[RuneQuest] Brylaneth's Journey, part 11: The Company of the Rainbow Dragon

 

After we brought the cattle back, the chief's wife gave us 200 silver pieces as a reward. That was nice but we had no home to go to, and there weren't many places where we could spend the silver. So we stayed in that village a little while. 

Wurk suggested that because we can no longer claim to be Haraborn we should find another name for ourselves. He wanted our new name to be the Shahvasites after Sha'vashak. We agreed with that because we could think of nothing better.

A guest came to stay in the chieftain's household. His name was Joh Mith. He was a trader. He was going to the northeast to trade with the people in Prax. He said he came to Sartar once every year. Wurk made a deal with him that we would go along with him as his guards. We went north into Milani territory with him and his muleskinner.

Joh Mith

Muleskinner

While we were traveling I felt like we were being watched. I saw a spirit watching us but it left. 

We came to a crossroads and Joh Mith said he knew a village where we could stay for the night. We went to one man's stead and his family treated us well. They washed our clothes and let us use their sweat lodge. They shared news with us. They also warned us that because it was Dark season there were trolls about.

After we left that stead we went on to Runegate Fort, which had been destroyed before by the foul Crimson Bat. There was a permanent market outside the rebuilt fort. Joh Mith said too much of the stuff there was new. 

Because of the threat of trolls, we stood watches that night. I had the last watch before Yelm-rise. The muleskinner was awake too. I saw at a small camp not far away from ours there were some people who gave a piglet to a troll and the troll ran off. I thought I heard children running but I couldn't see them. When Yelm rose I asked the muleskinner if the people there gave bribes to the trolls. He said yes, it was a way of saying to the trolls to eat these things like the piglet instead of eating the people. Those children running I heard were trolls running from camp to camp to get their bribes.

Trolls

We heard from the town watch that some trolls had raided that night and taken some sheep. The muleskinner said he had given the trolls some apples to leave our camp alone, but I never saw that.

We kept going northeast to Two Ridge and camped there. We saw a patrol of Malani. We knew they weren't friendly with the Colymar, but not whether they were friends of the Lunars. They stopped us and wanted to know why we were there. They wanted a silver piece per foot of our group, but Joh Mith negotiated a price of one silver per person and two silver for each of his mules. 

While we were going along with Joh Mith, Wurk spent a lot of time learning more tradetalk from him.

We left the Milani lands and came to the Cinsina lands. Then we came to Jonstown. We had to go down steps from a plateau to get to the south gate. Joh Mith took us to his house there. 

Wurk thought we should look for a shaman who would be willing to teach me. But while he was walking around Wurk suddenly saw Jodi White Hart from Black Stag Vale. Jodi White Hart was glad to see him. After everyone left the Vale, Jodi White Hart and his family went to Jonstown to stay with his wife's second husband, Kayden the Scribe. Jodi White Hart told Wurk that the Redsmith was there in Jonstown too. They went back to the house Jodi White Hart was living in to talk without being overheard by strangers. Jodi White Hart's wife Margo was pregnant. 

Jodi White Hart

After that all of us went to stay in Kayden the Scribe's house. Joh Mith paid us almost twenty silvers each for being his guards. Wurk told the story of what happened to us to Temerin the Younger, who was one of Kayden's apprentices. Temerin wrote a poem about it. Jodi White Hart didn't know where the rest of the Ring were or if they had survived.

Temerin the apprentice scribe

[RuneQuest] Brylaneth's Journey Continues, part 10: The Broken Tower

 

This time when we went to Beast Valley was near the end of Sea Season. After we said farewell to the Royal, we didn't know where we should go. We couldn't go back to Black Stag Vale, and some places would see us as outlaws. But we couldn't stay in Beast Valley either. We wanted to help the Starbrow find the other parts of the dragon's spirit.

Before we left we sacrificed some of our magic power to Shah'vashak to seal the bargain between us. Then we went out to see what we could do to prepare for the struggle that the dragon said was coming. 

At the start of Earth Season we came to a village of people from the Ismeldr clan who were starting their planting. They welcomed us and we helped them. We witnessed their ceremony when they sacrificed a bull and annointed the seeds with its blood, and the village chieftain plowed the first row. The three men with me helped the village men prepare the fields for planting, and I helped the women sow the seeds. 

After the planting was done there was a feast. That night, Fire night, we stayed with them. Their hall was mostly empty, as many of their people were away. During the feast a cowherd came running into the village to report that they had been raided and the raiders took thirty head of cattle. The raiders had also killed some of the other herders. The raiders were from the Gray Dog clan and had with them a man named Danakos whose name we had heard before. He had reputation as a troublemaker. The villagers asked us to help recover the stolen cattle because they were short of people. 

We went up to Starfire Ridge. We found another cowherd wounded. He told us that the other Gray Dogs had seemed surprised when Danakos killed the herders. Collan found the tracks of the cattle and we followed them. 

The tracks led us into the badlands. The clouds above us were dark and seemed to hang lower in the sky than clouds usually do. We found a body lying on the ground, surrounded by dirt that had been stirred up by the passing of cattle. The body was one of the Gray Dogs, being eaten by crows. His throat had been cut. Someone had cut his purse too. He didn't have any weapon with him, only an eating knife. There was a dead campfire nearby. We didn't want to take the time to burn him or bury him, but we were afraid his spirit would come back so we piled rocks over him. After we left him Collan lost the tracks.

Jaryan saw something moving in the distance near some trees. He looked harder and said that it was a person with a walking stick and wild hair, who seemed to be trying to hide from us after they were noticed. He and Wurk went after the person. It wasn't hard to catch him. He was an old man who was blind in one eye. He said his name was Carthalo, and I remembered the one called Red Crow talking about him. He had been a shaman until he lost a fight with a powerful spirit. Now he lived as a scavenger, taking things from the burial mounds in the badlands and selling them. 

Wurk used his words to calm Carthalo so he wouldn't fear us and would talk to us. He knew who we were. He had heard our names before. He told us we must take care to avoid the Stone Woman who haunted the badlands. He said she had cast a spell on the Gray Dogs. They had gone to the north, he said, not back toward their village of Talavaldas. They had left at night half a day ago. He thought they were probably going to a stone tower ruin that was probably a temple, on a hilltop. That was where the the Stone Woman was, he said. He was very frightened of her. 

We left him in the morning after staying that night in his stone hut. The walls inside were all covered with runes and glyphs and he had herbs hanging overhead and various bits of broken pots and other things scattered about that he had found in the burial mounds.  It was cold there at night but he gave us tea and he had good food. 

The next morning the weather was worse. During the night there had been thunder. Now there was rain and we could hear rumbling from the hills and see flashes of lightning. After a while we came to a place where there were carved stones scattered about. Some of them looked like women with big breasts and no faces. They were broken long before. There was an old road made of stones that had also been broken and pushed aside. The trees around looked like spirits in the rain.

Wurk heard a sound, and then the rest of us heard the lowing of a frightened cow and then pounding hooves. A bull appeared between the trees. It was chased by six big lizards, as big as Jaryan's horse Skycourser. We knew we couldn't fight six of them so we turned away before they could notice us. 

Collan and Jaryan noticed an odd smell. It was very quiet there, no sound of birds or animals. At the top of a hill we came to an area surrounded by a crumbling wall. In the center of the walled area was a round tower, also old and falling down. Jaryan said this was not a good defense as the walls were in too much disrepair. I knew that this place was very old, from the time of the First Men perhaps. 

There was a ramp around the bottom of the broken tower. Wurk spied someone's head peeking over the top of the old wall. But we didn't hear any alarm being sounded. We decided to go through a place where the wall had fallen down. There were skulls on the ground everywhere, skulls of cattle and deer and other animals. Some of them were partly buried in the ground. Others were set into the walls of broken buildings. The shape of the place was strange, the buildings and streets not built like anything that we knew. 

We caught a glimpse of the watcher Wurk had seen, but he looked like he had gone mad, his eyes wide with all the white showing. He just stared at us as though he didn't know what we were. 

We made our way very carefully through the ruins, avoiding all the skulls and touching nothing. The cattle that had been stolen were all on the ramp outside the tower. But we ran into one guard who was not a wild-eyed staring madman. This one threw a javelin, and then Wurk hit him in the head with a slingstone and he fell over like a felled tree and gave up his spirit.

As Wurk started to lead the cattle off, aided by Ropps, we saw a terrible thing. One of the skulls rose up out of the ground. It had a body that looked like it was made of twigs and roots and bloody vines. This thing grabbed the man who had been staring at us and tore his head right off! Then it sank back into the ground. 

We hurried the cattle away from that place as fast as we could. Perhaps someday I will go back and try to find the Stone Woman or smash all the skulls, but on that day I was glad to put that place behind me. 

[RuneQuest] Brylaneth's Journey Continues, part 9: Escape to Beast Valley

The Red Priestess's warriors pursued us as we ran. The wyter told us it was safest to head south. We went into the woods, skirting around Wilmskirk where there might be people who supported the king. We avoided places where people lived. Our destination was Beast Valley, south of the Sun Dome. None of us had ever been that far from our homes.

To stay on our path we came close to Harvast's Vale, that some people said was haunted. It lies south of Boldhome. It was growing dark and we had to look for a place to rest. Arrows came out of the trees and hit the Royal in the leg, neck and flank, wounding it badly. We pulled out the arrows and used our spells to heal the wounds. Wurk used his white stone to float a torch away from us so the bowman would think we were where the torch was.

Wurk put out the torch and Collan hid in the shadows, waiting for those who followed to come out. I stood guard over the Royal. I heard an alynx prowling and snarling, but it wasn't Wurk's or Collan's cat. Jaryan and Wurk cast spells to find our enemies and Jaryan used a darkness spell against them. Wurk used his sword to leap toward them. They were Colymar, hunting us for a bounty. Jaryan and Wurk hit them hard, but they nearly killed Ropps, Wurk's cat. 

There was no archer with them when the hunters were brought down. The hunters said their archer often went off on his own. Jaryan took trophies from the hunters and then Wurk said to let them go. 

Afterward Shah'vashak came out and asked to speak to the Royal. The two wyters put their foreheads together and bowed to each other, a strange sight. Then they faded out of sight. After a little while the Royal came back alone and spoke to us, saying that we must leave behind the Haraborn name because we couldn't be a clan without land. It said we must become something new and make sure such a crime wouldn't befall other people. Then it told us to take him to Beast Valley because he had family there. We still had our own wyter, Shah'vashak, who could go on with us.

We thought of going to the river that ran near Sun Dome and Beast Valley to get to the valley. But boats mean people and we wanted to avoid being seen. We went toward the place known as Wasp's Nest.

It wasn't long before we saw the wasps that were as big as deer. There were small people riding them! They were chasing some hunters. When one of the men was stung by a wasp he screamed and went limp. The wasp picked him up and flew off with him. We hurried to get away before the wasp people saw us.

That night we stood watches looking out for Kitori sorcerers who were rumored to come to that area. Collan's alynx Shade noticed soemthing, and then the Royal was hit by three arrows again. Three more arrows hit the ground around him. The bowman couldn't be seen. Wurk and Collan and I used our spells to heal the Royal. Shah'vashak could see the archer but couldn't help us much. 

The next day as evening came we reached the Aurochs Hills. It was barren there. As we looked for a place to camp we found a rotting corpse hanging in a tree. We had heard that chaos demons haunted that place, but there was nowhere else for us to rest and we couldn't keep going all night.

Wurk heard a sound. A centaur appeared. He told us his name was Harjeen the Handsome, son of Ironhoof. Six others came with him. He had come to greet his uncle, he meant the Royal. He said we should go to Beast Valley, and the centaurs let us ride them. Shah'vashak had told them we were coming. 

At their camp we feasted with them and told them what had happened to us after we left Black Stag Vale. Wurk and Jaryan both dallied with fox women. I spoke for a time with a manticore named Haro. 

When morning came it was time to part with the Royal. We said our farewells to him. Shah'vashak told us that he had decided he would take our side in the coming struggle. Harjeen gave Wurk a ring with Starbrow's seal on it. This meant we would not have to live as bandits in the wild.

[RuneQuest] Brylaneth's Journey Continues, part 7: A Looming Threat

 

The black stone block that filled the passage rippled like water and did not reflect the light of our torches. Wurk touched it. His hand went into it as if it was made of water. He said it was cold. He tried to walk into it but couldn't. He took out the orb that Shah'vashak lived in and then set it aside and went into the block.

Jaryan followed him into the block. Collan and I went next. I don't know what happened to the others after that as I couldn't see them anymore, though later they said they had visions that were not the same as mine.

I was in a different place, not the temple. I saw the Crimson Bat flying over the land where many warriors fought. Where it flew everyone died. I was more frightened than I have ever been. I crouched down hugging my knees and tears rolled out of my eyes without ceasing. My belly hurt from sobbing. Everything was destroyed. My people were gone. I grieved for them without end. 

I fell into nothingness. There was nothing to see, no light, no sound. The sorrow left me and I felt contentment of a life lived as best I could. Then I was inside a room, like a palace, though then I had never seen a palace. There was a mosaic on the floor, but it wasn't real. A shape like a big platter, surrounded by wavess. There was writing I couldn't read, and something that might have been a map. The ceiling was curved up above. It looked like a night sky, but there was no Red Moon. The lights of the Dragon were brighter, made of little stones that sparkled. Orlanth's Ring had too many stars in it, a hand of fingers plus one more, instead of four fingers of each hand. There were columns around this place, and a stand with a crystal on it that was the size of water jar. This crystal glowed with light like a fire. The others were there with me. Shah'vashak gave something to Wurk. 

There was a small room of shelves for scrolls like we'd seen before and Wurk went to look. He touched a thing and the outside crumbled away. It was a book, not a scroll. Its pages were made of very thin bronze. Shav'ashak told him to take this to Starbrow. There was another book with pictures of people who had some parts like dragons. We looked at the glowing thing on the stand. It was a cylinder with end caps made of metal. The light inside it was green and blue and seemed to move the way water does when you swish your hand in it.

We left the temple then. Down below Starbrow and her people were very upset. They told us we had been gone for three days! Starbrow wanted to know if we had found the thing called Breath of the Dragon. Wurk showed her the bronze book. She was not happy. This wasn't what she expected to find. Shav'ashak came out with a sound of tinkling bells and a gentle breeze. Orlaront started laughing. He said that the wyter, Shav'ashak, was what Starbrow had sought. Shav'ashak told Starbrow he was not hers to command, which made her frown. He said she could gather the other parts of his spirit. Starbrow was proud and she was not pleased that the wyter hadn't come to her.

An icy rain was falling then on the mountainside. It was on its way down toward the Vale with us as we went back. Even Insterid Fire-Eye couldn't see well in that rain. She drew her blade. All around us were archers. A woman's voice called out to Starbrow. I knew it was the woman who had come before to demand the tax. Starbrow would not surrender. The woman told the archers to fire, but she was interrupted when our people attacked the bowmen. Starbrow fought along with them. My friends and I fought too. We took no captives for ransom.

Later Orlaront wanted to talk to us. He wanted to study the strange light Wurk had brought out of the temple. When he spoke the Wyrm's tongue to it the light flickered but nothing else happened. He offered to exchange things with us to have the light. He had a copper cauldron that could make porridge with a spell of silence in it, and a leather bag with a sylph in it but after it was let out it would go away. He also had a feather that could make a sunspear, but that also could be used once only, and a tiny gargoyle that would bring a small earth elemental just once. I liked a ball with rings on it that looked like an eye that he showed us would grant a disruption spell. It did not go away after being used so I took that one. Wurk took a white stone like the green one I had but it would let him lift up things. Collan took as his prize an axe with a bladesharp spell in it. Jaryan had black stone that could detect Chaos. When we had chosen our rewards Wurk let Orlaront have the light.

Gordangar and Starbrow spoke together and I saw that Gordangar looked tired. But he encouraged Starbrow. He said that the women and children should go into hiding and the men should go to join the Deer Folk, because killing the tax collector would not go unnoticed and soon more fighting men would be sent to kill us. Wurk spoke up and said that our people should hide not fight, because he'd had a vision in the black block of seeing our whole clan wiped out. I remembered what I saw and said I had seen the same, though it made my knees shake to speak to the Ring without being asked.

Morganeth did not want to leave. She feared the Riddle would be desecrated and the urnfield would be dug up and our ancestors' bones scattered. Then Shah'vashak came out of the orb and said he could hide the urnfield and the Riddle so no one could harm them.

[RuneQuest] Brylaneth's Journey Continues, part 6: Starbrow's Search

The next morning on Soratha's advice we went to visit Jaryan's uncle Karenstar. When we arrived we met his wife Deladra. Karenstar was away aiding the search for Esrala. 

Wurk asked Deladra how well she knew Darastan. She said that she didn't really know him. Wurk asked her a few more questions, and then she mentioned a hunting cabin that she said she'd never been to and didn't know where it was, but implied that might be where Darastan and Esrala had gone. Eventually after Wurk talked to her further she confessed that she had been there with Fiedor and made us swear we wouldn't tell Karenstar. She told us how to find the cabin after we agreed that we would tell no one we learned of it from her. She gave us some food to take. 

The journey to the cabin was hard. It was very cold, the wind had teeth like an alynx. When we arrived at the lodge we found that the door had been battered open and the stores of food had been scattered on the floor, except the meat, which had been taken. Strange signs and symbols had been written on the walls and there was a flint knife driven into the broken door. Snow had blown inside, obscuring the tracks of whoever had torn down the door.

Wurk spied something in the loft and drew his sword. Darastan leaped down and clung to Wurk's legs. He jabbered in fear. After a time Wurk patiently got him to tell us what had happened. He said that he and Esrala had wed and he'd brought her there to be alone. Wolf men had come and taken her while he was gathering wood. He claimed the carvings were wedding charms. They had been waiting to have a formal wedding before their families until they knew that she was fertile. 

Wurk asked Darastan if Esrala was willing. Suddenly Collan drew his sword. Jaryan had gone outside to look for tracks and found tracks of both humans and wolves. He came back and asked Darastan who it was that had married them. Wurk told him that first we should find Esrala and then we could worry about the rest of Darastan's tale. 

We left Daratan behind at the lodge and made our way to the Telmori territory. It was near Yelm-down when five people and five wolves came to meet us. Among them were Sees Far and Black Fang who we had met before. Others we met were Boar Killer and Running Wind. They told us they thought Darastan was crazy. They had rescued Esrala from him. They took us back to their camp where we found Esrala wrapped in furs and sitting with several Telmori women, all talking like old friends. My eyes were drawn to one woman whose name they said was Shadow, but she didn't have one.

Wurk talked to Esrala and she agreed with what Sees Far had said. Darastan had taken her against her will and the Telmori had saved her. Sees Far said he would speak to their pack leaders the next day to see what they decided about letting us take Esrala back. Wurk used the Stag's Leap to return to see Grandmother White Bark and let her know that Esrala was safe and that maybe Darastan wouldn't make it through the winter in the hunting lodge.

We stayed that night at the Telmori camp. Collan, Jaryan, and Wurk compared their battle scars with the younger Telmori men. Boar Killer told a tale of slaying a Tusk Rider, and explained that he wa a Heortling who had been adopted by the Telmori. Until then I didn't know that they did that. Jaryan told them about hunting down the witch and they saw that her magic was like Tusk Rider magic. 

The next morning we went with them to their village to see their elders, the Father and Mother of their pack. Their father was Takes Teeth and their mother was Wind Chaser, who met us in her wolf form. Because we had returned one of their pack to them when we brought Kills Two Bears back to them, they returned Esrala to us. 

The wind had stopped. The Telmori gave Esrala some warm clothes to wear and we took her back to Grandmother White Bark. We knew Grandmother would make good on what she owed us for that when the time came. Wurk asked her if she would sponsor him for the Issaries cult since he couldn't ask Borkar to sponsor him after what happened with Borkar's wife. We left Darastan at the hunting lodge. We didn't find out what happened to him after.

At the end of the season, after the worship ceremony, Wurk found that he had a scar in the palm of his hand that bonded him with the rainbow dragon spirit Shavashank.

Freeze Day of Death week in Storm season came. The time between Yelm-rise and Yelm-down grew short. Lashing rains fell with hail, and cyclones were seen in the mountains. As the year died the seeds of destruction were sown. 

Our Vale was visited by Kallyr the Starbrow. Because we had defeated the witch and helped the Third Wind and found Esrala, Wurk and Jaryan and Collan and I were welcomed to join the Ring when they met with her and her company. I saw the gem in her forehead that gave her the name, and the mixed red and silver of her hair. She had a face that was both hard and beautiful. She was both a high priestess of Orlanth the King and a Storm Voice of Vinga, mighty in strength of arms. There we heard about Argrath. The members of the Ring seemed intimated by her, something I had never seen before. Wurk spoke to her for a moment about how his mother had died defending the Starbrow's escape. She asked to see his hand and he showed her the mark from Shavashank.

We were introduced to all of her closest companions and advisors. Ernaldesta, the priestess of Ernalda who wore ceremonial green dye so often that her skin was permanently green. Orngerin Holdfast, her porter, his skin thick with tattoos. Orlarant Dragonfriend, who had no hair but was covered in tattoos that seemed to move on their own. Insterid Fire-Eyes, guide and tracker, with hair dyed red in honor of Vinga and eyes that truly did seem to blaze with fire. Minaryth Purple of Jonstown, the purple-robed sage of Llhankor Mhy.

Starbrow spoke to the Ring, of the dragon that drove off the Crimson Bat. She said that the people needed another dragon, that it slept because four pieces of its soul were missing. She meant to take the four of us, our little company, back to the dragon temple and wait while some of her people went inside to look for what she sought: a piece of the dragon's soul.

Jaryan asked if Wurk meant to tell her about the orb and Shavashank. Wurk said to him that the Ring knew about it and they would likely tell her. When Kallyr left the Hall he followed her and Insterid followed him. I spoke with Ernaldesta, and she told me of a cult of My Daughter, the healer of warriors on the battlefield. She spoke also of her five children and I wondered how often she saw them.

Wurk found a chance to talk to the Dragonfriend about the orb, which Orlarant was very interested in. Jaryan was given a chance to spar with Orngerin. 

When we went back to the dragon temple with them, Ernaldesta watched over us as though she was our mother. Wurk had borrowed the leaping sword again. When we got to the cliff where the temple lay, we found the doors were gone! Starbrow tried to open it, but it would not bow to her. Orlarant tried his magic with no more success. Then he turned to Wurk, and when Wurk stepped forward the entrance reappeared. Kallyr and the others tried to move toward it as if to enter and it vanished again. Orlarant said some words, later I found in Old Wyrmish, but that did nothing. The doors were only there if Wurk went forward. Orlarant laughed and said that we had been allowed to enter because we had wanted nothing for ourselves, but Kallyr could not enter because she wanted the dragon soul.  

We discovered then that each one of us had a magic stone, even though we hadn't asked for them or been given them by the Ring. Jaryan and I had the stones we'd been given before, black and green, and Collan had a red one. I still don't know how we were given those without our knowledge.

I used the green stone to rise up and anchor the rope as I'd done before, and the other three climbed up after me. Like before it was warm inside the temple. Shah'vasha came out and offered to unite with us. This time when Wurk put his left hand with the mark in his palm on the door the bronze door opened for him. A shower of dust fell. Stairs went down from that door. At the bottom was a small room with rubble on the floor where its ceiling covering had fallen in. We climbed over the mess and went down another stair.

That room seemed to be a place for writing and keeping records. The scrolls on the shelves turned to dust if we touched them. In the next room there was a skeleton still wrapped in a decaying robe of a strange design that I had never seen before. Collan found a silver ring on the skeleton. 

We listened at the next door we came to but heard nothing. In that room two skeletons lay on top of several floor mats. After that was a room with stone benches, and then a room where the air smelled very bad and made our throats burn. We went back up the stairs and went down a passage to the other side. The walls there were painted with strange images, a goddess who looked like Ernalda fornicating with a blue dragon marked with Orlanthi runes. 

Art by Katrin Dirim

We backtracked again and took another turning and came to more paintings on the walls, this time of Ernalda coupling with a troll. Then we came to a place where the passage was blocked by a big block of black obsidian. The surface of it rippled like water. It ate the light of our torches so we could hardly see. Shavashank said, Where the end meets the beginning. We found a way ahead and came to another black block, but it didn't swallow the light of our torches, it filled the passage so we couldn't get past.