West Marches - Ceridwen's Epilogue

West Marches - Ceridwen's Epilogue

Ceridwen sits on the Throne of Black Brambles Eternal, around her, the dead souls of the Tirondian army, the lost, and the wretched. Slowly, over time, she begins to raise her wild demon armies, waging her shadow war against The Prince of Change. In time, she prevails, The Lodge is Restored, and she sits alone staring at the space between stars, singing a strange song that carries on the wind and through the deepest recesses of the earth.

And she dreams... of her glimmering phoenix friend, her ranger friend, and tales of the Whiskey Riders.

West Marches - Price

West Marches - Price

Revenge. Hate. Pain. Vengeance. Rage. Chaos. Destroy.

The words urge her on. Whirling round and round her head.

Kill him.

Kill HIM.

Cacophonous, and constant. But something has hardened in her. Moons before this, the strangeness of the Lodge made even her stalwart heart tremble. The unknown whispers, the songs and stories. The allure of forbidden mysteries had always been there, but it had been tempered by a healthy preservational instinct.

Now, that instinct had turned to something bleaker.

West Marches - Daughter

West Marches - Daughter

“Mistress, we are finished, would you like to observe?” The handmaiden’s sotto voice cut through Ceridwen’s contemplations. She had been far away, daydreaming of...something.

Back to awareness, an image of herself most resplendent greets her through the mirror. The three handmaidens stand around, fidgeting slightly. Her hair has been brushed and decorated like flowing waves, her makeup expertly done in the fashion of the court, and her stormy ocean evening gown accents her form perfectly.

West Marches - Losing

West Marches - Losing

It had all gone sideways.

It wasn’t that surprising. Tirondian army tactics were hardly inspired. Form ranks, march forwards, eliminate things that stand in the way. Oh, bring siege weapons if necessary.

Works great when you fight opposing armies. Less so when your enemies are giant horrors of paint, or the corrupted twisted versions of your own soldiers. Fat lot of good a siege tower does against a painted horde.

Now, Sedriks ran through the woods, they’d lost touch with the cavalry a few hours back, horses spooked and the Captain had ordered them rounded up. Sedriks, and his command knew better. Three dozen was all that was left of their outrider wing, what should’ve been close to two hundred light and medium infantry. Harried at every turn, they’d retreated into a guerilla skirmish through the night.

West Marches - Home

West Marches - Home

Ceridwen pushes open the heavy oaken doors. Were they ever so heavy before? The rust on the hinges squeals, and the mildewed rugs and must of rain and fungus mixes with a strange nostalgic feeling. She can almost see Petyr, he bounces ahead of her, stumbles on a wrinkle in the carpets. But he’s not there.

Behind her, Oadira, Quiz and Veles step in, taking in the grand foyer.

Age has worn this patch of manor. The section of night sky is visible through the broken roof, and beneath their feet, vine and moss have begun to creep their way up. And they have enrobed the bodies of the fallen from that fell night long ago.

Ceridwen steps on the skull of one of the butchers, there is a dry leaf-like crunch. The corpse, long since turned to bone, crumbles beneath the papery weight of its own chainmail armor. She continues to step forward, unmindful.

West Marches - Gilded Cage

West Marches - Gilded Cage

There is a sharp rap on the door outside what used to be Quiz's closed Arcane Laboratory. Most of the contents long since transported down to the Forks. Sedriks waits outside, idly toying with a reed flute.

West Marches - Friend Hunting

West Marches - Friend Hunting

Sedriks vaults a tree with ease, eyes scanning through the forest languidly. The afternoon sun is broken up into dappled flecks beneath the heavy canopy, and idyllic birdsong breaks through here and there. Looking back, the Bard calls to Maren, "What was tha' plant ye said we were lookin' for? What is it used for?"

Maren picks her way through the thick undergrowth of the woods, leaving no trace as she navigates the greenery. She bends over to inspect a small patch of trailing white flowers, rubbing the leaves between her fingers. "Dead Man's Moss, Mirabel's Seedling should be in season... if you can find any Corpseblossom, or see any Ghostpine trees, I would be very pleased." She tosses her ashy silver hair out of her face as she plucks a few of the flowers and tucks them in her apothecary's satchel.

West Marches - Darkwood

West Marches - Darkwood

The chilly woods of the Forks had long become a place of ease to Sedriks. The Bard found an easy rapport wandering the shaded places. Logic said he should’ve brought Azais or Quiz, that there would be better safety in numbers, but everyone seemed to be so busy since the escape from Sou’Brook, plots and plans, making ready for the trip to Wyford and gathering information.

Sedriks however, felt strangely cut off. Or maybe himself cut off, distant and nodding, giving out bags of coin when necessary and being strangely ghost like to the others. Until now, away from the guild,  walking without rhythm over logs and through bush.

No one followed him, and so no one was there to see the slow transition from Sedriks the Bard to Ceridwen the….whatever she was.

West Marches - Between Friends

West Marches - Between Friends

It is midmorning, the guild hall at the Forks is already coming to life, Riders are attending to supplies, equipment, the smell of Cecil cooking bacon wafts through the halls.

But in the far wing of rooms, Sedriks' door is closed and silent. The bard having been carried there after the magical exertion of opening a gateway between trees. Lute prowls outside the door, occasionally scratching at the wood to no avail.

West Marches - The Search for Ioleth

West Marches - The Search for Ioleth

The three riders sat at a darkened table in a nearby tavern hardly touching their now warm ales; Azais monitoring the stable hand and his master down yet another round of whiskey.
Sedriks has a notebook out, ostensibly working on new music pieces, but Quiz and Azais could see the bard was scrawling notations between the notes, keeping track of the exact wording the travelers used and charting in rest beats for how long a distance they had traveled.

West Marches - Leaving the Delve

West Marches - Leaving the Delve

Azais trails Sedriks closely as the small gathering of whiskey riders and dwarves disperses. After the events of the evenings lost souls and twisted magic, people were thankfully distracted by their own thoughts. “Not like you to keep souvenirs” she inclined her head to the small bag of steel-briar seeds. Sedriks had requested. “Planning on walking in Mareen’s footsteps?”

"These?" Sedriks holds up the small leather pouch, "Nay. They are a tree I know well. From my father's estate. Similar to tha' one deep in that dwarven manor. I dinnae expect to e'er see the like again. Ye' think me sentimental?"

“Oh I would never” she teased playfully.

"Hah, aye perish the thought." A rueful, and these days infrequent smile flits the Bard's lips.

West Marches - Beneath the Surface, Quiz's Counterpoint

West Marches - Beneath the Surface, Quiz's Counterpoint

There was no indication of time in the Estate House of Moray, but somehow, the Dwarves all seemed to have some internal clock to their rhythms. Celebratory drinking and song eventually gave way to sombre storytelling and the dull clink of passing coin and card. Over time, the dwarves came to a drunken state of rest, emaciated from their predicament as they were, their constitutions yielded to strong drink. Around him, Sedriks idly plucked at the Viola like a guitar, watching and nodding as handfuls of small brass and silver coins were deposited on the table before him.

West Marches - Friends on The Dock

West Marches - Friends On The Dock

Azais and Sedriks are wandering the vast docks in Soulbrook, watching ships unload various sized crates and cages. The sun is uncomfortably hot for Azais' liking, thankfully the salty breeze helped take the edge off.

West Marches - Morning at the Manor

West Marches - Morning at the Manor

The day dawned bright with a clear blue sky indicative of the water the Whiskey Riders were so near. Silea eyed the piece of bacon she had plucked from her breakfast plate. Perhaps it was not big enough, she thought, though the time to rectify such a potential social error was decidedly past. Shaking her head Silea went over the possible options for the beginning of dialogue before, mindful of how soft her steps could potentially be, she proceeded through the front door of Gilham Manor. Sedricks was lounging on the main steps of the Manor, viola on his shoulder as he plucked idly; jotting notes down in a ragged book of tangled vellum. Silea’s eyes darted to the area nearby to find Lute: artfully stalking a butterfly.

Silea approached cautiously, holding out the bacon and taking care not to be too quiet or accidentally startle either man or kitten.

"Are you writing a song?"

West Marches - Gilham Magic

West Marches - Gilham Magic

There is a sub-basement room in Gilham Manor, the Whiskey Riders' new outpost in Sou'Brook, that most of the Riders don't know about yet. When they were clearing out the years of junk and making it livable, Quiz found the servants door to the underground cellar and decided to not mention it to the group.

Quiz now stands in the room, manipulating a ball of glowing light in his tiny hands. It fills the space with orange-red shadows and beams. He tosses the ball to the figure near him. "Catch it."

Sedriks' reflexes are instant and fingers snap upwards, but the ball shifts harmlessly through, ghostlike and insubstantial.

Azais playfully laughs from the stairwell. Quiz shakes his head, snaps his fingers, and the ball of light flies back to his palm. "It's not so much grabbing it as it is... you need to grab the space around it."

Sedriks focuses, thinking and hooking his thumbs into his armor, steadying his breathing.
"Hold it without holding it," Quiz continues. "Your hand isn't carrying weight; it's carrying a map for the light." He throws the ball again.

West Marches - Winter and Wood

West Marches - Winter and Wood

Azais sits on a slightly damp fallen tree just outside the camp, close enough to see the hut but far enough away for privacy. Focusing on nothing in particular, she continues to play with a small collection of continuously crystallising and melting snow flakes in a spot on the ground between her Ashwire boots. Ha…her boots, "What an annoying predicament these beauties have gotten me into hey grandma…"she laughs to herself. The thought was merely fleeting though, as she continues to make the ice and snow dance, for the majority of her attention was still upon the small wooden shard in her left hand. It slightly tingles her fingertips as she passes it back and forth between them. Perhaps it's because she is more attune to the sensation than last night, or perhaps it's because she is closer to tree line…she quickly glances up as she though she saw something move - just a rat in the roots of a far off tree... but the feeling is much stronger than last night

Azais:  "There is more to this shard than an ordinary tree…" she thinks to herself "…nothing in the Fellwoods is as innocent as it seems."

As she raises her head the ring of crudely etched runes to her left from the LeShock ritual catches her eye. "Ah yes, another venture to solve, but not until I am somewhere with books and the learned." She casts the task aside for a later time when she can seek answers to these seemingly endless string of questions and troubles.

West Marches - The Lodge Calls

West Marches - The Lodge Calls

It isn’t the same path you took before. The sheer number of deer trails and rough-hewn pathways through the Fellwoods may be uncountable… but to you, the way is clear in your mind. The site of the cabin you pulled Ioleth out of is now no more than a rubble strewn clearing, abandoned for decades if not more.

But there’s always another path.

West Marches - Whiskey and Plots

West Marches - Whiskey and Plots

Sedriks walks up, a young boar slung over his shoulders still twitching. Azais is sitting on a cleared stump, the wood part of the palisade somewhere already.

"Hey, if ye kill this, will yer dagger work?" Azais is still silent, staring at the sooty embers dusting the fresh grass. He sits down opposite and flicks shards of glass out of her hair. “That were a right good explosion.”

Finally she finds her voice. “It was certainly a shock...”

“Where’d Quiz make his way off ta?”

West Marches - Azais' Song

West Marches - Azais' Song

The night before our shiocro showdown we are all in the tavern cloaked in thick silence with the impending battle approaching. Sedricks begins to strum his lute in an attempt to ease the tension. As you’re listening you begin to hear ever so faintly what sounds like humming coming from somewhere in the tavern. As Sedricks continues to play the sound gets louder and you realise it’s someone singing, a female, but in a language you don’t all quite recognize.

As the music continues the singing becomes increasingly louder and simultaneously more determined, invoking a strange but welcome feeling of calm and confidence within all who hear it. As people become more entranced in the song they forget to search for its  origin. Minutes pass, like time is slowed, and eventually the lute and singing come to a fading end.

As people are too absorbed in the calm yet hopeful sensation the melody left them feeling for tomorrow’s battle, no one noticed it was a silver haired, purple eyed elf facing the fire who had been singing. It was an ancient elf battle song and Azais had just sung, casting her guild with a ritual for luck in battle.

West Marches - Pens and Poets to Paper

West Marches - Pens and Poets to Paper

The work as they determined near enough, was informed as “strictly voluntary”. But any able man o’er woman who declined the voluntary work w’re added to a rolls the guards kept on their person for the rest o’ the week. Those persons if were determined to have caused breaks in the peace or disturbing those most restful would have been subject of the magistrate’s harshest penalty.