Session 4: Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered Report
General Summary
It’s been just over 20 years since La Voyageuse Mazarine visited this valley for the first time, but the years pass differently for Animists - especially after the first few thousand - and her feet recall the way through the Bone Orchard to Druxy Forest and the Lonely Grove, the tender hearted, somber cities of Applescab and Sourstrath where still they burn and drown effigies of her and Molthoe rules from atop their crumbling ruins. On the subject of ruins, she’s nearing one of her all time favorites in Anima or in Albion - the shattered castle of Goldengate and Princess Angharad Goldenhand. Or, rather, the hundreds of acres of moor that the ruins overlook. She has been walking the woods for all the ages of Anima and, inevitably, Cridhe Loch Fae is called back to L’Entre-Deux. She has lifted countless of her offsprings from this field and invited them to walk either alongside her or alone, as long as they accepted that their souls must walk eventually.
She knows the name of every weapon planted here by the bereaved in honor of their fallen brothers and sisters and lovers and the names of those fallen too, knows she will take a right at the burial mound ground black blaithe croiche and continue forward 2013 paces in northwesterly direction before she begins to feel crunching under her boot and has to consider the fragments on the ground very carefully to determine whether they are bone or malicorn. She passes the recent corpses of Camelot’s knights and finds the one she’s looking for in the furthest northwestern corner: on the surface, a standard glaive, but only because the smaller malicorn keen blade that was once attached to its pommel has been removed and transmuted. The arm of the glaive is roughly 11 feet tall and made from Mererium in the earliest days of its use - a rare, coveted substance, certainly, but not nearly as much as its wicked and 12 inch Il-Dath blade, the multi-colored dragon-blown gloine the single item on the field that looks as it did when it was new. The blade glows brighter even now, as if in recognition of its owner approaching.
The Protectors of the Realm have found their way into the Uncanny Valley at last, though not without trouble and not without company, desired or otherwise - our heroes are now accompanied by Harry the dragon hatchling, their very small and very unofficial guide Rainbow Pretty Bugg, an iridescent fawn called Leucine who appears to have no sense of self-preservation, and the person they came to see: Vermilia of the Uncanny Valley, an apparent old friend of Queen Guinevere. After halting an unfortunate tumble from an even more unfortunate elevation had by an increasingly distressed Malcolm, Vermilia recognized Princess Godiva Pendragon amongst the lineup of Camelot’s finest. Let’s join them now on the flat floor of the Uncanny Valley known colloquially as the Chromista elevation, where our group has safely gathered and begun moving forward in what is hopefully the direction of Aylward Moltroe Malenfant, whose permission they require to pass unhindered to Slumbering Giant and the realms of Anima beyond.
A cold, damp gloom has rolled alongside a thick, glittering fog that rolls across the boots of our heroes as they tread. Valley resident Vermilia recognizes the telltale shifting of the wind from Talmhan Stand to the northeast - she dutifully took their required dose before venturing back into the Valley from the outskirts of Lychnis and will so be unaffected, but the visitors from Camelot are being affected even as she comes to this realization.
Vermilia sets her sights on Ser Malcolm Le Deux, in some degree of visible distress, and wagers a guess at the source of his growing discomfort. Succumbing to the effects of the fog and acquiring the Bewitched condition, Malcolm finds himself in a terrible vision (or is it a memory?) of losing control of the werebear instincts that plague him and going feral, injuring Grifflynn once again before cutting down friends and family and heading for the center of Camelot - triggering a feral shift in Ser Le Deux in the real world. Lady stays the blade of Ser Eleanor's zweihander with a touch of her hand while Vermilia shows a surprising and hidden strength and manages to restrain the young knight. He roars at the unfairness and indignity of being caged and she finds herself comforted by the answering howl of nearby companion Gahariet Goodeve, who emerges from the depths of the gloom to restrain Malcolm as Vermilia offers him a pouch from her hip. Gahariet samples the blend of herbs and ingredients in the pouch to demonstrate its safety to Malcolm and the fully transformed Malcolm begrudgingly tastes it for himself, only to find himself returned to his original human form. Vermilia and Malcolm agree to discuss the particulars of the pouch as well as the phial of fizzing pink liquid she covertly supplies him with and their secrets a little way away from the group. Recognizing the substance, Godiva weakly asks Vermilia if she by chance has more - she doesn't, but she doesn't know where to find more.
Meanwhile, a troubled Lady requests a private audience with Ser Grifflynn - she has a secret she can no longer bear to keep alone, and looks to the services of the best secret-keeper in Camelot to help ease her burdens: Lady and Eleanor have met before, but in a past life of Eleanor's that she can't or won't remember. Lady reveals an intimate relationship between herself and Eleanor's predecessor and the emotional strain of being forgotten, revealing her arrival in Camelot 20 years earlier to be the result of her family's hopes of staunching her grief. Apparently, the years have not stemmed the tide. Grifflynn gains +1 String for keeping Lady's secret and Lady thanks "Whispers" for her time before finding her way back into the group.
Grifflynn remains so caught in both the keeping of secrets and concern for Malcolm, his own secret revealed before he was ready to reveal it, she doesn't notice that the landscape around her is changing until she finds herself standing in a hidden passage behind the ready room for the Knights of the Round Table all the way back in Camelot, where she overhears a crucial conversation between Ser Lamorak and her own strangely sympathetic father, Ser Kay. The information circles in Grifflynn's magic-muddled mind like a rock in a tumbler before the polished thought falls from her lips and into the real world she inhabits: Eleanor’s mother is Morgause of Orkney. Grifflynn does not think or does not need to continue, Eleanor’s mother helped kill the king. Eleanor is a knight serving his Queen and his Princesses. Grifflynn acquires the Bewitched condition and Ser Eleanor, still ruminating on her parentage and the kiss Lady stole from her at the top of the Valley, frustrated at having been stiffens at the reveal of her greatest secret but is unable to respond in her usual fashion before Princess Godiva, too, is bewitched by the fog.
Reunited with her clandestine friend, Godiva's mood is cheerful despite the disastrous nature of the morning, thoughts of people back home, and the perpetual chill making her hair frizz - it reminds her of another time and place and Godiva finds herself not in the Valley but in the wind and water-ravaged seaside village of Lorath on the 18th anniversary of Le Morte D'Arthur. Distantly Godiva remembers traveling here from the free city of Burgess in the company of Ser Barden of Burgess, son of Ser Bors, in a technicolor haze of drug and drink intended to dull her senses and anesthetize her emotions and the warm, bubbly feeling of Síocracht driving them to the top of Lorath's sea wall. Barden of Burgess loses his footing and disappears into the porcelain waves of the Exhydrean sea, the black foam cresting 30ft high waves that have been whipped up and burned along the edges like a meringue and in the part of her mind that remains unaffected by magic Godiva knows she has the same choice now that she did then: leave Barden to his fate, or take a leap of faith and make the 100ft plunge to the icy water below, follow the ghostly and impossible sound of her father's voice to an unconscious Barden, free him from the armor dragging him to his death, and tow him to shore. Ivy chooses: she leaps from the seawall in her dream and acquires the Bewitched condition as she leaps from a ledge of a small waterfall in the real world. Lady hears Absabeth's horrified scream as her sister disappears and despite her better judgment mounts her steed Liadan and follows Ivy over the edge, managing to catch her only due to Liadan's supernatural speed. They land safely in the clearing where the rest of the group has gathered having followed the sound of Absabeth's screams, only to find that she, too, has been caught in the fog.
Absabeth finds herself back home in the Great Hall of Castle Caerleon, surrounded by a crowd of cheering admirers and the women of her family who stand behind her like kindly shadows as she faces two ancient, gilded chairs she recognizes as The Empty Throne and the Queen's Throne, which stands empty and awaiting not her mother, but her. Archmage Merlin Ambrosius, best friend of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, kneels before her and presents a crown atop a pillow of green velvet. It is her coronation day at last, and all she need to is bend her head to accept the offered crown. Absabeth does so, but before her birthright can be placed upon her head the doors to the Hall burst open, spitting forth none other than her half-brother Mordred, who only has eyes for the Empty Throne. Reflexively, she turns to face it though her feet feel cemented in place and ismet with the piercing blue gaze she only recalls in dreams: her father King Arthur Uther Hereward Pendragon I surveys the scene from his rightful place, an indeterminable expression on his face and a wound in his side that appears to be leaking stardust. Before her eyes he ages rapidly and crumbles into dust. The black unicorn cries in the distance. With Mordred approaching the Throne and Merlin still holding the crown aloft Absabeth, too, is faced with a choice: what will her first act as Queen of Camelot be? Absabeth draws her brand new mererid blade and thrusts it into the side of Mordred of Orkney in her dream, acquiring the Bewitched condition as her blade finds purchase in the side of the approaching Lady Lake in reality. A devastated Abi struggles to process the unusual circumstances and is taken aside by Ivy (clearing the Frightened condition using her Shiny and New playbook ability) while Lady uses her unique mererid blade to heal herself with the waters of Nepenthe. After checking in on her twin's overall wellbeing and being reassured that she is as well off as she can be, Adaleis follows Ivy and Abi away from the group to console the Princess.
Despite their Animist blood one by one the Lake twins fall prey to the fog, as well:
First Adaleis, headed back into the clearing with Abi and Ivy. The landscape warps and shifts until she is standing in the vast green fields of her home realm,Brocéliande - the skeleton framework of its capital city of Esse seems to swim up to meet her as she walks: the familiar sight of the city on water, the Anima strolling barefoot through the streets as water laps at their ankles and calves, the sprawling 100 fathom Casleán Saol that has been her family’s home for over 10,000 years and extends all the way down into the undercity of Thíos, the smell of blaithe croiche growing along Lake Nepenthe and angfona baking in hundreds of homes, the clink and crash of the Sealgaírí Fola, the army that will one day be hers and Aleydis’ to command, on maneuvers. The peaceful scene is shattered by the sound of a familiar voice, an echo from Adaleis' past:
"Arsa an t-éanlaith lena mhachnamh…cé acu againn atá níos fíor?"
She know these words not because they’re in her mother tongue, but because they were written about her:
Said the songbird to its reflection, which of us is more real?
Guthanna Mittaine Den Laibhe Domhain stands in her memory as he did in life, beautiful and arrogant and wounded. Mittaine recalls his own relationship with Adaleis and issues a challenge: Can she confront her true, raw self for "her" sake? Adaleis is faced with a choice between ignoring her former flame and confronting his words and any potential truth in them. Adaleis steels herself and looks into the small Mererid mirror Mittaine has offered and is rewarded: she is greeted by the warm, comforting sight of her Grandmother Cridhe Loch Fae and is reminded that her Dream Mirror abilities come from the ability to comfort a dying man, of which there is nothing to be regretful or ashamed. Adaleis promises to find her grandmother soon and returns to reality, no longer Bewitched, only to find Lady in the throes of the fog's spell.
Lady Lake clutches the wound in her side as it knits itself back together, liquid light from within staining her fingers, and finds herself in neither a dream nor a nightmare but a memory - her worst memory. The clock turns itself backward and Lady sees a vast ocean of emerald green moors, its borders marked off by the weapons of those who have laid their lives down there; lovingly overlooked by a crumbling castle of white marble that looms in the distance but never seems to grow larger or smaller as you approach. The banners of all the high houses of Anima accordion in the light high above the heads of the thousands of Sealgairi Fola, Uxores Mortes, Ghutanna An Domhain gathered on her side of the field, dwarfed by the opposing mortal force by a factor of 10. She stands indiscernibly but definitely younger, her hair shorter, a faint glow emanating from her skin that is not present in her present, at her side a woman with straight chestnut brown hair that is tucked away from her face in a single braid and vivid blue eyes, clad entirely in gleaming black armor, a double-edged glaive with glowing blades in hand. The two march into battle alongside their people and Lady takes a moment to admire the brown-haired woman's prowess in battle, only to watch as a sly mortal finds and opening and sinks a broadsword into her chest. Lady watches her younger self sprint across the battlefield, the rest of its inhabitants moving in slow motion as she races to catch the falling woman. The woman offers a bloody smile, touches Lady's face with the tips of two bloody fingers, and goes limp. Lady storms the battlefield and does not stop until her opponents are gone and she is covered in blood, at which poin tshe returns to the body of the woman, drops to her knees, and screams. Adaleis watches her sister relive this memory from her mind's eye. Lady asks Vermilia to take them on a shortcut through the Field of Shattered Shields (a location she had hoped to avoid bringing Eleanor through) and the ragtag group sets off, eager to leave the Uncanny Valley and its tricks, together but lost in their own thoughts.
Upon reaching the Field, Eleanor feels a strange tugging sensation in her stomach combined with an overwhelming feeling of deja vu, as if being pulled toward something - from behind an ancient burial mound where black blaithe croiche grow steps Cridhe Loch Fae, holding an unusual glaive and claiming it belongs to Eleanor. A confused, angry Eleanor refuses to believe she knows the strange woman in blue or the weapon she holds despite a weeping Lady's insistence that it is, in fact, hers even if she doesn't remember that it's hers - Lady goes so far as to point out the similarities between the malicorn hilt of Eleanor's weapon and the malicorn pommel of the glaive, but Eleanor cannot be convinced. Though she remains unaffected by the fog, Eleanor suffers her own onslaught:
As if through a kaleidoscope Eleanor sees a gleaming white castle suspended on air, 9 women including her mother who stand side by side and all resemble each other, an unseen source of light behind them; the castle giving way to a city of jagged stone so riddled with caves and sepulchres that it resembles a beehive from afar. The women look on as Cridhe Loch Fae approaches one such sepulchre and waves away the wall that seals it. A woman with straight brown hair and vivid brown eyes dressed only in a white shroud exits and Eleanor remembers names and faces that aren't her but were, somehow, her, before she is overcome by the memories and collapses into unconsciousness. Lady rushes to her side and intimately addresses Eleanor, whispering a phrase as if in call and response:
Death's Wife, how do you fare?
Eleanor's eyes flicker open and with a warm smile and a posh, unfamiliar accent she replies:
I greet death like a lover.
And if I tell you that I am death?
If possible, Eleanor smiles wider.
Then I love you.
Seemingly at war with herself, Lady swallows against the lump in her throat before a small but genuine smile spreads across her face.
Hello, Mathilde.
Save for Adaleis, the party looks on in confusion as Lady helpsEleanor Mathilde (?) to her feet.
She knows the name of every weapon planted here by the bereaved in honor of their fallen brothers and sisters and lovers and the names of those fallen too, knows she will take a right at the burial mound ground black blaithe croiche and continue forward 2013 paces in northwesterly direction before she begins to feel crunching under her boot and has to consider the fragments on the ground very carefully to determine whether they are bone or malicorn. She passes the recent corpses of Camelot’s knights and finds the one she’s looking for in the furthest northwestern corner: on the surface, a standard glaive, but only because the smaller malicorn keen blade that was once attached to its pommel has been removed and transmuted. The arm of the glaive is roughly 11 feet tall and made from Mererium in the earliest days of its use - a rare, coveted substance, certainly, but not nearly as much as its wicked and 12 inch Il-Dath blade, the multi-colored dragon-blown gloine the single item on the field that looks as it did when it was new. The blade glows brighter even now, as if in recognition of its owner approaching.
The Protectors of the Realm have found their way into the Uncanny Valley at last, though not without trouble and not without company, desired or otherwise - our heroes are now accompanied by Harry the dragon hatchling, their very small and very unofficial guide Rainbow Pretty Bugg, an iridescent fawn called Leucine who appears to have no sense of self-preservation, and the person they came to see: Vermilia of the Uncanny Valley, an apparent old friend of Queen Guinevere. After halting an unfortunate tumble from an even more unfortunate elevation had by an increasingly distressed Malcolm, Vermilia recognized Princess Godiva Pendragon amongst the lineup of Camelot’s finest. Let’s join them now on the flat floor of the Uncanny Valley known colloquially as the Chromista elevation, where our group has safely gathered and begun moving forward in what is hopefully the direction of Aylward Moltroe Malenfant, whose permission they require to pass unhindered to Slumbering Giant and the realms of Anima beyond.
A cold, damp gloom has rolled alongside a thick, glittering fog that rolls across the boots of our heroes as they tread. Valley resident Vermilia recognizes the telltale shifting of the wind from Talmhan Stand to the northeast - she dutifully took their required dose before venturing back into the Valley from the outskirts of Lychnis and will so be unaffected, but the visitors from Camelot are being affected even as she comes to this realization.
Vermilia sets her sights on Ser Malcolm Le Deux, in some degree of visible distress, and wagers a guess at the source of his growing discomfort. Succumbing to the effects of the fog and acquiring the Bewitched condition, Malcolm finds himself in a terrible vision (or is it a memory?) of losing control of the werebear instincts that plague him and going feral, injuring Grifflynn once again before cutting down friends and family and heading for the center of Camelot - triggering a feral shift in Ser Le Deux in the real world. Lady stays the blade of Ser Eleanor's zweihander with a touch of her hand while Vermilia shows a surprising and hidden strength and manages to restrain the young knight. He roars at the unfairness and indignity of being caged and she finds herself comforted by the answering howl of nearby companion Gahariet Goodeve, who emerges from the depths of the gloom to restrain Malcolm as Vermilia offers him a pouch from her hip. Gahariet samples the blend of herbs and ingredients in the pouch to demonstrate its safety to Malcolm and the fully transformed Malcolm begrudgingly tastes it for himself, only to find himself returned to his original human form. Vermilia and Malcolm agree to discuss the particulars of the pouch as well as the phial of fizzing pink liquid she covertly supplies him with and their secrets a little way away from the group. Recognizing the substance, Godiva weakly asks Vermilia if she by chance has more - she doesn't, but she doesn't know where to find more.
Meanwhile, a troubled Lady requests a private audience with Ser Grifflynn - she has a secret she can no longer bear to keep alone, and looks to the services of the best secret-keeper in Camelot to help ease her burdens: Lady and Eleanor have met before, but in a past life of Eleanor's that she can't or won't remember. Lady reveals an intimate relationship between herself and Eleanor's predecessor and the emotional strain of being forgotten, revealing her arrival in Camelot 20 years earlier to be the result of her family's hopes of staunching her grief. Apparently, the years have not stemmed the tide. Grifflynn gains +1 String for keeping Lady's secret and Lady thanks "Whispers" for her time before finding her way back into the group.
Grifflynn remains so caught in both the keeping of secrets and concern for Malcolm, his own secret revealed before he was ready to reveal it, she doesn't notice that the landscape around her is changing until she finds herself standing in a hidden passage behind the ready room for the Knights of the Round Table all the way back in Camelot, where she overhears a crucial conversation between Ser Lamorak and her own strangely sympathetic father, Ser Kay. The information circles in Grifflynn's magic-muddled mind like a rock in a tumbler before the polished thought falls from her lips and into the real world she inhabits: Eleanor’s mother is Morgause of Orkney. Grifflynn does not think or does not need to continue, Eleanor’s mother helped kill the king. Eleanor is a knight serving his Queen and his Princesses. Grifflynn acquires the Bewitched condition and Ser Eleanor, still ruminating on her parentage and the kiss Lady stole from her at the top of the Valley, frustrated at having been stiffens at the reveal of her greatest secret but is unable to respond in her usual fashion before Princess Godiva, too, is bewitched by the fog.
Reunited with her clandestine friend, Godiva's mood is cheerful despite the disastrous nature of the morning, thoughts of people back home, and the perpetual chill making her hair frizz - it reminds her of another time and place and Godiva finds herself not in the Valley but in the wind and water-ravaged seaside village of Lorath on the 18th anniversary of Le Morte D'Arthur. Distantly Godiva remembers traveling here from the free city of Burgess in the company of Ser Barden of Burgess, son of Ser Bors, in a technicolor haze of drug and drink intended to dull her senses and anesthetize her emotions and the warm, bubbly feeling of Síocracht driving them to the top of Lorath's sea wall. Barden of Burgess loses his footing and disappears into the porcelain waves of the Exhydrean sea, the black foam cresting 30ft high waves that have been whipped up and burned along the edges like a meringue and in the part of her mind that remains unaffected by magic Godiva knows she has the same choice now that she did then: leave Barden to his fate, or take a leap of faith and make the 100ft plunge to the icy water below, follow the ghostly and impossible sound of her father's voice to an unconscious Barden, free him from the armor dragging him to his death, and tow him to shore. Ivy chooses: she leaps from the seawall in her dream and acquires the Bewitched condition as she leaps from a ledge of a small waterfall in the real world. Lady hears Absabeth's horrified scream as her sister disappears and despite her better judgment mounts her steed Liadan and follows Ivy over the edge, managing to catch her only due to Liadan's supernatural speed. They land safely in the clearing where the rest of the group has gathered having followed the sound of Absabeth's screams, only to find that she, too, has been caught in the fog.
Absabeth finds herself back home in the Great Hall of Castle Caerleon, surrounded by a crowd of cheering admirers and the women of her family who stand behind her like kindly shadows as she faces two ancient, gilded chairs she recognizes as The Empty Throne and the Queen's Throne, which stands empty and awaiting not her mother, but her. Archmage Merlin Ambrosius, best friend of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, kneels before her and presents a crown atop a pillow of green velvet. It is her coronation day at last, and all she need to is bend her head to accept the offered crown. Absabeth does so, but before her birthright can be placed upon her head the doors to the Hall burst open, spitting forth none other than her half-brother Mordred, who only has eyes for the Empty Throne. Reflexively, she turns to face it though her feet feel cemented in place and ismet with the piercing blue gaze she only recalls in dreams: her father King Arthur Uther Hereward Pendragon I surveys the scene from his rightful place, an indeterminable expression on his face and a wound in his side that appears to be leaking stardust. Before her eyes he ages rapidly and crumbles into dust. The black unicorn cries in the distance. With Mordred approaching the Throne and Merlin still holding the crown aloft Absabeth, too, is faced with a choice: what will her first act as Queen of Camelot be? Absabeth draws her brand new mererid blade and thrusts it into the side of Mordred of Orkney in her dream, acquiring the Bewitched condition as her blade finds purchase in the side of the approaching Lady Lake in reality. A devastated Abi struggles to process the unusual circumstances and is taken aside by Ivy (clearing the Frightened condition using her Shiny and New playbook ability) while Lady uses her unique mererid blade to heal herself with the waters of Nepenthe. After checking in on her twin's overall wellbeing and being reassured that she is as well off as she can be, Adaleis follows Ivy and Abi away from the group to console the Princess.
Despite their Animist blood one by one the Lake twins fall prey to the fog, as well:
First Adaleis, headed back into the clearing with Abi and Ivy. The landscape warps and shifts until she is standing in the vast green fields of her home realm,Brocéliande - the skeleton framework of its capital city of Esse seems to swim up to meet her as she walks: the familiar sight of the city on water, the Anima strolling barefoot through the streets as water laps at their ankles and calves, the sprawling 100 fathom Casleán Saol that has been her family’s home for over 10,000 years and extends all the way down into the undercity of Thíos, the smell of blaithe croiche growing along Lake Nepenthe and angfona baking in hundreds of homes, the clink and crash of the Sealgaírí Fola, the army that will one day be hers and Aleydis’ to command, on maneuvers. The peaceful scene is shattered by the sound of a familiar voice, an echo from Adaleis' past:
"Arsa an t-éanlaith lena mhachnamh…cé acu againn atá níos fíor?"
She know these words not because they’re in her mother tongue, but because they were written about her:
Said the songbird to its reflection, which of us is more real?
Guthanna Mittaine Den Laibhe Domhain stands in her memory as he did in life, beautiful and arrogant and wounded. Mittaine recalls his own relationship with Adaleis and issues a challenge: Can she confront her true, raw self for "her" sake? Adaleis is faced with a choice between ignoring her former flame and confronting his words and any potential truth in them. Adaleis steels herself and looks into the small Mererid mirror Mittaine has offered and is rewarded: she is greeted by the warm, comforting sight of her Grandmother Cridhe Loch Fae and is reminded that her Dream Mirror abilities come from the ability to comfort a dying man, of which there is nothing to be regretful or ashamed. Adaleis promises to find her grandmother soon and returns to reality, no longer Bewitched, only to find Lady in the throes of the fog's spell.
Lady Lake clutches the wound in her side as it knits itself back together, liquid light from within staining her fingers, and finds herself in neither a dream nor a nightmare but a memory - her worst memory. The clock turns itself backward and Lady sees a vast ocean of emerald green moors, its borders marked off by the weapons of those who have laid their lives down there; lovingly overlooked by a crumbling castle of white marble that looms in the distance but never seems to grow larger or smaller as you approach. The banners of all the high houses of Anima accordion in the light high above the heads of the thousands of Sealgairi Fola, Uxores Mortes, Ghutanna An Domhain gathered on her side of the field, dwarfed by the opposing mortal force by a factor of 10. She stands indiscernibly but definitely younger, her hair shorter, a faint glow emanating from her skin that is not present in her present, at her side a woman with straight chestnut brown hair that is tucked away from her face in a single braid and vivid blue eyes, clad entirely in gleaming black armor, a double-edged glaive with glowing blades in hand. The two march into battle alongside their people and Lady takes a moment to admire the brown-haired woman's prowess in battle, only to watch as a sly mortal finds and opening and sinks a broadsword into her chest. Lady watches her younger self sprint across the battlefield, the rest of its inhabitants moving in slow motion as she races to catch the falling woman. The woman offers a bloody smile, touches Lady's face with the tips of two bloody fingers, and goes limp. Lady storms the battlefield and does not stop until her opponents are gone and she is covered in blood, at which poin tshe returns to the body of the woman, drops to her knees, and screams. Adaleis watches her sister relive this memory from her mind's eye. Lady asks Vermilia to take them on a shortcut through the Field of Shattered Shields (a location she had hoped to avoid bringing Eleanor through) and the ragtag group sets off, eager to leave the Uncanny Valley and its tricks, together but lost in their own thoughts.
Upon reaching the Field, Eleanor feels a strange tugging sensation in her stomach combined with an overwhelming feeling of deja vu, as if being pulled toward something - from behind an ancient burial mound where black blaithe croiche grow steps Cridhe Loch Fae, holding an unusual glaive and claiming it belongs to Eleanor. A confused, angry Eleanor refuses to believe she knows the strange woman in blue or the weapon she holds despite a weeping Lady's insistence that it is, in fact, hers even if she doesn't remember that it's hers - Lady goes so far as to point out the similarities between the malicorn hilt of Eleanor's weapon and the malicorn pommel of the glaive, but Eleanor cannot be convinced. Though she remains unaffected by the fog, Eleanor suffers her own onslaught:
As if through a kaleidoscope Eleanor sees a gleaming white castle suspended on air, 9 women including her mother who stand side by side and all resemble each other, an unseen source of light behind them; the castle giving way to a city of jagged stone so riddled with caves and sepulchres that it resembles a beehive from afar. The women look on as Cridhe Loch Fae approaches one such sepulchre and waves away the wall that seals it. A woman with straight brown hair and vivid brown eyes dressed only in a white shroud exits and Eleanor remembers names and faces that aren't her but were, somehow, her, before she is overcome by the memories and collapses into unconsciousness. Lady rushes to her side and intimately addresses Eleanor, whispering a phrase as if in call and response:
Death's Wife, how do you fare?
Eleanor's eyes flicker open and with a warm smile and a posh, unfamiliar accent she replies:
I greet death like a lover.
And if I tell you that I am death?
If possible, Eleanor smiles wider.
Then I love you.
Seemingly at war with herself, Lady swallows against the lump in her throat before a small but genuine smile spreads across her face.
Hello, Mathilde.
Save for Adaleis, the party looks on in confusion as Lady helps
Rewards Granted
LORE KEEPER AWARDED:
Real World Experience
+2 XP to party for bravery and strength in the face of the Uncanny Valley's unusual magic PLAYER AWARDED:
Best Secret Keeper In Camelot(But not the Uncanny Valley)
Lady - +1 String to Whispers for sharing her secret
A Spoonful of Sugar
Malcolm gains one phial containing 5 doses of Síocracht. 1 is given to Grifflynn and 4 doses remain.
Real World Experience
+2 XP to party for bravery and strength in the face of the Uncanny Valley's unusual magic PLAYER AWARDED:
Best Secret Keeper In Camelot
A Spoonful of Sugar
Malcolm gains one phial containing 5 doses of Síocracht. 1 is given to Grifflynn and 4 doses remain.
Character(s) interacted with
- Queen Cridhe Loch Fae
- Peeress Mathilde Durand
- Gahariet Goodeve
Notes
CONDITIONS ACQUIRED
Absabeth (1):
Bewitched, -2 forward
Adaleis (1):
Guilty, –2 to Emotional Support
Godiva (1):
Bewitched, -2 forward
Grifflynn (2):
Insecure, -2 to Entice
Bewitched, -1 forward
Lady (1):
Guilty, -2 to Emotional Support
Malcolm (2):
Guilty, –2 to Emotional Support (Note - failed Emotional Support rolls represent consumption by guilt and will result in acquisition of +1 Feral)
Bewitched, -1 forward
PERSONAL TRACKERS
Grifflynn (The Trickster, Feelings Tracker): 2
Malcolm (The Beast, Feral Tracker): 0
Absabeth (1):
Bewitched, -2 forward
Adaleis (1):
Guilty, –2 to Emotional Support
Godiva (1):
Bewitched, -2 forward
Grifflynn (2):
Insecure, -2 to Entice
Bewitched, -1 forward
Lady (1):
Guilty, -2 to Emotional Support
Malcolm (2):
Guilty, –2 to Emotional Support (Note - failed Emotional Support rolls represent consumption by guilt and will result in acquisition of +1 Feral)
Bewitched, -1 forward
PERSONAL TRACKERS
Grifflynn (The Trickster, Feelings Tracker): 2
Malcolm (The Beast, Feral Tracker): 0
Absabeth Pendragon
Malcolm le Deux
Godiva Pendragon
Adaleis Lake
Aleydis Maudeleyn Lake
Report Date
09 Apr 2023
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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