[Lakelands] Six For Adventure

[Toric_Arthendain]

Etain glanced at Selanil with a sly look. "In the passage? No," she replied. "Whoever would live in a passage?" She smiled. "The passage does lead to where I live, though. Selanil," she said, and repeated the name, rolling it around on her tongue. "What does it mean? Shining friend, I think, or something quite like it."

This child had a razor-sharp wit along with an uncanny intelligence that Selanil had not credited her with during their initial conversation. This whole encounter had taken on a surreal air. He wondered at all the oddities, checking them off in his mind.

Stopping outside the entrance to the passage, Selanil nodded. "After you, Etain."

 

[Raven Crowking]

Horsom was thankful that Fellan's intimacy with the supernatural guardians of this region was stronger than his intimacy with geography.

"I have a friend, who is a druid of the Green Circle. Teyrnon is his name. Now, what I will show you, Horsom, I would not show some of those that rode with us. You understand who I mean." Fellan looked at Glom. "As for you, my fine fellow...well, we've already decided to take our chances, haven't we?" He stirred the fire with a stick. "In any event, you've been a better companion so far than some that I've known all my life." He nodded back the way they'd left Rogger Spanwaithe and the other riders.

He looked at Glom more fully. "Now, Horsom here has travelled a bit," he said, "and no doubt he knows how much they look down on wizardry in Selby-by-the-Water. You might wish to be warned about that. They'll kill a man for casting a charm on another against his will there, even if it is meant to delouse him or cure him of impotence. There was a great wizard there once, and one night BOOM! goes his tower and BOOM! goes the town. A full quarter of it sank. The number dead....well, Selby is a haunted town. Few travel late at night if they have a bed to go to. Which is good for us, for there will be few to mark our arrival."

He stretched out along the ground in his sleeping roll, and was soon asleep. Horsom took first watch, and Glom second, but the night seemed to be both clear and calm, if a little cold. Fellan Margrib took the last watch, and woke them well before dawn.

They made ready their horses in the cold darkness. Then, rather than following the road, Fellan led them along a path, a mere foottrack, running north along the Alder Stream. They had to lead their horses.

Perhaps an hour north of the road Fellan found what he was looking for: a great ancient oak tree with a split trunk. The split in the trunk formed a kind of shallow cave, just large enough to pull a horse through, had it been deep enough for the task.

"This is the passage I told you of," Fellan said. "It may not look like a road to you, but if you convince its Guardian, you can step into that tree and emerge near the Harbor Stones in Selby-by-the-Water. If we do it now, when people are still abed, the better it will be for us."

"How?" asked Horsom.

"The Guardian likes music, if you can sing or play. Or you might just compliment its tree and ask for passage. There are some Guardians, I am told, who do not like human company -- the one controlling the return passage is hostile -- but this one is friendly enough. I suggest you try first Horsom. Then you, Glom, and I'll follow after."


OUT OF GAME: Choose a skill, such as Diplomacy or Perform, to request passage from the Guardian, and roll 1d20. Because the Guardian is already friendly, it only requires a 5 to pass.

The Harbor Stones are a group of stones set near where the Selwyn River reaches Lake Elidyr, to the north of the river. The area is a druidic holy site, and is used as a kind of open air market as well. The standing stones placed here predate the current buildings around them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

This child had a razor-sharp wit along with an uncanny intelligence that Selanil had not credited her with during their initial conversation. This whole encounter had taken on a surreal air. He wondered at all the oddities, checking them off in his mind.

Stopping outside the entrance to the passage, Selanil nodded. "After you, Etain."

Etain laughed gaily.

"Do you fear that I mean to trap you?" she asked. "Well you should. But I will ask that you fear nothing here, for I was sent to bring you. You may eat to your heart's content, for the food is all mortal viands, but drink nothing save clear water, even if pressed, or it will go the worse for you. It is not," she said with another childlike laugh, "that Mother means you ill. Indeed not, for she needs a champion in you."

With that, she entered the barrow, and led the way down into the earth. From behind, Selenil could tell that there was something watery about her form, as though she were not fully formed. And then his keen elven eyes realized what it was: beneath her simple dress, her back was hollow. She was not human, then. Etain was one of those that peasants named the Grey Folk, or the Good Neighbors, for fear of offending them.

Fae.

Selanil knew that the faerie folk hated discourtesy and favored outsiders. They could offer rich rewards to those that pleased them, but could do as well horrible things to those that did not.

Did he truly wish to enter this mound?

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

First my roll (I have no ranks in Perform or Diplomacy and no Cha bonus):
[dice]

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Horsom listened attentively to Fellan's tale. He had heard stranger, but the lore of the faerie folk and the druids always held a special interest for the devout follower of Herne. The fey could be cantankerous and fickle, it was true. He would have to tread carefully here. Horsom was no nightengale, so maybe a story instead of a song. Ah yes, he had just the one... "Hail, Guardian! Horsom Moss requests passage through your wondrous roots! In exchange, I offer you the tale of Edwene and the Seven Purple Imps of Ringwold Grove..." he intoned. A shower of acorns forced Horsom to cover his head and end his oration abruptly. "By Herne's horned head, be silent!" a voice boomed from the mighty oak. Horsom took a step back, wondering where he had misstepped.

 

[Krug]

Glom perks up. "Blow things up? Does not sound too... bad," the goblin thinks.

Glom says to the tree, "Oh allow me passage I be gob, not far off from fey blood. And you are such a thingie of beauty, of bounty, your roots grow to touch the inner springs of.. of earth and the charms of nature flows through you erupting in your vibrant leaves which contain the light of the world. Please allow me passage and let me sing your praises, for to hear me sing would require an ear of stone and a heart of iron."

The goblin swallows hard as he takes a step towards the trunk...

Dice roll 13

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Etain laughed gaily.

"Do you fear that I mean to trap you?" she asked. "Well you should. But I will ask that you fear nothing here, for I was sent to bring you. You may eat to your heart's content, for the food is all mortal viands, but drink nothing save clear water, even if pressed, or it will go the worse for you. It is not," she said with another childlike laugh, "that Mother means you ill. Indeed not, for she needs a champion in you."

With that, she entered the barrow, and led the way down into the earth. From behind, Selenil could tell that there was something watery about her form, as though she were not fully formed. And then his keen elven eyes realized what it was: beneath her simple dress, her back was hollow. She was not human, then. Etain was one of those that peasants named the Grey Folk, or the Good Neighbors, for fear of offending them.

Fae.

Selanil knew that the faerie folk hated discourtesy and favored outsiders. They could offer rich rewards to those that pleased them, but could do as well horrible things to those that did not.

Did he truly wish to enter this mound?

Selanil nodded at Etain's words and followed her into the passage. He was too far involved in this encounter to back out now. His curiousity was nearly overwhelming him and despite his unease, he could do nothing but follow Etain into the earth. He kept his hands near but off his weapons, intent on not showing any signs of hostility to his hosts. No sense offending anyone before he got to the bottom of this mystery.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The goblin swallows hard as he takes a step towards the trunk...

....And found himself stepping through an archway formed by tilted longstones, in the harbor of a larger town that any he had seen thus far. There were several other longstones here, some standing and some fallen. He could smell the fishy odor of Lake Elidyr. Or perhaps the odor was from fishing boats moving out onto the lake, not far away. Flying reptiles, some as large as gulls but most no larger than pigeons, squabbled in the predawn for whatever was cast off from the boats before they left the docks.

Meanwhile, back in Weirwood the Great, Horsom looked up into the tree. He could feel eyes watching him, as though some huge thing loomed in the darkness. It hadn't liked his story, it was true, but then its voice had sounded loud, bothered rather than truly angry. Perhaps he had woken the Guardian from its sleep.

"In the old days," Fellan said quietly, "all men worshiped the Faerie Lords. Those gods that had ascended to the Heavens were busy with their own conflicts. Then, when the War in Heaven was finished, both gods and demons vied for the attentions of men, and the Old Gods were pushed aside as often as not. As I remember it, the tale of the Purple Imps ended better for Edwene than for Ringwolde Grove, though perhaps not in the version you know."


OUT OF GAME: You would have to fail by 5 or more to make the Guardian move from its initial Friendly position; this is a roll you may retry (and one you are unlikely to fail repeatedly).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Selanil nodded at Etain's words and followed her into the passage. He was too far involved in this encounter to back out now. His curiousity was nearly overwhelming him and despite his unease, he could do nothing but follow Etain into the earth. He kept his hands near but off his weapons, intent on not showing any signs of hostility to his hosts. No sense offending anyone before he got to the bottom of this mystery.

The passage itself was dry and dusty, clearly the passage leading into a burial mound. There were some who said that the fae were spirits of nature, and others who claimed that they included the spirits of the dead in their number. Selanil didn't know which was true, or if the truth was more complicated than either or both combined. Certainly, they inhabited places where people had once lived, or once been interred.

After a short time, the passage ahead began to glow with a warm firelight. Laughing, Etain ran ahead. For that moment she seemed only a little girl.

At the end of the tunnel, what should have been a burial chamber was instead a great Hall lit with many torches. Noblemen and warriors sat feasting on venison and wild birds, bread and milk pudding. Wine splashed in sparkling goblets. White hounds with red ears gnawed the bones, and songbirds sang in the rafters. The warriors were dressed in leather armor, and bore wode tattoos like the ancient Esk, who had long ago passed from the Middle World. The fashions of the nobles -- male and female alike -- were also of a mode that spoke of days long past.

At the head of one table on a dias sat a raven-haired woman of great beauty. Etain ran to her laughing. "Mother, I have brought you a champion," she said in a breathy rush. Even across the noisy hall, Selanil could hear her without difficulty. "Selanil is his name. Shining friend, I called him."

The woman looked up. Her eyes were violet. She beckoned Selanil to come closer, indicating a seat left empty at the high table.

"Maeve you may call me," the woman said, her voice low and musical. "Come forward, my Champion to be. Eat and be merry. Drink of the good red mead."

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

"Maeve you may call me," the woman said, her voice low and musical. "Come forward, my Champion to be. Eat and be merry. Drink of the good red mead."

Selanil looked around in wonder at the scene playing out before him. He was amazed and unnerved at the same time. With as much poise as he could muster at the present time, he moved over to the table and took the indicated seat.

He gazed at the food laid out on the table, feeling hunger cramp his belly. It had been at least twelve hours since he had last eaten. Not wanting to seem rude, especially in a situation that he felt was way out of his control, he speared some food onto the plate set before him.

Recalling Etain's words, Selanil said, "I would just like some water, if that is okay." Then, remembering his manners he said, "As Etain has informed you, I am Selanil. Pleased to meet you, Maeve." After taking a few bites of food, he continued, "Would you mind explaining to me why you require a Champion and why you believe that to be me?"