Grigori joins the lady in her gestures and chant.

"Ah, yes. I can feel it already!" He says as he moves his hand back and forth faster and faster, culminating in a jerk of his arm forward forward, extending his fingers as though he were releasing something. "Ah! The spirit has taken me!" He cries, startled by the sudden action as though his arm had a mind of its own.

"Let's test this." He says, standing and cupping his hands to his mouth, shouting into the sky, "Hello! We've come to meet you. Now come on! Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!" He shouts to the heavens.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:14, Mon 09 Mar 2020.

The Lady smiled at Grigori's enthusiasm ... and felt this slightest, smallest, barely sensed trickle of Faith.

It was nothing compared to once she had once felt; but the proverbial 'crumb to a starving man' ...
and her eyes closed in ecstasy as she felt it.


Yes.  Yes.
Grigori's attempt to draw some good interaction from those within hearing range would be blessed.

When he makes an appropriate roll, I will add between +1 and +3 to his roll, to increase it to either a &= or 10+ result.

JJ attempts to figure out which octopoid scurrying around might be the one they're looking for, but without success.

(JJ fails an Insightful roll, and gets a -1 on their next roll, but gets 1 new xp.)

---

The octopoids all slowly stop running. They're afraid, but they're convinced that running will make things worse, so they force themselves to hold their ground (but not attack).

"So..." says one tall, thin octopoid, "you... want us... to help your friends...? What... do you want, exactly, o mighty slaughterers of The People...?" He or she (or it?) isn't trying to be sarcastic, they're trying to be respectful to a being they see as mass murderers...

---

(Meanwhile, Grigori, make a Charming roll...)

The Duke gives the thing a toothy grin that might be intended to look friendly but most likely signals the thing he was about to eat it as he holds up his special thing.

"The old lady gave us this and send us here. Then you attack the Lady. Thats bad!"

"...What... is that...?" asks the tall, thin octopoid.

"...It's mine," says a voice.

Everyone looks at the speaker. It's a small octopoid, half the size of the others. The small octopoid reaches two of its tentacles out, slowly, for the thing The Duke holds (currently looking like a green rubber balloon... but feeling like a round lead weight). "I traded a limb for it," says the little being, and indeed The Duke counts and realizes that this being is technically a septapoid.

"...You said a flarg ate your limb!" says one of the others, shocked.

"No. I traded it to the old woman. And now its ready, and she sent these warriors to deliver it..."

Will The Duke give the small septapoid the object?

The Duke looms over the puny thing his voice bellowing.

"You sure its yours? If you fool the Duke he will eat you and your friends."

Still beyond the threat he holds out the item to be delivered.

"Then you also know where we go next?"

"...We were supposed to give it to the one who asked us for it, or about it, or something like that, remember...?" JJ says to The Duke quietly.





The little septapoid takes the item-- and it turns back into a ball of shimmering light again, though more sea-green than before.

The other octopoids fall down on their-- well, okay, they sort of sink down lower, bowing. "It is true. Hsyui is indeed the prophesied one who will lead us, the bearer of the light."

Hsyui looks The Duke in the eye, then looks at the light. Murky images seem to swim in it. "...You and the woman outside will go back to the old woman, and get your payment," says Hsyui. "The man outside and this being at your side will follow the black lion. I cannot see where they will end up... but you and the woman will go where the old one guides you..."

The Duke nods at JJ and then gives the septopod a firm tap on its shoulders that would make its knees buckle if it had any and then turns to leave.

"Next time don't attack my friends."

And with that he returns to the Lady.

The Duke and JJ return to Grigori and The Lady.

JJ informs them of what transpired in the tunnels...

The Lady smiled, and nodded.
"It was Lucky that you found the one we needed to find, gentlemen", she intoned gracefully.

"Perhaps it is fateful that we must part company now," she replied to JJ and to Grigori, "for I also sense that Aesop will need your aid.
It is Lucky for him that you will be there for him.

In turn, The Duke and I will return to collect our Tearful Companion.
With Luck, our two groups will remerge when Destiny deems it appropriate".   She spoke that last name with familiarity and  ... familial connection?

To Grigori, she said, before he left, "Remember me, as I have taught you, and Luck will always be with you".

When Grigory and JJ are to depart the Duke looks at both their rides a little sad he now had to walk and he expresses this sadness to the fine lady.

"We not lucky. Friends got rides we have to walk far."

"Do you trust me, Duke?
If you say, 'In Luck I trust', I'm sure we can have a vehicle"

So long as The Duke payed The Lady the attention she deserved, the lady drifted over to where Grigori and JJ were preparing to leave.
- rolled 7 using 2d6 with rolls of 4,3.   +3 Attention
As she ran her finger across Grigori's chest, she intoned, "You wouldn't leave a Lady without transport now, would you?" she asked.

Grigori sighed.

Soon, The Duke and The Lady were using Grigori's vehicle to head back to the strange, blasted forest where the old lady's house had been.

When they got there, there was half a wall back in place over the kitchen area.

Anchorite Tearful comes out to greet them. "I've got to stay here, for now," she says. "I'll never have a chance like this again. Whatever the old woman is, she can teach me things I feel I must learn..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:23, Thu 09 Apr 2020.

The Duke found it strange he had to say he trusted in Luck but if it meant he didn't have to walk what was the problem against it? Once they returned to the lady The Duke gravitated to the kettle with food.

"But Anchorite we need smart people. The Duke is strong and the Lady looks nice but we need smarts to find our goal."

The Lady joined The Duke into the old woman's hut.
As The Duke worked to convince Anchorite of their need for her, The Lady gave her attention to the witch.
"The deed is done", she intoned, "And her merchandise delivered".

She sat then, across from the older, with grace.
It occurs to me that we are now left with the two PC's with the least personal investment in this mission: one who was simply along for the ride, and one conceivably unable to fully comprehend the purpose.
So I guess I'd better step The Lady up into more involved motivation, eh.


"Please, you agreed to tell us what you could of our destination, and how to get there".

"You have done as I asked, so I will do as you ask. While you were gone, I remembered who once told me that they had met people who claimed to be from The Cloister. It was a plant-man, called himself Juniper. Two legs, two arms, head with eyes, but wood, or as much like it as makes little difference. He came from the northeast, and he went back there. It was a long time ago, but if he's not alive anymore, his children-- or whatever he might have instead of children, might be, and they would likely know what he would know, because that's how it works. Go that way, and ask about Juniper the plant-man, or his people. And take this bag... Mixed with water, it's like food and medicine to those plant-people. They'll find it very valuable..."

She gives The Lady a brown velvet bag with whitish powder inside...
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:43, Sun 12 Apr 2020.

The Lady graciously accepts the offered bag, and the guidance of the old lady.

"Thank you, and may Luck be with you.
With your permission, we shall rest here for the night, and move on in the morning?" she asked.

The Duke eyes the pot again when the Lady says they are going to stay there and chips in seemingly having found a way to express his desires without needing to foorce them.

"If we are lucky a fine meal too!"

He looks at the Lad with hopeful eyes.

"You may rest here in my yard, amongst the tree trunks. I'd rather not have your ox in my house knocking over my fine china and eating all the food in the house..."

She pauses. "You may have some strange dreams, out here, though. Even you, Lady."

Another pause. "I can loan you quilts and pillows, if you wish... but it would likely make your dreams even more vivid and strange..."

The Lady was intrigued by 'strange dreams'.
Strange was The Lady's middle name*, and she was interested to see what her brethren God of Dreams would bring her in this way.

"Thank you.  We will accept your gracious hospitality, and take our sleep upon your lawn this eve", she bowed to the old crone.
The Lady was glad, in ways, that she herself would never age ... never fall to the misfortunes fated for this woman, and her race.

To The Duke, she said, "Let us retire to yon grassy knoll, to sleep ... perchance to dream", thinking to herself, 'ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…'

                                                * not really, of course.   It's 'Karen' ...  ;-P 

The Duke sighs when there is no food offered but then remebers he has their supply cache under his guard and and it now needs to be shared with two less. He takes a moment to pitch his tent and then demolihes a few trees for firewood to start a small campfire and helps himself to some sausages from the supply chest to roast on a stick even offering the lady some and a stick.

That night, The Lady slept, and had a dream.

In it, she stood at the top of a tall, silver tower, at the top of a breathtakingly beautiful cityscape that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Standing on the wall was Foers, The Duke's teddy bear. "You may ask me three questions," the bear told her, waiting...

---

That night, The Duke slept, and had a dream.

The Duke was a deity of fate and luck. Billions of sentient beings prayed to him, and their thoughts sustained him and kept him alive, so alive he could grant wishes and appear anywhere, to anyone he chose.

The mighty, the lowly, the rich and the poor, robots and things grown in vats and alien things all worshiped him and begged for his attention.

To whom will The Duke next appear?

(Choose one:
--the mighty
--the lowly
--the rich
--the poor
--a robot
--a thing grown in a vat
--an alien thing)

The Duke was confused. People always loathed him and now he was worshipped. Now that was such a strange feeling. Naturally he feels compelled to appear to those most like him. Those below anyones notice. It was not more then right that he would be with he lowly.

The Duke manifests near a man in his thirties. He's got clothes, including a jacket (though everything is ripped and torn here and there, but is bareheaded, and it's raining and cold. He sits alone at the bottom of a thousand-story-high tower, in a city that's grimy and dark. "Bona fortuna..." the man cries when he sees The Duke. "You have come. All my life, when I have called you, you have been elsewhere, favored others. I bear no grudge. I know that many things are beyond my understanding. But I ask that you smile on me, just this once, please. Change my fate, mend my destiny."

The Lady smiled at Foers.
"What is it that you most want the Duke to know, little one?"