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Well. Xylys will see if he can't do this wee task in a forthright and competent manner; heh, hem. INT 22 with Guidance 11
Okay, okay, so it wasn't all that brilliant but, good enough for government work, eh?
"Okay, so we go this way, then that, follow that floating leaf, jump over that mushroom, zip thatta way, zag just a wee bit o'er there and voila! We are not lost! Easy, as long as you don't think too hard." He grins.
The fairy Hunters bid the party farewell before departing on horseback with their ghostly porters carrying the slain stag behind them.
Xylys does his best to follow the directions.
Alyna's keen ears catch the sound of windchimes well before the glass-leaved tree comes into view.
A little way past the glittering tree, your party comes across a great blue-furred boar rooting in the leaf litter. It glances up at you and grumbles aloud in a foreign tongue (Sylvan) interspersed with grunts and squeals:
"I thought I smelled something strange. Manlings, trespassing. Harrumph!"
The talking pig dashes out of sight.
Xylys leads on, past a marble pillar that resembles the unfinished sculpture of a man. And farther still, guiding your group through thickets where orchids the size of sunflowers grow from the sandy earth. Out again into the spacious forest of tall trees...
The sudden noise of rushing water coming from behind you (you crossed no stream) you see a brook cutting across the path you just walked. The Hunters said to go upstream at the contrary creek. Hiking along the ferny bank, you all notice the downward slope of the earth; water ought to flow downhill, yet this stream flows uphill. A 'contrary creek' indeed!
The uncanny watercourse runs up from a dark ravine, and so down you go toward its hidden source. Water drips down the rock walls. Scraggly briars and exposed roots snag your clothing and hair. You slip and stagger on the treacherous, slick footing, but with Shayne's false fires to light the way, no one falls hard or twists an ankle badly. An hour later, you emerge into a tangle of pine and brush as gloomy as the ravine.
You wander the dense woods nearly blind, even with Shayne's lights, and Xylys is no longer sure which way to go. But then Alyna hears the faint sound of music. Following the music, you soon break clear of the trees and pass into a meadow.
A tower, its stonework gleaming like snow under the new moon, rises atop a mound about a mile distant across the grassy plain. Warm lights glow in its narrow windows. The night-wind carries sounds of a ball, pipes and fiddles and voices raised in song.
Alyna's senses were too overwhelmed by now to be even cautious. Sure, the legends particularly warned about fey's music and - above all else - festivities. But they did everything the legends deemed fatal and were still alive (not home, true, but the ring let them get out before, did not it?).
Actually, no, not all senses were dulled, she could still feel the beauty of the place. More so, things were beginning to make sense or at least feel sort of natural. She smiled and lively carelessly walked straight to the beautiful tower filled with enchanting music, to the doors if she could see it.
Distracted by the music and his attempt to memorize it, Shayne all but blindly follows Alyna's lead without a thought of care or caution or burning stupid trees...
Xylys whispers an aside to his companions, "I heard 'ye eat the food here and yer stuck ferever', least ways that is wht my gramps always told me . . . I think." He seems a bit worried. "This place is much stranger than anything I have ever seen, read about, heard about or even thought about. Weird. Guess we are going to that castle?"
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Panic is a mechanism that strengthens the gene pool.
Eric hesitates on following Alyna and Shayne. This place was so topsy turvy that he could barely trust his own instinct. He follows the others, but with much less abandon and much more caution. "Xylys, I agree. I do not trust a place where water runs backwards. Keep vigilant as I think we've almost lost these two to the marvel."He gestures at the giddy pair walking in front of him.
You walk across the moonlit meadow, tall grass brushing your legs.
The gate stands open at the top of a marble stairway. Firelight glows beyond the threshold. As you draw near, the breeze brings you scents as well as sounds, the aromas of a feast mixed with the noises of a ball.
Alyna and Shayne trip lightly up the stairs, like children entranced by a gleeman's show.
Xylys and Eric follow warily.
The instant one of you steps into the open gate, the music stops.
The interior is larger than you'd have guessed from the exterior view, a great hall with three long tables set with rows of high-backed carven chairs arranged around a central firepit. A plume of smoke curls from the fuel stacked in the pit, but no flames rise. Plates of gold line the tabletops, laden with a great feast of roast venison, fowl and mutton, loaves of bread dripping with honey, wheels of green cheese, and fruits you do not know. Silver flagons and ewers stand among the platters of food. Knives lay about, none too neatly. The whole scene has the look of a party suddenly abandoned by its guests, yet you feel you are not alone in this place.
A draft stirs the colorful tapestries hanging on the walls, imparting a curiously lifelike motion to the fairy figures depicted riding, hunting, or dancing. Shayne's conjured lights bob and weave in air, adding to the dreamlike quality of the scene. Shadows dance on the walls.
Then something stirs in the gloom at the far end of the hall.
A manlike shape steps into the glow of Shayne's dancing lights, looking about as if bewildered. Red-faced, flaxen-haired, rather stout, clad in a wine-stained tunic and woolen breeches, you all recognize him as Werthan the Miller.
"Where'd everybody go?" the Miller slurs.
Werthan belches. His face pales and his eyes bug out as if startled or shocked. He stares at you. The man's mouth quirks and then he begins laughing madly, leaning forward with his hands resting on his knees.
Shayne enters the room easily and carelessly. “Greetings, miller, sir! Do tell, what happened to the frivolities we heard as we approached?” Shayne asks, approaching the table, fingering some of the utensils, picking up a cup thoughtfully before setting it back down and glancing about for a filler one.
Shayne enters the room easily and carelessly. “Greetings, miller, sir! Do tell, what happened to the frivolities we heard as we approached?” Shayne asks, approaching the table, fingering some of the utensils, picking up a cup thoughtfully before setting it back down and glancing about for a filler one.
''I don't know. They've gone. But I'm sure they'll come back soon."
There is no point to be mad with drunks or mad and the miller certainly was both. The look of grotesquely disgusting man killed the charm of the place for Alyna and no longer smiling she said with some bitterness "Your wife is sick with worries, the village lost it's last hope for the crop this year and you eat and drink yourself to death here?! We came here thinking you are dead and find you drunk and all merry. Enough! You are coming with us now." There was no way she would be able even to slightly push that small mountain of meat, but she was ready to use a steak if she had to (that, and she hoped guys would get the hint and force the miller out of this place).
There is no point to be mad with drunks or mad and the miller certainly was both. The look of grotesquely disgusting man killed the charm of the place for Alyna and no longer smiling she said with some bitterness "Your wife is sick with worries, the village lost it's last hope for the crop this year and you eat and drink yourself to death here?! We came here thinking you are dead and find you drunk and all merry. Enough! You are coming with us now." There was no way she would be able even to slightly push that small mountain of meat, but she was ready to use a steak if she had to (that, and she hoped guys would get the hint and force the miller out of this place).
''My wife?"
Werthan blinks in confusion.
"Ella? She's worried? Why? I'll be home in the morning. I just got here... made good time on the road....had no night's sleep nor supper at an inn in town, but headed right out as soon as the oxen were rested and I'd bought..."
“You been gone for a week or two,” Shayne says, matter of faculty. “The seed you abandoned has gone to rot and been eaten by the birds. Been so long the town sent us to go looking for you. The cart is half his and all broken, we had feared the worst,..”
“You been gone for a week or two,” Shayne says, matter of faculty. “The seed you abandoned has gone to rot and been eaten by the birds. Been so long the town sent us to go looking for you. The cart is half his and all broken, we had feared the worst,..”
''What?"
Werthan stares at Shayne as if just now noticing the young man's presence.
"'A week? Impossible! I told you, I only arrived here a short while ago and...say, did we meet once, in a tavern?"
He turns to look over each of you, mumbling under his breath and peering hard at your faces.
"I feel I know you all, but there's something wrong. My head's all foggy inside. " He reaches for a wine cup but then sets it back in place.
"Maybe I should eat something, settle my stomach. Too much wine, the lass is right about that much. You see how they have everything here we could want. The Good Folk, you know... Everything we could want. Food, wine, music! No tax collectors or bailiffs, either. No worries. It's like a dream."
He gazes off into the shadows. He tilts his head as if listening to something none of you can hear. Quietly, but not so softly you miss it , he says,"Dreams....I lived in a house by the river with a woman and wee ones...the sound of a wheel turning in the water, stone on stone grinding. Was that my dream?"
None of you has had a bite to eat or anything to drink but sips from your water-skins since well before entering the fairy ring. Rumblings rise from your empty stomachs at the sight of the extraordinary feast.
If it’s the dream you want we can most certainly provide it,” Shayne says, gently taking the millers elbow and trying to steer him to the door.
Werthan easily shakes loose of Shayne's gentle grip.
"Hey, now, please to keep hands to yourself, young fellow. We mustn't ever be rude here. Shehates bad manners. And I can't leave without saying goodbye. That'd be rude."
He turns to stare at Eric and Xylys.
"Rude....Y'know everybody laughed at me since I was a boy running off to the woods to dream about the fair--the Good Folk. Mustn't call them that other name. They don't like it. The Good Folk. I always believed in them. My Nan, she always told me our family came from the Old Blood. And they like me, they do. Said I could stay as long as I'd like. I swore I had to be on the road soon, though. Delivery to make... important business. My wife...something about seeds falling from the sky like hailstones?"
The miller no longer sways and slurs like a drunkard, but he appears lost and confused.
Surprised by how easily the miller threw him off, Shayne raises his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine.. You want to abandon your wife and kids to sit around here partying with make believe fairies, be my guest..." Shayne then walks to the doorway, opening it but not yet stepping out, instead just waiting on his companions...
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Shayne is too busy trying to turn the directions into lyrics to actually keep them straight and accurate.
Well. Xylys will see if he can't do this wee task in a forthright and competent manner; heh, hem. INT 22 with Guidance 11
Okay, okay, so it wasn't all that brilliant but, good enough for government work, eh?
"Okay, so we go this way, then that, follow that floating leaf, jump over that mushroom, zip thatta way, zag just a wee bit o'er there and voila! We are not lost! Easy, as long as you don't think too hard." He grins.
Panic is a mechanism that strengthens the gene pool.
The fairy Hunters bid the party farewell before departing on horseback with their ghostly porters carrying the slain stag behind them.
Xylys does his best to follow the directions.
Alyna's keen ears catch the sound of windchimes well before the glass-leaved tree comes into view.
A little way past the glittering tree, your party comes across a great blue-furred boar rooting in the leaf litter. It glances up at you and grumbles aloud in a foreign tongue (Sylvan) interspersed with grunts and squeals:
"I thought I smelled something strange. Manlings, trespassing. Harrumph!"
The talking pig dashes out of sight.
Xylys leads on, past a marble pillar that resembles the unfinished sculpture of a man. And farther still, guiding your group through thickets where orchids the size of sunflowers grow from the sandy earth. Out again into the spacious forest of tall trees...
The sudden noise of rushing water coming from behind you (you crossed no stream) you see a brook cutting across the path you just walked. The Hunters said to go upstream at the contrary creek. Hiking along the ferny bank, you all notice the downward slope of the earth; water ought to flow downhill, yet this stream flows uphill. A 'contrary creek' indeed!
The uncanny watercourse runs up from a dark ravine, and so down you go toward its hidden source. Water drips down the rock walls. Scraggly briars and exposed roots snag your clothing and hair. You slip and stagger on the treacherous, slick footing, but with Shayne's false fires to light the way, no one falls hard or twists an ankle badly. An hour later, you emerge into a tangle of pine and brush as gloomy as the ravine.
You wander the dense woods nearly blind, even with Shayne's lights, and Xylys is no longer sure which way to go. But then Alyna hears the faint sound of music. Following the music, you soon break clear of the trees and pass into a meadow.
A tower, its stonework gleaming like snow under the new moon, rises atop a mound about a mile distant across the grassy plain. Warm lights glow in its narrow windows. The night-wind carries sounds of a ball, pipes and fiddles and voices raised in song.
Alyna's senses were too overwhelmed by now to be even cautious. Sure, the legends particularly warned about fey's music and - above all else - festivities. But they did everything the legends deemed fatal and were still alive (not home, true, but the ring let them get out before, did not it?).
Actually, no, not all senses were dulled, she could still feel the beauty of the place. More so, things were beginning to make sense or at least feel sort of natural. She smiled and lively carelessly walked straight to the beautiful tower filled with enchanting music, to the doors if she could see it.
Meili Liang Lvl 5 Monk
Dice
Distracted by the music and his attempt to memorize it, Shayne all but blindly follows Alyna's lead without a thought of care or caution or burning stupid trees...
Xylys whispers an aside to his companions, "I heard 'ye eat the food here and yer stuck ferever', least ways that is wht my gramps always told me . . . I think." He seems a bit worried. "This place is much stranger than anything I have ever seen, read about, heard about or even thought about. Weird. Guess we are going to that castle?"
Panic is a mechanism that strengthens the gene pool.
Eric hesitates on following Alyna and Shayne. This place was so topsy turvy that he could barely trust his own instinct. He follows the others, but with much less abandon and much more caution. "Xylys, I agree. I do not trust a place where water runs backwards. Keep vigilant as I think we've almost lost these two to the marvel." He gestures at the giddy pair walking in front of him.
You walk across the moonlit meadow, tall grass brushing your legs.
The gate stands open at the top of a marble stairway. Firelight glows beyond the threshold. As you draw near, the breeze brings you scents as well as sounds, the aromas of a feast mixed with the noises of a ball.
Alyna and Shayne trip lightly up the stairs, like children entranced by a gleeman's show.
Xylys and Eric follow warily.
The instant one of you steps into the open gate, the music stops.
The interior is larger than you'd have guessed from the exterior view, a great hall with three long tables set with rows of high-backed carven chairs arranged around a central firepit. A plume of smoke curls from the fuel stacked in the pit, but no flames rise. Plates of gold line the tabletops, laden with a great feast of roast venison, fowl and mutton, loaves of bread dripping with honey, wheels of green cheese, and fruits you do not know. Silver flagons and ewers stand among the platters of food. Knives lay about, none too neatly. The whole scene has the look of a party suddenly abandoned by its guests, yet you feel you are not alone in this place.
A draft stirs the colorful tapestries hanging on the walls, imparting a curiously lifelike motion to the fairy figures depicted riding, hunting, or dancing. Shayne's conjured lights bob and weave in air, adding to the dreamlike quality of the scene. Shadows dance on the walls.
Then something stirs in the gloom at the far end of the hall.
A manlike shape steps into the glow of Shayne's dancing lights, looking about as if bewildered. Red-faced, flaxen-haired, rather stout, clad in a wine-stained tunic and woolen breeches, you all recognize him as Werthan the Miller.
"Where'd everybody go?" the Miller slurs.
Werthan belches. His face pales and his eyes bug out as if startled or shocked. He stares at you. The man's mouth quirks and then he begins laughing madly, leaning forward with his hands resting on his knees.
“Well,” Xylys mutters. “We’ve found him. Say, Master Miller, do ye Ken who we are?”
Panic is a mechanism that strengthens the gene pool.
Werthan stops laughing, catches his breath and staggers toward you.
"I ...uuhhhh...Seems I know you from someplace. Something about a smithy?"
He casts about in confusion.
"My friends...well, sit with me awhile. Drink, eat. The best you'll ever have, I am sure. As good as any lord has at table. No, no, better still!"
Shayne enters the room easily and carelessly. “Greetings, miller, sir! Do tell, what happened to the frivolities we heard as we approached?” Shayne asks, approaching the table, fingering some of the utensils, picking up a cup thoughtfully before setting it back down and glancing about for a filler one.
''I don't know. They've gone. But I'm sure they'll come back soon."
There is no point to be mad with drunks or mad and the miller certainly was both. The look of grotesquely disgusting man killed the charm of the place for Alyna and no longer smiling she said with some bitterness "Your wife is sick with worries, the village lost it's last hope for the crop this year and you eat and drink yourself to death here?! We came here thinking you are dead and find you drunk and all merry. Enough! You are coming with us now." There was no way she would be able even to slightly push that small mountain of meat, but she was ready to use a steak if she had to (that, and she hoped guys would get the hint and force the miller out of this place).
Meili Liang Lvl 5 Monk
Dice
''My wife?"
Werthan blinks in confusion.
"Ella? She's worried? Why? I'll be home in the morning. I just got here... made good time on the road....had no night's sleep nor supper at an inn in town, but headed right out as soon as the oxen were rested and I'd bought..."
He frowns.
"The grain. My cart's outside....Someplace."
He looks about, seeming dazed.
“You been gone for a week or two,” Shayne says, matter of faculty. “The seed you abandoned has gone to rot and been eaten by the birds. Been so long the town sent us to go looking for you. The cart is half his and all broken, we had feared the worst,..”
''What?"
Werthan stares at Shayne as if just now noticing the young man's presence.
"'A week? Impossible! I told you, I only arrived here a short while ago and...say, did we meet once, in a tavern?"
He turns to look over each of you, mumbling under his breath and peering hard at your faces.
"I feel I know you all, but there's something wrong. My head's all foggy inside. " He reaches for a wine cup but then sets it back in place.
"Maybe I should eat something, settle my stomach. Too much wine, the lass is right about that much. You see how they have everything here we could want. The Good Folk, you know... Everything we could want. Food, wine, music! No tax collectors or bailiffs, either. No worries. It's like a dream."
He gazes off into the shadows. He tilts his head as if listening to something none of you can hear. Quietly, but not so softly you miss it , he says, "Dreams....I lived in a house by the river with a woman and wee ones...the sound of a wheel turning in the water, stone on stone grinding. Was that my dream?"
If it’s the dream you want we can most certainly provide it,” Shayne says, gently taking the millers elbow and trying to steer him to the door.
None of you has had a bite to eat or anything to drink but sips from your water-skins since well before entering the fairy ring. Rumblings rise from your empty stomachs at the sight of the extraordinary feast.
Werthan easily shakes loose of Shayne's gentle grip.
"Hey, now, please to keep hands to yourself, young fellow. We mustn't ever be rude here. She hates bad manners. And I can't leave without saying goodbye. That'd be rude."
He turns to stare at Eric and Xylys.
"Rude....Y'know everybody laughed at me since I was a boy running off to the woods to dream about the fair--the Good Folk. Mustn't call them that other name. They don't like it. The Good Folk. I always believed in them. My Nan, she always told me our family came from the Old Blood. And they like me, they do. Said I could stay as long as I'd like. I swore I had to be on the road soon, though. Delivery to make... important business. My wife...something about seeds falling from the sky like hailstones?"
The miller no longer sways and slurs like a drunkard, but he appears lost and confused.
Surprised by how easily the miller threw him off, Shayne raises his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine.. You want to abandon your wife and kids to sit around here partying with make believe fairies, be my guest..." Shayne then walks to the doorway, opening it but not yet stepping out, instead just waiting on his companions...