Sister Dara's Journal (1)

 Entry 1:
Ever since I joined the Scarlet Sisters, strange occurrences are happening more often here in the North. Not the least of which the population of Cheykor seemed to have doubled overnight. Apparently it has something to do with time travel. I did not know this was possible or even such magic existed. There also seems to be consequences to taking people from their time and placing them to ours. Bell sickness is what they are calling it, anything from bad dreams, being physically sick, to even struggles on a spiritual level. 

Which brings us to the current issue at hand. As many of us who try to help, there is equal number of opportunists who are looking to scam folks, or worse. Which has led to my summoning to Sergeant Abar, along side a rather quiet Njeitbori and Scholar from the Red Isle by the name Aneramer. You see these peddlers have started selling these bird charms that were given out to ward off bell sickness. However it also seems to be causing people to sleepwalk to the River Cheyth. A girl was found in her night dress by the river, unaware of anything that had happened. Not only that a boy has now gone missing. The pendants in question, were multicolored Amber pendants with some red amber hidden in them. Sergeant Abar had stated they have already destroyed two of these things, with now this one being the third shortly after our meeting concluded.

Abar gave us directions to meet the mother of the boy that had went missing. Amanaru was her name, who scraped by for her and her son (whose name is Pukmari) by baking. To which I must say, made their house smell heavenly. Upon successful rescuing of the Pukmari, I will certainly be buying some baked goods for myself. As for Pukmari, his mother recounted that he had been having nightmares up till he was given a bird charm by a peddler named Anbayru. She described him as being nice enough, but when he came back to ask if Pukmari had been hearing bells, he was sent off. And while the nightmares had stopped and he was resting peacefully, now it was too peacefully, for he had begun sleepwalking, coming back with mud on him, and then not returning last night. Likely kidnapping scenario here, and I prayed that he would still be alive when we found him.

Off we went to the markets asking about this Anbayru, but the only thing we were able to come up with, was that some woman was sold a pot, that when she tried to use it, reveal a crack and leaked all over the floor. Now I cant say for sure, but someone who is evil enough to sell a cracked cooking pot, is probably also using pendants to kidnap people. Which means Anbayru is in fact hiding his true nature and is kidnapping people with pendants, and selling cracked cooking pots, and who knows what else.

Our next stop was where the girl in the night dress was found at the river. While our Njeitbori used his connections with other Njeitbori to ask why the guards are asking so many questions, Aneramer doing his own investigating, I went to the river bay to see if I could find anything. Now I personally love the Cheyth River, how angry it sounds when flowing down to the sea, how chilly it is when it hits your skin, however, what I am not a fan of is mud. It gets everywhere, and the Cheyth has a lot of it on its shores. By the time I found the tracks of a man that was obviously carrying something or someone headed north, I had mud on my dress, I had mud on my boots, I even had mud in my boots. Do you know how uncomfortable that is, or how much time I am going to have to spend cleaning to get all this mud off? Mother Valiyru will give me a scolding if I ruin yet another pair of boots.

However, amidst my current war with the mud, I was able to find a solid lead, which led us to evidence of boats being dragged before they headed deeper into the marsh (To my great dismay, meant dealing with more mud). In our tracking, we spotted an old fisher woman, bleeding out under a cypress tree. I did my best and patched her up, and how does she thank me? By threatening to gut me, that is how. It took way too long to convince her we were not here to kill her, and then proceeded to call me a goodie two shoes witch. While I was not much appreciative of being called a witch and nearly getting stabbed, she did see the men that took the boy and attempted rescue, which led to her bleeding out by the Cypress tree. She also had us swear oath to not tell what she was going to tell us, as she wanted to help us find the boy, but it meant telling the greatest secret of the North. The greatest secret in the North was in fact [redacted]. I have to confess, that I laughed loud enough to alert every living being within 500 feet of us, thankfully she did not seem to take too much offenses to it. The information given to us, helped lead us to these kidnappers, and we were able to find their hiding spot.

As it turns out, vulture cultist. Of course it is vulture cultist, it is always these stupid cultist. I dont understand them, they worship a god of death. Why would you do that? You know what you get when you worship a god of death? You get death, I mean seriously are you not smart enough to put two and two together and figure out, "You know, maybe I should not worship a god of death," But no, apparently these guys cant use their brains. Which makes me far more worried now, cause they tend to take their captives and sacrifice them horribly. 

With the Njeitbori and Aneramer taking advantageous positions, I attempted to sneak to the cellar of their little outpost, as I suspect that is where they are keeping the boy. Now being a Scarlet Sister means, you get to wear a bright  pretty red and lots of jewelry, however, being a Scarlet Sister means you wear a bright pretty red and lots of jewelry. And with the background being the Marsh, sometimes you stick out like a Greater Northern beast at the town center. It did not help when I hopped, everything clanked to ring in my arrival, thus the guard turning around and spotting me. So I tried to trick this old woman in Ralakarr once told me, simply tell them that, "They cant see you,". Now it did not have its intended effect, but in his other bewilderment, he got shot with my arrow, stabbed by Aneramer, and then shot through the eye by Nerula (that is the Njeitbori's name, took me forever to remember his name as I wrote this down). 

Then two more of these worshippers and would you have guessed it, Anbayru who is a vulture priest, comes out of the cellar. Battle commenced and during this Anbayru threatened to kill the boy, which he means drowning. But Anbayru did not account for us having a Njeitbori, whose first home is the water, thus Neralu catching up to the boy and ripping that forsaken charm off his neck, ridding the spell. Meanwhile, Aneramer and I, went toe to toe with these sorry fools in song, sword, and bow. 

Another saying of the old woman in Ralakarr, "If you squishy and easily kidnappable, find yourself a handsome man that carries around a giant sword."

Well Aneramer fit that bill, and thankfully he does because that vulture priest had a vendetta against me. Despite Aneramer being the strong swordsman, he almost completely ignored him in his attempt to kill me. We battle in rites and weapons. This priestess was dirty and underhanded in his fighting like he is with his peddling. He kept throwing this red dust at me, his pocket sand I believe some would call it, except that it is red. But it made it significantly harder for me, and even after I was sneezing that stuff out for three straight days. But he was so distracted with me, that it allow Aneramer to separate his head from his shoulders, before in short order removing the other henchmans heads, all while Neralu gave us a volley of arrows for support.

Once they cultist was dispatched, I immediately went and found Pukmari, making sure he was okay, while Neralu and Aneramer made short order in destroying all the vulture pendants and ransacking the herbs and silver to put to better use. The fisher woman also appeared, turning the vulture priestess corpse into a pile of bloody meat. I made sure to shield Pukmari's eyes as he has already have had enough trauma. Frankly what that fisher woman did to that corpse gave me trauma as well. 

We then made sure to set their hideout on fire and destroy anything related to their profane worship. Pukmari was safely returned to his mother both I and Aneramer bought some baked goods from Amanaru, which in fact tasted like heaven. And all three of us got our payment from Sergeant Abar. The midnight vigil now approaches and I must leave my writing to serve at the Sacred Well. May Starlight greet you.

The calm

Ineia 12 

Deceptive silence 
Calm before the storm 
Waiting in quiet 
The end forwarned

Preparations finished 
All that remains--stillness
Somber pause then
Destruction's fullness 

Trusting children 
Unaware their moment 
Farewells to bid
Then plead for atonement.

Session 15 Recap

When last we left our heroes... they had come at last to Sothalkarr, highest of the Seven Cities, on the first night of the four-day Feast of Founding. House Neras had claimed them beneath the law of hospitality, and before dinner there was time enough for a little preparation—and a great deal of worry.

Ineia brewed the silver nettle gathered on the winter road into an unusually potent draught. Fjalenar found the modest library of House Neras and discovered in its few hundred volumes more learning than had survived into his entire age. There, among the ancient calendars, the companions confirmed something more troubling: the moon would remain full for four nights, precisely the length of the feast. Thorankarr had fallen beneath a full moon; the Vulture's play at Kyron Karr had been worked beneath a full moon; and the tracks through the withered wood had been made at the full moon. The company resolved to speak carefully, remain together, keep watch upon Thargash—and remember that the Bell-metal hinges might now open a road through time without the dust of the Moon.

Then they went down to dinner arrayed in the impossible finery of the Star-folk, clothed in fabrics light as air and hung with more jewels than most of them had worn in their lives. Vianrei welcomed them not as strangers but as members of her house. Rinsos answered that a house was made holy not by its stone, but by what it refused to let a stranger endure alone. Lord Akdhēras raised the final cup: the children of Feihoth had dwelt among strangers long enough, and the hour of Homecoming was near.

Course followed course: bread and salt, the Seven Hills set out in little dishes, sea-fish dressed in remembrance of drowned Feihoth, a whole lamb rich with spices, fruit, and its own juices, and at last a sweet garden of stone trees and silver streams. The abundance proved too much for Fjalenar, Herek, and Talari, who found the cold garden air preferable to the final courses. Talari nevertheless offered Vianrei a toast so heartfelt that their hostess wept and extended the hospitality of House Neras through all four nights of the feast.

Yet Inayin's open eyes saw something beneath the beauty. For a heartbeat, eight or nine guests appeared as rotting cadavers, crawling with maggots and devouring filth. Vianrei, Rinsos, and Akdhēras were not among them. Whether this was truth or corruption wearing the mask of truth, he could not know.

Thargash drank heavily and spoke more freely than wisdom permitted. He had attended great feasts like this when he was younger, he said, though not in the companions' age. The past was already slipping beyond their control; why trouble themselves over what they could not save? At last he stumbled away to bed, leaving his companions more suspicious of him than before.

In the moonlit garden, Talari, Herek, and Tenuyala discovered Vianrei beneath a pear tree with her hand in Rinsos's—and saw her draw the young priest down into a kiss. They promised discretion. Mortified, Rinsos remembered Afālnela's letters and invited the company to bring them to his shrine in the morning.

The companions then went out beneath the lamps of Sothalkarr. At the Water-Forge, Panathfei's lock stirred upon Herek's sword. An old Spirit-Keeper recognized the binding, read the oath in a drop of blood, and declared that the blessing would guard Herek against corruption while the sworn vigil was kept, warning of danger to those beneath its protection. If Herek forsook the charge, however, the oath would turn against its bearer.

The smith also saw the last of Herek's line who would bear the vigil: **the Silver River, Fjamaru Yaneigal**, a distant descendant of Herek and granddaughter of the old veteran whom the companions had met in their own age. Fjamaru would complete the oath and redeem the line—though how Herek's blood could reach her across the abyss of years remained hidden.

Elsewhere in the festival streets, a courier named Abarapesh placed a sealed letter from the king at Lanenkarr into Fjalenar's hands. It was addressed to **Lord Tengelbur**, whom someone in Sothalkarr had recognized among their company.

Then Akdhēras drew Inayin aside. He looked into the blood-weeping eyes and named the Vulture's work. The visions were not mere madness: the wound sometimes allowed Inayin to recognize the devotees of death. Akdhēras offered a cure at his house the following morning, promising mercy where the priests of Raos would offer only fasting, penance, and long years beneath the sky. He called Vianrei trustworthy and Rinsos honourable, but warned that the Vulture's servants were already everywhere in the city.

The companions reunited in the Jade-Cutters' Night Market. Talari spent her last silver on a little jade tree, and the company turned back toward the Water-Forge, bearing two strange swords and more questions than they had brought to the feast.

Before they could reach it, a man in official dress staggered from the crowd and collapsed beneath one of the stone trees. His coat was not wet with rain, but soaked through with blood. Tenuyala rushed toward him as he forced out a final warning:

 “Treachery. Tell the king... Yalethkarr has fallen.”

And beneath the four-night full moon, while Sothalkarr still sang of its founding, the fall of the Seven Cities had begun.

Healer's Hands

Ineia 11

Written in Ineia's richly appointed suite of rooms in House Neras, under the full moon, as she waited for dinner and betrayal. Intended to be sung, the tune something between a chant and a lullaby.

The racing heart to slow

The flowing blood to clot

The healing hands to work 

On burning brow most hot. 

The seeping wound to close 

The broken bone to mend

The healing hands to work 

The fainting gently tend 

The throbbing head to treat

The aching chest to ease

The healing hands to work

Each torment to appease

The festering sore to cleanse

The blistering burn to salve

The healing hands to work

in curing deadly plague. 

The groaning man to soothe 

The shivering child to warm 

The healing hands to work 

Keep suffering souls from harm. 

Pillars Bright

Ineia 10 

Written in Ineia's richly appointed suite of rooms in House Neras, under the full moon, as she waited for dinner and betrayal. 

I laugh with joy of battle bright 
Northman built to foeman fight.
I see around me bright lights gleaming  
All the world with joy is teaming. 

From the dark and deepest past  
To future days yet come to pass, 
The love of Nankeinela true
Echoes fire through and through,

And from beginning pillars bright  
With fiery love and truest sight 
Answer song the maker sings
Light to light reflecting springs.

Dark can not abide the burning  
As year on year the lotus turning,
Orkon claims victory false
And rails against heaven’s vaults.

 But in blackest night a tiny spark  
 Will drive away Midnight’s dark,
 Though it but a moment last  
 It mocks the evil that must pass.

 Thus starlight's children ever fight,
 Singing bow and arrows’ flight  
 Shining blade by mighty hand  
 Wielded against Orkon’s brand.

 And so I laugh with battle sight  
 Though spark I am not pillar-bright  
 For I am with my kinsmen singing  
 Battle-song till dawn comes bringing  

 Fiery end to Orkon’s scheming  
 And the day of which I’m dreaming--  
 When at last all the land  
 Will be cleansed by Maker’s hand.

Session 14 Recap

Read aloud at the start of Session 15

When last we left our heroes... they came down at last from the green and deathless wood into the valley of the Wanlecheyth, and there found the river-town of Wanlunthara: quays and ferries, bird-beaked boats, and Star-folk going up and down the water as freely as birds. Yet even here the road eastward had begun to divide the hearts of men. The ferryman spoke of the Giver and the Great Return — of a people made worthy again to cross the Outer Ocean and come home to the Isle of the Stars. But when the company warned him against it, he only looked at the wealth of the Hills of Jade and trusted in the promise.

They had little in that country but silver, and silver was worth far less there than jade and uncut gems. Yet at last, after a costly exchange and much ill-advised bargaining, the ferryman carried them over for seventy-five pieces. On the far bank Thargash looked out across the plains and said that the road before them lay farther east than he had ever been. In their own age, those lands would be deep in Nalshbori country; now they were open and green, and the Hills of Jade stood somewhere ahead beneath the sky.

For eleven days they followed the Jade Road. In its early days they overtook a slow caravan of pilgrims, a hundred strong, all bound for Sothalkarr and its coming feast. Among them was Anaris, a young musician and Fateweaver of the old arts, who explained the quarrel of the age. The Old Faith watched the stars, heard their music, and remembered the exile of the Star-folk. The Homeward — the Slāgiri — believed that the time of testing was ended: that the lost greatness of Feihoth might be restored, and the road to the Outer Ocean opened again. Anaris did not speak as an enemy of either party; she only hoped that the forgotten arts might be found wherever they had gone.

She gave Ineia a map of the Seven Cities, and a small shining copper bell of her own making. Its clear ringing, she said, could raise the spirits of the weary and keep darkness from fastening upon the soul. Thargash, who had made himself scarce while the company were making friends, admitted afterwards that Anaris carried an anvil of great power: an anvil that might alter time itself. He had considered stealing it, and had decided that an anvil was not easily smuggled beneath a cloak. The company, to his disappointment or relief, chose not to go back for it.

Then the road turned hard. Thunderstorms came one after another; the ground became mud, their clothes and boots were soaked through, and their strength bled away by degrees. Ineia’s living flowers withered the moment the company left the Star-Wood, though she kept them carefully all the same; and in the winter plains the company found only a few cuttings of silver nettle. At every turn they pressed on, because Inayin’s eyes still wept blood, and because the city ahead held the name Afālnela had given them: Rinsos, priest of Raos in Sothalkarr.

So, wet, cold, and near worn through, they came at last to Sothalkarr. The city rose upon the highest of the Hills of Jade: terraces upon terraces, stone trees of granite and green jade, silver fountains among their boughs, and crystal domes taking the light of the setting sun and breaking it into colours. It was a time of feast, and the city was full beyond counting with pilgrims and music and flowers — though here and there a red vulture still shone at a throat.

At the gate a stately woman named Vianrei, of House Neras, saw the strangers in their travel-stained clothes and offered them welcome. She brought them to a house which proved to be a mansion, gave them food, fires, warm rooms, and clothes fit for a feast; and when they named Rinsos, she promised that he might dine at her table that very night. She asked only one thing in return: that they should not mention their errand to the priest if Lord Akdhēras came to dinner.

And so the company rested at last beneath the stone trees of Sothalkarr, with the full moon above the hill, a city in festival around them, and Rinsos’s name waiting at the end of the evening.

Be still

Ineia 9

Written while bone weary, after a day slogging through the high altitude, midwinter mud. The party was just two days from Sothalkarr. The moon was nearly full as the rest of the party fell into exhausted sleep and Ineia wrote. 

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of hunter fierce and strong  

Who will come down to cleanse the earth  

of the dark and evil throng.

Be still and know my quaking soul

Of Ebram recalled from wandering 

His shining chariot bringing light

To those in darkness suffering 

Be still and know my quaking soul 

Of those keeping oaths of heaven

For your life is hid in theirs 

Orusen and Lanenomen

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of Raos polestar ruling

Bright champion under starlight  

With love, bright mercy burning  

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of makers beauty bright

Whose burning love brings hope  

To those who languish in the night.

Be still and know my quaking soul  

of end of time and death  

Your makers wrath will overflow  

By light destroy darkness