has gone off to the baths, where he runs into Kaleb and
Moonara. So Gillian ends up knocking on Tarva's door also ("If that's
Hoss again ..." says Corby). Tarva welcomes her back, explains (to
Gillian's dismay) that she already knew from Hoss, and agrees to take
Gillian's messages that: a) Gillian is sleeping in this morning and
will not be at breakfast, and b) the entire group is to gather in her
sitting room shortly before lunch. Tarva wants to know if Count Tammis
knows that Gillian is back, and upon being informed that indeed he does
(his visiting with Gillian right after she got back is why she is so
minus on
sleep now), Tarva says that good, then everything is fine. To which
Lady Gillian blushes.
At the meeting in Lady Gillian's rooms we learn that Her Highness
Princess Morgana has done something to restore Lady Gillian's memory.
Not all at once, but as a developing process. So far Lady Gillian has
not remembered anything about the way she left Feyland, nor anything
specific to why she has such determined enemies. She can now speak Fey
again, having learned it last time around.
And she has learned that there is a Child of Don in Feyland. In
fact, the most famous bard of Byrnaria, Taliessin is being held captive in
Her Majesty Queen Mab's court, in the shape of a self-playing harp. The
same one that we heard playing during the festival on the evening after
the trooping.
So now, of course, Lady Gillian wants to rescue him. Lord Charen, Her
Majesty Queen Mab's father, is interested in helping, although it
appears his major motivation is in kidnapping his grandchildren, who he
thinks can be raised much better elsewhere. Lady Gillian wants us to
plan a raid, taking all the time we need in preparation.
The harp is appearantly in the keeping of either Her Majesty Queen Mab,
or of the court bard, Lord Ealdwine, who got very friendly with Tarva.
NOTES
1) Tarva worries that Lady Gillian
may be planning on asking Tarva to make use of that intimacy between
herself and Lord Ealdwine, to which Tarva would have to say "no", even
if it would have made obtaining the harp easier.
May 3, 1988
Melian 31, 3023 (cont.)
The discussion on rescuing the harp continues. We establish that nobody
saw the harp being carried during the trooping, although we did clearly
see the harp case the evening of the festival after the trooping. It's
doubtful that Lord Ealdwine is allowed to keep it (although he
undoubtedly knows where it is kept), so Tarva doesn't have to worry
about being asked to betray her relationship, temporary as it was, with
him. Lady Gillian is not going to make any more plans until after she
talks to Duke Aubrey about this. She doesn't want to even indirectly
involve his court without his support.
That was about all that Lady Gillian was set to tell us, but Moonara
kept asking pointed questions to get Lady Gillian to fill us in. Thus
we learned that her memory is back enough for her to remember learning
Fey, and thus be able to speak it again. And that she did indeed rescue
Lady Meleen, the pregnant couchmate of His Highness Prince Beliard, and
mother of his first daughter, Countess Mellissande, by reaching through
a small crack in the rocks to touch her and cure light wounds. She then
became the immediate first suspect of being the ambush when the
rescue party arrived, until Lady Meleen revived and explained. And Lady
Gillian remembers a lot about raising the children now. But still
nothing about what happened to lead up to her leaving Feyland.
She had asked both Lady Milicent and Lord Charen, and both of them were
of the opinion that it was impossible to gate backwards in time. Tarva
asked her if perhaps her recovering memory had lead her to any
different memories of the time before she entered Feyland: had those
memories perhaps been false, alievating the contradiction by changing
the actual time of her enterance? No: no change there. Then perhaps her
memories of this Elanor person were false, and she really hadn't come
out earlier than she went in? No, those were certainly true memories
also.
And to prove the point Alexander reports on being present when all of
Elanor's party were presented with gifts and thanks for bringing back a
royal heirloom. Lady Gillian is talking a little fuzzily, so Tarva and
Moonara both ask more questions. And finally get this story about a god
artifact, made by Rhiannon, and given to the royal house of Pennoch,
which had been stolden and shape changed (!). Moonara is of the opinion
that itis almost impossible to change the shape of even ordinary
magical items, and for the shape of a God-crafted magical item to
change is (?almost?) beyond belief. Lady Gillian mentions someone named
Lindis in passing, but when
Moonara and Tarva press her on this, she explains flatly, "She's a
friend" --. which pretty well cuts off that line of inquiry.
Lady Gillian says something about having a daily session with Lady
Milicent to determine the extent of her recovery of her memory, and
that this involves being put under with the same drugs as were used for
testing us, and that none of us should be concerned, or become upset, if we are
unable to get in touch with her. She will be out of reach every
afternoon for several hours.
Tarva says that we understand, while she looks pointedly at Hoss. Hoss
is upset by this look and wants to know why Tarva is looking at him
like that. Kaleb interjects that it is because Hoss caused the problems
the last time Lady Gillian was gone, saying it in a way which Hoss
finds insulting and which he reacts to. Tarva interrupts to rephrase
the insinuation in less upsetting terms, apologizes to Hoss for staring
at him in that way, and promises to not do it again.
At supper that night Countess Ariel has managed to get Alexander to the
high table, but Lord Corby and Tarva escape to eat with the others.
Lord Corby suggests a trip outside, sort of a combination
exploration/hike, and the five of us who aren't at the high table --
Lord Corby, Tarva, Moonara, Kaleb, and Hoss -- decide to go on one
tomorrow.
Melian 32, 3023
After a couple of hours of hiking we find half of a dead body in a
small clearing, with obvious tracks at two points in the
clearing. From the footprints, it looks like a giant, and Lord
Corby announces that it entered the clearing from the left, killed the
woman, then exited to the right, all about a day ago. Then a few hours
it ago came back through the clearing in the other direction. Well, we
can't have giants running around terrorizing the population, so we
start after it.
We catch up to it, sleeping in another clearing. Everyone gets all set
to stomp on it, but Tarva insists on waking it up first ("Well, at
least it will be more exciting that way," says Lord Corby). She goes
down to the other end of the clearing and yells, but it doesn't wake
up. So she goes up to it and kicks it in the knee, noticing at the same
time that it is a cyclops. It starts to wake up and the rest of the
group attack it. Various minor pieces of damage are given and received
before it is killed.
We then follow its trail on for another hour, but it seems to be much
longer than that, with no sign of a lair, and it's getting late, so we
head back to the rath. We get there towards the end of lunch, report
what we found, get healed by Lady Gillian, and plan to go out after
lunch to investigate the other direction the cyclops went from the
clearing. Count Tammis is sending someone to recover the upper half of
the woman's body and see if it can be recognized.
Tarva
had:
9,658
roll
playing:
500
roll
playing:
100
roll
playing:
250
roll
playing:
700
hit: cyclops for
31 hp at 32 ep/hp = 992
faith
healing
50
----------
12,250
Tarva made fifth level!
Tarva rolled a 10 on her hit
die, she now has 40 hit points.
She was allowed to raise any
one weapon to the next higher level of
expertise, restricted only by stats, so she is now Master with
longsword.
May 17, 1988
Melian 32, 3023 (cont.)
Tarva does not return to follow the track of the cyclops, but instead
stays behind to attend her afternoon training session in dagger. The
other four -- Hoss, Kaleb, Moonara, and (feeling obligated) Lord Corby
-- did go out and spent a boring afternoon following tracks to nothing.
They got back about supper time. After supper Lady Gillian asked His
Grace Duke Aubrey for an audience and was granted one for right after
breakfast the day after tomorrow.
Alexander is trying to use the circlet to see Taliessin (the
harp-shaped bard) and not succeeding. He comes and finds Tarva to ask
her help. What he wants to know is do any of the stories and folktales
about Taliessin mention him shapechanging -- what he wants to do is
test if the circlet can see Taliessin when he is in a different shape.
Tarva tells him a couple about him taking the shape of a nightingale.
Appearantly the circlet will let him see past pictures of Taliessin as
a nightingale in Albion. But no pictures of him in any form in Faerie.
Tarva suggests he look for the bard and anyone else at Her Majesty
Queen Mab's court. He does, and can see them from times before we left,
but not currently.
He's acting rather depressed, so Tarva takes him back to her room for a
drink, inviting Kaleb and Moonara in on the way. Hoss also drops in.
Lady Gillian finds us all here and announces that she has moved to Sir
Feldspar's old suite so as to allow Lady Milicent to occupy the suite
she had been using. [Count Tammis asked her if she would do this; then
later Lady Milicent thanked her for offering -- sounds like some behind
the scenes diplomacy.]
Lord Corby comes in much later to find Tarva rather lit. She explains
about the party to cheer Alexander up, and Lord Corby announces that it
is not too late for her to cheer him up, also. With much support, she
is able to accompany him outside. Along the way, she gets the notion of
suggesting to Alexander that he follow the actions of any one person at
the Black Tor sequentially from when he can see them up past when we
left the Tor. Unfortunately, she wasn't in the best of shapes for
remembering things, and the thought had slipped away by morning.
Melian 33, 3023
The next day passes, the only things of note being that Tarva asked
Lord Corby to start teaching her the fey language. He explains that he
isn't a tutor, wouldn't be very good at it, but is willing to try.
Also, Lady Gillian asks Tarva to accompany her to visit Duke Aubrey on
the morrow.
Melian 34, 3023
With much help from His Grace Duke Aubrey towards sticking on the
subject, Lady Gillian manages to explain about the harp being the bard
Taliessin and that she wants to rescue him ("nice way of saying
'steal'" comments His Grace), that she is not asking for help from the
Duke, but does want to know if she should attempt it at all while
attached to his court. He says sure, go ahead, but tell him just before
the event so he can beef up defenses, and don't involve his children.
Lady Gillian then asks about Prince Hal's sword. His Grace Duke Aubrey
is very reluntant to have such a high-powered artifact drawn from its
sheath in his rath. Eventually they compromise on having Countess
Christant -- who (unfortunately, says the Duke) can draw and hold it --
communicate with the sword to search for the information Lady Gillian
is hoping for. In response to another question, he will NOT let Lady Gillian take
the sword back to Albion for returning to the royal house of Pennoch.
It is Prince Hal's sword, it is safe here, and if he wants it he can
return for it. Period.
His Grace Duke Aubrey then asks Tarva if she has any questions. She has
one: she explains about Alexander's searching with the circlet, and his
lack of present success, and wonders if Her Majesty Queen Mab could
have put a spell up to block the Black Tor from being spied upon. His
Grace Duke Aubrey thinks this is very unlikely because of the
tremendous energy necessary; thinks it is much more likely that
Alexander doesn't know how to use the circlet yet.
NOTES:
1) Remember to tell Alexander the
idea about following someone at the Black Tor from when he can see
them, at a real-time pace, up past when we left the Tor.
2) Tarva wants Lord Corby to teach
her the language at first; she will probably want to switch to a real
teacher after the visit to the Well.
May 24, 1988
Melian 34, 3023 (cont.)
Lady Gillian had a few more questions for His Grace Duke Aubrey, the
most important of which involved her having met a Lord Raum at Her Highness Princess
Morgana's court who remembers her from the first time around, and who
was born after, and yet is obviously much older than, the Countess
Melissande. And Lady Gillian wants to know if time flows differently in
different parts of Faerie. His Grace Duke Aubrey says yes, and that it
seems to be partially a matter of location, and partly a matter of
personal control (for some people).
At lunch some of the Fey are discussing the fact that the Moonsweet
flowers have bloomed. Curious, Tarva asks about them and learns that
they are very pretty flowers with a powerful and pleasant smell which
bloom very rarely, only at night, and only for two or three nights.
Rumor has it that every hundredth person who goes to admire them will
have a wish granted. So we all plan to go out tonight and try. So,
after dark, a group of us sets out. Alexander is staying behind to rest
from learning his spell (and Countess Ariel is staying with him). The
Group thus consists of Count Tammis escorting Lady Gillian, Tarva
escorted by Lord Corby, Hoss, Kaleb, and Moonara. Tarva wishes that her
voice would become as lovely as that of the court bard, Lady Evadne.
After this trip, about 45 minutes from the rath, we split up into, more
or less, couples. Count Tammis shows Lady Gillian the rose gardens;
Lord Corby takes Tarva off for some lovemaking in a secluded spot he
knows; and Kaleb and Moonara, although interested in the same, are
polite enough to let Hoss tag along for a while: they visit a swimming
pond and skinny dip and horse around for a while before starting back
to the rath.
At the same moment all three parties are attacked by assassins. All of
the assassins are wearing close-fitting black clothes, black soft (thus
quiet) shoes, and black turbans which wrap around their faces exposing
only their eyes.
Coming out of the blackness of the night -- or else fading into vision
with that ability some fey have -- an assassin strikes Lady Gillian
three times, once with a hand axe and twice with a dagger.
She suffers sixteen points of damage from each blow, and has to save
from poison each time. Thereafter she spends each round casting either Neutralize Poison or Delay Poison on herself,
because each round the assassin is striking her again. The body damage
is mounting slowly from the wounds, but at least she manages to roll
her save vs poison every time, else she might not have had a chance to
use magic on herself the next round. And all this in spite of Count
Tammis stepping in and parrying two out of three blows (or trying to,
more accurately) while using his third blow to hit at the assassin. He
is also yelling, and after six rounds they hear voices responding. On
the nineth round the assassin fades away, just before the other fey
arrive.
Meanwhile, as the three of them are walking back from the bathing pond,
Hoss is struck from behind and must save vs poison while Moonara
collapses to the ground. Hoss and Kaleb find themselves confronted by
two assassins, and both accumulate several wounds before they manage to
kill the assassins. When they look to Moonara, they find that she has
suffered a broken neck, and died instantly. Kaleb's reaction to this is
to hack the heads off both bodies of the assassins. Shortly thereafter
Kaleb starts feeling awful (and he had not been offered a chance of a
saving throw when he was hit), so he has Hoss find a vial of universal
poison antidote in Moonara's beltpouch and give it to him. Then he
feels much better. Somewhat later Hoss starts feeling queasy and
eventually collapses.
Also meanwhile, Tarva and Lord Corby had been making love. Luckily they
were not actively engaged in that when attacked, but they were rather
less than well armored. The first sign of trouble is a dirk thrown and
hitting Lord Corby in the back. We get up and draw weapons, and stand
back to back, naked, trying to see anyone. Shortly therafter a second
dirk hits Tarva, but she saves. Noting the direction the dirk came
from, they charge that way for a round then stop, back to back, to look
and listen again. Next round an assassin attacks Tarva with hand club
and kris. She parries the kris once, but the assassin has two strikes
with it and hits her the other time, as does the blow with the club,
and this time she does not save. However, her blow with her longsword
does hits him for ten to the body and kills him for seven. A
round or two later she starts to feel very bad, sits down, tells Lord
Corby, "Sorry, love, I think they got me," and passes out.
Meanwhile, Lady Gillian, once she is no longer under attack,
concentrates on Detecting
Hurt Souled Creatures, which does not include fey, and with
which she has a range of about 1.5 miles. Assuming she is facing north,
she detects someone hurt to the northwest, and two more to the east,
which is the direction of the bathing pond. Count Tammis sends some fey
ahead, then, once she has Healed
herself, accompanies Lady Gillian to the second group. She Heals Kaleb, Neutralizes Poison on
and then Heals Hoss.
Lady Gillian tries to cast a Ressurection spell with
her holy stone, but it doesn't work, so they take Moonara and the two
assassin bodies back to the rath.
Tarva wakes up to find His Grace Duke Aubrey, Lady Milicent, Lady
Salana, and Lady Holly all leaning over her. "Lord Corby?" she asks.
They say he's fine and want to know if anybody else was attacked by
assassins. Tarva doesn't know. His Grace Duke Aubrey and Lady Milicent
split. The two remaining don't speak Cynarian. Tarva asks after Lord
Corby again and is pointed towards another cot. She gets up and goes to
him. He tells her he's fine, but she Faith Heals his dirk
wound anyway. Somehow, he has also picked up wounds (now bandaged) on
his legs. But Lady Holly sends her back to bed before she can ask about
them.
Later she learns (abruptly) that Lord Corby can levitate and "fly"
along the ground, and that he carried her back to the rath that way,
both of them still naked, then went back for their belongings and the
assassin's body, and had to fight off a scavanger for the body.
Appearantly it was quite a sensation when he and Tarva first appeared,
and Lady Evadna is already at work on a song.
When Lady Gillian's group returns to the rath they take Moonara's body
to Lady Gillian's suite and lay it out. Hoss and Kaleb start searching
the bodies, and a runner is sent to the infirmary to ask for Tarva to
come there also. The messenger tries to tell Tarva, but speaking only
fey doesn't get very far.
Lord Corby doesn't even bother to translate; he just tells the
messenger to bring the body and their belongings, then picks Tarva up
in his arms and "flies" down the hallways to the suite. Both still
naked, mind. Appearantly he doesn't mind making a sensation of himself;
or else figures it's too late and he might as well try for a really big
one. Everyone is properly shocked at our appearance, and Lady Gillian
immediately Heals both
of us. Our belongings show up and we get dressed, then Tarva searches
her assassin's body.
There are two rings on the middle fingers of each hand. Somewhat later
Lord Corby will notice a scratch on one of the fingers and find that
one of the rings has a small pin on its inside; possibly a suicide
device. There is also a brooch which pricks Tarva when she takes it
off, but she saves. She tells Lady Gillian that she is afraid she's
been poisoned again. Lady Gillian casts a Diagnostic spell, then
a Neutralize Poison
spell, which keeps Tarva from going into a twelve hour coma.
Early in the morning, before dawn, and accompanied by a HEAVY guard,
Countess Ariel and Alexander also went to the Moonscents to make their
wishes.
Tarva
had:
12,250
roll
playing:
200
hit:
assassin 7 hp at 38 ep/hp
=
266
faith
healing:
50
bonus for encounter with
opponents prepared for
us: 2,500
messing around with
booby-trapped assassin bodies: 250
roll
playing:
250
-----------
15,766
Tarva made sixth level!
Tarva rolled a 6 on her hit
die: she now has 46 hit points. She has an
additional plus to hit from level, for a total of +3.
NOTES:
1) Why were the first blows on Lady
Gillian so powerful? Do assassins have some sort of surprise round
multiplier, perhaps based on level, by which they increase their
damage? [yes] Only Lady Gillian seemed to have this problem. so maybe
only her attacker was high enough level to have this? I'd guess it to
be a 4*regular damage multiplier, based on the damage she took and the
weapons used.
2) Why was Count Tammis unable to
insert himself between the assassin and Lady Gillian? In all the
encounters 1 can remember where we have been trying to reach one
particular bad guy, we had to take out, or at least engage at
one-on-one, every other cannon fodder s/he had along first. If
this is a rule change, 1 would like it clearly noted; if true only for
assassins, clearly explained; and if a mistake, promises made that it
won't happen again.
3) Previously, and in this encounter
for all the other attackers, a weapon with poison only retained that
poison for the first successful blow. However Lady Gillian had to
save vs poison every time the dagger hit her. Presumably it was an
evil, magical, perpetually poisonous dagger; but since that assassin
got away we'll never know.
4) What was the hurt souled creature
Lady Gillian detected to the northwest? Since she didn.t tell anyone
about it. nobody can ask her...
5) Just how powerful are assassins
anyway? The one on Tarva has seven hit points; DM said he was only
second level. The dirk which hit Tarva did so in spite of his rolling a
"1" on his to-hit; normally this is a blooper, unless a one is all that
is needed to hit, in which case it might be a hit, a miss, or a
blooper, depending on a second roll. In this case it was a hit, but
more importantly, let's look at what having to make that decision
means. Tarva, nude, is armor class 8 -- 9 is normal and she has 1
defense plus for dexterity. This means that her base-to-be-hit is 11 --
19 minus armor class = base-to-be-hit. So for a roll of 1 to maybe be a
hit, the assassin must have at least 10 plusses to hit. He's second
level. so let's assume he is +1 to hit from level, assume he is master
with dirk, that's another +2 for +3 total. When Tarva hit at him. he
was base-to-hit 13, meaning armor class 6. Assuming that none of
the jewlery had magical defense spells. and assuming that the robes are
useless for defense, and assuming that no other spells of defense had
been cast on him, then in the worst case he had a +3 defense from
dexterity. Plusses for defense and plusses to hit sorta shuffle-step
their way up, so at best he would be +4 to hit from dexterity, for a
total so far of +7. Strength does not count for plusses for missile
weapons, so there are no additional plusses there. Perhaps the dirk is
a +3 dirk -- if so I'm sure we'll find out. Otherwise. there must be
something else about assassins which gives them additional to-hit
advantages. [Assassins are +4 to hit with missile weapon from set
ambush.]
6) Why, when they got to Kaleb, Hoss,
and Moonara, did Lady Gillian not spend another round detecting for
hurt souled creatures? She couldn't have known that Tarva was back at
the rath by then.
7) Why did the assassin on Tarva not
stay back in the darkness and keep throwing dirks until the poison went
to work? The ONLY reason I see that we lived through that encounter is
because he was so stupid as to close in with us where we had a chance
to strike back.
8) How did they manage the
simultaneous attacks on all groups? Either they all had uncanny
senses of time and some pre-determined knowledge of when would be
suitable; or there was some sort of link between them actively keeping
them synchronized; or it was a fablous coincidence. If it wasn't
coincidence, then we might need to know how they managed it, both to be
alert for their using it again, and also for possible uses ourselves.
May 31, 1988
Melian 34, 3023 (cont.)
Suddenly people start noticing that Tarva's voice sounds different. Her
wish came true (!), and now she has a voice of 23 -- very far above
human max. When she returns to Albion, she will have NO problem earning
a living if she wants to stop adventuring.
Kaleb went and apologized to Lady Gillian for beheading the assassins.
She accepted his apology, but insisted that he promise not to do it
again.
Lady Shavane showed up with someone named Fennel whom His Grace Duke Aubrey
had instructed to search the bodies. They were a little surprised to
find that Lady Gillian's group had already done so. They do go ahead
and check all the things anyway, first asking which items any of us
have touched. Tarva also points out the brooch and ring which seem to
have needles. One of the other assassins had a cloth with rings tied
into knots (so they wouldn't jingle), and Fennel reports that one of
these is magically trapped. Actually, Lady Shavane touches each ring
with a wand she has in order to determine this.
Count Tammis pulls Hoss and Tarva aside and wants them to make sure
that Lady Gillian does not leave the Rath unescorted. Makes some
disparaging comments about his own ability to protect her, which Tarva
tries to deflect by pointing out that by the final criteria -- after
all, she is still alive -- he succeeded. Hoss only just doesn't respond
that protecting Lady Gillian is what Sir Feldspar wanted to do all
along -- a tactless comment which he did think better of.
Lady Gillian, in spite of his previous, and voluntary apology, for some
reason finds it necessary to take Kaleb to task for the beheading of
the assassins.
Hoss, from wearing wet clothing under his armor, from being pushed in
the pond by Kaleb, is coming down with a cold. Lady Gillian made him
drink an herbal mixture (non-magical), and will give him another at
breakfast.
Tarva offers to trade off with Kaleb at watching over Moonara's body,
which he accepts. He stays up with her first while Tarva and Lord Corby
go grab some sleep. It turns out that Lord Corby was using a potion to Fly -- it is not
something he can do normally.
Kaleb asked Count Tammis to help him with a problem: during the fight
Kaleb found his sword did no damage to the fey: did Tammis know
anything about assassins which would account for this? Tammis asks to
look at the sword, then states that it has a silver edge, in a tone of
voice which indicates that he has explained everything. Kaleb doesn't
think he has, and additional questioning brings out the fact that
silver doesn't hurt fey.
Count Tammis insists that Lady Gillian go to bed. Somewhat later Lady
Milicent comes into the suite. She talks to Kaleb first, expressing
much interest about the Preserve
Body spell Lady Gillian cast on Moonara to keep it in condition
for a Resurrection;
and she is even more interested in this concept of resurrection.
Lady Milicent then goes in to talk to Lady Gillian. Wants to know why
Lady Gillian hasn't healed herself from the poison in her system. Finds
out that Lady Gillian can, but not until tomorrow (Lady Gillian manages
to sidestep the truth that it was Tarva's stupidity while searching the
bodies which led to Lady Gillian not having any Neutralize Poison spells
left). Lady Milicent declares that this is intolerable, and why doesn't
Lady Gillian use a Neutralize
Poison potion. Lady Gillian doesn't have any. Why doesn't she
make them? There is a tangental technical discussion on potion making.
Lady Milicent sends a servant for a flask from her rooms, makes Lady
Gillian drink a dose. Then Lady Milicent leaves.
Later, while Tarva is watching over Moonara, Alexander and Countess
Ariel come in, back from their trip to the moonsweets. They also remark
on her voice, and conclude that Tarva's wish being granted means that
theirs aren't likely to be. They start discussing magic in a technical
way, Alexander explains that ever since he arrived in Faerie he hasn't
been able to use his Detect
Magic spell effectively because everything detects as magic.
Countess Ariel is of the opinion that (not in her words) magic is so
much more prevalent in Faerie than in Albion, that Alexander's spell is
much more sensitive than her version, and thus is picking up the magic
inherent in every grain of dust. Tarva wonders, aloud, if it isn't
rather that we are all, as gated creatures, of necessity magical
ourselves as long as we are here. Either way, Countess Ariel volunteers
to Detect Magic
for Alexander and starts on one assassin's loot, finding a knife and a
worn ring (as opposed to those in the cloth) which are magic.
Alexander plans to try Loring
them after Lady Gillian is awake. Countess Ariel decides to not
do anything with the trapped ring (or, thusly, its neighbors) until
after it has been detrapped.
NOTES:
1) Was our searching the bodies a
breach of court etiquette and thus improper behaviour, or merely
foolishness -- especially on Tarva's part -- in not waiting for a
trained searcher? Ask Lord Corby.
2) Tarva has the excuse of being new
to all this adventuring, and of not knowing any better. However,
after being poisoned this time, ahe thinks she might just wait and let
someone else do the searching next time.
3) Tarva will try a Cure Disease from her Faith
Healing on Hoss's cold when
she can.
4) Are half-fey affected by or
lmmune to silver weapons? Is Tarva?
5) Now, Tarva, as a Dioncecht
worshipper, would never have thought of cutting someone's head off. She
felt very surprised when, back in Albion, Gillian told her to cut the
head off of the demon's host body. Appearantly, however, there is an
unwritten rule within the group that cutting heads off, or otherwise
preventing any chance of resurrection, is not done. Which is
appropriate for a group with a Dioncecht druid, and Tarva certainly
approves. Still, it makes her wonder what other unwritten rules the
group is supposedly obeying, which nobody has bothered to inform her
of. It is probably time for Tarva to have a good talk with Lady
Gillian about what being a group member really and completely entails.
6) Why don't we settle for once and
for all whether it is us or Faerie which is detecting always as magical?
June 14, 1988
Mellian 35, 3023
Lady Gillian got up, said hi to Tarva (standing guard over Moonara's
body), and went across the hall to Hoss's room. Woke him up and asked
him to spell Tarva so she could get breakfast. Came back in to her
rooms and exchanged pleasantries with Tarva. At this point Lady Gillian
noticed Tarva's enhanced voice and asked her to say something. So Tarva
did. She started out by commenting on how she (Tarva) would never think
of cutting someone's head off, in fact how surprised she was to have
Lady Gillian tell her to do so on that first evening (but decided that
a druid of Dioncecht knew what she was about) -- she (Tarva) after all
had been raised to properly respect Dioncecht's tenets. And so she
could understand why Lady Gillian was upset with Kaleb. But.
Kaleb had come forward of his own volition and
volunteered an apology. Then, after that, and after accepting the
apology, Lady Gillian had additionally chastized Kaleb.
Well, that was between Lady Gillian and Kaleb; but the way the
admonishment was delivered suggested to Tarva that Kaleb had not only
offended Lady Gillian by his behaviour, but had also broken some rule
previously agreed to. And this suggested that the group had rules which
nobody had bothered to inform Tarva about. Was this true, and if so
what were they? For example, all these possessions we had been picking
up: what was going to happen with them?
Lady Gillian explains that Kaleb had travelled with her longer than
anyone else, and thus knew better than anyone else how she felt about
decapitations. (Which doesn't explain her behavior at all.) But there
were no rules binding on the group. And treasures were split with equal
shares of the monetary portion, and the magic items chosen by lot, and
thus not necessarily equally. At Tarva's question, no attempt was made
at later splits to make up for this initial unevenness. Hoss, who had
entered by now, volunteered that this did
still result in lots of money being evenly divided. Oh, except that
Moonara, as her fee for accompanying us, received 1.5 shares.
Lady Gillian chases Tarva off to have breakfast, but is herself
persuaded to rest and send for food. Kaleb being allowed to sleep in,
this means that only Alexander and Tarva show up at breakfast (with
Lord Corby and Countess Ariel). His Grace Duke Aubrey inquires after
everyone's health, insists that Lady Gillian needs to eat, and has a
servant take a huge platter to her rooms. So, back at Lady Gillian's
suite, her servants first return with breakfasts for both her and Hoss,
then the other servant shows up with this huge platter, instructions to
make sure she was eating most of it, and information that His Grace
desired Lady Gillian's assistance later in the day to help track a lead
they had on the assassins. Later, Tarva shows up with the breakfast
tray she had promised Hoss. Of course, by now he's eaten from all the
copious amounts of food around (helped by Moonara's cat Mandacity) and
is no longer hungry.
So Tarva takes the tray to Sir- Feldspar, which saves her a trip back
to the kitchen. He notices her voice, and finds out a bit more about
what had happened the previous night while persuing how Tarva's voice
had changed. Makes some sort of comment about the two of us having a
debate: him with his voice of 2 and Tarva with her voice of 23: of
course, he concluded, Tarva would win.
Tarva takes this as an opening, and comments that she suspects Sir
Feldspar has noted the same upsetting detail that she has: that the
assassins attacked all three groups simultaneously, showing a large
amount of coordination, planning, and pre-knowledge. And furthermore,
Sir Feldpsar probably has as much of a worry as Tarva about the ability
of an assassin to infiltrate the rath and attack Lady Gillian right
here. Therefore, she (Tarva) wants from Sir Feldspar a dependable
promise that he will stay in his room; because otherwise,
instead of leaping to Lady Gillian's immediate physical defense, she
(Tarva) will feel compelled to run to his room and make sure he doesn't
leave. Because if Lady Gillian does live through any such attack, and
Sir Feldspar has left his room, then she will be in very bad trouble
with this court.
Sir Feldspar admits to the logic of this, laments being in a
damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation, and is not immediately
willing to make a binding promise which might result in Lady Gillian
dying through his inaction. He wants to think about it. Tenatively we
decide that it would be better for Lady Gillian to be alive but in
trouble instead of dead. Tarva wants to know just how Sir Feldspar,
from inside his room, is going to accurately make a determination like
that.
Tangently, he mentions thinking that bursting from his room would
likely set off a ward, alerting His Grace Duke Aubrey (and probably
doing damage to Sir Feldspar) that there were problems down here, and
hopefully causing him (His Grace Duke Aubrey) to show up and save the
day (or at least Lady Gillian). Tarva hadn't thought of this before.
Sir Feldspar proposes that perhaps if a few select people were chosen
-- say: Tarva, Alexander, Kaleb, Moonara -- any of whom could yell for
him, that he would not appear unless called for. He and Tarva are both
going to think over this and discuss it again later. Lord Corby drags
Tarva back to her room for a language lesson. Only half an euphanism:
Tarva has a list of simple phrases and titles which she wants to learn.
By the end of the day, in spite of the
intervening excursion, she can speak and understand the following:
Please
Thank You
You're Welcome
Don't
Hurry
Open The Door
Close The Door
Let The Dwarf Out
May I Have A Tray Of Food?
My Name Is --------
Who Are You?
Direct Me To --------
I Have A Message For --------
Send For ---------
Keeper Of The Well
Your Majesty
Your Highness
Your Grace
My Lord
My Lady
King
Queen
Prince Princess
Duke
Duchess
Count
Countess
Baron
Baroness
Kaleb wakes up, comes back to stand watch over Moonara again. Lady
Gillian sends a servant for food for him. Kaleb tells Hoss about the
uselessness of silver weapons on fey.
Lady Shavane comes in and asks Lady Gillian to choose some people to
accompany them while trying to track down the source of the assassins.
She chooses Hoss, Alexander, and Tarva. Lord Corby decides to go along
with Tarva. Before we start, Hoss takes Tarva aside and tells her what
he learned from Kaleb about the effect of silver on fey.
On horseback, Lady Shavane leads us to an appearantly random spot in
the woods. There lives a weaver, Ferrainde.
who, when questioned, denies any knowledge of black cloth for
assassins' garb. She directs us to a second weaver, named Heron. Tarva asks Lord Corby why
everyone seems to think the garb was made recently: wouldn't assassins
have had their garb for quite some time? Lord Corby responded that
someone at the court probably used a spell to find out that the garb
had been made recently.
Heron admits to having made such on commission -- shows us the
pelts she received (one is a beaver pelt, Lady Gillian tries to buy it
[presumably for later
burial],
is frantically made a present of it). It was all arranged
by a young boy who lives in
the caves about fifteen minutes that way.
Near the caves, but still in the woods, we dismount and go on foot.
Hoss first to draw trouble. At the caves he finds a small fire.
Using a flaming branch, he explores the central cave enough to see a
small huddled humanoid figure. He comes back out and waves us to him.
With appropriate watchfulness of other cave mouths and the forest, we
do. Then, while Hoss and Alexander stand guard, Tarva, Lord Corby, Lady
Gillian, and Lady Shavane enter the cave.
The humanoid figure is keeping very still. Tarva describes it to Lady
Gillian, of necessity speaking in Cynarian. The small figure responds,
he knows and understands Cynarian. Tarva talks with him. He is a
hurt, hungry, young human from Cynaria. He is not reacting like the
standard changling. Eventually Tarva convinces him to come out and put
down his dagger. She has said that if he lets our Dioncecht druid Heal
him, we will feed him. Cautiously, he does.
Healed, and with a bit of food, he suddenly remembers other bodily
needs. Hoss polices him to behind a tree. They discuss where in Cynaria
they each came from. Hoss gets his name (he wouldn't give it to Tarva)
and is shocked to recognize that this, Seth
Wagoner, is the son of one of his brothers. Various checks are
made on both sides to make each sure that they are uncle and nephew. In
the course of which we find out that Hoss's true name is Horace. Tarva
whispers to Lord Corby that, "this is putting the Horace before the
cart, right?"
Questioning him reveals that he was taken from Cynaria after most
(?all?) his family died in the upheavals. A beautiful lady promised him
food, then whisked him away. When they got to "here", she turned into
an ugly old lady (we have never seen any old fey, thus this is a
disguise) and made him do errands like fetching firewood. Yes, he did
get the cloth from the weaver. It was right after that, that the old
lady went away; maybe six days ago? He comes back to the rath with us.
He will be checked before he comes in, however, as, nephew or not,
nobody wants any latent spells going off inside and further upsetting
His Grace Duke Aubrey.
While we were gone, Kaleb's watch is interrupted by Lady Milicent
bringing in Her Highness Princess Morgana to look at Moonara's body.
They seem very interested in something which, now that she's dead, is
not as easily hidden. Her Highness Princess Morgana tells Kaleb that he
has made a wrong assumption. He is very confused by this (easily
understood, considering how many assumptions we have all made since
arriving here) and asks for clarification. She says that Lady Gillian
is not his only way back to Albion, thus implying that Moonara is
another way back. He doesn't pursue this any further just then.
NOTES:
1) Is Moonara's 1.5 share just of
money, or of money and magic?
2) We seem to have left out the God
shares so far in this split discussion -- what are they for this group?
3) How are group members determined?
Is Lady Gillian eligible for the treasure from the Basilisks? Is Lord
Corby? (she wasn?t therer he was) Are the assassins three separate
attacks, or one? Tarva knows how she would answer all these questionsr
but how will Lady Gillian?
4) When she is back on her feet,
would Moonara be able to detect a magical trap on Sir Feldspar's door?
5) If a ward on the door is likely to
take Sir Feldspar out, does that not make for a better argument for his
not even trying, on the grounds that such an action could not help Lady Gillian physically, but would
still damage her reputation with His Grace Duke Aubrey?
6) Could our voices be duplicated?
7) Is not one likely "attack" to be a
false physical feint, intended to trap Lady Gillian by enticing Sir
Feldspar out of his room?
8) Did someone back at the Rath determine that
the clothing was newly created? Who?
9) There is a beaver pelt which needs
to be laid to rest with proper Dioncecht rites.
10) What did Her Highness Princess
Morgana mean by these cryptic remarks?
11) Will Kaleb relate this to anyone
else, or will he decide that it's Moonara's business and wait and ask
her?
12) Are the moonsweets blooming again
tonight?
13) Tarva needs to look into her own
reaction to silver weapons.
June 21, 1988
Melian 35, 3023 (cont.)
Tarva excuses herself from the group and goes to feed Sir Feldspar,
then checks in on Kaleb. Meanwhile, Lady Gillian sends a page to ask
His Grace Duke Aubrey for an audience. Lady Shavane also leaves. The
page comes back to say that His Grace isn't here, would Lady Gillian
like an audience with Countess Ariel? Lady Gillian would. And now
Alexander splits to go see Kaleb (getting there before Tarva) instead
of dropping by his lover with the others to tell her he was back.
Countess Ariel, having the situation with Hoss's nephew Seth explained,
sighed and said that either Lady Milicent would prove to be here and
willing to check the child out, or else it would have to stay outside.
So the four of them went to Lady Milicent's rooms, and she was in.
Countess Ariel opened the conversation only enough to push Lady Gillian
forward. Lady Gillian explained the situation fairly well -- enough
that Lady Milicent realized she was being asked to check the boy out.
Countess Ariel strengthened this to a request from herself, else Lady
Milicent might not have agreed.
Lady Milicent took the opportunity to remind Lady Gillian that Lady
Gillian had promised to not attempt the Resurrection of Moonara
unless Lady Milicent was present. Lady Gillian replied that she
remembered this and certainly intended to comply. Lady Milicent now
asked everyone else (that is, everyone except Seth) to leave. Countess
Ariel did at once. Hoss tried to stay. Lady Gillian tried to gently get
him out. The kid started hollering and screaming about being deserted.
Hoss got upset. Lady Milicent became very impatient. Gillian took Hoss
out the front door while Lady Milicent dragged yelling kid through
another. The yelling suddenly cut off. All of people in the hallway are
staring.
Lady Gillian and Hoss go back to her rooms, where Alexander and Kaleb
are still talking. Hoss, very dejected and depressed over his perceived
betrayal of his nephew, sits glumly in a corner. Alexander announces
that the moonsweets are still blooming, and Lady Gillian starts
planning on an expedition to them. She sends her servants for food.
Alexander leaves to go see Countess Ariel, and stops on his way to tell
Tarva and Lord Corby that the moonsweets are blooming. Lord Corby,
interrupted once more, is furious. Tarva finds out that Lady Gillian is
planning to go out to wish on them, thanks Alexander, and closes the
door. The knife Lord Corby has been cleaning his nails with thunks into
it.
Tarva suggests that they might have fewer interruptions in his rooms.
They get dressed. Tarva says she has to stop by Lady Gillian's first.
Lord Corby POUNDS on
the door. A startled servant opens it. Everyone is looking our
way. Lord Corby makes as if Tarva had done this. Tarva finds out that
Lady Gillian is indeed going out to the moonsweets, suggests that it
would be a good idea for all of us to go together, and asks when Lady
Gillian is planning to go. She doesn't know, why doesn't she send a
messenger for us. Tarva doesn't think that would be a good idea. Lady
Gillian says half an hour. Lord Corby doesn't think that that's
enough time to do anything, so we stay and eat.
There had been a note (and a yellow rose on a mithril tray) for Lady
Gillian from Count Tammis when she got into her rooms. She sent a
reply, which included an invitation to go see the moonsweets
again. Now the servant comes back and says Count Tammis is not in
the rath.
Meanwhile, Alexander has gone to see Countess Ariel, who is busy with
court business (she had traded off with Countess Cristant so she could
spend full days teaching Alexander his spell). They take a break to go
(well escorted) wish on the moonsweets, then she starts up on work
again. Alexander goes back to Lady Gillian's suite to tell everyone the
moonsweets are indeed there, and to offer to watch over Moonara's body
so Kaleb can go with them. Off we go. Nothing happens. That is: no
evidence of wishes coming true; no attacks on us. Home and sleep
through the night.
Melian 36, 3023
In the morning, at breakfast, Lady Gillian tells Countess Cristant that
she is ready to try to Resurrect
Moonara. Countess Cristant sends messengers to everyone who had
been promised a viewing of the miracle. She herself goes with Lady
Gillian and Hoss to inform Lady Milicent. Who says the kid will,
hopefully, sleep several more hours. She disappears to go inform Her
Highness Princess Morgana while Lady Gillian and Hoss take the kid to
Hoss's room. Hoss will stay there to look after him.
In Lady Gillian's rooms a score of fey are milling around, making Kaleb
very nervous. Lady Gillian goes aside to pray. Her Highness Princess
Morgana shows up, escorted by Lady Milicent and His Grace Duke Aubrey.
Lady Gillian comes out, prays again, and uses (on an 07) her holy stone
to cast Resurrection.
Moonara makes her system shock roll, loses a constitution point, and
comes back to life.
Astonishment on the part of the fey. When she realizes what has
happened, Moonara is very upset; more so than would seem to be called
for by the situation, which after all ought to now be joyful.
Her Highness Princess Morgana tells everyone to leave. We all do. After
a brief argument, Moonara manages to convince Lady Gillian to let Kaleb
take her back to their room. She goes with them. Moonara tells Lady
Gillian that there is something she has to tell her, but she falls
asleep before she can.
Alexander goes to tell Sir Feldspar all of this, where he is joined by
Tarva with a belated breakfast for the dwarf. The discussion returns to
yesterday's subject of Sir Feldspar staying in the room. He
appearantly thought we had settled it yesterday. Tarva thought that he
was going to think on it more before agreeing. With Alexander's help,
we get that straightened out. The plan is that Sir Feldspar will not
leave the room unless called for. Tarva is happy that Alexander agrees
to this, tells Sir Feldspar that she will not bother Moonara with it
until she is well, and will not bother Kaleb with it until he is in
better shape also. She sidesteps the issue of including Hoss in the
list of people by simply not replying. There is a minor side discussion
on magical traps and wards. There is a side discussion on Hoss's nephew.
Tarva and Sir Feldspar seem to be getting very good at saying just the
wrong thing to each other, it was a very good thing Alexander was there
to act as moderator. It seemed to her that Sir Feldspar was: a)
accusing her of not taking proper care of Lady Gillian, and thus
violating their agreement, because Lady Gillian was only in the company
of Moonara (helpless) and Kaleb (busy looking after Moonara and thus
not devoting his full time to guarding Lady Gillian); and b) trying to
manipulate Tarva into being as rudely over-protective as he would
doubtless have continued to be were he not incarcerated. Later he
apologized for upsetting her, and Tarva nodded at him at the apology.
She's still upset, and what she's thinking is that the apology was a
pro forma thing with no awareness or understanding of the actual
insults delivered to Tarva, and thus no possibility of sincerity behind
the apology.
After the discussion on Sir Feldspar's staying in the room is finished,
Alexander announces that he has Lored some of the magic
items, and that one of them is a protection ring. We are all agreed
that it should go to Lady Gillian, the problem is how to make her
agree. The best we can come up with is that her being safer is
more protection for any of us than for any of us individually to be
safer. Alexander then brings up the crystal globe we found in the
cockatrice's nest. When worn around the neck, it allows the wearer to
understand, but not speak, any humanoid language. Alexander and Sir
Feldspar start discussing who would be most benefitted by this. Tarva
interrupts to say that she feels uncomfortable with such a discussion:
that "plotting" to make Lady Gillian take the protection ring (+2) was
one thing, but to discuss dividing up any more of the loot should
either be done by Lady Gillian, or with the entire group present.
Alexander apologizes for upsetting her and drops the subject.
Tarva leaves shortly thereafter. Sir Feldspar gives Alexander a stone
flower he has carved out to be given to Moonara later when she is
feeling better. There is some reference to a previous resurrection when
someone brought in bunches of "dead weeds". That time Sir Feldspar was
the resurrectee, and didn't understand the gesture of bedside flowers,
that being foreign to his underground homelands.
Alexander checks in on Hoss, tells him that Moonara is alive again, and
then leaves. Shortly thereafter the kid wakes up, is upset with Hoss,
is hungry, and is not willing to stay in this room until lunch. Hoss
isn't very good at nuances, thus isn't convincing in explaining why
everything is all right and at the same time they musn't intrude. The
kid starts yelling again, which brings Lady Gillian down the hall.
Obviously delighting in torturing Hoss, the kid will do anything that
Saint Gillian asks him to do -- including, luckily, the ceasing of
calling her "Saint".
Seth says that Tarva has promised to tell him all sorts of stories
about "not yet" Saint Gillian. Lady Gillian says he is to come to her
after hearing them, repeat them to her, and find out from Lady Gillian
directly how much of each one is true, because Tarva wasn't always
there to see these things herself, and might get a bit confused.
Lady Gillian then goes back to Moonara, about whom she is very
concerned, because complications have set in. Appearantly, Moonara was
about two months pregnant when she died, and has now had a miscarriage.
Resurrections don't
work on un-souled creatures, and the soul doesn't join the body until
one week after birth. Besides, miscarriages are fairly traumatic to the
health of the mother, and one who has just been resurrected is
particurally fragile. There doesn't seem to be any danger, but still
Lady Gillian is concerned.
Countess Ariel tells Alexander that Aunt Morgana was in the rath while
the rest of us were gone, that she removed the magical trap on the
assassin's ring and talked to Kaleb. Countess Arial is obviously
consumed with curiosity. She talks Alexander into watching the event
through the coronet, then does so herself. That doesn't tell them very
much (no sound). So she wants Alexander to ask Kaleb about it.
June 28, 1988
Melian 36, 3023
Tarva goes to lunch, where nothing much happens, then to weapon
practice. Then to supper. After taking Sir Feldspar his tray, she stops
by and taps softly on Moonara's door. Lady Gillian opens it. Tarva
makes the joint offers of letting Kaleb sleep in her room (as opposed
to on the floor in his room), and watching over Moonara part of the
night, so both Lady Gillian and Kaleb can get some rest. Both are
accepted: Kaleb goes across the hall and Lady Gillian asks Tarva to
come back about halfway through second watch.
Lord Corby is somewhat put out with Tarva. It turns out that his sister
and her best friend are visiting, and he has put them up in his rooms,
and so there is no room for us, even if his sister didn't have a thing
against humans. He had been planning to stay with Tarva in her room,
but now Kaleb was in there. So we ended up going outside, risking any
additional assassins which might be lurking about.
Melian 37, 3023
In the morning when Moonara wakes up she is somewhat surprised to find
Tarva there. Tarva jokes about Kaleb being in her bed, and later, when
Kaleb comes in, Moonara does also. But before that the conversation
somehow turns to Sir Feldspar, and Tarva tells Moonara the deal she has
struck with him, and why. Moonara shrewdly suspects that Tarva has not
let Lady Gillian know of this "deal", and Tarva agrees that Moonara has
called that one perfectly.
At lunch this day Lady Gillian raises the question of escorting Tarva
on her trip to the Well. She quickly expands on this subject to explain
that she understands that Tarva must arrive at the Well alone, but
can't she be escorted for the beginning of her trip? And, with
assassins out there, shouldn't she be? His Grace Duke Aubrey flatly,
although not unkindly, states that it will be necessary for Tarva to do
the entire trip by herself, else she will nor succeed.
His Grace Duke Aubrey went on to remind Tarva that the areas around
Wells
are very strange. At the looks of disbelief on other faces (all of
Feyland is strange),
he repeats his comment to the effect that even the fey thought the
areas
around Wells were strange.
Tarva notices that Hoss's nephew Seth, who has been fairly obnoxious
(and especially to his uncle) at other times, gets very quiet and has a
look almost of adoration on his face whenever he sees Lady Milicent.
Tarva suspects she knows what that means, but figures that Lady
Milicent was probably justified; and besides, it's none of her business
if the kid has been charmed.
After lunch Lord Corby introduces Tarva to his sister and her friend,
who immediately snub her. Tarva intends to avoid them as much as
possible, and will stay completely away from Lord Corby's room for as
long as they are here. He plans to take whatever night the Queen's moon
is full to escort them around properly (since Tarva won't be there) .
Sometime in the afternoon, Countess Cristant draws Prince Hal's holy
sword and holds a conversation with it. It had not been drawn even once
while Prince Hal was back in Albion, thus it knows nothing about what
happened to him.
Melian 38, 3023
Kaleb, in his somewhat mystified way, broaches the subject of what Her
Highness Princess Morgana was interested in concerning Moonara's body,
and eventually backs Moonara into a corner where she has to reveal her
secret to Kaleb.
That afternoon Lady Gillian asks for and receives permission and
guidance on where she might bury the beaver pelt. Tarva, Hoss, and
Alexander accompany her on this, as, out of curiosity, do some of the
fey. They are undoubtedly mystified at all this ceremony over a mere
animal, but Tarva doesn't care: proper is proper and doesn't depend on
local opinion.
The rest of the day passes, and suddenly it is the evening of Melian
38, and the Queen's moon is full. Tarva and Lord Corby have been
outside watching for it, and when it springs into sight Tarva is
elated. She dashes back to her rooms to fetch her belongings, then
stops by Lady Gillian's suite (she's in) and returns all the items
which still belong to the group: especially the magical ones. Lady
Gillian tries to give her something to protect her, since it has been
brought home to everyone, finally, that Tarva must make this entire
journey on her own. Tarva asks for and accepts a blessing, but turns
down the offer of an anklet of protection. She is, however, immensly
curious about this artifact, and intends to get the story behind it out
of Lady Gillian at the first opportunity.
Lord Corby meets her at the enterance to the rath, kisses her good-bye,
and watches her start out.
NOTES:
1) Tarva didn't remind anyone to feed
Sir Feldspar, She hopes someone remembers.
2) Tarva was too excited to consider
itr but she and Lord Corby just won the Queen's moon full pool.
3) Tarva is immensly curious about
the anklet, and intends to get the story behind it out of Lady Gillian
at the first opportunity.
July 3, 1988
Melian 38, 3023 (cont.)
Tarva starts out wandering randomly and keeps this up for a while. She
notices that she is seeing less and less fey, then finally does not
notice any at all for a long while. It is very dark, except for the
full moon, and there are strange noises in the forest, only some of
which Tarva can identify. She has been walking so long that she is
beginning to get tired, but in typical fey fashion, the full moon is
still directly overhead.
Tarva kicks something which sounds metallic. She stoops and picks it
up: it is a helmet with gold, emeralds, dirt, and full of water. Tarva
decides to carry it to the Well. About ten to fifteen feet later she
sees a stake pounded into the ground with its sharpened upper end stuck
into the wrist of a severed mumified hand. Hanging from a nearby branch
are some cheap glass beads. As she keeps walking there are more and
more things lying around and on top of stones or stumps, or hanging
from trees, and there are mounds which are obviously buried piles of
who knows what. There are bones, humanoid or otherwise; of the made
things, they appear to be about half and half junk and valuable.
Over a distance of about one hundred feet the trees go from being
normal (or at least normal for Feyland) to being very gnarled,
moss-encrusted, and eerie. Tarva thinks she hears a scream, suddenly
cut
off, just ahead and to her left. Suddenly she runs into an absolutely
horrible, putrid smell.
The forest starts closing in, the trees growing closer together, and
the forest floor getting darker yet. Tarva stumbles through a large
spider web and in a shuddery reaction hastily brushes the strands away.
She has a sudden flash of conviction that it is wrong for her to be
carrying the helmet, and puts it down.
Six or seven steps later she reaches the edge of a clearing. It is
about twenty feet across and roughly circular, bordered by woods on her
side and woods and rocks on the opposite side. It is very flat, with
smoothe, close-cropped grass. The full moon is shining straight down
into the clearing. In the center is a perfect circle of fluid --
water? -- which is five feet across. It does not look natural. The
liquid looks very dark, black.
"May I come in?" asks Tarva. There is no answer. She steps into the
clearing. There is no reaction. She walks over to the well. There
is still no response. From close up the well looks pitch black; the
moon is not reflected in it. Tarva stands there a minute, then says,
"Is someone here? I'd 1ike to know about my ancestors."
A beautiful voice speaks to her from behind her. It is speaking in the
same sort of universal language that Her Majesty Queen Mab and Her
Highness Princess Morgana used, where everyone understood the meaning
without knowing the language. It says, "There wil be a double price.
You have a nice voice; are you willing to lose it?"
Tarva turns around. There is a six foot tall figure wearing a grey or
white hooded cloak. Tarva cannot tell what sex, or even what race the
figure is. Her voice? Truly the Keeper of the Well has selected her
most valuable possession. Tarva was so proud of her new voice. However,
if it has to go... (And underneath, Tarva wonders if the figure means
that her voice will go back to what it was, or will it all be taken,
leaving her mute?) "Yes I am," she replies, "but may I ask why there is
a double price?" (Tarva wonders, is she pregnant?)
"It is the way it is," he (for convenience) answers cryptically.
"Remove your weapons belt, and all that depends from it, and put it at
the foot of yon tree," pointing. Tarva does. The figure goes to the
well, then motions for Tarva to join him there. And Tarva goes and
stands next to him.
"Give me your left hand." Tarva does. He takes it by the fingers
and holds it palm up and pushes her sleeve back. He has very cold
fingers. With his other hand he pulls out a sharp-looking
silver-colored knife. Expecting that she knows what is coming, Tarva
braces herself so she won't jump or jerk. He slices her palm from the
ball of her thumb to the ball of her little finger, then leans her out
over the well and turns her palm down. She can now see a darkened
reflection of the full moon, and into this reflection drops of her
blood are falling. "Look into the well and remember," instructs the
figure.
The reflected moon goes dark and disappears. The entire pool turns
blood red; it is murky, cloudy. Then that part where the moon had been
reflected goes clear. In the clear section Tarva sees her own face; but
clearly it is not a reflection, since it shows her as she was ten to
fifteen years ago. Then it shows her father's face from when he was a
young man: comeliness 18, brown hair, hazel eyes. Next another young
man, whom Tarva thinks looks vaguely familiar, and then recognizes as
her grandfather, Garth Streamside,
whom she had never known young: comeliness 17, brown hair, grey eyes.
Then a lovely young woman, comeliness 20, chestnut hair and grey eyes,
and a very handsome young man: comeliness 22, blond hair and blue eyes.
Both of these last two had mischevous expressions on their faces. Then
the Well goes dark.
Tarva's hand is released. There is a pause, then the figures says, "The
last you saw was the nearerst of your kin to be full fey. By name, Andren."
He pauses again, and Tarva takes the opportunity to say, "Thank you."
Then he resumes. "I said there was a double price. When you find your
first fey relative, tell him or her that he or she must replace what
you gave here. Now be silent and go. Speak not of this place to
mortals."
Tarva nods and goes. In about fifty feet the weirdness is gone and she
is back to a normal fey forest. She wanders randomly for a while, then
hears voices; carefree, happy sounding. It is also rapidly getting
light. As she goes towards the voices she sees that the sun is rising.
She comes out of the woods at the edge of the bathing ponds and takes
the trail back to the rath. Inside, she looks for Lord Corby, checks
first her room, then the breakfast hall, where she finds him, along
with everyone else.
As far as she can tell about herself, Tarva not only has not become
mute, but also has not had her increased vocal beauty taken away.
Yet.
NOTES:
1) Tarva needs to obey the
non-discussion promise she made; perhaps something like, "Please do me
the courtesy of not asking any questions, so that I may avoid the
rudeness of refusing to answer them."
2) She wants to talk to Lord Corby
first, and then probably to His Grace Duke Aubrey, and find out who
this Andren person is.
3) Also, she still wonders about this
second price, and how it is a price to have the first price replaced.
And why whoever it is should bother. And how close a relative is
close enough for that purpose. And whether she has already met
such a relative, and in that case should go find that person again (if
she can).
4) Tarva needs to send a message to
Her Majesty Queen Mab about who's great-great-granddaughter she is,
since she told the Queen she would inform her of this when she found
out.
5) Then, there's still this matter of
voice. The Keeper didn't exactly say that her voice was the price,
literally, he asked if she would be willing for that to be the
price. Maybe that was a test. Tarva isn't going to count on it,
as soon as she can, she'll tell Lord Corby about that possibility
(either losing it completely or losing the enhancement); and find some
way to tell Lady Gillian also without breaking her promise.
6) Other thoughs on voice, Maybe
asking her relative to replace her belongings will so anger her
relative that (s)he will cast a spell on her and turn her mute. That
would certainly fulfill (3) above. Which won't stop Tarva from
carrying out the instructions she was given, but certainly provides her
with more to worry about.
July 5, 1988
Melian 39, 3023
Just before she re-entered the Rath, Tarva Faith Healed the slice
across her palm. Which, by the way, looked like it had just been made,
although it feels like hours ago to Tarva.
Everybody except Kaleb, Moonara, and Sir Feldspar show up at breakfast
this morning. Even Count Tammis comes in, albeit late: apologizing to
his father and explaining that he is just back from Her Highness
Princess Morgana's court. Light bantering. In the middle of the meal
Tarva comes in. Nobody notices her missing belongings because she
dropped most of the ones she still has off in her room. Lady Gillian
does note, however, that Tarva is not wearing a sword, which she
normally does, nor even a dagger, which is unheard of.
His Grace Duke Aubrey calls for another place to be set (and Lord Corby
makes sure it is next to him), then loudly asks Tarva how her quest
turned out. Everyone has gotten quiet and is looking at her. "I
was successful, Your Grace," she says. "My great-great-grandfather was
named Andren."
She is looking at Duke Aubrey while she says this. He looks startled,
then quickly darts a glance at Lady Milicent. Tarva's eyes go there
also. Lady Milicent has turned quite pale. Uh-oh, what has she done
now, Tarva thinks. She looks at Lord Corby, just in time to see his
face change from thoughtful to amused to deliberately calm. Well, at
least no one is glaring hatefully at her.
"Are you sure the name was 'Andren'?" asks His Grace Duke Aubrey.
"Describe him to us." Tarva begins to describe the face to them.
Halfway through he stops her and says for her to just think about what
he looked like. Tarva visualizes the face she saw. Several fey are
looking attentive. Yes, says Lady Milicent, that was Andren.
His Grace Duke Aubrey says, "You and Lady Mi1icent are excused."
Without waiting to say anything, or even to bow, Lady Milicent starts
to leave. Tarva bows to His Grace then hurries to catch up. Behind her
the tables explode into whispers.
Lady Milicent takes Tarva to the first sitting room she can find and
closes the door after them. Then she just stares at Tarva's face.
"You don't look like him," she says softly. As all she does is continue
to stare at Tarva, Tarva starts to get nervous and finally asks, "Is
something wrong? Is Andren an enemy of this court?"
"Goodness no! He --- Do
sit down, child; there's no need to stand. Andren was my little
brother, before he went and got himself killed. That is, we had
different mothers. He would go to Albion. Of course, we all did, one
time or another, but we weren't all serious about it. Let this be a
lesson to you, young Tarva, those of my family who get too involved
with Albion come to a bad end. Cynis,
Chryse, Medraut..."
Tarva interrupts here to ask if these are other people she is related
to. Lady Milicent -- "Call me 'Aunt', dear" -- gives Tarva a
brief rundown on a local family tree <see later>.
We discuss all these new members of Tarva's family, then Aunt Milicent
wants to know all about the new members of her family. So Tarva relates
her adventures (see first 21 pages) and her lack of knowledge about any
of her immediate family. Lady Milicent doesn't think that going village
to village is a very effective way to search, and mentions that there
are much more efficient techniques available through magic in Feyland.
Presumably she is thinking that all of Tarva's family are also related
to her.
Tarva asks about fey talents. She is trying to pick out which abilities
all fey have, and Tarva should therefore work on, and which are
scattered about like inate abilities, with only a few able to practice
any given one. Tarva figures hers is Faith Healing. Aunt says
that hers is also Faith
Healing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Tarva doesn't
have any others. Tarva also asks about the ability of fey to not take
harm from silver. Aunt doesn't know how this works with part fey:
suggests that Tarva not try to experiment on any of the royal house.
Tarva quite agrees. Or on herself. Tarva is quietly non-committal.
Tarva relates what the Keeper had said about her first-met relative.
Gives Aunt a list of what she left at the well. Discusses the entire
encounter at the well with Aunt. Comments: don't try to tell Lady
Gillian anything at all about a possible loss of voice -- it could very
likely be that just such an attempt to talk to a mortal might be what
would trigger the loss. Aunt doesn't exactly know what was meant by a
double price. It could mean one price from Tarva and one price from
Aunt; or it could refer to Tarva's voice after all, and just not have
taken effect yet.
Aunt asks Tarva does she want her own suite, or would she like to move
in to Aunt's suite? Obviously Tarva's status has gone up. She wants to
stay with her new-found family.
Because she is aware that there is some confusion on the subject, and
because she thinks it is important that her Aunt know what Tarva's
obligations are (and aren't), Tarva flat out states that she has never
sworn fealty to Lady Gillian, and is not her vassel. This, as Tarva
thought might be the case, is a surprise to Aunt Milicent, who had
assumed from things the dwarf had said that all of Lady Gillian's
companions were her vassels.
She asks Tarva about the rest of them, and Tarva says that as far as
she knows they aren't: that Gillian wasn't known to be a noble in
Albion, thus couldn't have accepted anyone's fealty. This obviously
puts a different light on lots of things; particurally the dwarf's
behavior, which some people had been assuming had been with Lady
Gillian's full knowledge, control, and consent.
Tarva mentions her promise to inform Her Majesty Queen Mab of her
ancestry once she found it out. Aunt says she does not communicate with
Queen Mab; nor does Duke Aubrey. Nor anyone Tarva is likely to meet for
a while. And there are no messengers. Was Tarva planning to go herself?
No, Tarva would rather not meet up with Her Majesty Queen Mab again.
Well then, that's that. Doubtless she will hear through the grapevine
sooner or later.
Tarva manages to direct the ccnversation to one other topic that she
thinks is of interest and concern: returning to Albion. Aunt first
admonishes Tarva to remember what happens to her relatives who spend
too long there. Then she takes the tangent Tarva wanted and talks about
Lady Gillian, who has asked if it is possible to return to Albion, but
has not asked for someone to take her (and her group) there, either
immediately or at some set time in the future. Aunt wants to know if
this oblique behavior is typical of Lady Gillian, and Tarva reminds her
that she has known Lady Gillian a mere twenty minutes longer than she
has been in Faerie. Aunt concludes that Tarva is therefore not the
proper person to ask.
One (temporarily) final question from Tarva establishes that Lord Corby
is allowed to visit for extended periods of time, provided that they
don't get too loud, and do dress decently when in the public areas of
Aunt's suite.
Meanwhile, back in the breakfast room, there are scores of whispered
reactions to Tarva's news. Mostly there are pairs of one of Gillian's
party asking one fey each what is going on and who Andren is. And
receiving explanations, which lead to excited commentary on the others
in Lady Milicent's family who have died in Albion. Which lead to
Alexander being all excited over hearing about Chyrse the Crazed; and
Lady Gillian almost going into shock over hearing about Saint Cynis.
His Grace Duke Aubrey announces loudly that people have his permission
to whisper. Hoss, who up till now had been sitting quietly, whispers,
"Lady Gillian." Whispered back!! "Yes, Hoss?" "Do we have to
whisper?" And His Grace Duke Aubrey again, "No, Hoss. It's not polite
to whisper at the table, but since my court, and particularly my
children, seem to have forgotten that, I thought I would remind them."
Discussion turns into speculation, some of it rather farfetched.
Alexander wants to go off and see Cassian and find out if he knows
anything about the antidotes for Kalisha and Kalar.
Count Tammis apologizes to Lady Gillian for not being there to answer
her note and they agree to go out for a walk in the garden later.
Obviously, Tarva isn't there to hear of this and insist on accompanying
Lady Gillian outside the rath.
Hoss is there, but since they are speaking fey, he has no idea what is
being planned. And since it was Count Tammis himself who extracted the
promise from Tarva and Hoss that they guard her whenever she went
outside, if he doesn't tell Hoss himself then he certainly can't hold
Hoss to blame for not keeping up with Lady Gillian.
Count Tammis does go into a self-depreciating spiel about his
unworthiness and inability to protect Lady Gillian, as witness the
assassin attack. Lady Gillian uses the same line on him that Tarva did:
that if he hadn't been there she surely would have died. Perhaps he
will be more willing to hear this from her.
On her way to meet Count Tammis at the enterance to the rath, Lady
Gillian stops off to check on Moonara and Kaleb, and fill them in on
the news about Tarva. The speculations get wilder after she leaves.
They -- Kaleb and Moonara -- want Tarva to step on the kingship stone
and see if she's the real Queen of Cynaria. Or, better yet, she could
save the country, become Saint Tarva, and have it renamed Tarvaria
after her.
Tarva and Aunt Milicent have moved all of Tarva's belongings into
Aunt's suite, after which Tarva goes to hunt up Lord Corby. He
announces that they're rich from winning the pot on guessing the moon
full date. She tells him that she's moved in with her Aunt, but that he
has permission to come stay with her whenever he wants. At first he is
rather cool on the idea of having to obtain enterance to Lady
Milicent's suite in order to reach Tarva's room; but once she points
out that such people as Hoss will have the same problems, with much
less chance of having them resolved, he cheers up. Tarva goes on to
explain to him that in two more days she will begin a two week
abstinance, but that she is not by any means saying that he can't stay
with her during that period.
After lunch Tarva is off to weapon training. Lady Gillian goes off to
Lady Milicent's for her daily session on memory recovery. Before they
begin, Lady Milicent informs her that Tarva will be staying here now,
and suggests that any need Lady Gillian has of Tarva should be met by
sending somecme "appropriate" -- i.e., able to speak fey --. to ask for
her. Lady Milicent then goes on to ask Lady Gillian about the
relationship between herself and Tarva, presumably determining for
herself that there are no oaths or bonds attaching Tarva to Lady
Gillian, in anybody's mind.
At supper that night Tarva tells Lady Gillian that she has moved out of
her room and into the suite with her Aunt. After supper Lady
Gillian goes back to Moonara's and, carefully
sidesteping any direct question, merely asks that if Moonara feels that
for any reason Lady Gillian's magic might not work to help protect
Moonara, and Moonara can correct this by telling Lady Gillian anything,
that Moonara do so. Moonara carefully denies that there is any such
information.
And Tarva, after having been up a day and a half, intends to get a full
night's sleep. We get through the night and stop there.
NOTES:
1) For a while, say a week, Tarva
plans to spend an hour a day each trying: (a) Burning
Hands; (b) Far
Travelling; (c) Levitation; (d) Telepathy; (e) Detecting
Fey or Non-Fey; (f) Hasting herself; and (g) Disappearing
Into The Scenery. She
also will try to control the fey light globes.
2) When she's tired of this (which
assumes a complete lack of success), she will ask for true language
lessons in the mornings.
3) First chance she gets, Tarva will
ask Kaleb for his silver-edged sword and try cutting herself, but not
until after she can heal herself again.
4) Will it cause any deterioration in
other people's relations to this court for this lack of fealty to be
known?
5) Will it make any difference about
Sir Feldspar?
6) Actual items given to Tarva by her
Aunt, Lady Milicent, will be listed later..
7) Actual items won by Tarva and Lord
Corby in the full moon pool will be listed later.
Tarva's
Fey-Side Family Tree
[1] Cassian is a powerful and solitary mage who lives in a cave in the
woods.
[2] no name for Milicent's mother yet.
[3] After Andren was lost in Albion, Medraut went after him, met up
with Chara, had his triplets, and died.
[4] Chara was a human.
[5] Chyrse "the Crazed" was a very powerful mage who specialized
in potions. She was mostly given to making useful and good potions, but
was captured by the Kalendens and driven crazy, then put to work
inventing evil potions. To help their war with the Rengrir, they
had her invent Kalisha and Kalar, two potions which make it
impossible for mages to function until they wear off. Rumors abound
about Chyrse: She would come out of the induced madness and try
to set right the
damages she had done, only to be caught out by her captors and
driven insane again. She had invented an antidote to Kalisha and
Kalar. She was discovered dead, hanging in the middle of her cell,
in spite of not being permitted to have any rope, and there being no
sign of anything like a chair kicked over. Did someone slip into her
cell and help her kill herself? Wouldn't it have been just as easy to
slip her out with them? Did someone deliberately kill her? And the
wildest rumors have it that the antidotes to Kalisha and Kalar
were written in her notebooks, which could not be found. Some have
it that whoever slipped into her cell took them; whereas others
maintain that the Kalendens themselves destroyed the books.
[6] no name yet for Milicent's father.
[7] Lady Milicent is a best friend of Her Highness Princess Morgana,
and a very powerful mage in her own right.
[8] Cyma was human, and, more specifically, she was Brynarian.
[9] This is the Saint Cynis who saved Cynaria when the sea was
flooding all of Brynaria after the god clash. She is Tarva's second
cousin, three times removed.
[10] Juniper is a full fey.
[11] Cyprus and Jansine have returned to Feyland and are living under
the care of Lady Milicent.
[12] This is Tarva's nearest full fey ancestor.
[13] for a more complete graphic of this section of the tree, see
the family tree in Tarva's prerun History section.
November 27, 1989
Melian 40, 3023
Aunt Milicent takes Tarva to a room full of all sorts of fancy weapons
and weapon belts and so on and tells her to choose what she wants as
replacements for the well's price. She says to show her what
Tarva has chosen when she is finished. Tarva selects the following:
80gpw brown leather weapons belt with tooled trojan-maze
design
50gpw brown leather dagger sheathe
100gpw dagger with gold-plated hilt with 20c. blue lace agate
pommel
165gpw one-handed longsword scabbard with 6 lc. dropsickles
825gpw one-handed longsword of Damascus steel w 6 lc. dropsickles
25gpw brown leather belt pouch
assorted standard supplies (see possessions sheet)
Lord Corby and Tarva split their take from the Moon Pool. Tarva
acquires:
gold coin with double-headed eagle and seven-pointed star
gold hoop earring (singular)
platinum ring with interlocking moon design
one platinum earring with a 2-carat diamond
plain platinum ring
quiver of black leather tooled with hunting scenes
golden fork with heart&dragon design on handle
fan made of irridescent blue/green/purple feathers
Later in the day, Tarva and her Aunt have another long chat. Tarva
tells Aunt Milicent that Lady Gillian is thinking about trying to
rescue the Harp. Her Highness Princess Morgana had told Aunt Milicent
that she expected Lady Gillian to make that attempt. Tarva wants to
know if Her Highness Princess Morgana also expected Lady Gillian to
succeed, and Aunt Milicent responded that Her Highness Princess Morgana
considered Lady Gillian the most likely source of success, because Lady
Gillian so frequently and consistently does amazing things.
Tarva explains her mixed feelings: on the one hand having Lady Gillian
as both a druid of her God and also as a friend; and on the other hand
Tarva's not feeling herself to be a full member of the group. Thus
Tarva's ambivalence about being put at risk for a goal she hasn't
committed to.
Aunt Milicent does not know Her Majesty Queen Mab's court, but sees no
reason for them to be expecting a grab attempt at the harp unless we
talk about it.
Tarva wants to know how Aunt Milicent would feel about Tarva going
after the harp with Lady Gillian's group?
"Well, Tarva, that's -- I like you very much, but we are really
not well acquainted yet. If you went and were successful, that would
certainly put you in a very good light with the faction of the fey I am
associated with, and I would be very proud of you. But, as it is,
I am not exactly displeased with you, and I don't feel that you need to
prove anything, either to me or to anyone else. I should be very sorry
to see you dead. And whatrver you decide, Tarva, it's important that
you understand, that while you may or may not have an obligation to
Lady Gillian, 1 have one to Princess Morgana. And if you are killed or
captured in such an endeaver, you must not expect me to help you, as
much as I would like to. You understand, Tarva? I like you very much,
but I will not be able to protect you if you go to Queen Mab"s court."
"Yes, Aunt, I understand. I've been responsible for myself for
several years now, and I don't expect that to suddenly change, just
because I now have family again."
"There are several of the family you haven't met yet. I was
hoping you would stay in Feyland long enough to meet them. But if
of course you get ahold of the harp, you might have to leave
percipitly. I should hate to see that."
"Oh, I was also hoping to meet them. I don't know how soon Lady
Gillian's planning to go after the harp. Maybe it. won't be
immediately." Lady Milicent shrugs.
Tarva moves on to another subject she has been wondering about.
"Are you interested in finding my brothers and sister? Were you
thinking of inviting them to feyland? I think they might come;
their country is so torn up now, and they've already had to flee their
homes once. Would you let. them bring their mates and
children? Would my having to leave rapidly mean that they would
be threatened by Her Majesty Queen Mab's faction?"
"Well, I suppose," Aunt Milicent responded. "I hadn't really
thought about it. I suppose it would be possible."
Aunt Milicent asks Tarva to return to Her Highness Princess Morgana's
court, the High Seat of Chalaine, with her when Aunt Milicent is
finished with her duties for Her Highness Princess Morgana here at Rath
Haraede. Tarva accepts, saying that she has decided to not go after the
harp with Lady Gillian.
That afternoon Lady Gillian calls a meeting in Sir Feldspar's cell,
where she announces that they will not go after the harp, and that she
will try to get everyone returned to Albion who wishes to go
back. She herself will be staying with His Grace Duke Aubrey's
court. Tarva announces that she will be staying with her aunt,
Lady Milicent, at Her Highness Princess Morgana's court. The rest
decide to go back.
Tarva borrows an silver edged weapon from Kaleb and tries cutting
herself with it, to see if she has enough fey blood to be immune to
damage from silver. She isn't: as evidenced by the cut on her
hand. She uses her faith healing ability to heal the wound before
Lady Gillian can find out about it, and returns the weapon to
Kaleb. While there, she talks to Moonara about ways to protect
oneself from being possessed by demons.
Melian 41, 3023
Tarva spends an hour a day trying to develop in herself various
fey-related talents, Starting
Fires, Far-Traveling, Levitation, Telepathy, Recognizing Fey, Hasting,
and Disappearing into the Scenery.
Lady Gillian, having made an appointment to do so, talks with His Grace
Duke Aubrey about returning the rest of the group to Albion. He
agrees to handle all the details involved. Warns that it will not
take place immediately.
Countess Ariel helps Alexander with the loring of all the acquired
magical items, in preparation for a treasure split.
Willan 5, 3023
We have a treasure split. Tarva selects a longbow of black wood with
the grip inlaid with silver in an intricate knotted vine design, and
with matching silver tips on the ends of the bow. It is +2 to hit and
adds 100 feet to the long range. It is unaligned, and has the signature
(Alexander tells the group) of cream, coral, silver, coral, meaning it
was created by a fey named Winter.
This is the same bow that Tarva has been using since we captured it
from the fey ambush on Melian 19th.
Tarva also gets two shots of Stone-To-Flesh dust.
In the non-magical split, Tarva gets:
2gpw 1.50 A
tarnished silver pin in the shape of a feather
1gpw 615.00 A platinum hoop earring set
with 3 1c. emerald-cut diamonds
100gpw 80.00 Kriss with a blade of damascus
steel, and a gold hilt with decorative abstract etchings
3gpw 70.00 Large gold and
silver ring with intriciate filigree design. If the ring is not
taken off in exactly the right way (with pressure put on a specific
part of the design in a specific way), it will upon being removed drive
a short needle into the wearer's finger.
Tarva gives the trapped ring to Lord Corby, since he seems interested
in collecting such items.
Willan 6, 3023
After a week of trying various fey abilities, Tarva decides that most
are not ones she has, but that she might be able to learn to Recognize Fey and to Disappear Into The Scenery.
She intends to continue, concentrating on just those two abilities.
Willan 28, 3023
Aunt Milicent arranges for Tarva to return briefly to Rath Haraede to
say good-bye to those members returning to Albion. There is much story
telling and good-byes that evening.
Willan 29, 3023
Moonara, Kaleb, Alexander, Hoss, Seth, and Feldspar are all sent back
to Albion by His Grace Duke Merlin. Tarva returns to the High Seat of
Chalaine.
HERE ENDETH THE FIRST SECTION OF THE ADVENTURES OF TARVA STREAMSIDE