These instruments are akin to Aeolean harps. The tones of them at night were similar to those we’ve heard in the forests, but these ones are more familiar.
Balz observes that they would feel that they’re not allies perse but also not enemies. BW especially has got a mischievous streak, a fuck around and find out kind of thing. Balz would not believe that they would actively do us harm, but also won’t stop us from huirting ourselves. A feeling of dark humor. He’s hinting at things but not being entirely open.
The party discusses what to tell BW and Fiona, regarding the other ways into Nyth. We agree after some debate that we should share that we entered through the prison portal, and that Musk traveled through the cave. Balz describes the prison and the forest.
They are very interested. They look at eachother , They ask how we got to the prison.
We say that we traveled through the funeral pyre and The Boatman having directed us.
They confer again. Tell us more.
Branwen shares that that was the moment when she came into being. We tell them the name of the prison.
Then your courage is probably sufficient for the path that I would suggest to you.
What is this path?
Are you finished? Can we offer you wine or song?
Balz: “One more thing,” and lowers his hood. I’ve gotten some looks about my decorative apendages since I’ve been here. Do they mean anything to you>
My you are an intriguing group of individuals, quite a ciollectiuon of oddities. Glance at Balz with horns, a pale woman with hair like a night wind, traveling in the company of a small and great bear.
Bran: What do you know of the bear?
They gesture to Silas and say “He may be small but he has a bear;s shape.” And that is all that can be said about that,
What does he see when he looks at Storr and K?
Storr: You bring with you a fire in the sky. K: You are a hunter of the winds and waters.
He sits back in his chair and smirks with his one crazy eye. “As I said, quite a collection of invdivioduals, the likes of which we have not seen before.”
Can I interest you in a fortifying wine. Storr declines, and the rest imbibe. A thick rich red wine. “Follow us” Koweth takes a beak full before Branwen drinks.
We follow them back down to the tower and through the greenspace. There’s a cleft in some rock. A cherry tree and a copper beech growing on either side of this entrance.
“This would be my suggested path. Are you prepared? Your guide waits just inside.
Storr: We need our armaments.
He smirks and says, “Sure.” and calls to a guard, and they run off to grab them. They return with our affects.
Balz: Any advice before we head in? You don’t recommend going over the falls. Where does this go?
This would be my suggestion. The guide is awaiting you.
Storr gets the sense that Kleghein is frightened but doesn’t want to be so its working itself up to be pumped af.
We walk through and it gets very dark. Ahead of us the cave opens out a little, there’s some movement ahead of us, we walk down and we walk in. We see a spectral dog who looks nervous, spotted black and white, natural athlete, but he is waiting for us in this chamber. He looks at us and barks as if to say “ready?” and starts to sunter down a pathway.
We follow him down, at times we hear voices and shapes of bodies but when we look we see just rock. Can’t tell if we’re really hearing and seeing these things. Mostly we’re able to keep up, but hte re are times when he disappears. We follow by sound. Not sure if he’s lost us, but we keep going down. We’re feeling more and more moisture. A mist comes up the passageway. We find ourselves in an opening, small dome, 15 ft across, 9 ft ceiling, a rough floor we’ve come down to and there’s an opening through which we see darkness, but there’s spray coming through. He sits down and looks at us, sits down and looks almost sad with his eyebrows.
We suspect this might be The Black Water. Storr unsheaths Klegh and activates the 2nd rune, which sheds moonlight. We see that the floor has an arc that goes through this arc. Still ahrd to see what’s going on, but we do see some lights out there.
Storr approaches the dog with Kl drawn and approaches the edge. As our eyes adjust it seems like we’re seeing night sky, with the Constellations that we’ve seen elsewhere, and we sense that we can see the waterfall off to the left of us. We’re on almost a balcony. The dog comes and he sits down next to storr and looks up at her,, looks out, looks back at her, barks, and runs out into the night sky and slowly disappears as he goes.
Storr leaps, and so do we all. We leap off into the night sky. We’re falling through the night sky. We can see the water cascading to our left. We’re moving into the stream. As we fall, we see what we think are enormous black branching shapes through the sky along with gray non descript people moving, sometimes holding hands in groups, looking upwards in a sense of reverence, we fall and join with the water and we fall for a long time.