- More island ruminations Balz plays his song (shared in the text chain and the discord chat). As we play it, each of us experience this happening:
You listen to the song and you snap awake a little, like whoa what is this, you are on a hill in the middle of the night, alone, the wind is blowing, ruffling clothes and hair, a crescent moon in the sky, you hear the cawing of corvids, or crows, you think you hear someone coming behind you, that they are about to whisper in your ear, you turn to look and then suddenly we’re back on the island looking at each other.
We each ended up in the same setting, but each of us may have noticed details that others maybe didn’t (nathaniel will update us individually)
B: Had a dream, and an old man with a lisp told B this: All living beings have a time, a time that summarizes their physical experience. Humans in additional have an additional time, which represents a consciousness. The bees as they collect time. Every drop of nectar they collect represents a physical life experience or the consciousness. They’re collecting the lives of people and animals and crystalize it into a honeycomb and kept. The bees exist outside of time as we know it. Every thiing a person has been through or experienced exists in these honeycombs. Each culture defines its own __ for consciousness. Separate combs could represent generations. The bees are perpetuating a natural cycle of some kind.
This is what the man told B:
The life-span of a hare on one hand and a tortoise on the other are prescribed in their bodies. The likely duration of a life is a dimension of its body. There is no way of comparing the time of the hare with that of the tortoise except by using an abstraction that has nothing to do with either. Man introduced this abstraction and organized a race to discover which of the two would reach the finishing post first.
Man is unique insofar as he constitutes two events. The event of his body - and, in this, he is like the tortoise and hare - and the event of his consciousness. Thus in man two times coexist, corresponding with these two events. The time during which he is conceived, grows, matures, ages, dies. And the time of his consciousness.
The first time understands itself. Which is why animals have no philosophical problems. The second time has been understood in different ways in different periods. It is indeed the first task of any culture to propose an understanding of the time of consciousness, of the relations of past to future realized as such. Silas’s runic message seems directly related: A bear knows where honey lives for both mind and body.
Secretive lest others find his stores.
He crawls into his cave and dreams until his time.
He hardly knows his strength.
But the stars see all he does. Why are the bees doing this? Is this someone’s command? Or is it just their nature? Do the bees exist outside of our world?
Hopps reads Geshwa.
We discuss Gwedhen, and how the bear is guarding the honey, the life force. Could this tree be part of the same larger entity of the tree in Gwedhen.
We talk about a Noorglass-Nyth theory. Tom suggests that maybe this is the same circular lake as in the Norglass map. Ryan is doubtful, as Silas has been to that region (the mountain with the dot is the cave where he was trapped as a child) and nothing here as looked familiar. Mike R suggests that perhaps this isn’t exactly the same place but a reflection of it in another dimension. If so, there may be a mapping of what’s in Norglass to what’s in Nyth . Silas mentions his dream in Tawesek where a woman came to him and he flew to a circular lake, where there was a cabin. She said “It’s been a long while since he’s met with a bear. Perhaps you should visit…”, so following this theory, Silas would have a strong interest in visiting the what would be we’re guessing the northen shore of this lake to find what would be there as a reflection of this cabin.
1. [[Storr]] attunes with Kleghein
Storr tries to attune with Kleghein on the island. She goes off to a peaceful corner of the island and tries to reenact the same actions that the centaur did.
Storr’s memory (12) allows him to start the motions, trying to put it together, she’s got parts of it, not 100%. The phoenix hops down and nods, holds out a talon to her. Gives her an imperious (adj. assuming power or authority without justification; arrogant and domineering) look.
Storr kneels and presents the sword to the phoenix. It grasps the sward in one claw, balancing elegantly on the other leg. It calls out to the sky, warbles and makes noises that Storr doesn’t fully understand. Storr casts speak w/ animals. Storr still can’t understand word for word what is happening, but she gets the sense the bird is trying to do something similar to what the centaur was doing. It hands the sword back. (7) Storr gets the sense that the sword has decided to take Storr, and a new rune looks to be forming, but unknown what it is as of yet. Storr tries to thank the phoenix. It looks down his beak at Storr, and flies back to the tree.
Silas asks the birds about beech trees. The birds indicate that there is a magical beech tree somewhere “across many skies”, but can’t give a precise location.
We sleep.
The stars looks strange to us. It is a night that we won’t forget. They wheel over our head. There’s mist and cloud, patches of incredibly bright stars in the sky, trails of light. We’re seeing some meteors, but we’re seeing a the definition of a milky way like arrangement, swirling with movement like the impressions of Van Gogh.
As we’re waking up we can hear the voice of Keto, who is out on the boat, calling, “Are you there? Are you okay? The sun is rising.”
We answer.
Keto wants to know what we’re doing. We return to the boat.
Noting B’s idea here as we leave the island that the honey and the bees and the phoenix cycling through life could be connected somehow.
- Sneaking past Nyth Keto is curious what we found. We relay what we saw.
We discuss what to do next. Should we enter the city or confront the Sun King?
We may need to do both. Sneak into the city in order to confront the Sun King as he is outside, laying siege. The Sun King knows of B’s presence here; he may be the reason why Sun King is laying seige to the city. We decide to talk with Keto about our plan to confront the Sun King.
K says the Sun King’s army emerged form the mists of the lake not so long ago and have enveloped the city and taken over the docks and the quays and while they have not penetrated the city’s defences, and there hasn’t been a lot of fighting, they just showed up and said “I demand entrance and sovereignty” So anything that comes out of the city, vessels that land can’t go without agents of the sun king on board. K definitely knows some smuggling routes, can get us up the to harbor, but I’m not sure if that’s really where you want to go, it’s up to you.
We discuss our intentions. Silas says if B wants to go and confront the Sun King, he has his beechstaff. Storr implores that maybe this isn’t the right time, us versus an army. B tends to agree with Storr. Perhaps we can return here after we reach the tower and we are more powerful with another character level, we can confront them then, and may also visit the other shores of the lake to find Silas’ friend’s cabin.
Storr: How far is the city from here?
K says, the city is on the shores of the lake. About the same distance to there from where we started. A river comes down though mid autumn. The city is on the late summer side of that river. He can set us down at that river. If we go to the docks, it’ll be hard to get by any agents of the sun king, without them being aware of our presence. We could go to the river and land at a higher place above the city. K is talking about going up river, past the city.
K will then return to the docks. What about the missing agents? K will tell them that they heard a rumor of B upstream and they went that way. K didn’t like having those guys around, we’ve done him a favor. He can let them know that they told him to pick them up later at a particular time.
Anything we can give him to help with his alibi?
Not sure, as he’ll say he wasn’t involved in the search.
Storr gives K a bronze katana. Maybe use as prove that we were seen and they went searching.
Storr: “You’ve done us a great service, thank you.”
Strange that the sun king’s navy “appeared out of the mist”. Where would they have come from? The mist envelops the entire lake, they could have come from anywhere, but perhaps there is some entry or portal on the lake somewhere.
There’s a cove on the south side of the autumn river, but he ferries us over to the north side. He points out some hills that we can use to get a look at the city. He drops us off and says “good luck”. He rows back and lets the ship drift back downstream to the lake, hoping to make it to the docks in the morning without suspicion.
We take a look at where we are and the surroundings. There is a forest close by with mountains beyond. B looks through the spyglass.
B (8) We see the city, There’s a forested area on the top of a hill within the city walls the stretches above the city itself. We see ship masts, seems busy, but not working at full capacity. Silas (10) isn’t able to see a lot more detail than B in terms of the city and the wharfs. Do see an unnatural calmness in the trees at the top of the hill. The leaves are rustled by a gentle breeze, even though the wind seems stronger. Seems calmer than the surrounding area.
Is the city trying to protect itself from the outside? Or prevent its inhabitants from escaping? Is the Sun King perhaps trying to liberate those inside? Could another sacred tree be housed here?
- Our journey inland Our traditional roles:
Scout (Exploration) - Silas (+6)
Look-out (perception) - Branwen (+4)
Hunter (Hunting) Storr (+3)
Guide (Travel) Balthazar (+4) // this should be our cinnamon girl ⇐ this was in our previous listing of when we chose roles; i’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but it sounds delicious. We still have advantage on pathfinding checks because of the maps undertaking we took back at Sibrwd. We want to head north west along the river, but head more northerly if the river bends more west toward where we think the tower might be.
B rolls travel (22), we make it 4 hexes up the river.
- 1st Event**:
Target: Storr (hunter, 16)
Effect: Fatigue saving throw DC increases by 1 (Mishap).
Detail: One night, as we are making camp for the evening, the temperature drops and a snow squall blows in and Storr was out trying to track down some food and got lost, adn had to spend a few extra hours. Everyone had to go out and find her, not a lot of sleep, camp isn’t set up quite right.
B rolls travel (7), we make it one more hex.
- 2nd event**: The next day, Silas (scout, 18) is walking along the river and hears a song, someone humming, singing to themselves off in the woods up from the river and Silas and Arthen go up to check out what’s going on and come upon a clearing that has a garden patch with just a few pumpkins. There’s a woman humming to herself. You might call this a “chance meeting.”
Silas hails her and asks to cross her bridge across the stream.
She nods and Silas continues forward.
I have a bear, he says (2)
She looks wary of the beast, but not intimidated. Silas proceeds, telling Arthen to stay. Silas tells her that he is party of a party heading north west to a tower in the mountains.
I suspect I know the tower. What do you want with it?
Silas tells her their story of how they embarked on this quest together and a fellow called The Boatman sent them to a tower in the stars. When we came to Nyth, we saw this tower on a map, and it seemed to match his description. I am one of a party of travelers, and the previous night we lost one of our own for a spell and none of us slept very much. Your home looks very cozy and your garden has these nice looking pumpkins I see. Might we rest here a bit and perhaps tell you more of our tale before we continue on our journey? (3)
You may. That corner of the yard has some good branches. You can sleep there.
Silas: Well met. I indeed prefer an outdoor slumber. My brethren, perhaps less so. But thank you all the same.
- For this week/next time We are still mid-journey at this point
What we need this coming week
- Rune for Storr’s sword
- What we all saw individually after B’s song
- Did we short rest on the island? Are hit die rolls in order? Rolling a d4 for long rest benefits?