Storr searches for an early late summer/early fall apple and tosses it into the winter section.
Balz wants to search around the stone circle for any evidence about what might have been used for those groves. Something that was set into a notch that reached the tree. Looking for evidence to support that theory. (9 perception) doesn’t see anything that fits into the grooves. As B walks over to one stone, he thinks it doesn’t look like as good way for something to be held there. Grooves are four to six inches wide, 2 feet wide vertically. Rocks inner surfaces are flat. Outer surfaces are natural. Groove starts at belly button height and goes to your head. Seems like something has been rubbing against these spots over time.
Storr requests that Krambler sits on the stone. (Perc, 19) K feels like he’s at the center of a nexus of voices and the tattoos on his body feel to him like they’re flowing a little, flowing in song, but right now he can’t hear it, but he feels like this is where the voices come from, or at least made to speak. So he would be pretty interested in doing something with that, in trying to see if he could speak to those voices. K, having stone sense, walks over to a stone and he investigates the groove and sees that it’s a were-mark(?) in the stone. He sees that the flat side has been dressed crudely. He takes his hand and puts it into the grooves and we hear a sound like the low notes of a mandocello being played with a bow.
Storr talks to Balz, and says he wants K to take Kleghien and try to attune with it.
Balz doesn’t want Storr to give up so quickly on Kleghien.
Silas climbs the tree and looks into the bee hole. He can see some honeycomb, the bees, there’s a hive. Manage to do it in a way that they’re not perturbed. Does not appear disturbed, no scratch marks.
We all station ourselves at stones and touch the grooves to make coordinated sounds. We play a major chord together, but nothing happens.
Do the voices on the wind sound like the tones we’re creating here?
We hear a sound coming in, a shape flies in through the mist above the water and this huge Canada goose comes in and lands at the base of the tree and starts looking around at us.
Branwen wants to introduce herself, can she speak to the goose, what is the nature of this place and who uses it.
She introduces herself and is able to speak to it. Do you have insights to share?
The goose asks: what are trying to call with the stones?
We’re trying to call the woman below.
The goose turns it head, looks at us with one eye. In goose fashion, with somewhat limited power of speech, squawks: “Aw, woman, tree woman.” The goose references a tree woman, looks at us, says, “Sometimes she comes to speak to her. Sits there. Taught me talking. Mmm.”
Storr: “What is the name of the woman?”
Nice lady!
What should we call you?
Kledhawel
We introduce ourselves,. We come in peace. We also love music. Why did you come?
Mmmm. Like sound. But seemed strange. Wanted to see.
Would you like it if we played another chord?
Goose shrugs.
We play a B power chord.
The goose looks interested, but weirded out?
Balz scans the sky for approaching creatures. He doesn’t see anything.
The goose stands up, flaps her wings. Balz has to roll a strength save (10). He gets knocked back a couple paces, buffeted. He feels a cold wind. She looks again, confused.
Played E major again, bird was happy. Played Em,
The goose looks at us and says “sad”
We play an E7. It stands up and flaps again and wanders over to the east side of the island down toward the east side of the cove. Goose takes a drink.
Storr’s apple. As long as she was watching it, it seems like it was the same as when she left it. With the goose activity, we went back and couldn’t find it anymore.
Balz speculates on the stone and sitting on it… (perc, 17)
The goose has settled down with the reeds. The path through the reeds is about the size of the goose.
Branwen asks the goose to sit on the stone. The goose looks nervous about the prospect, but B is persuasive (25). G looks around at us and up at the sky and lets out a couple of nervous plantive soundsing honks, and scuttles away back over outside the stone circle to se if anything happens.
Silas sits on the stone, attempting to connect to the feminine presences, He is able to .. he feels an inarticulate presence, as he sits, he leans back and feels like he’s being embraced by the tree. Like it’s a comforting, protective, feminine presence. Reminded of his mother, a mothering impulse, and as he does that, another shape comes out of the mist and lands flying in one of the branches of the trees in the summer section and the large red and orange plumed bird lands and squawks at the goose. The goose honks bank and seems somewhat reassured that this bird is here. They chatter back and forth in a bird language. A very large bird. Somewhat high up, perched in the tree.
Branwen calls up to the bird and it sort of looks at her with a certain level of sternness, not angry, but something liek a regal presence. And twitters back to B that she doesn’t nec understand, and then goes back to looking out at the world. The birds seems like the bird is being very aware of protocol, B just didn’t understand the bird.
B asks the bird’s name but doesn’t understand
Balz through nature and old lore recognizes this bird that goes through cycles of life and death.
Silas casts speak with animals and asks its name.
The bird responds, says something roughly translated as “south-wind”. S asks how long she has until her next rebirth. She is looking older and older as fall sweeps past her place on the branch. Says, “time draws near”
Where does she live? Far above the clouds.
What brought her here now? She would indicate the goose with her beak and say, “Guidance”
As she says this fall, is coming and reaches up and flaps her wings, wraps herself and bursts into flame as winter catches up and the flames turn to ashes and fall to a pile on the ground. It’s a majestic sight for the full five minutes for this combustion to play out. The migrating snowbank overtakes the ash pile and hides it for a few minutes.
Storr sits on the stone (perc, 2) She hears quiet, she hears the bees entering the hole into the tree. She hears the grass on the island.
Balz gives it a try. (17) He sees the tree at a producing time and the bees are collecting, and the apples… the tree seems to hold time as an essence. Producing time as an essence. The tree is producing time in a weird way. The apples are these discrete pieces of time, they are swelling with time. The bees are collecting it from the flowers. Time is moving on as the winter comes in, winter creates a level of stasis where time slows. Balz climbs the tree (like a mid-20 roll) and looks in the hole. B manages to climb up one handed, like a pull up, really impressive shit, he peeks in, and sees the glistening honeycombs. Feels like a reserve of time. Time in the bank. As B sits there and gives it a few minutes, he starts hearing a squeaking over in the tall grass over by where Southwind was. Amongst the bedraggled, damp pile of hollowed out ashes is a small chick.
The bird still seems regal, doesn’t seem like it needs anything, like to be fed.
It grew a little bit since it emerged. It leaps onto Storr’s shoulder, rips out some of Storr’s hair and goes back to the ground, and moves it around a little bit.
We ask if the bird comes and talks with the tree woman at all.
“I come when presence asked for.”
Do you live directly above this island?
“Flying far. Always flying.”
Does she know who comes to speak to the woman in the tree?
Names, names. Many names.
Have you heard the names Mabnoss or Morianoth or the Raven Queen?
No no, HOLDS many names. You want raven?
Yes.
The phoenix leaps up into the tree and calls out with a very melodic but sad, minor key melody. (Balz tries to memorize the tune, 21, he does)
Out of the mist, comes another large bird, this time a raven, which lands in the branches at the edge of autumn, where the last of the leaves were about to fall.
Does the raven know the person that comes and sits on this stone?
Raven: Song woman. (said it common speech)
Storr: What’s your name?
Nosawel.
Does he know Koweth?
He is here.
Eyebrows gif directed toward Hoppsy
(will follow up on Branwen’s reactions when Hoppsy is back.)
There’s kinship between Branwen and the raven, but there’s a strangeness there too.
Which stone is your favorite?
Em, because it’s the saddest of keys. Jk, the raven would not pick one note necessarily.
Would you like to hear some music?
Silas recalls the story of Icebeard and the Honey Woman, how he found a woman in the snow who calls to mind Morianoth. There are bees and honey in that story.
We ask the raven if the woman that comes to the stone is the Honey Woman.
“Can’t remember, can’t remember.” Though it seems like we’ve triggered some memory in the raven; it thinks.
We ask about Torval and Ceridwen (C has been mentioned in the context of names and song), and if she was the one that came.
“Bad with names.”
B: The daughter of your queen.
“All daughters of queen”
What does the song woman look like?
“Dark hair, moves like wind”
Does she have violet eyes?
No. Like the sky, like the sky.
We adjourn.
—----
Silas really wants to get to the bottom of this womanly presence in the tree. This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we should “keep in mind and move on.” We’re here now and should try and figure it out. (percep, 14) He remembers that in getting to a magical tree the first time where we first detected that presence, you would remember that at that time you went through the water left behind by the water knights and came to that magic tree. This doesn’t seem like the same tree. But having cast commune w/ nature, you would recognize that this tree is not that tree, but you do sense a kinship with this tree. It feels right, but it doesn’t seem right. That tree was a derwen.
Are there multiple trees with these feminine presences beneath them?
We don’t know what Gwedhen looked like. It’s just a story.