Toben nods. "I hope so. Right now, she is our only option on getting him fixed too."

"Well, for the time being, someone should fetch Vanter and let him know about Hattie and the little one. As for Saris, I'll leave her to you Toben. If anyone can figure out just what went wrong and when, that would be you. I'll try to find Ceven, so that we may seek his wisdom as to the more delicate matters of our new foe and what her aim is. Mairen, would you mind accompanying me as I go find him? I'm sure some fresh air and maybe a drink of water would do you good."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:32, Tue 12 Apr 2016.

Mairen nods and follows.  Nessa is nursing quietly and Hattie seems to have fallen asleep.  Saris remains unconscious at Ano's feet by the bed, the broken knife still clutched in her hand.  The blade lays on the floor beside her.

Klale works.

Toben nods. "I'll keep an eye on Saris. When you speak to Ceven, it might be worth mentioning Gwaelind. I think where Mairen was being held could be the same place one of his siblings is trapped."

He picks up the broken blade and wrestles the hilt out of Saris' hand. Toben stuffs the broken blade in a pocket of his traveling cloak and draws his dagger. "Uncle Ano. It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" He presents the dagger, hilt first, to Ano. "Saris might be out for a while, would you care to cut the cord?"

The white cord, empty of blood by now, is cut without disturbing the nursing/sleeping baby.  Hattie wakes long enough to smile sleepily.  Toben and Ano clean up (with perhaps some biology lessons for the younger of the two) and remove Saris from the room.

Vanter helps take her out to the barn and bind her until her threat level can be ascertained.  The ferret scampers after.

Ourn finds Ceven out at the forge watching Klale work.

This puts everyone in the party in proximity.  Vanter will go back into the house to make sure Hattie is cared for while the rest talk.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:21, Tue 12 Apr 2016.

Ceven listens to the tale of all that has transpired.  "It sounds reasonable.  I would suggest to you that we are not dealing with one, but two Dark Maia.  This Delunaur might be their Song of Fire.  The one Toben and Ourn encountered, the one who invaded Xar and controlled Saris sounds like their Song of Mind.  His physical location is not known?  Toben, did you see anything in your vision that would possibly hint at this second Maiar's location?"

Klale looks up Are thee two of you for each attribute? If so, strange though it may seem, were you once one? I mean, with so much weirdness.... He blinks. Or even three of you for each..? He mutters Stick to your anvil, Klale.

"That's a good question Klale. What do you mean by 'their' version versus 'our' version? Should we expect to see a 'good' and 'evil' version of all Songs?"

"To answer your question about the visions. When interacting directly with this alternate Song of Mind, clues were sparse. I was surrounded in total darkness, with the exception of blue flashes here and there. The darkness only passed when I broke free and came to. When connected to Hattie, I found that she was trapped in a time loop, reliving Faelorn's atrocities back at her home over and over again. My connection with Xar was quite different, however. At first, I seemed to be watching his exodus from his life as a Nauglath. There was a tunnel. Sounds of struggle. Finally, the tunnel was illuminated by a bunch phosphorescent figures where Xar felled his pursuer and escaped. The second part was quite different. We were in a quite meadow by a brook. This time, instead of a spectator, I was a participant. We sat and talked for a bit, but just before it ended, Xar was left sitting in the blackness with a feint blue outline. A tall, slender figure, dressed in exquisite robes appeared behind him. I got a very strong feeling of dangerous from this figure."

"Looks like you got far more out of the dream state than I did. I only managed to be enveloped in darkness, with a taunting voice laughing at me, and a sort of pressure all over, slowly increasing over time before I awoke."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 22:57, Tue 12 Apr 2016.

Toben nods. "That happened to me too, but only when this evil version of the Song of Mind got a hold of me. Luckily, I was able to break out before the pressure became too great."

"Ceven also mentioned that it was possibly the Song of the mind that attacked you.  There was no mention of a song of the mind on our side.  Unless the previously mentioned Faeruel Taurmaiar was the counter part to your mental assailant.  Then he speaks directly to Toben "When we found Kornari, what was it that kept him there?  Did it have the same feel as the other Dark stars?""
This message was last edited by the player at 01:52, Wed 13 Apr 2016.

"I am only speculating, though the pattern that I see seems to hold.  I don't remember much about the vision I had about my brethren, but seeing the written list Toben has helped me remember something of them.  Being close to Nestael has strengthened that.  There are four Dark Maiar so far, Dischords in counterpoint to our Songs.

Dúath'gûr - the Dark Heart, Dischord of Earth who bound me.
Basarshakath - Dischord of Body, who you fought in Dunstan.
Delunaur - Dischord of Fire, who Mairen saw at the Soul's Range Mountains.
And then there is this Dischord of Mind.

I'm only guessing on the last two, though.  They may not be Maiar at all.  However, their power suggests they can be nothing else."

Ceven chuckles then.  "Faeruel is not the Song of the Mind.  Nauthaur is."

As Ceven speaks more about the Maia, he flips through his journal and scribbles more down. "Yes, I have that here. Nauthaur the Fool. If he is the Song of Mind, then what domain does Faeruel, the uncorruptable one, hold?"

He closes his book and looks over to Ano. "If I had to guess, I would say the being that trapped Kornari was the same one that held Ceven prisoner. Dúath'gûr. When I tried to commune with the earth surrounding the cave and pillar, I felt pure evil. It hungered only to consume Kornari." He shrugs and looks to Ceven for some sign of confirmation. "As I said, it's my best guess."

"Ceven, given your specialty, do any of the things I saw in those visions ring a bell?"

Ceven shakes his head.  "Not particularly.  My senses are acute, but not widespread.  I have about a hundred mile radius when connected to the ground that I can sense certain things.  A separate race of dwarves?  I barely sensed those in Moria and that by circumstance, not directly.  I'm sorry."

"Wait, so let me get this strait. You're saying for every Maiar, there is an opposite and evil discord? As in, there are far more than just Basarshakath, and they could be even stronger than he was?"

Ceven holds up both hands and shakes his head.  "I'm not saying that is a fact, just a possible conclusion.  There is definitely one opposed to me.  Basarshakath was opposed to Nestael from all descriptions of him.  There seems to be one of fire and one of mind and from Toben's list there are one of each of those that are my brethren.  It could be that Delunar and the mind you encountered here are simply mortals with great power, but if so, where did they get it and how did they become that powerful so swiftly?  Toben here is learning rapidly and he started a short while after we fell.  He studies almost constantly and...forgive me Toben...sounds nowhere near as powerful as Delunar.  He certainly barely escaped from the mind he encountered in Xar and Hattie."

He takes a deep breath.  "Please don't take my guesses as absolute truth.  As my mind grows more finite here on Arda, I am less certain as I used to be as an Ainur."

Toben shrugs. "No offense taken, but you bring up a good point. These individuals appear to be very powerful. How are we going to deal with them when we encounter them? They must have some sort of weaknesses, right? With Nestael in infant form, I think we are even more at a disadvantage, and we're going to need to help restore Phineas."

"I think our best chance it to gain allies.  We could gain the support of whatever men we can, and try to locate the rest of the stars.  We can only hope that these seperate discordes are not workikng together""

"Perhaps my own duchy could send a detachment. If I made the request and informed Duke Therion of just how dire our land's plight is becoming, I'm certain he would be inclined to lend us what hands he could spare. It wouldn't be a full fledged army of course, but the fighters and spies of Therion are no novices in combat either. With that, the hearts and minds of men from other lands could start to be bought"

"It already feels like Delunar and the 'mind' are already working together seeing how Delunar sent Mairen and the 'mind' took control of Saris, but a few trustworthy men from Ourn's duke certainly wouldn't hurt." Toben furrows his brow as he thinks. "Seems like our best lead is the Soul Range mountains and hope that Gwaelind is ok."

He sighs and looks back over his shoulder. "Speaking of Saris, I should go check in on her."

Saris seems to be okay.  A bit shaken and grumpy, but herself.  Whatever controlled her is gone as far as Toben can ascertain.

The baby grows daily and by the end of the week appears to be physically a toddler.  Hattie is well enough to get out of bed.  She has none of the bruises, broken bones, or other physical signs that Faelorn left her with.  No doubt this is a benefit of bearing Nestael.

Nessy is walking now and one of the first things she does is toddle over to Xar and place a tiny hand on his leg.  Xar's eyes shoot open and his mouth opens in silent scream.  The moment passes and Nessy toddles back over to Saris, climbs in her lamp, and smiles.  "All fixed."

Xar sits up and rubs his head.  He looks over at Nessy and offers the first smile the group has ever seen from him.  It's kind of a scary thing to behold, but Nessy giggles.  When he looks up at Saris, she holds up a hand and begins to sign.  Xar nods and responds in kind.

Saris explains that the damage that almost killed Xar is healed by Nestael's power.  She says for now, she and Xar will communicate through hand signals to prevent her being taken over again.

The next evening, with Nessy looking closer to three than two, the whole group is gathered in Vanter's main room.  Vanter and Hattie are in the kitchen, Hattie humming happily as she makes dinner.  Others had offered to do it, to even help, but she waved them off explaining that she needed something to do after lying in bed for so long.

As the group finalizes their plans, largely centered around going to Duke Therion's for a number of reasons, Nessy waddles over to each in turn and takes their hand for a moment, giving each a squeeze.  A warm tingle passes through each of you in turn.  Then she pauses in front of Saris.  With hands on hips and a scrunched up face she considers the Gonhirrim.  "Bless you!" she declares and climbs in Saris's lap.  The healer gasps like Xar had just poured a glass of cold water down her shirt.  Then she hugs the little girl and whispers "thank you, lass."

GM:  Any last threads to tie up can go here before you leave.  Otherwise, we will start chapter 6 in the new thread.

Toben smiles widely and places a hand on Xar's shoulder. "Welcome back, friend. It's nice to see you up and alert again." He breaths a sigh of relief and returns to sit back down the chair he has spent countless hours researching in.

Ferb scampers up the chair and on to Toben's shoulder. He turns to look at the ferret and says, "Yes, it looks like he'll be ok. It's our other little friend I am concerned about now."

He turns back to his parchment and journals and packs them up in preparation for the next journey.

Klale, perhaps, finishes his sword and gets in some practice with it. When he hits something with it, it (if possible) freezes. By way of experiment, he strikes such objects with his hammer to see if said objects shatter.

Said objects do not shatter, but some of them are brittle at the edges.