Session 3: The Priestess Sings

...Taft knocks on Sunniva's door and asks humbly to borrow some of her traps for a few weeks

This is peak trapping season, as the animals' winter coats have built up, so Sunniva is reticent.

Taft is not as monetarily savvy as his wife Alva, so he offers to repay her for the pelts she won't take while he's away.

Among all the families in town, Sunniva's is the most concerned with appearances. Her house is decorated with fine crafts and always kept clean. It is too clean for the woodsmen to feel comfortable in, which is why they come to Taft and Alva's to hang about.

Taft is wearing his travelling clothes from the last few days' forays. He still smells of bog muck and as he leans in to gratefully accept the traps, Sunniva is treated to his powerful musky scent.

He leaves feeling awkward, and without realizing the social implications of the exchange.

Next, Taft heads to the shore to borrow line from the folk that are mending their nets in the huge communal loft used to store and dry nets and sails. He promises some of Alva's bread in exchange for the hardy line, and lingers for a few hours to trade stories with his friends.

It is afternoon before Taft returns home and packs his gear for the journey ahead.

The next day, Shadow sniffs around town, scavenging for food. The wolf spends a while drooling at the pigs in the pen behind the swineherd's hut, but it knows that stealing one would be the be the end of its acceptance in the village. It walks around the hut to the front and scratches at the door, whining gently, but there is no response. It eventually makes its way to the village's refuse pile and begins to turn it over for food.

Rolling

Hearing the gigantic wolf sniffing around a pile of rubbish, the elderly swineherd bursts out his door. Throwing a bone at the ground in front of the wolf, so that it lands gently near it, the old man perches down, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and calmly says "Come now, Shadow. You know better than to play in that muck. My children have told me about all you and your pack did for us two days ago, and you've long been welcome here. More welcome than that scoundrel Oyvind parades about." Darting back into the house, the swineherd emerges with a half-butchered carcass.

"It's not much, but it's what I have. It was going to go bad soon, anyway. Seems my generosity soured people on pig for a day or two..." the swineherd talks more to himself than to Shadow.

*****

The next day, just before the sun rises, Taft assembles the party and points out the route they're to start off on. It should be difficult to get lost on the way to Torstead, a fishing household on a hill four days walk East of Kallbacken, as the coast makes for a great landmark. Still, the journey is sure to have many perils on its way.

It is early morning that Taft's knock comes on Vasil's door. He slept restlessly, waking before dawn. He checked his gear several times more than necessary.
Vasil ate a hearty warm meal - boiled grains with honey, and fresh milk. An indulgence, but he knew it may be his last for a while. He massaged his bad leg, and dressed in his warm travelling gear.

Dressed in a crimson overcoat - the colours and symbols of his homeland marking him as a member of the Flameprince Caravan, Vasil walks quietly through the streets of the town with his companions, joined by Shadow as they exit the village gates. Breath misting, night's frost crunching underfoot, the party is greeted by a vivid sunrise.

Vasil glances back at the wooden walls of the village he now calls home, and matches pace with Taft. He ignores the small stab of pain with each step. It's background noise, it has been for a long time.

Taft speaks to Ragna before they leave.

"We will pass your steading on the way. If you want to come, to pay respects, please feel free. But we may also meet The Tower, and if we do, we need to know that you will work alongside us against them. Also, you will have to come with us the whole way. To the wolves and back."

Though the weather is cooling off, Taft's bare feet can deal with it until the snow comes. He likes to feel the hard rock of the shoreline under his toes. His boots are strapped to his pack.

Shadow runs ahead, intently focused on the group's destination. The wolf often stops to glance back at the humans and marvel at how slow they are. Why do they insist on trying to find the way using their eyes? Everyone knows a nose is more reliable. When they begin to stray, Shadow huffs and nudges them back in the correct direction, herding them along, sticking to the territory's borders and keeping the sea to their right.

Taft follows Shadow, but there are times when the great Wolf rushes off into the underbrush, into areas where humans can't travel as quickly. During these periods of time, he sticks to the trails of Deer and Moeve, which travel along the coast. He stays away from trails that show the sign of predators. To Taft's surprise, he spots sign that a Great Elk passed this way earlier in the season. These dense thickets are not where he would expect to see such a massive being.

Ragna's cooking is welcomed at the end of each day, as is Vasil's exceptional ability to light fires, even on the days when a cold rain permeates the underbrush.

For several days, the rain increases. Their passage is blocked by a creek that has swollen into a dangerous-looking rapid. After careful consideration, Taft decides that it's best to move further inland and cross the creek slightly upstream, where he recalls a fallen log from a hunt several years ago.

The fallen log is still there, and the group easily crosses the stream.

Ragna keeps pace with Taft, seldom complaining. When everyone reaches the Ridge, where the forces of the Tower camped before delivering their ultimatum to Kallbacken, there's a short pause as Taft and Shadow ensure that there are no tracks heading backwards. Thankfully, there aren't.

The three days go well, Vasil sometimes has to hold the group up, his limp keeping them at a sensible pace, not the rush that the group sometimes feels coming on. It takes four days to make it to Torstead, and the journey is interrupted by no local wildlife, but there's also little opportunity to hunt, by the time the steading's barn is in view, the supplies brought from Kallbacken are running low.

Torstead's barn, at first glance, looks unremarkable. As Shadow closes, the wolf can't smell the animals that should have been kept inside. As the group close, the steading, hidden in a copse, becomes visible. Its roof is burned through, and the stones forming the walls are charred.

A tear comes to Ragna's eye as she looks on. "They were here before they got to the Sigrunshrine. I don't think poor Tor ever stood a chance."

"Damn the tower, Eirikr mutters as he sees the destruction before him. He holds Ragna's hand with his husband by his side as the stench of smoke fills the air.

"We have to destroy the Tower. We stand no chance against it now. I was foolish to originally believe in it. It has brought death, destruction, and doom."

Taft signals for the others to move carefully. "We don't know what may be lurking in the ruins."

He pulls out his bow and creeps silently up to the walls of the steading. With an arrow nocked, he steps quietly around the perimeter, pausing regularly to listen - both in the forest, and inside the walls.

At the entrance(s) to the steading, Taft takes extra caution and hides patiently, surveying the buildings inside and looking for any movement within.

Taft Circles the perimeter, quietly and hearing not a sound outside. As he rounds the corner, ready to look to the door, he spots a familiar sight placed in front of the Steading, a banned flying in the wind, depicting a gigantic grey stone tower as it stares outward. Instead of the four falling figures, this structure towers over a series of houses, with two kneeling figures in front of their homes.

Following Taft and Shadow, Vasil tries to keep pace with the others. His bad leg screaming in pain by the end of a day's marching. Bitter cold and muscle strain aching in the old scars. By night he practices his newfound talents with fire. He insists on lighting the campfire - even if flint and still would be easier. He needs to practice.

At the royal academy back home, it was rumoured that the nobles children practiced the fire arts from when they could walk.

During the daily March, Vasil watches his guides. He watches Taft pathfind and track. Where he looks, where he walks. On breaks, he asks the why, taking mental note for if he is stranded.

Vasil chats with Eirikr, and Ragna. She seems distant, worried.

Once, during a rest, Vasil approaches Shadow. Lying on it's belly near the edge of the clearing, Vasil asks about animal tracks. The conversation moves to the Song of the Forest, but is cut short by Taft's disciplined marching schedule. He hopes to resume that conversation at some point.

On the fourth day, Shadow and Taft stop before the crest of a hill. Instructed to wait, while they scout ahead, Vasil settled down and waits...

Taft steps directly out in front of the Banner. He feels vaguely uneasy at it's presence, but doesn't think to avoid it.

He takes a few cautious steps toward the banner and tries to determine if the kneeling figures are identifiable. Are they wearing anything in particular, or gendered in any way? Similarly, he takes a look at the houses and tries to find some similarity between the houses and the architecture of Kallbacken, or of this village.

Watching Taft creeping towards the banner, the wolf follows at a distance. While the hunter is focused on the kneeling figures, Shadow sees another chance to smell the banner and perhaps figure out more about it. It's sure The Tower is using these for something, but what? Last time, the banner hadn't revealed any secrets and the wolf's normally potent bark had proved futile against the spirit within, but perhaps this time... The wolf inches towards the banner, sniffing at it and pricking its ears up, listening for the telltale rustlings and murmuring of spirits.

Vasil lays on the hill near the village. Taft left explicit instructions not to stand on the crest, claiming that a silhouette atop a hill is the best way to make sure you are seen.
So, Vasil waits.

Vasil turns to Ragna, who looks as highly strung as Taft's bow. She grips her belt knife in white-knuckled anticipation.

"Is there anything more you can tell us? The more we know the better. Did I hear you mention a shrine?"

The banner’s figures, quite unlike the ones falling in the banner that once flew inside Kallbacken, are dressed in ornate, although form-concealing, robes with gilt hems; despite the weaver’s obvious craft it’s impossible to make out a gender or identity to the faces. The stonework of the houses and tower are similarly, grey stones quite unlike those techniques used in Kallbacken.

This steading’s four large buildings are built with the same techniques as Kallbacken’s houses, barns, and shrine.Rants turns to you, her face curling up a little, in the way you remember the Insular people of Kallbacken making it clear that you are a foreigner.

"The Sigrunshrine is about 3 days South, buried in the woods. It is where the Sigrundotrs lived. It is where I lived."

Rolling for Persuasion.
Beginner's Luck. Ob3 becomes Ob6.

Will B5, FoRKing Haggling (implied reciprocity for information), Eirikr is helping. Spending one Persona.

Taft leans in closer to the Banner, comforted by the presence of Shadow nearby.