Storr approaches a female centaur to ask about Kleghein. She directs Storr to Tal, their leader. Storr gets on her knee and presents the sword to Tal.
He holds it up, runs his hand over it several times (ice blade), turns to water, turns to wind, turns to fire. Spins it around and hands it back. “What is it you are looking to do?”
She says she wants to bond to it.
Tal: You feel you are worthy of those who smithed it?
T: I’m aware of ways to ask a blade to take on a bearer. If you’d like to attempt this, when the moon comes out, we can stand in the waterfall and see what happens.
Storr agrees. They go to the falls, under the moon. Tal speaks in a language you don’t understand, talking to the moon. The result of the ritual is “NOT BONDED” but not disadvantage. Storr is close, but not quite there.
Branwen: Why is this place sacred to you?
Tal: Doesn’t understand so much.
Not much clarity here. He speaks broadly about the order of things, and nature and how it’s clearly a special place.
Bal: Moon Phase? Waxing crescent. (I think that was the response)
S: You’ve been sheltering Musk…
Tal: WHOA. We have NOT given him shelter. We are watching him.
S: Do you want him to stay or leave?
Tal: Confused by the question.
Bal: Moon will be full in a few days? Should we try again with teh sword in a few days?
Tal: It’s up to the sword, but he was talking to the moon on Storr’s behalf. This place is better than a port-a-potty for asking for a lifelong bond.
The water here is very fresh mountain water, clear and strong current. Great water. Much like The Abbot’s water. In terms of it’s purity, harkening straight of the rock.
Balz: Ever heard of The Black Water?
Kelynnen has, but it’s a story/rumor from far away. Musk knew about it, he grew up in Monsoth. The centaurs refused to discuss it.
We sleep in various places.
We wake up in the morning…what’s the plan? Centaurs are “melted back into the forest”.
Roles
Scout (Exploration) - Silas (+6)
Look-out (perception) - Branwen (+4)
Hunter (Hunting) Storr (+3)
Guide (Travel) Balthazar (+4) Event 1
Guide check passes, first event is three days out. Target: Storr. ›Storr is hunting andsstalking plain. Found where the trail goes, there’s a narrow valley down. To the left there are patches of snow and to the right there’s still snow encrusted on the slopes. S sees an elk and she disappears for a while. And the rest of the party comes to help find her. They find her on the marsh which she mistook for a field and she broke through the ice. When we come to her, she has been submerged for a while and well pull her out. We need to keep her warm by a fire for a while. It’s a grueling experience, and our fatigue saving throw increase by 2. No shadow points. (success)
- Event 2**
Another event 1 day out. Target: Silas. Silas and Arthen are trying to find ways to get down to the main stream over a pass and we get lodged in some pretty sig snow and get suck out that night, and the party comes out looking for them and cant find them. A storm comes in, they retreat into a hollow. In the morning, S & A come rolling into to camp covered in snow did manage snuggle in a lee side of a cave? +2 fatigue saving throw, no shadow points
Bal gets us to our destination. We make it to the lake shore and find a decent camping spot.
Silas takes 2 levels of exhaustion (speed halved)
We’re at the shore of the Lake of Voices, Swirling mass of mist and fog starts a couple 100 yards offshore. We have no boat.
Before we left, Musk gave us a small sketch book that belonged to his brother. He wasn’t sure why, but at the time he felt it was important. He wants us to give it to his niece, because he feels it was a mistake to take it. It’s a bunch of sketchwork of his planned woodcarvings. some images are of a shell (in texts)
We short rest. We discuss our next steps. While we do, a small sailing ship comes out of the mist on the lake and pulls up to the edge of the lake off to the stream to the north (south). They start offloading goods. We notice now that there’s a sort of portage trail on the other side of the river. We also notice that there is a barge waiting further up river.
Storr looks through the spyglass. There’s merchant vessel, a bunch of goods. They seem to keep glancing uncomfortably at someone who’s up on the quarterdeck in the back.
Branwen hails them (rather successfully) There’s communication. We want to get a ride. They send a row boat over to talk to us on the shore. Storr can identify nthat the one they were looking to does come over in the boat.
Branwen continues the convo witht he person. It becomes clear (and storr could indicate) that this guy is leading the discussion and he seems by very persuaded by B and says “Yeah, absolutely.”
Ladder is the man’s name. He is happy to provide with passage, they are headed back to the city.
This fellow seems to be watching Bal. Bal goes over to the guy and talks to him.
Bal asks if he’s from the city.
No, he;s traveled a ways to be here, trying to keep an eye on shipping. He thinks this is a great example because not everybody would be willing to take on passengers, but he’s going to make sure that we get what we need and show folks that we deserve it.
Bal tells us he seems like a good guy.
Bal apologies for the horns, we can talk more about that later on if you like.
Of course, no big deal, we’ll have a couple of days on the water. We just need to unload some things and we’ll be off in the afternoon.
Storr assures Silas that we can torch the boat if necessary.
3 nights of the journey we weren’t able to craft. We each get 4d20s worth of craft points.