Once again the party returns to the influential Arcane Collegium, climbing the oddly always slippery steps from the Steam Gate. Despite the fey incursion, its neighborhood is still home to student quarters overflowing with impovershed scholars and scribes...and those who make money from them. Stationers, sellers of quill and ink, brewers, cheap tailors, and a few tutors all do a brisk business here.
And who could forget the Hedgehog, the tavern with questionable music preferences but a gracious host. Another resource is the Chartered Brotherhood of Alchemists, obsessed (of course) with fire and immortality. You've also heard mention of the Book Fetish...less a library than a book retailer. Rumors from the college youths also hint of a brothel tucked away somewhere in a crooked alley.
Your first stop might be Ottily Riverbend, the hinted specialist mentioned by the Ambassador. A quick name drop reveals she is actually the current Master of Star and Shadow Magic...the previous Sariel of Morgau having retired to the nearby mountains.
--Ask a librarian. (DC 13, charisma persuasion, intelligence investigation, intelligence arcana, intelligence history, or wisdom insight) OR (DC 15 charisma intimidation)
--Research on your own. (DC 15 intelligence arcana)
--Seek help from students. (DC 15, charisma persuasion, intelligence investigation, intelligence arcana, intelligence history, or wisdom insight)
--Seek help from Ottily Riverbend. (DC 15 charisma persuasion OR agree to carry a message to the shadow courts)
--Seek help from Sariel of Morgau. (DC 16 charisma persuasion AND a gift of some minor magic)
--Player creation. DC 15
"Okay, so we should split up and see what we can figure out. Where does everyone want to go?"
"I would like to ask Sariel, perhaps, but I would wish to come with a gift for such a refined scholar. Any ideas?"
Carnadine enjoys another brew from the Alemaiden... almost as good as blood, almost, he heretically thinks.
"I would like to meet my countryman, Sariel of Morgau, too. But, doesn't he live in the nearby mountains?"
"As the Ambassador mentioned, I will seek the aid of Ottily Riverbend. I find the best plans are the most straightforward." The ghost knight sets out to beseech the current Master of Star and Shadow Magic.
When his words fail to convince the Master as blasphemy of his thoughts, the noble dhampir agrees to carry a message to the shadow courts.
Hrungnir sat down to research, but unlike before had a rough time of it. The reason? Distraction and anxiety. He had left a coin in the ambassador’s abode, but the owl had seen him. Was the owl a familiar? If so, it wouldn’t be safe to scry. Doing so might well be noticed. Or worse, it could be a trap. A powerful mage could make a scrying attempt dangerous, or an illusion could be woven so that the wrong image was seen. There were so many risks involved. But could he give up the information they could glean? The problem ate away at him, leaving him distracted enough to divert his research into the kind of arcane traps that could await him. And at the end of the day, he hadn’t accomplished nearly enough.
A young girl overhears you and says "Did you say you wanted to bring a gift to Sariel? That's so touching. So sad what happened, poor man." at your metallic gaze she quirks "Oh, you didn't know? His friend the old Master Summoner was murdered not long ago, Linnea Thorn. Took it real bad and retired to the mountains outside the city. You might bring a keepsake of Linnea's...but then he was also once the Master of Star and Shadows, I'm sure he would appreciate anything related to the arts of illumination..."
Ottily is actually an elven woman, which is quite rare. She is of an average beauty and the kind of strong woman who is hard to charm "Stop trying to butter me up. Im not some tavern flit. *sigh* I am intrigued, though, at what you are getting at. And Thelamandrine is quite an...interesting associate. Very well, I will tell you a little something if you promise to carry my missive to the dimension beyond...a matter of familial trust, or will as you call it." A quill jumps to life and starts writing out a message on parchment as she concentrates, tapping her chin with a finger in composition. It occurs to you that perhaps she is not elven, but subtly shadow elven...maybe she has gone to some lengths to dampen the shadow fey features. Why else would she be talking about a family trust in the Realm of Shadow?
"Now. The merchant Shadow Roads of the Arbonessen elves won't get you where you want. You need to enact a certain ritual to tread the Nilfheim road...it is a complicated arcane sequence whose details have been scattered with time. We know of it because of a late Collegium apprentice...since moved to distant Siwal, I believe...and his 'interactions' with a sluagh. Yes, sluagh. You know of them? Fey spirits of unclaimed souls, quite disgusting creatures...they fly like flocks of birds. Supposedly they attempt to enter the house of a dying person, in an effort to carry its soul away. Some say closing west-facing windows is a guard against them..." she brushes away the notion as ridiculous, putting a blue mountain flower to her face as a nosegay.
"This one in particular is called Knuckletooth...a true haunt of the city. I'm not sure where you could find him, outside the nightmares of crying children of course. But you could likely barter for the details of the ritual...I have considered it myself, though I have more pressing issues now as Master. Does that help?"
The mountain dwarf grunted through tome after tome, getting some eyebrows raised by the other erudites nearby. Research was never so hard, it seemed. Almost as if someone had intentionally removed the most important linking documents at just the right places for solid connections to remain vague. The best you can say from the piles of old research is that there might be some places in Zobeck that can access the Shadow Realm...something you may have guessed before anyways. Frustrated, you turn elsewhere.
Kjeta lets others pour though tomes. She heads for the campus tavern to pour something more refreshing.
She takes her time, drinking with a few students, keeping an ear open for someone who seems to study the fey...or at least seems miffed enough about recent shenanigans to offer help.
When she finds a likely candidate, she raises a glass. "Hark! Kjeta Strongmalt here. How do you do?
"I'm the Hero of the Hops, and I aim to travel to the Shadow Realm to end this maddening fey incursion. Free drinks for anyone who'll lend a hand in finding the way."
"I suppose I shall speak with the librarians, then," Raseri says in a tone that makes it clear she isn't thrilled about splitting up.
She walks into the library and asks to speak with anyone who might know more about the metal the darts and her seax were made from and what she'd done with them, figuring that speaking of exotic materials from other realms would help her find those that would be willing to talk to her about how to get to the Courts of the Shadow Fey.
At first, most seem dismissive of the brew-mistress, or are quick to make a try for a free drink with some clever play on words. Others are way too scared and shun off any open actions against the fey, knowing well the rumors of curses and jinxes going around.
Not dismayed, Kjeta finds the biggest keg in the place and takes a moment to watch the server's tap technique: quite sloppy, from her perspective...over frothy, wrong angle of attack on the tankard, too fast. She humbly shoos away such a novice and draws forth the perfect mug in a graceful and practiced, almost ritualistic, movement. It seems to add the extra cherry on the offer, and a heavily bearded halfling (is that thing even real? ...no it clearly isn't.) comes forward.
Stroking the false beard in concentration "It's funny you mention that really, I was just reflecting on something similar a few days ago. You know, what with our new shadow fey overlords coming about. I know you're trying to go the other way, but I was thinking: how did they get here? Library didn't have much on it, so I started thinking of song...oral tradition goes back a lot farther than some of the oldest books, you know. Most have it where some great tragedy like a murder or suicide opens a portal...the idea is that strong emotions on one side somehow affect the physicality on the other. Crazy isn't it?? Well, it would be if they didn't all seem to have it that way...lends credence to the notion, I'd say." he reaches for the perfectly poured brew, but then hesitates.
"Another thing that stood out to me as oddly common, a spinning lantern. Why would someone choose to write that into a song if it didn't have some truth to it? I mean of all things: a spinning lantern? Anyways, seems important somehow." he takes the brew this time, confident he has delivered.
The librarian is a gruff old minotaur of grey, ashen hair and solid black eyes, as he sniffs the little torc in his nostrils jingle-jangles and he seems to look incredibly irritated. Holding a finger to his snout "*shhh* Others are trying to study." his voice is surprisingly feminine, almost humorously so...but you dare not laugh.
"If you would like references to these materials, I would be happy to help you...stop shouting around at everyone, please." After a few moments it seems pretty clear that you aren't really interested in the exotic metals, however he does suggest that black market traders would be most knowledgeable about them. "...if you are really trying to get there, I've heard a ritual exists that can open a way. There isn't a copy here in the library...and there is a good reason. The ritual requires a sacrifice of some kind. Something like that requires accurate details, and sources need to be checked out." he reaches below the counter and produces a book and little writing set. "If you do figure it out...would you agree to record the procedure for our benefit?"
Raseri tries her best to keep her voice down as she gives the librarian an embarrassed look.
"What runes can you read? I do not know the ones used for this tongue," she admits.
Lexi will spend her time "talking" to experts.
"Thank you, Master. Yes, a few more questions about the sluagh. What does it look like when it manifests? What kind of gift would it want in trade for the information? If you had time to look for it, where would be the first place that you would look?" Carnadine asks polite questions.
The librarian minotaur assures you there is an abundance of multilingual scribes on command at the college, and that recording the events as they transpire in your native tongue...capturing the ritual as you truly experience it...is best.
The shade of the streets tries roughing up some virgins, a pair of 4-eyed math nerds going on about lunar cycles...but despite their lack of experience they seem extraordinarily resilient against the night domina. Their ignorance is a shield, Lexi thought...and quite pathetic. They truly had no clue, could not even begin to fathom, the tortures of the damned that awaited them at the end of her Scorpion Stiletto. Disgusted, she made her way back to the others, hoping for better fare.
"Ha, well, I've never had the pleasure...to put it kindly. I hear the sluagh are of pale grey skin, stringy black hair, and jagged teeth in a mouth-too-big-for-the-face. It's one of that particular class of fey...the kind that likes games. Wordplay, but also clever betrayal...like a djinn that twists wishes on purpose. They call him Knuckletooth because he has a taste for...*ahem* freshly butchered pig knuckles...yes." she seems visibly attempting to brush the image from her mind "As for where to look, I would suspect wherever newcomers or temporary residents most frequent Zobeck. They surely have not heard the lore of closing westward windows as I explained...hence the rate of interactions are higher. Just a theory."
"Thank you," Raseri says, grateful that he hadn't made much of her ignorance. Not wishing to take more of the librarian's time, she gives a slight bow before leaving to meet with the others. She looks around and wonders what kind of a sacrifice would be needed.
The gearforged is welcomed by most, the foreign students especially. Part of the appeal of coming to study in the Clockwork City was after all such interesting denizens. It didn't hurt he had a natural charm from his kobold soul with none of the usual kobold stink; a pairing that unfortunately went hand in hand with most of his fleshy brothers.
The girl, whose name turned out to be Betsy, took a fondness to him and helped find his way along to the relatives of Linnea Thorn. There he learned old Master Sariel had retired just after the funeral, and had expressed severe regret at Linnea's death. He carried a burden, Mr. Thorn explained, in that he blamed himself for what happened "...'for all I knew, I couldn't save her' he had said. A man like that is in a dark place inside. And of course its not true, there was nothing anyone did or didn't do...such is the way of sudden death to play tricks on the minds of those with the biggest hearts."
He added "If you're really going out to visit, would you care to bring him a gift of compassion from us? Linnea enjoyed copying the augeries from Celestials she summoned, when translated to the common tongue they make beautiful poetry. I think Sariel could find comfort in such works from Linnea's hand..." he nearly tears up.
----
The journey took just over a day by carriage, and almost stopped before it started. The fey at the gates were quite restrictive until the seal of Thelamandrine was flashed, and some quick words by Deimus settled them.
Deimus perhaps took the time on the carriage, with its slow swaying back and forth on the high mountain roads, to read the poems himself...they were truly of another world, yet resonated in the deepest part of his koboldanity ().
Sariel's retreat appeared as little more than a hovel in the side of a cliff with a doorway of mud and sticks, but inside it was a lavish yet cold mansion. When the words of the Thorns was recounted and the gift delivered, he openly wept the tired red eyed weeping of one who has done nothing but.
"Tzk. Zobeck still needs you...you were once the Master of Star and Shadow? An incursion from the Shadow Realm is underway...you must know something that can help us get there..."
The mourning Sariel explained "*sniff* It isn't always clear what signifies a site for the portal ritual...you have to choose the right site because they are connections are constantly shifting as others use them. One of promise is the Lych Gate, an old elven temple gate that was later incorporated into the Ghetto Wall...there is a hidden mural there, according to some sources, the wall can be activated to show images or scenes. I was never able to spend much time with it...though the idea always intrigues me."
As you are about to leave the Collegium, one of the students wearing the scribes garb approaches nearly out of breath "*pant wheeze* ...flow of time...erratic they say. Once sorcery was used to protect caravans from the shadow fey, its said the sorcerers carried these...in 'those dark places where rest is uncertain'. Im sure they meant the shadow roads!"
He hands over a divine looking tome titled 'chapbook of wounds'.
Deimus, upon returning, tells of his encounter with Sariel: "I'd be curiousz to find that mural in the Ghetto Wall and see what could be done with it. Perhaps that ritual would help unlock it? In any case, I'd like to come along and meet with this Knuckletooth. Szay... that spinning lantern, could it be a lighthouse?"
"Did they say where the mural is?"
"The lantern probably needs to hang and spin. What concerns me more is the need for a sacrifice," Raseri says as she writes down the information the others had gathered in the journal she'd obtained from the librarian. Underneath it is the tome she'd received from the messenger boy being used as a makeshift tabletop. anyone looking over her shoulder can see several notes and doodles not regarding the ritual to travel the shadow roads in the margins.
"Is there any more information that you can provide to another son of Morgau?" The knight incorporeal politely inquires.
"Yes, the mural wall from Sariel sounds the easiest to access. The Knuckletooth will require a visit to a butcher to acquire some freshly cut knuckles with which to bargain, and a bit of a hunt." Carnadine replies to Deimus and Lexi.
Then, his alabaster ears perked up. "What sacrifice, Thorsdottir?"
"The ritual to open the way requires a sacrifice. I have written down what the others have gathered, but..." Raseri looks away, clearly embarrassed. "I do not know the runes of this tongue. I can write in the tongue of my home or that of the fey, but I never learned how to read or write like those of the Southlands. People already consider me dumb and ill-bred. I try not to give them a reason to believe they are justified."
The party was uncertain exactly of this so-called Lych Gate's location, but the Ghetto Wall was of course known to all...the sewed together fortification that kept the kobolds in their warren. The only real clue to go on was that it was once part of an elven temple...hard to spot an ancient refined culture in this patchwork of cobbles, guardian-husks and razorwire.
Yet it just takes perseverance and a little trust from the locals to get you in the right direction, and soon the structure is before you. The gate was once perhaps its own entity but has long been incorporated into the mashup of the Ghetto Wall. Still, its gabled roof is tall and rests atop engraved pillars, worn but still vividly depicting images of travel, trade, and war...and curved organic symbols which seem to be antithesis to the runes of the north.
Carnadine wanders around the area like an over-armed tourist politely inquiring with the locals about this section of the Ghetto Wall.
His behavior demonstrated that this Captain of Arms within the Knights Incorporeal would do absolutely anything to get to the queen's court, because what he was doing was so demeaning.
Feeling somewhat deflated after his research had come up empty, Hrungnir decided to be more humble. He remembered his father’s words...Humility can be humiliating, but even more so is failure. And failure was not an option. Especially as the garbled etchings were so far from his own cherished craft. So he took the time to ask around, to find any self-proclaimed experts who were sure to frequent the area. He was certain that by leveraging the name of his own craft he could convince at least one to speak with him
As the others go about trying to figure out how to pass through the gate, Raseri pulls the hood of her cloak low and wraps it tightly around her. The unseasonable cold was getting to her, far more than she cared to admit. Perhaps she has spent too long in the Southlands, or perhaps it is the magic behind the cold that affects her so. She studies the symbols on the gate only long enough to find that these runes are not the Sylvan ones she knows, though some seemed to be very similar to them.
Frustrated, she sits down and sighs. She will be of little use here, she can see. Her skills lay in battle and the forge, not persuasion or the arts of the skald. She shivers as she settles in for a long wait. Not wanting to be utterly useless, she pulls out her new seax and frowns as she looks at the runes carved into the hilt.
ᚦ, the rune of Thor, she remembers carving it first and most carefully. The next rune, ᛉ, she doesn't recall carving. The rune of protection makes sense, but why can she not recall carving it into the bone handle? Her eyes move to the next rune, ᚲ, and her breath catches in her throat. It could mean torch or light, but Raseri's memories of this rune are different. Fire, ash, smoke, screams, and a name that even the Southlanders fear, Chernobog. The other runes, ᛇ, the rune of the yew tree, and ᛚ, the rune of the lake, are almost missed as her eyes keep moving to the rune carved most prominently in the bone of the hilt.
Oh, sister, what would the others think!
Raseri drops the seax in surprise as she spins to face the voice. Her hands grip the stones to help throw her to her feet or out of the way of whatever blow is coming. Blue eyes look for the threat, the silver-eyed doppelganger that has to be there.
And find nothing.
A chill runs through Raseri again, this one deeper and more foreboding. Is she going mad? She has to be. Why else would she have carved what she did. She thinks about leaving the blade where she'd dropped it, but the craftsman in her refused to waste something she'd put her time into when all that was wrong was something that could fixed in only a few minutes work. She sighs as she kneels to pick up the blade, then looks at it, puzzled.
She could feel the seax humming still, like a tuning fork or a ringing bell. She turns to go find the others, but the blade pulls her the other way, into the dark and shadowed gate. Curious and nervous, Raseri pulls the holy symbol of Thor from her neck and chants a soft spell that sets it aglow with fire. She wraps the chain about her hand and wrist a few times before following the pull of her seax. The thrumming as she crept deeper into the shadows lulls her into a trance and her eyes droop until they close and all she can feel is the stone beneath her feet and the pull of the dagger.
Step by cautious step, she makes her way further and further into the gate. The pull of the seax grows more insistant and the ringing hum turns sharper and sharper until it's painful to hold. Then she feels the tip of the blade touch something solid and the humming stops. Raseri slowly opens her eyes to find herself alone in a pool of stormlight. She looks around, wondering how far she had gone.
As she turns back, she sees herself, silver eyes gleaming and a manic grin on her face.
"Hello, sister mine. I do hope you are as happy to see me as they are you," she says in a sickeningly cheerful voice.
"Them?" Raseri's voice was soft and her eyes wide with panic as she found her nightmare come to life.
"Oh yes," her silver-eyed double chuckles, "After all, they are our mothers."
A cackling growl rises up from dozens of voices behind Raseri. She turns, her hands fumbling the seax then for her hammer as the blade clatters on the stone. Hands pull at her arms, her legs as dozens of glowing silver eyes glower at her. She screams as she's forced down and knows she's at the horde's mercy. The teeth close in, filling twisted smiles and opening wide to tear her apart, and Raseri squeezes her eyes shut, unable to witness her doom coming over her.
The others find Raseri whimpering and curled up on the ground. Her holy symbol to Thor lays a few yards from her, the silver marred by an ugly, black gash. To her other side lays the knife she'd forged from the rapier she'd claimed as spoils of battle. The rune, ᚲ, in the center of the handle glows a dull red, the bone charred from the heat.
Lexi will spend her time deciphering the symbols on the gate.
The Knight Incorporeal found his courtly manner no real asset to the rougher citizens calling the Wall their backyard. Though none openly slighted him, he could sense by their smirks and unwillingness to lock eyes what they truly thought of him. And was it really a surprise? The feudal system had been dead in Zobeck for some decades...they were not like the peasants of Bruvik who knew their Lord and his dark thirst.
But eventually he came across a greyed and frail veteran who could read heraldry, and through light conversation revealed was even once a field teacher in vexillology (the study of heraldic flags and symbols). The old man recognized his gules, with a skull argent...but likewise the dhampir recognized a tiny brass pin, the radiant eye, on the old man's shirt. Signifying a follower of Lada...an eternal enemy of Marena and her Aprostala.
The old man sensed his recognition and flinched, even reddening "Eh...nevermind that, I'm too old for things like that to matter anymore. Besides, you came here for the elven Gate. Aye, I know a bit of its history...might've gone left unnoticed were it not for the sluagh. Locals call it the 'Sluagh's Window'...only fey spirits would haunt an old elf temple. Some nights ye'll see 'em in the gap..."
A little girl (), sunburned and red-haired, drops the stick she was playing with and comes rushing over. "Who were they?" she asks curiously "I've only seen stink-face and the dragged woman come through there before...how did you make it work?"
Kjeta comes running over as well, confused by Raseri's collapse...and equally confused by the little girl's comments.
Kjeta realizes she's distracted by visions of riding Weißbier again. Equally scared and excited, she takes a hearty pull of beer and then approaches the giant owl again.
"Hey sister. It's me. Want to stretch your wings?" After a few minutes of clutching, white-knuckled, to the saddle, Kjeta gives a yelp of pure joy, and tries to swoop in and around the gate, looking for anything of interest.
"Thank you veteran for the information freely given. I've two proposals for you. First, if you can take me to the nearest butcher, I would buy you something, too."
"Second, if you give me that brass pin of yours, I would tell you about the blessings of the Red Lady. It is never too late to learn and accept the way to immortality." Learning that he has found the Sluagh, he needs some knuckles. Start with the butcher for pig's knuckles, and proselytize to a heathen would he welcome to his Divine Mistress. And if the Sluagh needs human knuckles, maybe this elder veteran is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for his new Mistress to achieve immortality.
The symbols on the gate are as annoying as Zokhan's hand writing, and its hard to really get into them...how did he expect you to do anything with this mess? Yet they have the character of Umbral writings you've happened across before...its just their sequencing and style is smeared and foreign. Perhaps an ancient version of the language.
The huge owl coos low, vibrating the wood and straw of the floor in resonance. Though the midday was not its usual time to be awake, it seemed easy to convince...a stretching of the wings was overdue. Brumdahl was sober for a change and actually quite helpful with the mount's special tack...adjusting the mechanical winch strap of the belly as you sat astride, to get the weight distribution just right.
The flight to the Gate was crisp, and bits of sun pierced the cloud cover in great rays that scanned across the troubled cityscape below. There was a tense moment when Kjeta thought she caught eye of another sky rider, miles away dipping upwards into the clouds...but attempts to track it down failed.
A few swoops near the Lych Gate brought strange and somewhat fearful looks from the residents of the area, but that was forgotten as she noticed something quite intriguing...the owl's shadow, as it ran across the gate. It was causing some of the carvings, some of the symbols to glow a bright blue...hard to tell exactly which ones from that distance, the priestess came in for a landing to find Raseri and the girl...
"Any of you speak ancient Umbral?" asked Lexi after a fair a mount of staring and swearing to herself.
As she pulls her attention away from the damnable script, she notices Raseri laying on the ground. Rushing over, she asks "What happened?"
Raseri starts at the voices, scrambling halfway to her feet only to stumble as she sees Lexi, Kjeta, and a little girl running towards her and not a horde of hags.
"I-I do not know," she answers both the girl and Lexi. "A vision or a descent into madness," she adds, looking back at where her seax lay with the rune still glowing, though it is dimming. "Ill omens, either way."
She accepts any help offered as she gets to her feet. She stumbles a bit and has to grab her belt as it begins to slip past her hips. She frowns as she looks at Lexi, and realizes she's looking slightly up at her friend.
"Lexi, do I appear shorter to you?"
Raseri begins to adjust her gear to fit her smaller stature as she tries to answer the child's questions.
"I do not know the 'they' you are asking of. These two are my companions, and I have not seen any others beside yourself. I am not even sure what I did. You said that a, um, 'stink-face' and a dragged woman come through here? Can you tell us more about them?"
Raseri is slowly calming down, but it is far too clear that she'd been badly rattled by whatever had happened. When the girl isn't paying attention to them, Raseri gives the others a pained, frightened look, as if begging them to stay close.
Looking surprised "Well, as to the first, there's a done deal." He hesitates at the second, but in the end acquieses...realizing perhaps the dhampir was somewhat intoxicated and hoping to avoid the rage "...eh, fine...tell me about her on the way." unclasping the little radiant eye and handing it over.
The master of the rune stalked the streets for a sympathetic mind, but found dwarves few and far between...likely most wouldn't choose to willingly live so close to kobolds.
She twirls her hair in a dirty little finger "Well, stinkface is pale...like the belly of a dead fish. He hates people. Well, he likes kids...but not grownups. I'm not scared when he comes, its just a picture...like a painting that talks. He's grumpy cause he lives in an old burned down house...*giggles* its funny."
"Now the other one..." she skips in place thinking "...I don't like looking, she has black coal eyes. Bloody feet, and her wrists are wrapped together...like the tie on a sackcloth." she holds her wrists together up over her head to demonstrate "Um...and her skin is rubbed off, thats why we call her the dragged woman."
Her eyes narrow as if detecting a lie "But hey, those ones with silver eyes talking to you, you sure you don't know them? Looked like your sisters. I never knew other stuff could appear through there." she walks through the gate, curious.
Raseri frowns as the little girl describes the dragged woman. She feels certain that this creature had to be a hag, or some other malevolent fey. She is about to give a warning to the child when she asks if was certain she didn't know the silver-eyed ones that looked like her sisters. All of the color drains from Raseri's face as she looks from the girl to the gate, then behind her. The smell of smoke, the taste of ash, and a haunting rhyme sung in a little girl's voice, her voice, come to her all at once. Fire, screams, and the figures in shadow... No! Beings of embers and ash cackling at her rhymes as she burned down the village, smiling as her parents were crushed under blazing timbers. She laughed as they screamed for Thor to save them from this nightmare. She remembers the silver-eyes and the bargain.
She takes one shaky step after another, towards the girl and her tarnished holy symbol. She puts a hand on the girl's shoulder and gently pulls her back as she kneels and reaches for the silver chain. She hears an angry rumble of thunder as she grabs it and pulls it to her.
"What is your name," she asks the girl, her voice quavering with barely restrained terror. She looks around her, wondering if her "sisters" will show. She moves slowly, carefully, like a handler with a wild animal that avoids sudden movements that might invite an attack.
Carnadine accepts the pin and puts it in his pouch. "Excellent. You will love the Red Lady..." On the way to the butcher, he continues with his best sales pitch focusing on the worship through sex and blood sacrifice of animals you're about to cook and eat.
There, Carnadine purchases some pig's knuckles, whatever the veteran wants, and some blood to show his new disciple's the first rituals toward immortality.
