OOC: My Atlas says "Sowell", but it's a society of oral tradition, so minor variations in pronunciation are to be expected.

"Sure Glumr,  I can ask around.  Might have more luck finding out about your legendary family of necromancers than some missing priest.  That's the sort of thing that resonates with spirits.  They like to talk about necromancers, but half of it will be misremembered or just plain old lies.  Remember what I told Holly about spirits and names too."

Coal is looking tired sitting there.  The beasttamer body is left than half cut up and disposed of.

Seeing things are taking time and Coal looking tired, Glumr lends a hand and blade to the work being done.

Holly moves over to Sunna, and asks "If you are not too tired, perhaps a song? I'm sure our friend outside would join in, and it would help pass the time." Holly feels the need for a little relaxation, and having heard Sunna and the Eye sing, she was confident it would help relax the others and pass the time until the body was disposed of.

Sunna nods and reaches into her pack for the musical instruments. She produces the small drum and thinks for a moment, her left hand already drumming a quiet rhythm. "Something about a hunt, maybe?"

The drum gets a little louder, the rhythm more urgent, then Sunna begins the song.

It's more a speech than a song, actually, telling of a hunt for a majestic stag, with a whole village setting out for the hunt. During the day, as the sun moves higher into the sky, one by one the hunters quit the hunt until only one alone remains. Closer he gets to the stag, ever so close...

"...until he realized that he was facing himself, spear in hand, antlers growing out of his temples. Just him, him his own reward, a trophy no one else could see.
But where the others thought of him as just another one with bad luck, he knew that he had been on a higher quest and had, without having to throw a spear, contended successfully for the favor of the gods."


OOC:
It's a song by the band Faun, called Cernunnos. I'm not that good in translating stuff, but I didn't want to post the whole thing in German, so... here's the translation. :)

Farden uses the music to forget his own tiredeness, and lays into the axework with a will, looking to finish disposing the corpse as soon as possible.

Holly lets the music flow over her, and the heat of the fire warm her, as she lets Glumr step in and help Farden carve up the remaining body. She hums along to the tune, not sure it is one she had heard before but enjoying the movement of it and the balance given by the drum.

Holly lets her mind wander as the music plays, wondering who the spirit might be that Coal had found. Holly hoped for a moment that it might have been her mother or father, feeling a wave of sadness flow over her for a moment before the music washed it away. A small tear appeared on her face, and she wiped it away quickly before wandering to the door to look out into the night. Moonlight was still near and he approached and nuzzled her through the door as if aware of where her mind had wandered to. Holly found an apple in her pocket and took a bite of it, before offering the rest to Moonlight under the light shining from the moon above, and Holly felt a gentle presence of her god give her hope again. Her hand moved to her druidic symbol and she was content for a few minutes.

The music is nice.  It lets Glumr forget that he's tired and almost forget about the gruesome task at hand.  Butchering the beast turned man is not much different than butchering one of Elonna's creatures.   Glumr thinks about how he would be taken apart just as easily.  He realizes that Ehlonna's blessing must be upon him as he recalls all the danger they faced and how he has come through it all.

The music reminds him of stories of battle he was told in his youth.  Tales of the deeds the warriors of the Triplefang have done.  Battles and enemies fought and conquered.  When he was young, he thought all the warriors must be legendary fighters, able to hold their own in any battle or fight.  Reflecting on his own journey and all the events that happened, creatures fought, and strange lands traveled, he thinks that maybe they are just men, as fragile as the Beasttamer in pieces here, as fragile as himself, and it's luck or the gods blessings that determine who wins and who the stories are told.

For himself, Glumr knows he travels with Ehlonna's blessing.  Growing up in the clan, his heart was never in the warriors life.  That is why he felt Ehlonna's calling.  He didnt choose to follow her, he chose to follow his heart, and that is what lead him to her.

Glumr snaps back to reality.  Sunna's music makes it easy to forget the unpleasant task at hand.

The song is a great help in passing the time and keeping everyone's spirits up (no pun intended).  Soon enough the body has been completely loaded into the fire.  Coal invites you all to sleep on the first floor of the tower if you'd like (just tonight) and retires upstairs.

Coal feeds you pastries and cream in the morning. Then you head back into Pliffa.

There's a little more than a week before Coal will have the weapons enchanted.  What would you like to do during that time?  I plan to skip ahead unless there's some pressing business someone wants to take care of in play.

OCC - We could do some training. I never did teach that horse to come when I whistle  (because the dice hated me around then).

Why did we head back to Pliffa?

For some reason, Coal was anxious to kick the farmers out of her tower last night.  She didn't mind you staying overnight, but didn't really want you hanging out underfoot for a week.  She dropped polite hints to that effect at breakfast.  I'm sure someone would've picked up on them.  Pliffa is much more public clan space.

OCC - I did... I thought the tower had a little bit of community around/near it is all.  Pliffa is great.   I'm going to drink a bunch of ale.

With a chance to rest whilst waiting for Coal to complete the enchantments of their weapons, Holly takes the opportunity to reacquaint herself with Moonlight. She tells the others she will be away for a few days, heading east and south to spend some time alone and to spend some time with Moonlight. She takes enough food for four days, and rides off on her horse with Moonlight alongside.

Sunna spends some time with the dwarven history book and tries to find a way to learn that language.
Some time she spends practicing riding - maybe asking Glumr for some advice in training a horse if she sees him doing that - and getting used to the magical (cross)bow she now has.

Evenings are usually spend at an inn or tavern, talking with the people and telling a tale or two, though she's careful not to mention the Beastamer.

This seems like a good time to award experience now that you have a bit of time to train and reflect on your journeys.  Your biggest accomplishment was gathering the weapons and ingredients for the enchantments.  Glumr and Sunna (both of Good alignment) suffer a slight penalty in exp for assisting the forces of evil in recovering the helm and stealing other loot along the way.  I'm not claiming bad roleplaying on either's part, but the event did create some dissonance is them.


Exp awards

450 exp  Forge Battle (405 for Glumr and Sunna)
575 exp  Wildcat Battle
 50 exp  Favrick's Entrance
750 exp  Gathering Enchanting Materials
------------------------------
1825 exp
1780 exp for Glumr and Sunna

This is enough experience to advance Sunna to 4th level with the rest of you. Congrats!  At 4th level you receive a statistic point.  I suggest putting it in your legendary stat, CHR.  I can't say exactly how, but I assure you this will pay extra dividends later.

EXP
Holly 9095
Glumr 9200
Farden 8105
Sunna 6980

Farden spends the week resting, getting any necessary repairs done on his gear, and flirting casually with Coal. He's not serious about it, just something to spend the time doing. Plus, if he's hanging out with Coal, then he doesn't have to hang around the village where he might run into the elders. Some of those old bastards make his knuckles itch.

Glumr spends the days out in the sun, trying to train Bella, his horse, and develop some basic communication with Talita his fox.

In the evening he spends time drinking ales and listening to stories, curious to know how exaggerated things are in the clans tales of valor.  'Quite' he thinks to himself, content to be quiet about his own travels.  Recounting the portal journeys might not even be believable to some, they hardly are to himself and he lived through them.

There are still some PM threads going, but I'd like to get the public part of the game moving again.

Glumr and Sunna train and drink, listen to music, share tales, and most of all rest and relax for more than a week.  Sunna has picked up some dwarvish.  She reads bits of history from the book for the Triplefang who happen to be at the common house.  A few days after Holly returns from her trip Farden brings news that the weapons are complete.  The four of you head to Coal's tower.

Coal greets you at the door with a tray of fresh sweet rolls.  She's wearing a short white dress with a baker's smock on over it.  This girl sure has a lot of different outfits.  With all your traveling it's impractical to bring more than one or two.  Coal invites you in.  You stand around enjoying the sugary rolls as she presents your enchanted weapons.

"Holly, here is your sickle," Coal passes the weapon to the druid so that she can take the handle with her free hand without setting down her pastry.  "You were curious about the spirit that I bound to your weapon, so I spoke to her again in the spirit realm before I worked the enchantment.  It turns out that she was not a mariner as she first led me to believe, but her name is Marina.  Does that name sound familiar?  She has done some sailing but was primarily a huntress.  Marina was quite old when she met you as a child before your parents death."

"Such a fresh spirit so closely related to you is rare.  Surely, this is auspicious."

Coal smiles at Holly and then twirls around to pick up Glumr's bow.

"I would think that when fighting the vile undead a warrior would like to keep his distance.  The bite or touch of the once dead can have many horrible effects beyond their immediate physical damage.  But as I talked to the spirits every one that claimed to battle them in life did so up close and personal hand-to-hand."

"The spirit I bound to your bow was no ghost hunter.  He was a very skilled, flamboyant show-off.  He spoke of archery as an art.  He may not have been a consummate warrior, but I believe this spirit will guide your arrows with great precision."

The enchantress holds the bow out to Glumr for him to take, and then nods to Farden.

"I finished Farden's weapon first.  He was anxious," she giggles a little.  "To be reunited with his sword, so he came and got it many days ago."

Coal pinches a sweet roll and tugs off a small piece of it to eat as she sits on her chair.

"You're all armed and ready to carve up those ghostly horrors on the haunted island, scoop up their treasure, and buy that magic book of yours."

She makes it sound so easy.

Glumr wipes the sugars off his hands and takes the bow from Coal.

"Thank you.  I've met the type." he says, thinking of a certain flamboyant dwarven champion "That is fine.  He guides the arrows and I'll do the thinking."  Glumr smiles.

OCC - Would these weapons feel any different than when we held them before?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:31, Wed 09 Oct 2013.

Physically, the weapons are as they were before their enchantment.  That is to say, superb, well-balanced, well-crafted, nearly perfect weapons.

But...

"Oh, there's one other thing," says Coal.  "You asked that I enquire in the spirirt realm about the Sowell family."

Coal has a dubious look on her face ask she gives you the news with a small shrug.

"It's mostly nonsense, but maybe it'll do you some good.  Blindness is a curse, feel your way through the dark.  Deafness is a blessing.  Do not taste the food, or sniff the wine."

"I assure you that the food and wine here is perfect safe," she adds with a smile.

Glumr frowns, looking puzzled. "Very cryptic.  I'm going to think about these only in context of the haunted place we are going to.  But that being said, would you have any beeswax?  If Deafness is a blessing, I'd like to have something to... um... bless my ears with."

Glumr thinks back to fighting the smelly troglodytes and how by putting crushed mint into his nose caused him to be not quite affected by their overpowering scent.

"I have tallow wax.  If you wanted to deafen yourself you could melt wax into your ears and wait for it to cool.  Dig it out later.  I don't think you'd enjoy it.  The ear is sensitive and you'd likely burn your listeners."

"Want a couple candles?" she asks.

"Um... Gladly." Glumr says "Thank you.  I'm going to try to find a softer wax, but might be able to make these work in a pinch."
oft enough to plug ears with.  Are there other waxes?  Like

Holly took the time to consider the name. Marina was one that did vaguely ring a bell, but Holly remembered very little of her time with her mother and father. Perhaps she could pay a visit back to Volge and ask her adopted family and perhaps the elders of the tribe would remember something about a hunter with that name. At least it seemed there was someone with a connection to her family helping her, and that gave Holly a warm feeling inside.

Taking the sickle, she tested the blade, admiring its weight and feel in her hands. It certainly looked well made and better than her previous sickles. For the moment, aware that insulting Coal would be a bad idea for any future interactions, Holly slipped the sickle into its sheath at her side and let her hand rest comfortably on it as she listened to the words of the spirits about the Sowell family. If silence was a blessing, then they could always use magic, Holly thought to herself, before wondering what the trip to the tower was likely to bring.

"Perhaps we should wear winter hats over our ears Glumr. They reduce the sounds when the snows are heavy and we tie the earpieces tightly down to keep our ears warm." Holly said, partly in jest but also with some possibilities of it working.

Glumr smiles "Perhaps... I fear a warning such as that paired with what we know of the island is an ominous indeed.  I plan on finding something to seal my ears from sound before I set foot there.  I fear what kind of ghostly magics could afflict us through sounds we hear."  If Glumr was really afraid, he didn't show it.  If anything, he looked determined.