Session Four:
The sluagh returns to speak with the Hag. She questions her about speaking to the Face, asks “Why the loon?”, and has a long conversation about the dual nature of fae as summer and winter creatures. The redcap arrives and proceeds to be totally unsubtle and relatively uncurious, not getting nearly as involved as the sluagh but getting as much immediately useful information in the end. The redcap and the sluagh return to the cliff face. The eshu and the troll are resting up from their serpent injuries. They go looking for their ferryman friend and get him to row them to the base of the cliff so that they can “give it a voice”…this entails echoes, by the way. They question the cliff as to the location of the Sword of Spring. It gives them some riddlish directions. They get the ferryman, who was completely wowed by the eshu’s recounting of the slain serpent, to row us across the lake to the nearest freehold. It’s run by Count MacNamara, a Fiona noble. In his mortal seeming he runs a resort called The Birches. After hearing of the serpent-slaying, Count MacNamara puts the whole party up for a month while they rest outside of the Dreaming and Ethan the Smith makes armor for Calistan and Beorn (eshu and troll) and Chick the Jeweler makes brooches for the same two. Chick also modifies Cailean’s tooth necklace and puts the two serpent teeth on the middle, making a really badass sluagh decoration. Beorn builds up weapon-smithing, the other three build up riding, Cailean takes up archery, and Calistan sends off the story of his adventure to various magazines awaiting publication. Grimjaw and Beorn get their swords balanced. Calistan and Beorn are knighted for their bravery. Cailean is offered knighthood, but since she’s a tracker for Count Saul, she is sensible enough to decline knighthood from Count MacNamara. Calistan and Beorn become good friends. They spar against each other nightly and when they are given daggers made from the teeth of the serpent, they declare themselves blood brothers. The team stays past High Summer’s Eve, when as gifts they are given elven steeds. Count MacNamara points out the mountain that they need to see, the seeing is seen, and they’re off to find a cloven rock in that direction. The Fantastic Four are waylaid in their journey by fihr-bohlgs, which are these really nasty baby-eating beasts who warp the Dreaming around them (I suspect it’s the odor that does it). The Fantastic Four attacked and slew the male. The female took off and spent glamour to keep herself from being pursued. She wound up just a lonely-looking guy standing in the middle of the woods. The Four made their way across the bridge and ride forth to the shore, where they go in search of the cloven rock which marks the cave of the sword. Unfortunately, Grimjaw forgot what he was looking for. Cailean offered to sell it back to him, since sluagh don’t just give things away. Grimjaw informed Cailean that she had better be glad that he didn’t just eat her. Cailean took this verbal assault with great offense. So much so, that when she found what Grimjaw was looking for, she told Beorn and Calistan first. The Four confronted a crack in a rock as to obtaining the sword. It ran worthiness tests for possession of the sword on the company in the order that Beorn introduced them: Beorn, Calistan, Cailean, and Grimjaw. Only… the session ended before Grimjaw’s turn, so only the first three passed their tests, whereupon they were each given a piece of the sword. The redcap’s outcome remains to be seen…
Player’s Note: I really got into Cailean more in this session. I was a bit uncomfortable in my character and in the game for the first two sessions that I had, and thereby didn’t do anything. By the end of this game I was confidant in my role and was ready to go… and managed to make it through the fighting stage without fighting at all. Not to mention that I didn’t awaken the manticore and I didn’t lose confidence on the bridge and all that great stuff. I’m still really fond of the Hag, who talked to me at the beginning of the game. I desperately wanted to ask her name, but I knew that I wouldn’t get anything from it, so I suppressed my murderous curiosity. I was really indignant at Grimjaw’s threat to eat me when I offered to trade for information. I’m a SLUAGH, that’s what I do. The troll is being a good sport. Not only does he have my back, he’s giving me a hair doll if I’ll teach him the next level of Primal. Hooray!
Session 4.5