[video=youtube;h2CUSGKlUXk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2CUSGKlUXk[/video]
Day 1 thru the mountains
Wisps of cloud and snow curled across the peaks above as you navigated the foot trail through the Blue Mountains. From this high place one could see into Aedirn, Lyria, and Dol Blathanna on a clear day. The Blue Mountains proved neither an easy lover nor a harsh taskmistress, leaving your legs and backs fatigued after long days hiking across snow-kissed fields of celandine and moss. It was a day since the party came together at the ranger’s cottage with the lakeside spirit. On the first eve, as Ethian and Talashia gazed across the wintery expanse and shared a quiet moment of reflection at the “Edge of the World”, Ethian pointed out silhouettes of harpies flying in the northern reaches.
The feathered scavengers seemed occupied with another meal so there wasn’t much to fear, but the witchers kept their silver swords at the ready all the same. A harpy attack could quickly grow to unmanageable numbers. Birds of a feather, as they say.
GM: | Both [MENTION=15132]Steve Gorak[/MENTION] and [MENTION=4936]Shayuri[/MENTION] you begin with Inspiration from your talk at the mountain vista. | |
Day 2 thru the mountains
The next day, Odvara and Talashia were lost in deep conversation like bosom companions. An exiled elven jeweler and a human weaver made the unlikely union that brought the black-haired 22 year-old half-elven Odvara into the world on an eclipse. Considered an ill omen by the mages of Ban Ard, Odvara was taken from her family to be raised in isolation for signs of the “Curse of the Black Sun.” When at last she escaped the torments of the mages, she found her father had joined the Scioa’tael and her mother had become the “war wife” of a boorish Nilfgaardian corporal. Terrified she’d be goaded into losing control of her power, Odvara packed her bags and met with the guides her father had arranged to take her to Dol Blathanna. There, Odvara has been told, the elven queen Francesca Findabair herself will provide sanctuary and training.
It was a language older than words, the secret torments known by the women gifted — some would say cursed — with magic. Elora knew it well. While she watched the sunset and reflected on their experiences with the spirit of the lake, Elora heard a whispered elven voice carried on the wind…a song in Elder Speech calling to something deep inside her…a song that only she could hear.
[video=youtube;usDgBw8oy-U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usDgBw8oy-U[/video]
[SBLOCK=the song’s lyrics]
Here’s a woman, brought by north wind,
brought by north wind, pulled by water,
washed ashore by waves of oceans,
drifted here on rising billows.
When I but begin my chanting
I’ll sing seas to mead and honey,
bottom gravel all to salt grains,
Sands of sea to beans uncounted.
Just by once my girdle tying,
just by once my shirt on taking,
by once my buckles fastening,
by once my feet in shoes thrusting.
Rise, my nature, off the earth now,
Lift my sin from ground beneath me.
Rise, my nature, off the earth now,
Lift my sin from ground beneath me,
fay from underneath the aspen.
[/SBLOCK]
Darius found an ice cave which proved suitable shelter from the gathering winds that second eve. The campfire made the ice scintillate. While the others talked around the campfire, Darius scouted the cave, finding an old elven calendar-compass beneath the ice. Realizing the constellations depicted therein corresponded to the cave’s structure, Darius unearthed a frozen elven corpse with a scimitar of keen blue steel at its side.
GM: | The scimitar is masterwork, granting +1 attack and damage, and won’t break on a natural ‘1’ attack, but it is not magical (so it won’t hit creatures requiring magic weapons). | |
Day 3 thru the mountains
What transpired at the cottage by the lake had left Odvara shaken, but even the trauma of being possessed could not withstand the grandeur and good company of your journey. During the blustery descent from the Blue Mountains she relied many a time on Fergus’ steady hand. She was no lady, but neither was she a skilled mountaineer. Gradually, conversation turned to Fenris’ life as a witcher and where he gained the strange runes she’d seen covering his skin. It was Odvara’s way of feeling safe, safe enough that she could share this wasn’t the first time she felt a spirit enter her being. Once, a spirit came to her during a heated argument between her elven father and a loan-shark — the entire alley was iced over and corpses frozen; it took many days before Odvara returned to herself.
The winds continued up, battering the party along a steep ridge. Kynee received the brunt of the wind, having gone first to anchor the rope, but her nimble feet did not stray and her deceptively slight frame rooted like a tree. Reaching a cluster of boulders which offered shelter from the winds, Kynee found a massive 7-point antlers burnished with black streaks unlike any buck she’d seen. The range of some great monster, most likely.
GM: | Everyone mark off rations for 3 days. Plentiful streams, so no need to mark off water. | |
At last, descending from the mountains, you came to a trail running along a stream which fed into the Arel River, and from there you followed the road into Lower Posada, arriving in the late afternoon…