As I listen to the man intently, I briefly consider attempting to convey the urgency of the situation to him but that quickly passes. Its the dead of night so even if I were able to somehow beseech the leader of this steading to quickly act, no party to get the children would be dispatched until the morning. Besides, they have all the leverage here and I have to adhere to and be respectful of their customs.
As the man speaks, I take my sword scabbard from my back and sheathe my weapon, shortly doing the same with my dagger, bow and quiver of arrows. If it seems they expect me to bring them to their boat, I will do so. If not, I will respectfully allow them to take my weapons.
When he's finished, I look back at my trusted raft and the captive tied to it. I say to the man "I slew his companions, but I captured this marauder up in the mountains. I overheard them talking about their pilferage of your foodstuffs. Given their aggression towards me, I suspect this band has spilled the blood of your people. As a token of my good faith, I have brought him to you to mete out what justice you will."
When he's finished, I look back at my trusted raft and the captive tied to it. I say to the man "I slew his companions, but I captured this marauder up in the mountains. I overheard them talking about their pilferage of your foodstuffs. Given their aggression towards me, I suspect this band has spilled the blood of your people. As a token of my good faith, I have brought him to you to mete out what justice you will."
One of the men boards the boat, picks up your weapons, places the manacles on your wrists, confirms they are locked and sets about getting the father and the daughter onto the boat they arrived on. Apparently one of the other men that has come will assume the responsibility of bringing the flatboat in.
The man speaking to you, and clearly leading the small contingent, grabs a long fishing gaff from the boat they are on and deftly uses it to bring your raft to the stern of the flat boat. He briefly boards, unties the man's bindings to the boat and roughly brings him to his feet to take his measure. The marauder struggles with his limp but steadies himself and pulls his head back trying not to make eye contact. He reaches into the pocket of the man's breeches and withdraws a small potato spud from it that has had a bite taken out of it. He holds it up in front of the man to force him to look at it. He suddenly tears the man's grubby, loose-fitting tunic, exposing a still healing wound on his left shoulder. "You remember me, don't you. I gave you that. Right after three of you tried to make off with one of our women along with a week's worth of crop. Just so you know, I cut down the man who stood to face me while you ran like a coward and left him to die."
Your captive doesn't respond and works hard to avoid eye contact with the man. He drags your captive behind him with a jolt on the tether that you used to tie his bound body to the raft. He tells one of the men to bring your captive aboard the newly arrived boat and walks over to you. He pulls the garland of beautiful violet flowers, clearly Wolfsbane, from his neck and places it over your head. When you do not recoil, he removes it from your neck. He asks the man who placed the manacles on you to toss him the key. He does. As he unlocks the manacles he says; "We won't be needing these. We'll keep your weapons for now. You'll have a safe place to lay your head tonight, something to eat, and a guard at your door. Given you brought him to us, you've clearly come with purpose. Upon morning light, if he allows for it, you can speak with He Who Sees Without Sight and make your appeal."
If you have something you'd like to do or say now or in the intervening hours, let me know. Otherwise, the boats move back to the fortified island and as he said, you're given a safe place to lay your head, something to eat and a guard at your door - Extended Rest.
* Of note, you'll have 1 free Advantage that you can use with this group in any social conflict.
I don't want the situation to linger too long after he says "if he allows for it" but I don't want to come off as pushy, disrespectful, or demanding. Politely, I plant a seed. "There are several children, untainted by the Moon Madness, whose lives are in jeopardy. I know not if this will sway the leader of your settlement one or another, but out of respect for him I would humbly request that you let him know that this is the reason I have come. If he wishes to dismiss me at that, then I will accept his judgement and seek aid elsewhere. Bare minimum, my presence here has meant two fair souls will share another day together and I can take solace in that."
Beyond that, I will follow him and find rest in the quarters they provide me.
| 1/6 successes | 0/3 failures | 0/1 hard DCs |
The man doesn't answer you immediately or for some time. All of the effort is put in to get both boats back and the gate is raised. While the gate is raising, he says without looking back at you: "He will hear you. Whether or not he will be swayed to your cause is not for me to answer. But I will relay your deeds and he will hear you. Truth be told, by my reckoning of it, I think he may have been expecting you..."
The island plateau is as spartan as you could possibly imagine. It is a grim place with squat wood structures, firepits with boiling pots on spits, training grounds, a few pig-pens with fairly gaunt hogs, a row-garden which likely only grows potatoes, and a stoney ground ceremonial site in the center with a totem pole and The World Serpent twined around it. The battlements that surround the island are manned by stone-faced warriors, all human. You have yet to see anything but. The smell of the brackish bay, a disgusting mash of boiled potatoes and fish (that the pigs seem to mostly turn their nose up at), and the overwhelming odor of whale oil (all of the torches illuminating the island must be using rags covered in it) and the rot from a great carcass being harvested.
The captive you brought is taken to a small cellar and locked away without protest. As the father and daughter are left to enter their modest cabin, they both give you silent thanks with humble, grateful looks that speak a thousand words many time over. When you arrive at your conical tent, the man leading you opens the flap, looks inside, and speaks of the sparse accommodations; "You have a place to rest your head in safety." Looking back at you, he says "I will have food brought to you in the morning and will send a summons when He Who Sees Without Sight will receive you." With that, he holds the flap for you to enter and he nods to the guard who will watch your tent.
he says without looking back at you: "He will hear you. Whether or not he will be swayed to your cause is not for me to answer. But I will relay your deeds and he will hear you. Truth be told, by my reckoning of it, I think he may have been expecting you..."
...
The captive you brought is taken to a small cellar and locked away without protest. As the father and daughter are left to enter their modest cabin, they both give you silent thanks with humble, grateful looks that speak a thousand words many time over. When you arrive at your conical tent, the man leading you opens the flap, looks inside, and speaks of the sparse accommodations; "You have a place to rest your head in safety." Looking back at you, he says "I will have food brought to you in the morning and will send a summons when He Who Sees Without Sight will receive you." With that, he holds the flap for you to enter and he nods to the guard who will watch your tent.
..."Terilion". Shaking his head with a severe countenance he says, "this is not good...He Who Sees Without Sight will receive you at once...and you should be aware that your brother is not pleased. You know what this means."
I'm interested in what is going to happen with the father and the daughter so I'll keep my ears open to that end. I'll keep my ears open for anything that might be occurring with them for the next while. If something happens with them, such as some sort of public trial or sentencing, then I wish to consider possible actions.
.The sound of a multitude of shuffling feet and a hushed murmuring catalyzes the air with nervous energy. Clearly a gathering is beginning in the central square where The World Serpent totem and the stoney ground predominate. You can pull the flap back on your conical tent enough to get line of sight without disturbing the posted guard.
The small settlement, mostly men but a few underfed women and children, encircles the square. On the stone ground stands the man you rescued, without bonds, his daughter nowhere in sight. He cuts a lonely figure before two men who are beneath the totem pole. The elevated torchlight, flickering on there poles, reveals the two men to be an ancient elder, adorned in a snakeskin cloak with a cowl the actual head of a huge constrictor and the man's leathery face peering out from it, and the man who brought you here. The old man pulls out a raveled length of snakeskin and unfurls it as he simultaneously wraps it fully around the head of the younger man. When it is done, he steps back a pace. The crowd hushes entirely.
The man who brought you here falls to a knee, one hand on the ground to steady himself and the other a balled fist as he grunts and gesticulated wildly. Suddenly, he stands upright and goes rigid with his head snapped back. He brings it forward and a pair of glowing green, snake-like eyes manifest on either side of his snakeskin covered head.
A disturbing voice, a slithering rumble, emanates from the form of the man, "The one who is charged with the care of the whole, yet invites the destruction of the nest, is more dangerous than the lurking predator-in-wait."
I'm going to give you an opportunity to consider or clarify actions before I continue. If you would like to do something or just want to continue listening, let me know. Please stipulate a prospective trigger and an action if you want to do something in the near future should that trigger be met (eg, leave the tent if his life is threatened).
As I take in the scene before me, my eyes are drawn to the ancient snakeskin wrapped around the man's head, coiling and stealing his sight. Something about it draws me into a fugue-like state of odd remembrance. My mind is shunted from the present moment.
I'm in the tunnels of Brokenstone Vale, my home. But I am not me. I am someone else. The formorian kingdom beneath my home has recently sent scouts to the surface so I am cautious. The stories that inform the otherworlders also hold sway with my people. The World Serpent coiled through these tunnels and his scales still scar them. In the crevices, you can still find remnants of his ancient skin if you are perceptive enough and know where to look. I do not know why I am looking for it. Only that I am.
Deep in the recesses of a cavern, something glints in the phosphorescent, fungal light; a length of perfect snakeskin. I reach for it and it coils around me in turn. I'm assaulted by visions of imminent doom. The destroyer spirit gives me a glimpse into the death of my people. I throw it away from me and gasp for breath. I carefully furl it and place it in my knapsack.
Coming to, I'm breathing hard in the real world too. The snake flesh wrapped around the man's head looks exactly as the one in my dream, whatever it was. Can that be?
After I find out what happens as a result of this failure, I'll figure out what I want to do.
| 1/6 successes | 1/3 failures | 0/1 hard DCs |
Just before the haunting visions recede from your mind, the "other you" is set upon by the party of fomorians that she was tracking or carefully avoiding. She is in a battle for her life and the intense psychic feedback burns into you in this world. As you are roused from your waking dream, you gasp as a terrible pain rends your mind in two * .
Suddenly, several shivering images manifest in the yard before you. The large, purplish-grey, deformed fey rock giants from your mind take shape in the real world, not wholly there but their cruel weapons look no less sharp, their cruel visages no less murderous. The crowd gapes and inhales in unison. People scatter everywhere to avoid the wrath of the creatures. The guard in front of your tent draws steel and moves to engage as do several other men as a call to arms resounds in the night.
The father being tried or sentenced looks around for a weapon. Finding nothing immediately nearby but the wooden longpole that a torch is mounted on, he reaches for it to wield it as a staff. You see him rush toward the man whose face is wrapped in the snakeskin. A giant fomorian with a wicked axe is bearing down on him as the man futiliy tries to extricate the shroud from his head. The old man near him recoils and falls to the ground.
Two other giants scattered across the courtyard are being surrounded by men-at-arms as the havoc of the moment ensues in the form of men trying to haphazardly assume formations, intermittent screams, the eerie play of moonlight and elevated torches, running children being chased by their mothers, and the soundless visages of the hulking fey giants out for blood.
| 0/4 successes | 0/3 failures | 0 hard DCs required |
* You lose a healing surge due to psychic feedback. I believe this is your last one. If it is not, you take 1/4 of your HP in damage. While you're certain that these creatures are merely pscyhic echoes, you're no less certain that their incorporeal forms can maim and kill.
...
The current fictional positioning is as above plus you are currently without weapon. The 3 giants are scattered around the courtyard, with two of them being engaged by men-at-arms while the civilians attempt to get away. He Who Sees Without Sight and the elder are across the way near the totem pole with a greataxe-wielding formorian bearing down on them and the father moving to engage.
Your move.
I'm certain these apparitions have escaped from my mind in the feedback that assaulted me. I'm hopeful this is true and perhaps I can control them. I attempt to predict their movements in advance to determine if somehow they're still a part of me and hopefully then, I can wrest control of them or dismiss them.
I focus on the ghostly giant assaulting the man with the snakeskin-covered head and the elder. I'm able to see his moves before he makes them! I attempt to channel whatever force is at work here that gives whatever autonomy these "things" may have that is separate from my own will. I close my eyes and for a moment I think I see it...I think I have it. Just as quickly the tether is severed and my mind and body is lashed by the arcane forces that are beyond me.
I shake my head violently to clear the cobwebs and look for a weapon. Nearby my tent is a wicked, curved knife on a stump stained with fishblood and gore. I reach for it and speedily bound across the battlefield toward the giant engaged with the father, the elder, and The Man Who Sees Without Sight.
Alright. So, I'm assuming I'm down a healing surge worth of HPs from the Arcana failure - 16 HP so 48/64. I figured could just write that failure up as arcane feedback upon me. I went ahead and did a few more Primary Skills after that failure.
I shake my head violently to clear the cobwebs and look for a weapon. Nearby my tent is a wicked, curved knife on a stump stained with fishblood and gore. I reach for it and speedily bound across the battlefield toward the giant engaged with the father, the elder, and The Man Who Sees Without Sight.
| 2/4 successes | 1/3 failures | 0 hard DCs required |
Your explosive movement speeds you into the teeth of the melee. As He Who Sees Without Sight struggles with the snakeskin shrouding his head, the fomorian figment rears back with its might axe. The elder has already fallen away and holds a worthless hand over his face as he averts his eyes. The father is laying into the creature, the length of wood repeatedly passing through its incorporeal form. Unphased it brings its axe down just as the man who brought you hear finally gets the shroud off of his face. His eyes grow wide and he involuntarily shouts a fearless, stern, reproachful "NO" as the axe come down, as if he can command the beast or invert his own mortality.
