We rehash last week. We’re high in the mountains in the fall, it’s nippy. We’re heading up stairs to the roof.
We talk about LoTR mechanics in terms of Yule and shadow scars. We can take the shadow scar undertaking whenever we want, but we have to commit to a months-long fellowship phase.
We go up the stairs. We pass two floors both with closed doors. We go through an opening on the roof. We’re on the rooftop. A hole where the stairs come up. A thin man, dressed in black robes, much like Adore-era Billy, with a brown, salt and pepper beard. Walking around looking up at the sky, a notebook where he’s taking notes. Tower has a smooth parapet about 4 ft above the paving stones. A dark circle in the middle, raised. We stand up here and we’re struck at the incredible view, 270 degrees. One side of the mountain going up in one direction but the view in the other directions is staggering. We’re looking out over land and we can see stars at the horizon all the way up above us.
B goes and looks at the thing in the middle of the space. The top of the tower is 25 or 30 ft in diameter. In the middle a six ft diameter raised circle, stones around it. It looks like a pool reflecting stars, something you’d see at the top of Machu Picchu (Nathaniel wants his copy of The Heights of Machu Picchu back, Hopps.)
There’s a patch of the milky in the pool, and a part of it seems to be missing the shape of a raven. The stars are so dense that the “Constellations” could be the gaps. B’s eye is drawn to the raven shaped gap.
We all walk over to the pool. Storr looks in and sees a constellation of stars, not gaps: a bird shape seeming to fly along the course of the milky way, spread wings, long neck. Balz sees a twisting shape, long tail, small body, sitting between the two shapes he knows as the greater and lesser bear. Silas is looking at the bear. K sees a bird seeming to rise and pause in midair as if about to dive (a kingfisher.) These are stationary in the sky, as stars are. All of these are “regular” star constellations, except the Raven is a dark spot in the “milky way”.
<Raven, Phoenix, Dragon, Bear, Kingfisher>
Horned rimmed glasses is like, well here he is. Serydhwr is distracted, walking around, pointing, talking to himself.
Any furniture on the platform? There are strings, twine tied to things, sticks shoved down into the stones. He ‘s walking around these. No telescope that we can see. The strings seem like a cross between something you’d see with concrete work and Charlie Day’s murder board. Planned, but not neat. He doesn’t notice us.
…. Some shit happens as ryan steps away
Balz approaches without any jerky movements and says hello to Sedrwdthr.
He’s startled.
Ser: HOW DID YOU GET HERE? WHO? LOOK AT THE STARS! They are always moving and talking to me.
Balz: What do they say?
S: I don’t know! But it’s amazing and brilliant. Look at them! Excuse me for a moment… and he goes and adjusts a string. There are several stars that move when compared to other stars, and they don’t twinkle which is strange! There are times when the moon is in darkness, and times when the moon blots out the sun. I’m trying to keep track of when these various celestial occlusions occur!
B: Like a calendar?
S: I think so. It can’t be random chance. I’m trying to determine how it all comes about!
B: Is this the same sky as before?
S: Seems like it’s always changing, but surely there is a pattern!
B: How do you keep track?
S: I’m writing it in my book.
B: I am also a lover of stars, these are my companions. May we chat?
S: Yes, but I may be distracted. (He is immediately distracted, N’s performance is strong)
Balz explains the strange goings on. “We’re looking for a kidnapped child. Also told by an oracle that we should seek out this place in particular and that it would be important for us to come here.”
S: ORACLE??
B: Just someone that can vaguely see things that occur in the future.
S: I wish they were hit now and explain to me this pattern!
(Branwen is keeping silent, but Mike H asks the group about the current status of the telescope)
Balz asks Ser about the lenses on the table.
Ser: Oh, ask her (he waves off toward horned rimmed glasses), the brown haired one. I’m looking at the stars!
Balz hands the brown haired girl the telescope. (It should be noted that we as a group would never have seen glasses before. Balz might have.)
Girl: This is exactly what I was trying to think about! I’ve seen one of these before. If you take a piece of ice, you can get the light to concentrate. (She looks through.) Serydhwr! Come here, you’ve got to see this.
He takes the telescope, and he can’t figure it out. He’s fumbling around, looking in the wrong end. Girl tries to guide him through it. They’re checking it out and marveling and they get some sense of how it works. They’re looking at far away things. S keeps trying to look at the sky.
S: Is this is what you’re typing to do?
Girl: Yes, this is what I’ve been telling you!
They’re very taken with it.
Girl: Where did this come from?
Balz: This was a gift from a friend. His compatriot sent us on this quest to find the child.
Girl takes the telescope over to the parapet and looks over. She says, “Oh my goodness, Serydhwr, you must come and see.” He looks and is shocked.
S: That star there, moves about in comparison to the others. And through the telescope, there are four others in a line.
Image:
Screenshot 2024-09-12 at 9.51.46 PM.png
Balz looks through. He has to rest his elbows on himself to keep it still. He can almost see a circle. Three much dimmer stars on one side, and a fourth on the other side. The five form a disc together.
(Are we looking at bees swarming around a lantern?)
We want to look at our corresponding constellations with the telescope and see if we see any of the more detail like dimmer stars with them.
We ask if they’ve heard of Geshwa. S has, the girl has not. Balz takes out the book and opens it, the crusty, musty smell of literature envelopes her.
Balz tries to discreetly take a sneaky spell to create a light. S freaks out, “NO LIGHTS UP HERE!!”
Balz regales her of the tale from memory. The girl is fascinated. “We don’t hear many stories here.”
Balz: Well, we can tell you more back in the great room. But as for the bees in the story, does that mean anything to you?
No, but Gwen keeps bees (the old woman we met here)
(Hopps mentions one of Cricket’s dreams: “And again you are lifted yet higher, and you see that the stars look down upon the earth, and each star is a figure with black wings and black cloak holding lanterns of various colors. And each peers down. And you fall back to sleep.”)
Branwen talks to Ser and tries to impart about the bees and the stars, and a vision that the stars are lanterns held by figures, watching down upon us. Branwen asks if they have any thoughts as to what the stars ARE.
Ser: I don’t know what the stars are!
We look through the spyglass at our constellations.
In the field of view, there are a couple of places that kind of maybe see a couple different points, we’re looking at the bright spots, and we can sort of see a separation of light, but it’s not as obvious as the one the girl pointed out. We can’t see individual constellations through the telescope, we really can only see one star at a time.
(Hopps mentions that the line of stars with the larger one is a planet, like Jupiter and its moons? MR speculates this could also be a tidally locked eclipse.)
Ser: “It seems as though, well, it might be time to call it a night. Some clouds are forming.
Clouds are coming into the valley; we can smell some rain coming up out of the valley.
S: It’s been a good night and iIm fascinated by the artifact that you brought with you.
Balz: If you wouldn’t mind, we’d love to shelter here. You’re welcome to use our device to better understand and read the book if you like.
S: You’ll have to talk to Gwenynen.
Branwen tells Silas that the raven haired girl knows a song he might be interested in. It’s the song that Silas knows from his folk, the women going down to the river.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TA6-RfCIyNMSOzrfmhdeQ0hB0Y-7G4qP/view?usp=sharing
Silas asks glasses if she knows the song as well. “She’s always singing it. It’s the only sound she makes.”
Silas asks B to ask her about the song. She starts humming again and doesn’t seem inclined to answer.
Bran to raven girl: You don’t have to answer now. Think on it. Come see me if you want to talk. For now, it’s late, you should be in bed.
She skips down the stairs and disappears.
It starts to drizzle. Ser has also descended.
We talk about potentially taking K’s shit and (LET MY Krambler GOOOOO) letting him go, which we’ll resolve later.
We head downstairs. It’s pretty dark (we roll dex, the descent was touch and go). We don’t see light under the doors. We get down to the great room. Fire has died down, no real signs of life at this juncture, pretty quiet.
Storr, Balz, Bran sleep on the couches.
Silas goes back up to the roof to sleep.
Those in the great room wake up, smelling something sweet. Light through the windows. Bustling from behind the door where the biscuits came from.
Silas wakes up damp. Mist cleared up, but not rained on. He ambles down the stairs to see what everyone’s up to.
Branwen opens the kitchen door.
Gwen says breakfast will be done in a jiffy.
B waits a jiffy.
G pulls out some muffins and asks Branwen if she would like her to assign someone to butter her muffin.
Four bleary eyed young girls come trooping through the door with various levels of low enthusiasm. G tells the girls to give us muffins. The red headed girl gives B a muffin.
B asks G about new arrivals.
G: Not for some time.
(Time is strange here.) G would point to the blond girl, the muscular bear riding one as the newest.
The girls are eating but also following directions from G. Feels pretty homey, disorganized.
B says, ‘I understand you keep bees”
G: I do.
B tells the story of Geshwa over tea. G makes tea for her and herself. They sit by a window with a lovely view down through the valley.
G says she always liked that one.
B: Why?
G: It seems true to life. Like men are always out searching, and it’s up to us women to hold down things while they’re out gallivanting. And I’ve always loved bees. So fascinating, so independent but rely on each other. And always just loved honey.
Arthen came down with the blonde one. He sees Silas and rolls over. Silas gives him some belly rubs. He sits with the blonde girl and Arthen.
B talks to Gwen about honey and the island honey that tasted like time. She asks Gwen if she’s ever come across this?
Next time:
- Gwen’s answer about Branwen’s bees and time question
- Silas wants to have taken in the view from the roof upon waking
- Silas to talk with the blond girl, trying to discreetly find out more information about her, how she came here, what if anything she remembers before this place.
- Talk with Gwen more about this child we’re searching for. Those folk that Musk encountered and handed off the child to…does she know them?