A recap of sessions.

Session 01

A quick set of vignettes are explored around initial investigations towards finding Karl:

Group checks in with Crown Quartermaster Odan, who works nightshifts at the docks in charge of goods flowing into the Foreign Zone. They have blackmail on him because he sees his mistress at the Summer’s Gulp. He wants to be helpful, but has no leads for them.

Next they talk to some of Torstein’s men in the bar Siren’s Caress in Havethem. They promise rifles in exchange for information about Karl, to meet in 3 days. 2 days later, Odan contacts them, mentioning a body floating in the harbor. Upon investigation, they find its the man they talked to for information, his throat slit and the norse rune of weakness carved into his forehead. The group decides to skip the arranged meet.

Kaz talks to his bartender friends / socialist sympathizer at Sweyn’s Roadside Inn. They haven’t heard anything about Karl, but the two conspire to poison a guard captain (Jonathan) at the Troll Gate.

Rana’s folk saw some crows¹ talking to, and then paying, someone at the Odal farm. She does some searching in a rat body, and finds the strange smelling cairn by the delta. She also attempts augury and has visions of snow falling.

Following up on these clues of Karl’s disappearance, Rana takes the group to the cairn at the edge of Odal’s farmland, North of the cold river delta. The group goes to check it out, gets yelled at by one of Odal’s adult sons (Bror) for trespassing. Find a dying frozen hare buried in the cairn. Its energy is drained leading into the delta. Rana inhabits the hare, finds something in its gut that is pulling its heat. They cut it open and find a human ring finger, still warm. Rana decides to bring the finger to Venla, her family hound. The hound makes a connection with Karl’s hat, carried by Mattias. They go to Karl’s apartment, find evidence of magic used on the doorway of the bathroom. Remnants of ash have collected in corners. Mattias thinks they are being watched.

Session 02

The group decides to leave Karl’s apartment on high alert. Upon exiting the building, they are approached by a Holy Empire looking man, who introduces himself as Arthur and makes claims to have some information about Karl. The group agrees to join him for a talk and drinks at his hotel, the Menhir in Ostermälm, a short walk away. Along the walk they realize they are being followed by another man, likely working with Arthur. Upon reaching the hotel bar, Arthur shares his business card, and a letter from Karl revealing that they had been in communication (see copies of these documents). He also says they can call on him either at this hotel, at the Starry Eyed Cat in Dimböj, or as a last resort at the Holy Empire embassy. They agree to meet again in 5 days (the day after Midwinter) to discuss more at the Starry Eyed Cat.

When Arthur takes his leave, Rana takes out a preserved mouse body from a jar and does a ritual using the table as a drum and acting drunk to cover for her sudden unconsciousness. She then follows Arthur back to his room. She loses him at the stairs, but makes a good guess and finds him in the corner suite on the second floor. The mouse slips under the doorjam, and she sees that he’s also wedged a chair against the door for extra security. The room contains a bed, a desk, and a stack of 5 large steamer trunks. Arthur is working on a typewriter at the desk. Satisfied with what she’s found, she exits, and jumps the mouse out a random window. Venla promptly snatches up and eats the now-dead-again mouse.

The group splits into three, and returns to the Gulp via circuitous routes to avoid tails. Rana relays what she saw in Arthur’s room. Mattias heads to the address listed in the letter, finding a leased storage unit owned by the Ledovflot company. The entrance to the unit has been barred, and notices of nonpayment attached referencing one of Karl’s cover names: Urmas Järvi. It mentions they have until the day after Midwinter before the unit and its contents will be repossessed. The group sends Adam Sjöström, one of the younger New Harvest recruits to take next watch.

Kaz hears rumors out on his rounds (aka: drinking) that there are some negative rumors about tomorrow’s Midwinter celebration. Specifically: the boat parade and Old Hill square being dangerous. The group heads over to investigate prior to the festivities starting. In Old Hill square, Mattias notices strangely dark and closed up block of hotel windows overlooking the plaza. Rooms 202, 203, and 204 are all darkened. With distraction from Kaz, Mattias and Vanja pose as elevator repairmen and enter the hotel. They break into room 202 and find all the furniture piled on the left wall plus a hole cut into room 203. Room 203 has a large witchcraft rune painted on the floor, and arcane runes around its door to the hallway. There’s also a cutout to room 204 where more furniture is piled.

Session 03

Vanja opens the door, and takes record of the runes, then scratches them away. Mattias goes to get Rana from downstairs. Kaz is distracting the staff down in the lobby. Rana studies the rune: big soul symbol and lots of emotional drawing-away effects like yearning, loss, desire. Kaz notices two cloaked figures dart through the lobby and head towards the stairs, and signals the group “DANGER”. The 3 upstairs hurry to the stairwell, to hide as the two figures go by, and enter 202 and 204.

Mattias and Vanja stalk after them, 202-person has a crossbow, 204 has hand axes. Vanja shoots 202-person in the head, they drop dead into the circle. She reaches in after them and gets a sudden wave of negative emotions (grief, isolation, fear). They talk with / interrogate the living one. He is a radical, and offers mostly the usual platitudes. They kill him, slowly. A fire starts in the hotel, they head back to Mattias' apartment. They get there at 11, the boat parade starts at noonish, up at Firebringer tower. Vanja cannot figure out what the door sigils do. Missing 3 symbols that make it confusing. The group splits up to watch all along the river.

Vanja heads North, up to the waiting crowds at Firebringer tower. She arrives in time to see the flame passed by arrow to the lead longboat that carries The Summer King Anselm Erikson. The boat procession begins, a few smaller boats lighting their fires and taking the West fork of the Cold River, while the majority of vessels head along the South fork through town. The King’s ship is at the lead, resplendent in flags and flowers. It is a historic vessel, a longboat kept by Summer kings and queens for generations. Following it, the one steamship in the parade, with some middling Crown administrators and marines. Behind them, a mixed flotilla of norse ships from important families around the area.

Mattias heads back towards the docks and the gulp, in case anything happens over there (ed. note: also because he had to leave early).

Rana decants a pigeon, flying it over the crowds to keep an eye out. She sees Arthur and Benny watching the parade from The Menhir. The crowds are excited and festive. The parade passes into the city to applause and cheers.

Kaz is carousing with revelers, jostling from group to group. Eventually, he starts to notice loners amongst the crowd; unusual in a festival around unity and brotherhood. He approaches one as the lead longship passes into the long stretch of the river before the fork in town as well as signaling the rest of the group.

Pigeon–Rana notes many other matching folks in the crowd, and Vanja closes in on another on the far bank. As the King’s boat reaches the central point between the bridges, 20 people (not all noticed in the initial sweeps) spaces roughly evenly around the boat draw forth small knives and cut their palms deep—to the bone. They squeeze their blood out over the river’s churning waters. Moments later, everyone in the area with Northern blood (of the party: Rana and Vanja, Mattias would have as well. Kaz does not) hears a hoarse whisper in their ears:

O You, O Skald, O Valkyrie — You invoke their names in empty breath. Do not forget your heritage. You who hears my voice, the blood in your veins is that of our people. We are all brothers. We are all sisters. Do not hide your scars. Remember them. They are your heritage. The occupier fears you. On this day we remember the Firebringer. He would be disappointed in you all. Wake the fires of your hearts. Rekindle the embers of your rage. Hear these words and prepare. The North will awaken. Be ready.

Much of the crowd falls silent, their cheers and celebrations stifled. The King looks around, confused, as if hearing more words after the initial set. On the Crown steamship following, confused onlookers try to make sense of the situation. Vanja signals one, and drops down onto the ship, quickly explaining the message heard by the crowd.

Ahead, in response to some invisible signal, the group who bled into the water start calling out to the King:

O' King, what is your answer?

Back on the Crown ship, Vanja uses this distraction to stash a canister near on of its gaslamps. At the same time, three figures appear on the pilot deck of the ship, seeming to step around corners that are not there, manifesting out of thin air: a shaman, dressed in the vestments of a North Eastern tribe, long hair and beard tied full of fetishes and charms, his face hit with runes running down from his eyes as tears glowing blue. With him, two warriors appear, symbols of the King of the Wind emblazoned on their armor. Together, in a blur, they cut down the pilot crew and spin the rudder far to the side before stepping away into nothing again. Vanja jumps off and climbs up the river-wall as the ship turns sharply and rams into the far wall, turning and jamming itself across the river just before the fork.

The crowd begins to panic and disperse, with extra motivation as a few seconds later the deck of the steamship is covered in a plume of alchemist’s fire. Ahead, Anselm’s ship turns the bend in the river, the King’s guard all descended tightly around him. The ritual bloodletters, before disappearing into the fleeing chaos of the crowd, call out a final jeer:

Now, King, you ride alone!

Session 04

The group heads back towards Old Hill, taking stock of the crowds and their reaction. Confusion abounds, many people fleeing the area entirely while others mill about trying to understand what happened. Vanja heads through the lower east streets, forewarning those on the streets about the toxic smoke cloud bearing down towards them, and spreading word that “the Crows attacked the festival”. Kazimir plants similar ideas among the crowds gathering in Old Hill Square. He specifically focuses the rumors toward “right message, wrong message”, “why are they targeting others from the north?” and generally anti-crown and anti-crow messaging.

Rana stayed behind at the bridge to watch The Crown’s response. In the chaos she ends up caught on the river’s edge between a Foreign Zone checkpoint and oncoming Crown troops on their way to secure the wreckage. Vanja, upon reaching the block with Mattias' apartment, climbs to the room to get a view out over the river seen. She and Rana both see heavily armored Crown carriages unloading a jacketed figure with long poles. Assuming it is an arcanist, and worried about Rana being arrested, Vanja shells the area with acrid smoke grenades and a chirper. Rana takes a dive off the river bank into the cold water below.

Upon hitting the water, Rana hears a now-familiar whisper in her ear:

Hello again, little bird. What interesting tricks you have. We must talk. Feed some of this water to one of your creatures.

Throughout this, Mattias had followed the Summer King’s boat until it passed through much of the city, worried that some secondary attack would befall it. Hearing over the morse code headsets that something is happening back at the inner city fork, he runs back in time to see Rana hit the water. From the south bank he tosses in a grappling hook to retrieve her. They are briefly harangued by Crown soldiers from across the river, but easily disappear into the surrounding neighborhood before they can cross.

Back at the wreckage, the Crown has deployed around 200 soldiers to take over the area. When fired upon by Vanja they return fire, destroying much of the rooftop. Vanja flees into the city.

The group reconvenes back at the Summer’s Gulp. Mattias heads out for a bit to check on his apartment, but the whole block is shut down for investigation into the shooter. He is told to return in a few hours. The group is concerned that this investigation will uncover the Crow body in the basement. Rana wants to move it and give it a proper burial but they cannot reach it safely.

Back at the Gulp Rana gets warmed up by the hearth. The Cold River is fed by glaciers, and gets its name and reputation for a good reason. While her human body recovers she pours her soul in the body of a shrew to do some exploring.

Mattias, Vanja, and Rana-shrew leave Kazimir to manage the bar’s crowd and head to Karl’s storage unit. Soon after they leave, a Crown squad arrives at the Gulp and starts questioning everyone about the day’s earlier events. Kaz keeps their captain occupied and Halmun signals the group about what is happening. Mattias heads back to the bar while Vanja and Rana-shrew continue their work.

Rana-shrew goes scouting and keeps lookout for patrols while Vanja uses a combination of her water cutter and strong acid to remove the impound-lock from the Unit C’s door. She breaks the normal lock off with a pry bar and the shrew heads in to do a first pass. Vanja follows after they discover no immediate danger.

Meanwhile, back at the Summer’s Gulp, Mattias returns and has a chat with the Crown captain after giving the runaround to the Crown soldiers guarding the door. The captain promises payment if he, or anyone else, comes forward with information about what happened. The squad leaves in a hurry to reinforce another group around the corner at The Siren’s Caress where a fight has broken out.

At the storage unit, Vanja and Rana-shrew find two large industrial digging vehicles covered in tarps. One looks built for digging and moving dirt, while the other seems designed for blasting. Together, the two take of most of the side-to-side space of the storage unit, leaving only a narrow hallway down the side. Beyond them are stacked crates, ranging from large shipping crates down to equipment cases. Vanja cracks a few open and find the big one is full of blasting charges, enough to level the building they’re in a few times over. The smaller cases contain a mixture of other excavation tools, from shovels to hardhats and lamps. Wedged at the very back is a cramped office space with a roll-top desk:

The area looks undisturbed recently, besides the occasional passage of mice or cockroaches. Vanja goes to unlock to desk.

Session 05

[ December 21st (Midwinter) through December 22nd ]

After picking the simple desk lock, Vanja notices that there’s a tensioned cable hooked to the underside of the roll top. She catches it, holding it in place while opening the desk. Inside she finds a number of interesting things.

At the Gulp, Kazimir catches Mattias in the back office. He offers a shot of whiskey, then slaps Mattias across the face. He suddenly takes on a serious and sober demeanor in sharp contrast to to his drunken revelry moments before.

You were too hard when speaking with The Crown captain. Bars should be run by soft men. Your approach will draw dangerous attention to us.

He makes further points, that Torstein has fervent and wide-reaching support (contrasting the size of New Harvest against simply the number of those who lent their blood to the whisper ritual). Mattias listens seriously, finally replying with:

You’re all for sharing, right?

Then punches Kazimir in the face.

The next time you touch me, it’ll be worse. Now, I’ll go clean up this mess.

On his way out, Mattias tosses the keys to the bar over to Halmun and tells him he’s just gotten a promotion.

At the storage unit, Vanja scoops all the loose items into her bag while avoiding the cloche with the crow. She staples the tensioned wire to the desk top to effectively disarm the trap. She grabs Rana-shrew and leaves, relocking the unit behind them. Somewhere along the way Rana pulls herself back, leaving a dead shrew on Vanja’s shoulder.

Mattias heads over to the Siren’s Caress, following the trail of the Crown captain. He sneaks around to a nearby rooftop, then shoots the captain twice in the face with incendiary rounds (to also clean up the notebook). The soldiers, being distracted by a fight with crows inside the building, are caught totally unawares. Into this chaos, Vanja (who was passing by) adds more chaos with a tear gas smoke bomb.

Leaving the scene of a now-firefight, Mattias takes a long run/walk to lose any possible tails. Along the way he takes a minute on the waterfront to pour one out for Karl, allowing himself a moment for grief.

As he returns to the Gulp from his long walk, he sees that the Crows at the Siren’s Caress have used the distraction to their advantage, and won their fight with the Crown soldiers.

Regrouping, everyone meets in the Gulp’s secret basement. Vanja passes off the ciphertext letter to Mattias, who then gives a speech. He says Karl is dead, and that he is now officially taking over as head of the New Harvest. He promotes Vanja to 2nd in command, tells Kaz to keep doing what he’s doing, and formally inducts Rana. He also mentions that the New Harvest will make sure Rana’s people are fed and taken care of. Rana mentions that she has a way to contact Torstein’s shaman, via the imbued river water.

Mattias summarizes what he read in the letter, explaining that Karl’s “old friend” is someone on the inside of the local Crows. He says he wants to open lines of communication with them to at least learn about what they’re doing. The group plans to split up in the morning: Kaz and Mattias getting the Cän Berj papers and then collecting money from the bank while Vanja stalls Ledovflot from selling off Karl’s storage unit. They’ll use the money to pay off the storage debt and then regroup afterwards to meet Arthur Copperswat at the Starry Eyed Cat.

La Banque Étrangère is inside the Foreign Zone, so the two of them must pass through one of the checkpoints. Security is on unusually high alert given the events of the day before. The two make it through, though they are asked some strangely pointed questions like “do you have ties to Ledovflot?” to Kaz. At the bank the two are treated to luxurious service, and introduced to Albert Couveire, the private banker assigned to Cän Berj (Mattias in disguise). They learn that their credit line has no official limit, but a financier-contact policy past 1.2 million crown dollars. They take out 200,000 and a couple guarantors letters. During this time, they wait on the bank’s roof deck and look out over the city. They also learn that the bank has a safe deposit box on the same account, but it is listed as “extra privacy” which means the bank does not hold a backup key for them. Somewhere in the city that key must exist.

Through this time Vanja has been dealing with the Ledovflot trading company. He gets them to agree to wait for payment on the unit as long as “Mr Järvi” pays for an upgrade to a larger unit and for stevedores to move all the goods over. This ends up costing them 15,000 all told.

Kaz takes 50,000 out of their newly found cash and pays off a number of his drinking and gambling debts around the city. Vanja takes 50,000 and buys some extra containers full of rocks to displace the explosives found in Karl’s unit, transferring those to the back room of her shop.

Rana spends the time mending and improving her clothing to be more armored, and to fit in better with the local crowds.

Session 06

[ December 22nd through December 23rd ]

Prior to reuniting with the group, Kaz purchases a nice charcuterie board and a bottle of wine. He takes these on a walk south, into the crowded bazaar of shops in Brandrplatt near The Troll Gate. Despite the cold and recent developments, the area is full of vitality, the energy of youth and hope. In these crowded streets, small signs of brewing unrest can be found: fliers in windows advertising socialist book clubs, graffiti artwork depicting various free outcomes of The North, and trinkets depicting well wishes towards Torstein’s victory. Kaz stops at the door to a cobbler and, without knocking, leaves the food and drink on the step.

Elsewhere, the Ledovflot stevedores carefully move every piece of Karl’s storage unit into a much more spacious warehouse. They keep the originally arrangement, simply leaving larger gaps and aisles between stacks. The workers are swift and competent despite their boss' strong armed negotiation tactics.

As the sun fades in the early afternoon¹ everyone reunites at the Gulp. Rana is just returning from purchasing a large quantity of large fish to be delivered to her tribe’s camp north of the city. Together they all walk a short distance south into Fog Bend, entering a nondescript laundry that “hides” the official entrance to the Starry Eyed Cat. Kaz and Mattias are regular enough that the door staff recognize them, greeting the group and welcoming them back to the unit’s elevator.

Everyone is whisked up 6 floors, and the doors open into a much different aesthetic than below. Soft-lit rooms draped in navy and purple fabrics surround a frosty open-air courtyard. The club is a conglomeration of once-distinct private residences renovated into a meandering labyrinth of cozy nooks and crannies. The staff move about in deep purple robes waiting for more guests to arrive. Because of the early hour, the New Harvest are the only ones about. The club has only just opened.

Mattias offers Arthur’s card to the maitre-d and they are quickly lead to a private room. These rooms are differentiated with artistic depictions of cats in heraldry poses. Their room is marked with a cat passant gardant. Despite arriving early for their planned meeting at 4pm, Arthur has already arrived, with Benny in tow. Arthur is relaxing at the table, while Benny watches the street below through the room’s window.

Small talk is made, and eventually the group settle into business. Secrets are exchanged. The New Harvest offer information about the contents of Karl’s storage unit and their experiences from the midwinter attack. In return Arthur mentions that:

Torstein has dreamed his way into the Hall of Stolen Thrones […] I have been lead to believe that this would be “very bad” but it is not clear to me exactly why.

Along this discussion the group argues with Arthur about the nature of the threat posed by The King of the Wind. Arthur takes the position that he’s simply another in a long line of fanatics with fervent—but small—followings. The New Harvest folks generally argue for taking him more seriously. Neither side is particularly convinced by the other, but agree to table the topic.

Kazimir asks if Arthur’s printing business is real or simply a front, then passes over his scribbled notes on pamphlet ideas. Without missing a beat Arthur reads their Russian contents, but mentions that his Russian–Norse translation is likely to be poor. The two agree to do business later.

Just before leaving Arthur asks if any of them happen to know what a certain phrase means, or where it comes from:

The island has no shore. It is made of stone.

No one has heard it before. Finally, they agree to repeat this meeting weekly.

Later, Vanja and Rana return to the desk—now in the rented warehouse. Rana removed the cloche from over the crow, noting the smell of camphor and sweet smoke. As she continues to study the ritual Vanja is slowly and systematically dismantling the desk, disarming firebombs as she goes.

Rana notes that the crow is exceptionally well preserved and—strikingly—still in possession of its soul! The space within the salt circle feels utterly hostile to a bared soul, and seems to have prevented the usual dispersal and diffusion of a soul from its vessel once dead. This disturbs and intrigues Rana, because rituals of this sort are forbidden. She loosens the ties on the creature, then tentatively touches it with her own soul.

She is struck with a vision, a burning memory of flight and wind and rain and chill. The bird’s small bright soul is utterly obsessed; driven with a need to return to some place. It is similar in its primal need to that of a homing pigeon. Fully untying it, Rana then pours her soul into the creature and is carried off with it as it flees the warehouse. Its wingbeats drive too much air, its already light avian frame is carried too-well by unseen thermals. As the bird takes flight, Vanja notices runic patterns along its secondary flight feathers, though in such a quick glance it is hard to ascertain their exact form.

The crow makes a direct path towards the witching hills, north-east across the city skyline. It crosses the Wise Cold River, and the cracked and fissured foothills before rising and ascending the few tall mounts of rock and ice. Finally, the creature alights on a burnished wooden railing. Hidden in a cleft of the rock, a small balcony runs inward to a door set into the rock. From here Rana can barely make out the twinkling lights of the city.

Back in the city Mattias and Kaz have decided not to stop drinking, and wile away the hours at the Cat’s bar. Over the course of the evening Kaz reveals that his wife is in a gulag back in Russia and that he has a son in the city who blames him.

Session 07

[ December 23rd through December 24th ]

[ Session opens with a relink of Karl’s Desk with added content from Vanja’s dissassembly ]

While Rana is out flying in the bird, Vanja drags her soulless body back from the warehouse to the Gulp, propping her unceremoniously in a corner seat. Vanja then heads downstairs to run some tests on the ash Karl had collected and hidden. Alchemical analysis confirms that it is ash, and from an ash tree as well. Whatever fire caused it burnt very hot, and the resulting material is a curiously strong conduit for arcane energy.

For Rana, once the bird has reached its mountainous destination, she tries to learn anything else she can from its soul. A memory comes to her, of the bird being fed a treat from a gloved hand while standing on the balcony’s railing. The bird is extremely reluctant to go any further inward from there. Satisfied, Rana dive-bombs the crow towards the rocky valley floor below. Returning to her own body with a start, she immediately notes down her experiences to make sure she does not forget.

The next morning (the 24th), Mattias wakes up badly hungover in his apartment. On the couch, Kaz snores gently. Ignoring him, Mattias drinks some healing potion for his headache and then heads out to the Gulp. There the others have begun to gather already. Rana prompts everyone to dump “a fish and a sack” into one of the waterways as a means of taking her easily recognizable old clothes to her tribe so that anyone tracking her might think she’s left the city proper. With the clothes is a note explaining the potential danger of the situation to her cousins who would be upholding the masquerade. (her cousin Airi is the most likely to do this).

Outside, a damp cold weather system has moved in off the Baltic sea and a mix of sleet and snow has begun to fall. Kazimir wakes up and makes his way over as the snow intensifies. The group decides they will investigate the balcony in the witching hills, and to prepare they grab warm clothes and climbing equipment.

They leave the city out the north gate and across the King’s bridge in a throng of other folks trying to return to outlying farms and holds before the snow makes passage treacherous. Outside of town they strike northwest and stop briefly with Rana’s tribe (Eaddji’s Siida). By this point, it is roughly 18º out, with intermittent whiteouts from blowing snow. The tribe mentions that two of their hunters, Mihkil and ‌Áno have been missing since leaving to track a pair of foxes headed west two days ago.

The group leaves the tribe and heads overland west. They pass by the northern trainyard and into the witching hills proper. Their route becomes more difficult and their pace decreases as the deep snow and tangled terrain get in the way. Rana’s notes and sense of direction from the bird’s flight certainly help.

Eventually the group has to cross what they discover is a cursed ravine, which calls them downward onto jagged rocks. One cannot consider the crossing without having visions of the worst possible mistakes, of falling and being ripped and crushed by the jagged rocks before becoming wedged and trapped. Mattias hears a voice (sounds like Thora) on the wind, calling out:

You never looked for me…

When crossing the ravine he sees—for a brief moment—her face down below. This is enough to almost cause him to fall. Rana has the quick thinking to use a saline solution to quickly form a salt–ring around part of the ravine, reducing the efficacy of the spell.

Past this challenge their pace quickens. The snow is deep enough now to have covered much of the dense bracken and scrub, letting them trudge over with snowshoes. Rana quickly pours her soul into a preserved bird (pigeon–sized) to reconnoiter the area and find a path. She notes three possibilities:

1. A steep and technical climb seems the most direct route, as it would lead them straight over the next wedge of rocks and almost directly to the base of the spire below the balcony.
2. A long windy route northeast that would slowly and steadily gain altitude by winding the long way around a tall hill.
3. A medium length route through an partially buried tunnel formed by a large flake of rock that had fallen across a saddle between two hills.

She decides to lead the group through the medium route and tunnel. Approaching the entrance they find evidence that foxes pass through with some regularity. Deeper into the tunnel they find a small trickle of water running through the rock, with evidence of the Sami hunters: the trickle had been dammed with some torn wool to form a drinkable pool. Rana leaves a ration here in case the hunters return this way.

Exiting the tunnel the find a natural shelter under an overhang of rock. Here another outpouring of water has broken through the hill to their right, pouring larger quantities of water through a talus field under foot. At the mouth of this stream, a red fox with blood dripping from its mouth and fur is taking a drink. It has recently fed. The group’s emergence from the tunnel scares it away, but it returns to watch them from a distance.

Rana tracks the foxes prior path to the pool easily, as it has been marked by the red of spilled blood on the snow. They pass through a field of what appear to be snowcapped boulders. While brushing snow off some to mark their path Rana discovers that many are actually simplistic sculptures / statues of viking warriors. There are tens, if not more, in this clearing.

Pressing on (west-northwesterly) the enter a narrow winding ravine and discover the source of the blood. One of the hunters has fallen from above (~100ft) and ended up impaled on a tree around 15 feet above the ground after scraping down the steep wall. His blood pools and steams in the snow below, from which the fox must have drank deeply.

Rana sets to cutting the body body and notices it is Mikhil. Áno is still missing. Vanja, spooked by this development, shoots the fox that has been following them, then rings its kneck¹. From above they hear the strange laugh/scream of another red fox that is watching from the top of the ravine. Mattias shoots this one, though it is unclear if he successfully hit it.

Rana gets the body to the ground and looks it over. Besides the recent grievous wounds from his fall, Mikhil bears exposure injuries on his face and looks like he’s been missing his hat for some time. Similarly, there must have been very little food in his stomach at the time of his death. The group argues about pressing on vs returning to their original task. Eventually, they agree to focus on the balcony as the storm worsens. Rana shoulders the body with practiced ease, and they retrace their path to the clearing before heading almost directly north.

After another half hour of difficult terrain they arrive at the base of the large spire of rock that Rana found in her travels. Upon the bare wall, words have been written in blood:

NOT WELCOME

Session 08

[ December 24th ]

The group camps briefly at the base of the spire while Vanja repeatedly attempts to use her 8-gauge shotgun to secure a grappling hook to the balcony’s supports. After quite a few tries she is ultimately successful and everyone spends the next hour and change scaling the rope with climbers. By now the sun has set, bringing dusk winds and further drop in temperature: -5º, -20º with windchill.

Reaching the top of the balcony they find it to be constructed of thick and well weathered old growth oak. It narrows into a crack in the stone wall, ultimately ending in a tall (10ft) oak doorway embedded in the rock. The group dithers about what to do when Kaz gets fed up and yanks the door open. He is immediately struck with the warm air from inside, where it is around 75º. Behind the door is a ~20ft hallway roughly carved in the spire’s rock, ending with a 90º turn to the left. The hallway’s floor is covered in mosaic tiles depicting a field of white clouds. The group stumble inside, Mattias taking the lead and investigating deeper.

Directly after the turn the hallway opens into a central round living chamber, about 30ft across. The tile work continues, with a barrier of stylized lightning separating the hallway from the main chamber. The chamber’s floor depicts 20-odd human figured of varying archaic jobs (warrior, farmer, potter, etc). Roughly equally spaced around the circular room are 4 outdents carved away. Clockwise from where they stand: the hallway the group occupies, a sleeping-nook with a long-decayed straw mattress and blankets, a large hearth with a burned down (but still lit) fire, and another exit hallway to a downward spiral staircase. At this other exit the tiles change again, now depicting webs and a looming spider crawling out.

The room’s walls and ~10ft ceiling have been framed over with wood. Amateur-but-competent paintings hang in most open spaces. They are all landscapes and to those familiar with the areas around Summer’s Breath they depict memorable natural features of the terrain.

The room smells of campfire smoke, citrus oil, and the sweet-burnt spice smells of well known witchcraft herbs. Underscoring it all there is a rank smell of sewage.

Any furniture the room once had seems to have been broken down and used for the fire. In the wide open central space kneels a woman bound in briar, with her forearms opened and bloodied. Across the crown of her head lies the body of a fox. Around her 4 crow warriors have had their throats slit, their blood joining a morass on the floor. Hanging from the ceiling above, the body of Áno has been flayed open, his blood pouring down across the whole scene. In all this blood norse runes of witchcraft have been drawn, alongside the repeated sigil for birthright.

Finally, in the corner between the fire and bed nook, the smashed remains of a loom¹ sit beside a large pile of flesh, blood, and bones that is shot-through with broken white feathers.²

As the group enters the room, Vanja notes that the central witch seems to—impossibly—be alive. Out of concern, Mattias shoots her twice through the chest. Still, as Rana enters, the witch opens her eyes and rasps:

Bures boahtin nuadl³

A brief conversation ensues between the witch and the group, primarily Mattias. She mentions that Torstein now has a blood claim to this land, and that it is not too late to kneel, but it will be soon.

Into this distraction, a group of crow warriors attack from the stairwell. The lead warrior gets off a crossbow shot, striking Mattias in the ribs on the right side. In response, both him and Vanja throw grenades past the warrior into the stairwell (one explosive, the other poisonous gas). A fight ensues during which the warrior is set on fire and loses most of his right arm to Vanja’s waterjet before eventually dying to Mattias' gunfire. Prior to his death, the warrior imbibed some potion that made him stronger and pain-impervious. Rana has dragged the witch around for cover, who in response asks Rana “if she wants to dance”. Eventually the final residual life-magic of the ritual fades, and with it so does the witch.

The group takes a brief respite to treat their wounds, then investigates the spiral stairs. During this time, Vanja drags most of the bodies to be burnt in the hearth, though Rana saves the recently-deceased warrior to inhabit. She carries her own normal body under one arm.

Three dead crow warriors are within a floor-or-two, followed by a makeshift camp they were occupying on one of the wider steps. The descent further, finding the stairwell to be roughly carved out of a the rock, inconsistent in step height and width but ultimately leading straight downward. They descend for ~300ft, finding evidence (mud, scrapes on the walls, bootprints) that the crows must have ascended this way, and likely dragged the loom up with them. Finally they exit into a long hallway through a natural underground cavern. To their right runs a cold and fast moving river, plunging out of the rock 100ft ahead of them and disappearing downward into another fissure next to them. By now the warrior-corpse is breaking down, so Rana puts herself down, then drops the warrior and returns to herself. The group continues ahead, following the winding tunnel as it follows natural breaks in the rock.

Eventually the trail takes a slight upward slant and ends in a classic northern root cellar, though devoid of foot. Instead, in the center of the roughly-spherical room there lies a stone box, roughly 2 ft along an edge. On top a small bouquet of freshly firelillies have been left⁴. At the far end of the small room a few wooden steps lead to a simple round cellar door. Some snow from outside falls through the imperfect beams, and the wind can be heard howling outside.

Unceremoniously, Mattias opens the box (to Rana’s protestations) and inside they discover the formally stacked bones, alongside a very old Valkyrie helmet. Locals know that this style of funerary rite has mostly fallen out of favor, but was common for many years. The group spends some time arguing about this seemingly incongruous ending of the route. Kazimir is especially nonplussed:

How could no one have found this place in thousands of years? Its just a root cellar! It has a normal door!

With those last words he swings the door open to prove the point. Outside, a hare that happened to be moving past freezes in alarm at the noise. It looks around, startled for a moment, seeming to look through Kaz as he stares back at it. Then, as if it could not see any cause for alarm, the hare continues on its way. Kaz looks shocked:

Oh…

He clambers outside in the snow, and when he turns back he realizes that it is very challenging to notice the door. Even though he stepped through only moments before, even the idea that a door could be there felt like a slippery concept in his mind. It would be so easy just to forget and pass on by.

Vanja climbs out after him and drags him back in, consciously overriding and moving backwards towards the truth she trusts to be there. The two tumble back inside.

Session 09

[ December 24th through December 25th ]

The group inspects the bones found in the barrow-box. All are human, and the full set appears to be accounted for, though they are not disturbed enough to check the lower ones. The bone structure indicates it was a woman, tall, but within human norms. Mattias tests the slippery-memory affect by stepping outside and confirms it affects him as well.

Obviously Torstein has beaten us here—but what was he doing?!

Everyone discusses theories, settling on the idea that Torstein must have been loomed with whatever was now a flesh-pile upstairs. There is ongoing debate on if that was an angel, or The Firebringer (or if those are the same), or something else. Everyone agrees that, whatever the flesh pile once was, many of its essential attributes had been claimed and transferred by the looming.

Rana offers to put her soul into the goo-pile. She mentions that, while her traditions warn against using heavily damaged bodies for fear of inducing early senility, it is possible to occupy things like the remnants of a skull. This makes everyone else nervous.

Outside, the storm continues its chilly assault, and temperatures are down to around –25º before counting wind chill. Its a bit warmer in the root cellar, though drafty. The group decide to retreat to the warmer area at the base of the stairs (~55–60º).

Vanja checks back on the room upstairs, noting that the flesh pile has turned out to be more fire resistant than the other bodies pushed into the blaze. Secondly, the blood used in the ritual has all dried at an unusually fast rate.

Returning downstairs, Vanja gets into an argument with Rana over what to do with that body. The former wanting to destroy it, the latter wishing to save it. Eventually they storm off in opposite directions, Rana upstairs and Vanja back to the cellar exit.

Upstairs, Rana inspects the flesh pile remnants. The bone remains and structure indicate it would have stood around 12 feet tall, with albatross-like wings sprouting from its back. However, the skin that sill remains has drawn taught and split, as if it was stretched too thin.

In the cellar, Vanja messes with the grave, removing all the bones to place an explosive device at the bottom. She discovers that the stone box was empty-bottomed and embedded into the earth. At the center point, once-hidden by the rest of the bones, the ring-finger-bone has been pushed into the dirt, still bearing a ring. The air in the room has grown colder. As she notices this, a raspy voice speaks out behind her:

This one has been paid for. Put her back.

Vanja turns to see a medium–height norse woman clad in wolf belts. Her hair is in a long and tight braid reaching down past her hips. Her skin is thin and patchy, in places spectral and even missing, revealing sinew and bone below. From around her belt spectral chains swing off and away, gliding through the walls. At her back, a great tome hangs as a satchel. Vanja freezes, recognizing a reaper from myth but being unable to figure out what to do. The reaper repeats her order and starts counting down from three.

Resting back at the stairs, Kaz and Mattias are roused from their rest by a sudden thunder and shake through the earth. They race down the tunnel to find the cellar sundered from within, alight with unnatural green tinged fire. Winds whip and tear at the now open-air crater. Vanja is no more. The reaper, surprised and frustrated by the dead-man-switch stalks away towards the river. Mattias gives chase, but finds she has disappeared before he can catch up. He does discover that they are only around a hundred feet away from the Cold River as the cold mass carves a dark scar across the wintery landscape.

Rana arrives soon thereafter and begins hurried funerary rights over the angel body, fearing that her interceding has caused the reaper’s wrath. The protection over the space has fallen, and all notice they can easily remember this path now.

The group return to the stairs to regroup and recover, planning to set out back to town at first light. Over time they eventually slumber. All have dreams of drowning, water pulling them down into stone caverns. It is peaceful.

In the morning the group sets off, following the Cold River’s bank to ease their wayfinding. The storm has broken and begun to move off, though temperatures are still quite cold. Rana shares a Sami myth as they walk: once, Angel’s wings left them and the creature that remained scattered across the earth to eventually become all the various apex predators (bears, tigers, wolves, etc. Without their wings they had to settle for claws and teeth. Rana believes her tribe descended from wolves long ago. The group also agrees that the thing in the loom was probably an angel.

The group reach the northern edge of Summer’s Breath around 10am, and settle in at a Holy Empire immigrant’s inn-and-eatery in Östermalm for a big breakfast. Rana toasts “to the hunter that does not sleep and does not bleed”.

As the group eats and mourns and plans, Arthur casually slides into the open seat. He makes small talk at first and is blindsided by the group quickly sharing a number of these new revelations. While attempting to process he mentions that he has a personal favor to ask, about introducing a friend on the run from his bosses. He says he owns them his life, and that they are now hunted by the Holy Empire. The group agrees to meet them.

After eating they return to the Gulp, to find an official crown notice has been affixed to their door (and all nearby doors):

Dear PROPRIETOR,

This is your official notice that the boundaries of the Foreign Zone are to be expanded on January 10th. Your establishment will be within these new bounds, which encompass the entire final block of N. Skarvagrand. Based on the registration documents your have provided to the provincial government you are granted 8 employee passes. You may appeal this count at the department of planning and employment no later than December 30th.

Secretary Íle, Dept. P&E

Mattias says many bad words.

The group splits up to do their own things until evening, when Cai Prescott arrives. He mentions Arthur sent him, and that he’s looking for Mattias. He is interviewed, and tentatively brought into the New Harvest, at least for now. The group ends the day talking over what leads they want to follow up on:

• The sailboat (Golden Fields) alluded to in Karl’s desk.
• Checking in on the Odals.
• Generally all of Karl’s loose ends, discovered in his desk.
• Sending some other members out to discover what the crows are up to.
• Mattias wants to follow up with his informant at the Starry Eyed Cat.

Session 10

[ Friday December 26th ]

The group spends their morning split up. Kaz declares he must go to Brandrplatt to find “his people”. Rana passes off another fish/bag combination for him to drop in the river when he crosses a bridge, so that she can swim more supplies to her folks. Kaz takes the bag and heads off to foment revolution.

Rana does her fish delivery then takes some time to practice being a fish. She then spends a few hours looking around town for jobs for her tribesfolk while hiding her association.

Cai starts his day with prayer, then familiarizes himself with what has been happening. After a few hours he heads out to picks up the coat (via the claim tag found in Karl’s desk) from The Opera Cellar. In a pocket, he finds a typewritten letter:

Vwxh ls euq65. 2ru w1f W sdye a8t rtiiedrpqpv. Rud pc94hv adr wz5lpafrnc 5kh swzg. W lp zi8yk2r wr o2sg6 l frnyru7trq, i0 5g86uq fa5 136u vub3q65. Rqc1 0g rpihaf 7js Nurw0, V ywwo uef5go5 iuo9 7js 4xpm15 rsylqsgyc oyg oew9g czx dl8 7q 7poi ga9g6ydqc1. V ywwo qof nuy qru ya8t tpdotk. V yw4k rn8b v3 4dye a8t 4prsl1. 2w6 wdqde nts yrw e02wus irr fug1. 5khy 48p8 6v hv11 k2 zxu ddrc14. Gr na7 v66vw mk 0q6ov dla1g, 7phn E5tj8 zi Pofuu oyg jihr vvpp wh56 ns5whr. Fugc 8lol a3g2 0rxr 1bg7.

Using the COLDDAWN cipher key and decoder also found in the desk, he decodes it to:

Time is short. You and I have our differences. Our causes are ultimately the same. I am willing to offer a concession, in return for your support. Once we defeat The Crown, I will retreat from the summer peninsula and leave you all to self governance. I will not ask for your fealty. I wish only to save our people. Our lands are not enough for them. They hunt us even in our dreams. Do not trust my words alone, seek Eight of Moths and give them this letter. They will open your eyes.

Finally, while at the restaurant, he learns that Karl had an appointment for New Years eve.

Mattias meets up with his informant, this time less drunk. He learns that another local crimeboss (Raylay) from Potatismyr has gone missing. Neither he, nor his posse, have shown up at the Starry Eyed Cat since midwinter. On the night the group was at Lyn’s Respite, the Crow shaman has met with Rajjit and paid good money for some foreign girls. Mattias' informant says they’re not friendly with the locals, so she cannot find out more.

He then heads home, learning that the cordons around his block had been removed sometime while the group was gone. He checks in on the Crow body in his basement, finding it undisturbed.

Pickle jar?! Its a BATHTUB!!

Kaz spends his time in Brandrplatt looking for folks from three different groups: nationalist-leaning criminals, communist-leaning students, and disgruntled workers. He gets a reading group started, then heads back to join the others in the early evening.

Everyone agrees to investigate the Odal farmstead next. The get together a group of other loyal New Harvest members and disperse out of the city over a few hours and different exits. Meeting up later under the cover of darkness, they descent on the quiet farmhouse.

They expect there to be 5 Odals: the head of the family and his three sons and one daughter, with perhaps 2–3 servants. They have also heard that Odal (the elder) has a bodyguard, though they aren’t sure if he stays there overnight.

Cai and Mattias sneak into the mudroom after oiling the front door hinges. 8 pairs of boots are stored there. They overhear snatched of conversation between the older two Odal brothers (Alan and Bror):

Who breaks into a fucking greenhouse? They took half a bed and left the rest to freeze. Must be foreigners, stealing fire lilies.

The spring into the room and silence the brothers at gunpoint, then Cai sneaks down the hall to collect Hild, the sister. She’s initially unintimidated and confrontational but gets dragged along after being punched in the throat.

Mattias keeps the three at gunpoint while Cai heads upstairs to look for others. At the top floor he finds Odal’s bedroom, the old man fast asleep in an iron lung. No one else is around.

Downstairs, Mattias overhears Hild complain under her breath:

Last time I trust that fucker Nadim.

Then, moments later, he overhears the hatch to the basement start to creak open.

Session 11

[ Friday December 26th ]

Taking a moment to set the scene:

• Cai is on the third floor of the farm house, having just discovered the sleeping chambers of Odal. He’s realized the “bodyguard” is missing, and plans to return downstairs quickly.
• Mattias is on the main floor, holding the three Odal children at gunpoint. He has just heard the hatch to the cellar start creaking open.
• Rana has climbed down the nearby well (out back) and is inspecting the dismembered bodies. She has dragged one torso/head section out of the pile and is starting to ascend with it.
• Kaz is out front by the stables, feeding carrots to the horses.
• A scattering of other harvesters are arranged around the fields, watching the house.

Mattias keeps one of his pistols drawn on the hostages while sweeping the other over to cover the cellar hatch. It opens, revealing a man dressed in furs, hide and wool, with a hood adorned with crow feathers. The man’s skin, however, has dark olive-colored skin. Mattias opens fire immediately, emptying his magazine into the hatchway. In quick response, unseen shooters further down begin blindly returning fire through the falling hatch-cover and floorboards. The house quickly descends into chaos. In the opening fusillade Alan is hit in the gut and falls back against his chair screaming, Bror is hit in the calf and starts crawling towards the front door, and Mattias and Hild dive in opposite directions to avoid the gunfire.

Upstairs, Cai hears the gunfire and decides to descend more quickly via the house’s dumbwaiter. Outside, the harvesters rush towards the house. Rana overhears the gunfire and drops the corpse to climb faster. Kaz calms the horses. Back inside, a second salvo kills Alan while Hild dives through a wall into a side room to get out of the line of fire. Mattias and Cai (who has ended up in the ground floor kitchen) return fire, killing more shooters in the cellar stairs. Cai follows them downward while Mattias shoots through the floor with covering fire.

Rana, following two harvesters towards the back stair, notices a Crown soldier ascend from the outdoor cellar entrance before being pushed back downward with suppressing fire. The lead harvester reaches the stair and glances downward before spasming slightly, turning, and shooting the other harvester through the head. He then turns and opens fire on Rana, who tackles him into the side of the house.

Under cover of Mattias' fire, Cai pushes inward to the cellar, finding it contains a great deal of unexpected materials: 2 steam cores, 4 pressure vessels with unknown contents, a line of lockers, a workbench, and apothecary’s desk, and a makeshift jail cell (with a Crow prisoner) put together from farm fencing materials. The ceiling is covered in thin flakes of some dull grey stone that appears to block arcane sensing. Guarding the space is a squad of Crown soldiers and an officer. In the ensuing firefight Cai takes some glancing hits, though adrenaline pushes him through he’ll be bruised badly in the morning. Mattias uses incendiary rounds, starting a fire. In the firefight Hild gets shot through the wall of the side room numerous times.

In the chaos, two soldiers and the officer make a run for it out the back cellar stairs. Rana and harvesters give chase, stopping one of the soldiers. Rana then tracks the officer southeast towards the coast. Cai brings the tortured crow prisoner upstairs then binds to the steam cores. He sees that something a few miles north is taking more of their output. Everyone flees the house as the fire claims the steamcores and the whole house explodes.

The group, with their three hostages (Hild—very injured, Bror—mildly injured, the crow—moderately injured), rush to hide within the Sami camp, assuming the bright fire and explosion will draw more people to the wreckage of the farm house.

Elsewhere, Rana tracks down the fleeing Crown officer. On this cold winter night the ambient outdoor temperature is around –20º. The officer—running in fear and breathing this freezing air—has given himself a pulmonary hemorrhage and is bleeding badly in his lungs. Rana catches up with him as he collapses onto his knees in the snow within sight of the coast.

Do your people believe in confession?

She promises him warmth and questions him as he slowly freezes to death, then breaks his neck and carries his body back to meet the others.

Session 12

[ Friday December 26th through Saturday December 27th ]

Rana rejoins the rest of the group at her people’s camp north of the city. She drops off Nadim’s body (the Crown officer that had run from the Odal farm) and heads back out in search of the last surviving soldier. To regain his tracks she returns to the farmhouse, where she notices armed and armored figures picking through the wreckage. She circles the perimeter and eventually finds where the soldier ran north but discovers extra booted tracks have already followed. With that new information she decides to call off the hunt. She walks the corpse out past the shore-ice, then swims it deep unto a cleft where it won’t resurface until summer, before leaving the body and snapping back to her own. She mentions to Halmun that they should be more welcoming to Crows for a little while.

Back in the yurt, Kaz and Cai make smalltalk and exchange food with the Crow survivor. He remains withdrawn for a while, so they bring out the big guns: Venla and a nice cup of tea. Petting the dog calms him down quite a bit and he mentions offhand that he can still feel the fingers of his left hand, that they tingle and burn even though they are missing. He mentions that his name is Nils, and they setup a meet with his superior via dead drops around the city. With gifted clothes Nils leaves the camp and heads south on the King’s Road before branching west into the Witching Hills.

The group sneaks back into town, bringing Hild, Bror, and Nadim’s body with them. With the extra folks it takes them a while, until around midday. Back at The Gulp, Cai interrogates Bror and learns that the Crown has some witches who “are behaving strangely—like they don’t see people, or they’re zoned out” and that they’d come to the farmhouse a few times. He also reveals that the Odal’s own a townhome in the foreign zone, which is where Cän (the youngest son) is likely to be.

Kaz heads out to do more proselytizing on the south side of town. He assigns credit of the farmstead explosion to the New Harvest, along with rumors that they were helping the Crown to stir up anti-crown sympathy. He is invited to join another student-run socialist study group. He realizes he’s been feeling unusually hungry all day.

Rana puts Venla on the scent of Nils, then does a large clockwise circumnavigation of the city, starting in the south. Eventually, passing the foreign quarter from the north, the dog catches the scent heading through one of the checkpoints.

On his way to reunite with the group back at the Gulp that evening, Kaz stops by the university. He explores the course catalog looking for anything interesting, though with a focus on subjects that would lend themselves to revolutionary thinking. At first he finds nothing, but it struck by a nagging sense that he missed something. Looking again, he puts together a negative space: there are absolutely no classes ever scheduled in subbasement 3. Learning this makes him very hungry.

Session 13-prelude (Prelude)

Kazimir: I’m gonna use my course catalog to find a history/mythology professor and ask them about the hall of stolen thrones

The university at Summer’s Breath is home to a well funded history department. It has a large faculty, and luckily (there’s that hunger again…) you find a few still-lit offices in your wanderings of the their wing on the western side of the campus. However, the first few you talk to—northerners one and all—clam up at the mention of The Hall. They suddenly realize they are late to a dinner appointment, or have grading to catch up on. Eventually, you are drawn to the interior, gloomy without the cast of street lights. A single office remains lit, sharp arcane luminance spilling into the hallway. Here you find Doctor Marcel Von Gereon, the sole (as he will tell you proudly) foreign faculty member.

Broaching the topic of The Hall, his energy level redoubles, as only an excited German professor can manage. It turns out there is much conflicting information: is it a real hall, or myth? Are the “stolen thrones” simply another name for the strange shapes of the Witching Hills? Von Gereon is quite sure that the hall at least was a place, and recalls corroboration in coastal histories of northern raiding parties taking the thrones in their conquest. His excitement is only contagious for so long, and after a while it becomes hard to keep up with his endless cross referencing and searching through piles of paper stacked floor to ceiling. To make up for this, in classic fashion, you cope with vodka.

Soon, the pair of you are firmly in your cups, and Von Ger—no, he insists you call him Marcel—rambles into his own unattested theories: The hall is real, and was lost to histories around a thousand years ago when an earthquake destroyed a number of small settlements in the Witching Hills and upended the terrain there. Some oral histories he has uncovered recall the summer peoples finding the original hall, not building it, and the thrones tradition was based off whatever they found there. “Why foreign thrones? Humbug!” Marcel takes a long drink. “Humans have always assigned meaning to things they do not understand. Many things look like seats! It is a simple shape with infinite variation. No, the must have found something compelling though. No one imitates a damned rockfall that you can rest against! Whatever it was, it reminded them of thrones, but… strange ones? I…” he trails off, gazing at the bottle. “My friend, I’m sorry I have rambled too far. These are just my hunches now and, I, I really cannot imagine what fits the center of this venndiagram I have woven for you.”

Session 13

[ Sunday December 28th ]

Overnight, most of the party has strange dreams, all devoid of other people:

• Cai dreams that he is back in the Holy Empire (near Edinburgh), standing on a dock looking east across the North Sea. The water has all dried up, exposing a dusty ashen grey seabed strewn with the bones of broken ships.
• Rana dreams about the windswept snowy expanses of the far north. She looks out over a frozen snow covered lake. Around her, thousands of tiny dimples in the drifts resolve to reindeer bones sticking up from the ground.
• Mattias dreams of the shore near Summer’s Breath. The water has receded behind a wall of ice shards, piercing upward from the depths for as far as he can see.

Kaz orders a big breakfast at the Gulp (this is unusual). While eating, he catches the rest of the group up on his discoveries on the south side of the city: the missing student revolutionary, the mysterious third subbasement at the university, and his ongoing work drumming up support for their cause.

Following up on Venla’s scent trail, everyone except Kaz heads to the Foreign Zone. They track the scent to the back door of the Crown Foreign office, a nondescript grey brick building constructed since the occupation. Rana, as a small bird, finds an open window on the fourth story, and sneaks around until she finds an opportunity to enter a central vault on the floor. She discovers its full of papers and assorted documents, stacked high on all sides. The door aperture is full of runes, both arcane and witchy (inverted scrying and warding). She grabs a few papers from a cart in her beak and flees the building.

Next, they head for the Odal family townhome, on the western side of the Foreign Zone along Sweep street. Cai knocks at the entrance, expecting Cän to answer. Instead, a Crown intelligence officer cracks the door open. With it open, Cai uses his magic sight to quickly surveil the rest of the building: 6 total crown operatives are inside, 3 soldiers and 3 spooks (counting the one at the door). They are wearing goggles and have some device setup in the office into which Cän is staring. Cai quickly makes up an excuse about calling after the young Odal son, and leaves a calling card.

Rana sneaks back in later as a mouse. She finds a small remaining group in the kitchen: Cän in a very weak state, as if recovering from a traumatic brain injury, and two intelligence officers. He’s struggling to eat and seems very dazed. Eventually one officer says “the saltpeter sovereign slumbers”, to which Cän suddenly collapses, asleep. The officers carry him into the bedroom and dump him there. Rana-mouse into an artery, causing him to bleed out.

Meanwhile, Kaz has been back at work in Brandrplatt. Leaving from breakfast, he gathers some New Harvest brutes and returns to the university. After spending a while asking around for the missing grad student Arvid, he finds someone that recently saw him at the Political Sciences dining hall. They head there and see Arvid leaving. Following him, they watch him subtly replacing revolutionary pamphlets and flyers with copies bearing subtle adjustments. Kaz only notices because some of his own fliers are tampered with, changing the start time of the meeting around by a few minute increments.

They catch up with him in a cafe, where Kaz takes him aside for a “chat”. He reveals that he’s under duress, and lives in fear of the Crown, who are using these adjustments to aid in tracking individual attendees. They tell Arvid they’ll protect him, then bash him in the head and dump his body in the river. Kaz burns down tomorrow’s meeting place, and spreads the rumor that the crown is cracking down on these meetings.

Everyone returns to the gulp by late in the day. They make a plan to study more of what the Crown is doing, and to play the crows against them. They also send some of the New Harvest members to rig the nearby river crossings with explosives (the mining charges), between Summer’s Breath and Fort Miray.

Session 14

[ Monday December 29th ]

Folks split up, Mattias and Cai searching the docks (and dockworkers) for the Golden Fields while Rana and Kaz try to get more information about 8 of Moths. Mattias hears a docker mention that “Old Finn” was in town a few weeks ago and picked up a boat. He prods deeper, and learns that Finn was a shipwright who used to live and work in Summer’s Breath, but retired to a small fishing village Green Point, a few hours south.

Kaz and Rana ask around the southside of town for a while, bribing street urchins for what they know. Eventually, Kaz gets “ambushed” and surrounded by a group of Urchins and their “leader” a teenage who goes by Storm Hammer. They form an uneasy truce with the promise to exchange heaters and medicine for the information they seek. Later that day Kaz, with some harvesters in tow, purchases a wagonload of the agreed upon goods. Rana, meanwhile, visits a simple cobbler in Brandrplat: Aleksander, a young man who looks remarkably like Kaz. She orders a pack of shoes from him for the urchins, then meets up with Kaz to make the delivery.

The two of them bring their goods to Mittplats and are met, then directed, by urchin spotters. Eventually they are led to an abandoned warehouse. The urchins have filled the factory floor with cots and basic dividers, setting up a makeshift apartment. Storm Hammer greets them, and accepts the exchange. He mentions that many children are suffering this winter, and they are having trouble taking them all in. He also gives Kaz and Rana information: a strange old manor, in the Old Hill neighborhood, was the epicenter of strange bug sightings for months. It had recently be impounded by the Crown, with all its windows shuttered. Finally, Rana took on a young student, telling the child to procure three things in three days time: salt, a bird, and a coin that isn’t theirs but that no one knows is missing.

Elsewhere, Mattias and Cai decided they needed to pay this “Old Finn” a visit. They chartered a boat and sailed 4 hours south around the horn of the peninsula. They find Green Point, a sleepy village nestled along a forest and into frozen marshland. Docking, they find only one local out and about, and he is less than welcoming. They trudged up the dock, easily identifying the tavern. It, and a general store, are the only buildings bearing any sort of marking. Inside, they find a slowly growing crowd of local fishermen settling in for their early-evening drink.

Cai, looking very out of place, keeps to himself while Mattias chats with the locals. Mattias learns from the bartender that Finn is likely to stop in for dinner later, but otherwise folks keep mum. No one trusts the foreigners, and refuse to accidentally give up info on one of their own.

Eventually, a scarred and greying man steps inside and shrugs off his coat. As he reaches the bar Kaz and Cai are struck with a lingering chemical smell, sharp and sinus clearing like bleach. He looks at Kaz, leading off with “I hear you boys have been asking about me”. They get to chatting, eventually earning Finn’s trust. After finishing their fish stews, he leads them to his workshop on the edge of town.

[ see Golden Fields for details on the workshop ]

Inside the locker of the ship, they also find a crate filled with small vials (~6oz each) filled with a clear, though slightly viscous, liquid. There are also a number of extra materials: more silvered-glass panels and another barrel of treated pitch.

Finn gives them the boat, mentioning he’d been waiting to hear from Karl about it. The three of them set up to launch it after sunset, and to sail it back up north to Summer’s Breath under the cover of darkness. Just before casting off, Finn gifts Mattias an aging silvergraph photo of him and Karl, smiling at the camera a few years before the occupation.

The journey back north is cold, but uneventful. They dock briefly, just long enough to meet up with Kaz and Rana at the gulp and decide on a course of action. Given the letters, they figure that the abandoned manor mentioned by the urchins must have been 8 of Moths' previous residence, and that they had fled into the miasmatic battlefield. Together they decide to follow, loading the ship up with supplies and bringing along two harvesters with skill in sailing. Kaz leaves instructions for other harvesters to deliver some more heaters to the urchins while they are away.

In total, the group brings: Bror Odal’s corpse, a dog corpse, some of the mining explosives, a bear’s worth of poisons, many healing potions, a few handles of vodka, and their normal gear.

Just prior to leaving, Mattias does some basic alchemical analysis on the vials they found. It doesn’t yield anything conclusive, though it is definitely a high proof spirit. He decides to try one, and quaffs half a bottle. Beyond the bite of the alcohol it has an immediate peppery feeling, as well as a coating feeling along his throat, followed by a vegetal flavor. Right away Mattias feels calmer, and content. He returns the rest of the vials to the crate and packs it.

The group sails south, departing just after midnight. After a few freezing hours rounding the horn, they enter the calmer sheltered waters of the bay. Ahead, the air above the miasma shimmers like the dull shifting reflections of light in mica, though upon no visible surface or particulate. Approaching the river’s mouth, they begin to see unhealthy luminescent tailings from the poison river, bold yellows and greens streaking the dark water.

Session 15

[ Tuesday December 30th ]

Looking out at the miasma from the deck of the ship, Rana decides to scout their course. She inhabits a pigeon body, leaving her own above deck. As the bird, she flies ahead, finding the forest straddling either side of the poisoned river. The trees are gnarled and twisted, with branches appearing suddenly out of the fog. As she flies by, a feline shadow leaps out from the darkness, knocking the bird to the ground. It stalks around just out of sight, joined by other shadows, circling her downed form. Above, tendrils of fog form into the vague shape of a cage. Rana abandons the body.

From the deck, Cai looks out with his Blind Bishop sight. His experience of the border is fragmented, fractured. In some places the world is normal, his senses agreeing with his vision. In others, the world appears reflected-but-accessible. Intuitively, these shards seem like they are traversable, but rationally Cai realized they are reflections. This disquiets him.

The Golden Fields begins its slow and careful route up the river. Strange colors dance in the water below. Trees at the river’s edge loom. Their forms, in shadow and fog, evoke writhing figures. On the western bank, the spot a large axe, its head embedded in the earth. From beyond it, a voice calls out:

Is this the ship of the dead, here to take me away?

Cai “looks” over the low ridge and “sees” a large ashen-skinned woman bound to an old ash with chains. He and Mattias decide to climb the bank and investigate further. It is loamy and soft. Where their limbs sink in for purchase, marigolds grow, living out quickened live spans across 10 seconds. The two approach Sigrun. They talk a bit about her predicament, and who they are. All eventually decide to temporarily trust each other, given the circumstances. Behind the tree they discover the chains are held in place by a large iron spike driven through overlapping links and deep into the trunk. They cut the spike, and Sigrun immediately recovers her axe, and the pure white fur cloak on the ground next to it. Cai and Mattias invite Sigrun to joint them on their journey through the miasma. She mentions she is an adept sailor, and takes over control of the New Harvest.

Heading up river the group comes upon a bridge spanning across the water. The eastern quarter is bathed in sunlight, the well-set stones covered in healthy moss. The next quarter to the west is rimed in frost, grey, and scored with damage from conflict. Many of its stones are cracked. From its span hang a few barely held-together bones. The third quarter is also scarred, but lacks the frost. From it, recently dead bodies hang downward. Its western edge has collapsed. The furthest west span is barely recognizable, it has collapsed so far. A few larger rocks appear out of the snow and mud of the bank, bare memories of its once strong foundations.

Sigrun aims the New Harvest to pass through the ruined section, steering carefully to avoid snaring the sails. As they pass, Rana asks to slow the vessel and have a “chat” with one of the dead. She approaches one of the recently dead, an archer judging by the bow strung around her. After some brief ritual, the body opens an eye and blinks. Cai and Sigrun argue to continue onward, leaving the dead alone. Just as they pull away, the archer turns its head and whispers to Rana:

‘ware the man in scarlet.

Session 16

[ Tuesday December 30th ]

Matching to the poem, after “the old bridge” the group notes to “take heed”, and Sigrun pulls in some cloth to move slower, while everyone keeps an eye out for hazards. The group distributes gas masks around. Even with caution, the group almost crashes into some the numerous obstacles: jagged rocks embedded in the riverbed and nigh-invisible under the eddies, the broken spokes of crashes carriages, points of dropped spears. A few mirrors are scraped off in minor collisions, prompting field repairs with some crew hanging down on ropes.

The miasma grows deeper with their progress. Pockets of harsh smoke and strange air filter past. The strange barren and scarred terain around them slides by. Each member of the crew begins to have different auditory illusions:

• Rana hears her cousin drowning in the river, always just out of sight, crying for help and spluttering in the currents.
• Cai hears pursuit: the rumble of Holy Empire carriages, the thunder of horse hooves, the shouts of hunters.
• Kaz hears the voice of his son, begging for his mother.
• Mattias hears Thora’s singing echoing off the river walls.
• Sigrun, having most recently been given the myterious potion, avoids the changes.

Rana draws a salt circle around the helm. Kaz falls into a stupid, talking to himself about Aleksander and Lidiya. Deeper in they go. The Golden Fields begins to slow, mired in what appear to be lilypads bunching around the hull. Looking into the mirrored deck, the crew see that the world around them is not what it seems: in the mirrors a battle rages around them once again. Souls reliving the slaughter, the flight from their skybound nemesis. The lilypads reflect hundreds of desperate fleeing bodies, clamboring for any purchase, and succor. Cai and Mattias hang off the deck and hack their way free, looking into the mirrors to keep their aim true. Rana climbs the mast, looking outward over the riverbanks. Far to the south, a figure clad in crimson furs follows their path. Startled, she falls from the rigging.

Further still, free from the grasping dead, the terrain around them changes suddenly. No longer is the river a clear winding path, but instead a myriad of interwoven streams with misleading current.

[ See the poison(ed) river for maps ]

The crew take guesses, navigating what they hope is the most similar path to their original maps of the area. The river takes a wide westerly sweep before heading back east. Rounding a curve, a new fork appears ahead, paths branching northeast and southeast. On the southern bank, a sole figure stands: a young northern warrior, Sigrun’s dead brother Arvid Asejarsen. He beseeches her from afar, his voice traveling despite his small stature. He tells her he has found true freedom, freedom from death. He tells her that their parents are here, but “caught in the web”. He asks for her help to find them. She refuses. Behind him, the man in scarlet appears, rounding a low rise. The group balks, Sigrun swinging the boat north and comitting to the fork furthest from this unknown menace.

Rana, meanwhile, stuffs a pigeon body up dead Bror’s sleeve. She says a quick prayer over him, then begins her drumming ritual and pours herself into his vessel. She grabs one of their communication clickers and turns to the crew:

Tell Gyvus a demon might have taken me.

…then dives into their wake, swimming for the south shore. She climbs the banks and confronts him, asking what he wants. He remains elusive even while being run through with a sword (to no effect), but ultimately tries to get her to agree to carry one of his rings in return for an unharried exit from this place. She tentatively agrees “to try” and then quickly swaps her soul over to the concealed bird, flying away with the ring clutches in its claws.

She catches up with the rest of the group as day breaks, and their small boat enters the calm waters of the lake. Near its heart, the water is clean and unclouded with the area’s poisons. Near the edges it quickly tints bright colors, mixing in unhealthy swirls. With the rise of the sun, so comes a living fog, snaking its way across the nearby plains to spill across the water’s edge. Forms move in it threateningly.

Moored above the clearest water is an agglomeration of three ships bound into a large and unstable looking houseboat. One’s hull juts out, providing a makeshift docking point. Two figures, a norse man and a middle eastern woman, wave from the dock then help tie the Golden Fields up securely. Above, in the awnings, a large 3 eyed jungle cat watches them. The two people are welcoming, but also mention “we don’t exchange names in this place” when the crew attempts to make introductions. They lead everyone inward, through sloping walls and narrow passages, every surface stuffed with alchemical ingredients or supplies.

Eventually they reach an inner chamber, a large two story room surrounding an open-bottomed pool. On the far side lies a desk, behind which hundreds of bell jars filled with moths sit. The whole room echoes of their tiny wing impacts on their cages. An old hunched woman rises from the desk, welcoming them.

Session 17

[ Tuesday December 30th through Wednesday December 31st ]

The old woman introduces herself as Eight of Moths. She offers everyone a calming tea which she brews upon a small hearth at the side of her desk. They talk for some time, filling in details about her relationship with Karl and why she had fled. She was hunted by agents of the Crown who spy on her—and everyone else—from within their dreams. She also reveals a startling fact: Karl was a psychopomp / oneiropomp, someone gifted in exploring the dreaming. A vanishingly small number of people have “the gift” towards working with dreams. Those with it can learn to gain lucidity and explore The Dreaming¹.

Karl and Torstein both showed signs of talent. One highborn, the heir apparent to The Lands of the Wind. The other lowborn, the son of a shipwright. One of Eight of Moths tasks is to seek out those with talents and train them. Both ended up as her students. Torstein took to it well and was fascinated by its potential. Karl, perhaps even more gifted, was scared of the power it conferred. When the war in the north broke out, both were still apprentices-in-secret. Forced apart by circumstances, their paths diverged. Torstein saw in this art potential for revenge, a means to free his people from their foreign oppressors. Karl, bearing witness to the horrors on the battlefield, nearly swore off his talent, and retreated from Eight of Moths for many years following.

These great works require a sound temperament. I am somewhat remiss to acknowledge that I have failed in that regard. This Draw is an abject failure. The Low House continues to thin.

Long ago, when the world was young, it was dealt a tragic blow. Most life perished. Those beings powerful of talent or unique in aspect fled, into a safe haven woven for them by newfound allies. That was unfathomably long ago, in our sense of time, and those that have endured have not… well they have not done so unchanged. We believe it is best that they remain there.

There is an object of immense artifice, crafted by unknown hands, which wields some power over this system. Last we have seen, it takes the form of a deck of cards. It forms some living chronicle of this struggle, a cast of its characters.

Back to the matter at hand, Torstein has been spending much time here. He has been meditating and walking paths deeper into The Weave. The surface here [motions] is all “fresh”. It is formed of your, my, all of our, dreams and memories. But it has been here for a long time. All those other layers, ossified below us. Torstein has found old dreams, he has found the Hall of Stolen Thrones. He has tread memories of its entombment. He believes it contains an angelic weapon. He came to visit me, back in Summer’s Breath, and warned me to leave. He told me most about his fears for my safety from the crown… but I could tell there was something else. Whatever this weapon is, he truly does believe it can turn the tide of the war. He said it would “show them the skies are not theirs to control”.

The group tells Eight of Moths about their discoveries at Lyn’s Respite, and their theory that Torstein has loomed himself with an angel. She remarks that such an event would explain his lack of recent visits, since the healing from such a procedure would take significant time. She then offers to guide anyone who wishes it through the dreaming, providing a highly psychedelic tea as a stand in for her gift. Kaz and Mattias both agree, though each for very different reasons. As both sink into their chairs, lost in a stupor, Eight of Moths fusses around them, checking their vitals and whispering guidance into their ears.

Kazimir goes in search of information about his wife. His dream takes him far, to a cold valley with a prison rimed in ice. Nightmarish creatures abound, shuffling around the yard, rattling the bars of the cells. Lydiya is there, and Kaz can see her dreams of him. In them, he is always turning away, leaving. There are dreams of Aleksandr too, but he is always young, and always crying. The child’s face is blurring too, losing detail.

Mattias goes in search of Karl. His flight takes him near, to the high walls and guarded turrets of Fort Miray. It sits upon a high hill overlooking the rippling edge of the miasma. Within, through walls and cells and barracks he finds dreams of Karl. He is alive, held in a cell deep underground. But, Mattias also stumbles upon a strange mirror, embedded at an odd angle and clipping through a few walls. In darkened glass, behind a cloudy reflection, he saw foreign eyes looking back at him.

When both have returned from their dream-trances, the group decides they should leave at dawn, which fast approaches. Rana asks Eight of Moths for some “soil of memories”, which she obliges. The group argues over what to do about Rana’s agreement with the man-in-scarlet. They are divided, most wanting to leave his ring behind. Sigrun suggests asking Eight of Moths' opinion. She stalls, not siding either way, while mentioning that breaking an oath is its own danger. Allowing the ring passage back into the real world would not be a defining deathblow to the world on its own, but risks empowering the man-in-scarlet who she refers to as The Knave of Teeth.

Dawn arrives, and with its approach the hungry fog retreats. Everyone says their goodbyes. They set sail on the Golden Fields and make quick progress, aided by the river’s currents. Passing the tumult in the deeper miasma they see the man-in-scarlet watching them from an escarpment. He waves.

Near the river’s mouth they lay anchor, Sigrun battling the river to stay still. Rana quickly climbs the bank, returning to the Sentry Glade. She nails the enamel ring to the tree where Sigrun was bound. It bleeds, staining her hands a deep crimson. She fears that she will transform into something harmful to her tribe. Hoping for some sort of moral solace, she brings up a lost soul from the depths of the river, a child lost in the chaos of battle. She binds his small tormented being into the body of a rat to attempt the crossing back into the familiar world beyond.

Session 18-prelude (Prelude — A Coda for Lidiya)

The cushions of the chair have worn into that kind of pleasant softness only possible with age. You are far from the first that it has cradled on towards oblivion. Is it missing someone too? Does this chair long for a different touch? What are you to it? And yet, it is gentle with you. It carries you surely as you sink. Smaller and smaller, you are a grain of sand lost into the dunes of existence. And then smaller still, sinking through that layer and into the next, into that darkness. Around you a sense of others, of calm, of rest.

You emerge into brilliant blue. You are shaken by thunder so vast it is all you know. You are twisted by ripples, shunted by voids. Always down. And then you are are through. From everything to nothing. A great void stretches out upon all horizons. No, there are no horizons. There is only depth, there is only The End. Above, the blue fulfills a point in a vast plane of nowhere. A voice whispers into your ear, a distant treble:

East, on the winds I spin for you.

You are blown through the void, the point of blue stretching into a line into a plane and you hurtle along it. Closer, closer, you are breaching, faster and faster. Your form extruded back into being upon a twisted valley of ice. The sky is grey/black, an threat of storm to come that will not manifest. The rocky hills are twisted and wrong, the scale all broken like a toy box of mismatched ideas dumped and forgotten. The fences begin lower, in the long shadows. Then the walls, like the jaws of an enormous trap primed to spring. There are other Kazimirs here. A few leave as you arrive. You catch their last footfalls over the pass, the scrabble over the rock face, their calm demeanor as they place the revolver’s barrel against their temple. All face away.

A child cries among the cells below. They are open to the air, and the chill. They are open to the constant striking sound as the rocks are broken and rebroken and the crackle of the forges and the despairing noises of those working both. His face is lost. It could be any child, but you know it is not any child. No one is gentle here.

No one else could dream these things. No one else could remember so vividly the texture of your coat as you turned away. But could you face her?

Later, you return. When your guide felt your pulse leap or stall, or when the time simply ran low waiting for you to act. The wind shifts, all three note trill echo across the valley walls. And you are pulled back. You are blown away into pieces of sand. Is it better this way. When you are small so is the pain. Oblivion is vast. Is it right there. It is not for today.

Blue and more blue greet you as friend. Without this wind you could spend forever in these eddies. What is direction? If you even knew, which way would you pick?

The cushions are not so soft now. Your ass has fallen asleep, and a dull recognition of aches register along your arms. Your mouth is dry. You shift and the cushions let out a hiss of air as they decompress. This little chair tried to hard to keep you comfortable. Perhaps you can learn something from it. Perhaps you should be gentle with others; gentle with strangers.

Perhaps you should be gentle with yourself.

Session 18-prelude2 (Prelude — Master Gaivvas)

All children are born with a bit of The Storm in them. While they are young it must be drawn forth carefully, lest it remain into adulthood and turn to poison. As in all things, look to song. Teach them to sing out their thunder. Teach them to drum out their thunder. Teach them to dance and stomp out their thunder.

It will be easier with the boys. They share their wildness with the world. They find it easy to rage and shout and brawl with their kin. Aijke Galles was, after all, a boy once. This is his gift to them, for if they reach their puberty holding onto their thunder, there is only one cure. Flint must be placed into their head, deep enough that their pure rainwater runs out along with the blood. Most do not survive this, but we have to protect the tribe.

The girls keep their thunder close. They often nurture it, not knowing what it is. In song they may be cleansed, and so we must train them all to sing. Fewer take to the drums, but it is proper for them to be taught this as well. If they come upon their first blood with some of the storm, they must be fed the fresh young red berries of the rowan tree, still cool from spring and bitter. If they are not made sick, Aijke Galles has accepted the tribute and taken his storm back from her. If they are made sick, we must again reach to the flint like with the boys.

— Noaidi Gåmmoe, Teachings of the Spring, Tale IV

Gaivvas is asleep when you fold back the flap of his yurt and slip inside. The fire has burnt low, and you make a note to have a talk with whichever child was responsible for looking after it. The space retains some lingering chill from night. As you cross towards his bedroll, he awakes with a start and looks around with concern. He does not immediately recognize you, and begins to call out in alarm. Has his senility gotten this much worse?

He continues to shout as you get closer, and one of your relatives pokes their head in through the yurt’s entrance. You wave them off and climb closer to the old man. His rheumy eyes are full of fear.

In comforting tones you remind him of yourself, of your relationship. You remind him of things only you could know. You reminisce of the reindeer grazing in the spring thaws. He is calmed, slowly.

Food is brought, young Juksa delivering some steamed fish. The smell is intoxicating. You realize you are very hungry. You carefully pick the bones, then share the meal with Gaivvas. Is is pleasantly salty, but carries a faint metallic flavor as well. Finally, cleaned plates stacked at the door, Gaivvas motions to sit beside him on the bedroll.

Bures boahtin Rana. I am sorry for my waking. I dreamed of rider on horseback come to camp. A horseman come for me. No good no good…

He trails off, leaning in and studying you.

…what stains your teeth so? Red smiles not a friendly sight.

And there is that taste of iron, long lived since your last bite of fish. You feel at your gums and come away with wet fingers. Crimson on crimson. Gaivvas shuffles back from you. He stares at your hands.

What have you done, child?¹ What have you brought here?

He draws his furs about him and shrinks back, eyes wide narrowing in suspicion.

Years take my sight, haven’t taken my mind! You have come as this rider, your footfalls are their hoof beats. Mana neavri!²

Session 18

[ Wednesday December 31st ]

The group spends the morning sailing back north, into the safe waters of Summer’s Breath harbor. Sigrun finds a safe berth for the Golden Fields and spends the morning stocking up on a few supplies. Rana takes a brief jaunt across the river to see her people (see “Master Gyvus” above). Everyone meets back up for lunch at The Gulp. Kaz comes downstairs looking remarkably composed, with his clothes cleaned and his hair washed. He says he’ll take Karl’s dinner reservation at The Opera Cellar tonight, and shows that he has a loaded revolver in his coat.

Mattias gets himself busy with New Harvest business. [ This is because Cameron missed this entire session. ]

Cai goes to meet Arthur, catching him while he gets coffee at a Turkish coffee shop in Ostermalm. They take a walk north and Cai fills him in on their latest news. Arthur is alarmed by the news, and agrees to provide what help he can on short notice.

Sigrun stops by an old haunt, a crow hideout / bar under a warehouse in Havethem. She is barely let in, but finds her old friend Oliver there, engaged in a drinking contest. She challenges him, surprising him in the process. Sigrun wins the speed-chug contest, and then reminisces with Oliver in the recovery.

Rana takes a trip over to the urchin’s warehouse, bringing along more heaters and shoes. She checks in with Storm Hammer, and barters for the kids to monitor the comings and goings of folks from the Foreign Quarter. Then she checks in with her protege, who had succeeded in the three tasks set before her. The child wasn’t sure if the bird should be alive or dead, so she’d trapped it in her coat. Rana tells her it should be dead, so the child stabs it in the heart. She tells the child to “take the coin back where it should go”. The child asks for more details, but Rana refuses to elaborate.

Cai also pops by The Opera Cellar to sneakily up-size their reservation. He discovers that the Odals had a reservation, so he edits the list to move their seats over to Karl’s reservation. The group shows up a bit early and gets seated. They discuss who they think will show up, and general consensus is that Torstein might arrive. Instead, the crow shaman from the boat-attack arrives, cleaned up and wearing a suit that he’s obviously uncomfortable in. He introduces himself as Terje, and apologizes for Torstein not being able to attend.

Over the fancy dinner they all discuss a truce, and that the Crows are interested in helping rescue Karl. Terje proposes if the group can find The Hall of Stolen Thrones, that Torstein would be able to dedicate more of his forces to an attack on Fort Miray. Otherwise, he’ll have to keep many back for an excavation effort to find it. The group agrees, and dinner conversation peters out.

Session 19-prelude (Prelude — The Island)

Terje folds his napkin carefully and covers his plate with it. Standing to leave, he produces a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. He places it atop the napkin, and addresses the group in his carrying whisper:

Curtesy of the King. This poem has been a recurrent feature of his explorations. He wishes me to convey his regret that it is not more clear. The memories he stirs are quite old and have become abstract. He refines it with each rest.

Unfolding the paper produces:

The island has no shore. It is made of stone.
The island has no summit. It does not rise.
The island has no weather. It shall still thunder.
The island has no soil. It knows only bone.
The island has no visitors. It meets only the dead.
The island has no dawn. It knows not the sun’s warmth.
The island has no master. It listens only to the storm.
The island has no mercy. It keeps all that it is given.
The island has no egress. It is the end.

Session 19

[ Thursday January 1st (New Year’s Day) ]

The morning of New Year’s Day. The group prepares for its expedition back to the Witching Hills. Rana prowls the dawn streets as a cat in search of, and ultimately catching, a city dwelling bat. She gently preserves it for transport. Everyone else assembles their supplies: steam-core heaters, provisions for a few days, 3 harvesters for backup, and the vial of water for contacting Terje.

Around lunch they make their way northern out of the city, by varying routes and means to avoid obvious notice by The Crown. They avoid they oft-meetup at Rana’s camp, instead gather farther west before traveling into the foothills. They follow the wise fork as it merges into the main cold river, then keep with the northerly curve. Retracing their steps, they find the remnants of the root cellar. Its sides have sagged in the last few days, and snow has blanketed the whole scene. The group digs themselves back into the tunnel, making their way back to the base of the stairwell. There they setup camp, laying out cots in the cramped base room and spreading out into the antechamber beside the rushing underground stream.

Sigrun and Cai explore the area, having missed the original visit. Cai mostly spends his time sensing with The Sight and notices that somewhere roughly below them, and perhaps further north, is manifesting a huge amount of arcane energy. The entire area is saturated with potential energy, something not seen except near huge terminus of energy such as forges. Sigrun travels all the way to the peak, finding the gruesome scene left there. No blood remains. She takes a few snapped pieces of angel feather from the mangled corpse.

Rana spends time studying the river. The whole area has a similar funerary vibe to graveyards and other ritual sites related to death. It has certainly conveyed many souls in its time. Nearby, Kazimir naps. He dreams of awakening and falling into the river. He fights from being taken under, and back in real life this trashing and crawling draw him outward from their camp and towards the river’s edge. Rana notices and slaps him awake. Overnight, as they ready themselves and rest in camp, all others have similar dreams.

In the morning—as told by their watches, since no light reaches this deep—they set their plan in motion. A small mouse-coffin is built of wood, its lid hammered shut with a nail to be chewed loose from the inside. Within, they place a Rana-mouse, a communication clicker, and an arcane light. Cai attaches fishing line to the box while Rana pours herself into the dead creature’s remains. The group lowers it into the cascade of water, unspooling it slowly and steadily.

The initial stretch, immediately after the dark aperture astride the stairs, is a hundred-and-change foot slide along steep slick wall. The box clatters off divots in the barrage of falling water. Thankfully, the mouse’s stomach is dust and its inner ear too decayed for vertigo. Following that chaos is a sudden drop to a small pool which then spills onward at a slower clip through winding passages. The stream meanders a while, around bends, down drops, and through narrows. Noticing the more manageable flow, Rana-mouse chews herself free and untucks the light from a cheek pouch. Further ahead, the river spills downward and out, widening into a large cavern. As she approaches, Rana-mouse realized the stream here has breached a larger room, its next incline wide and smooth, at an angle unlikely to have been carved by the water. Off to her left, a more recent cave-in is obvious, some recent shifting of earth revealing dark loamy dirt. Ancient carved stairs peak out in places. Below, a smooth dark area is riven vertically and the water churns there, coming back together to pour through a small opening in a thunderous crash. From beyond the falls, a light glows upward.

Partway down this hill, the fishing line reaches its end. Rana snaps back to her body.

Session 20

[ Thursday January 1st (New Year’s Day) ]

The group discuss what to do based on Rana’s exploratory voyage. They settle on having Rana return, this time as a bat, carried by Sigrun. The others wait above. With foreknowledge of the path, their descent is mostly straightforward. Sigrun’s ability to swim and hold her breath for long periods prove up to the task, though the winding and tight path still takes around an hour to traverse.

The pair approach the broken door carefully, mindful that the strong currents could pull them under easily. Sigrun tosses Rana-bat through the opening, and she flies around investigating the space on the other side.

The next chamber over is expansive and bright, lit from within by a crackling blue-white glow. From their high vantage the stream pours downward about 30 feet into the luminescent pool below. The room’s ceiling arches above, perfectly cut onyx reflecting the light into a field of stars. Lying in the center of the chamber is a partially submerged ovoid made of a non-reflective silver metal. Hundreds of thrones, in a huge array of designs and materials, perch on every dry surface possible. They are stacked in disorganized heaps, some obviously tossed onto the pile from above. Many are broken. Those made of materials more prone to rot have deteriorated to almost nothing.

Amongst this wreckage hundreds of smaller collectibles are strewn: furs, helmets, swords, axes, tapestries, paintings, pots, goblets, etc. Many are in advanced states of decay or rust. The air of the chamber is warm and moist. The waters filling its internal lake continually steam from some unseen heat source.

On the doorwards face of the island-shape, the smooth surface is broken by an inset aperture leading inward. Remnants of a honeycomb translucent glass ring the opening, their broken jagged edges suggested it was once covered over. Within, a high ceilinged room extends inward, deeper into the vessel. The room, too, is covered in thrones. These are a more opulent sort: great oaken chairs, beautifully carved marble seats, wondrous constructions from around the ancient world. Among them are bones, roughly group-able into distinct individuals. Tables with a vast array of built in instrument panels and controls dominate the edge of the room closest to the front of the vessel. Upon them, eight valkyrie helmets sit, each inscribed with a sigil of finality.

At the room’s center, one throne is particularly noticeable. It stands taller and broader than the rest, made of a similar metal to the vessel itself. It is too large to comfortably sit most humans. One would need to be at least 8 feet tall to not be dwarfed by it. Strange toggles and switches run the length of its armrests, widening at their ends. The throne sits fastened upon a slightly raised dais.

Looking on from above, Sigrun fastens a rope across the opening and trailing it downward as a ladder for later. She quaffs a healing potion, then leaps from her perch aiming to avoid the churning waters and land on the forward edge of the vessel. She almost makes it, but her slippery start and rushing water make it hard to get purchase for such a jump. She collides hard with the nose just below the vessel’s opening. Something cracks in her ribcage. She manages to grab an instrument panel, but her feet briefly slip down and splash into the lake. Immediately, her legs seize with convulsions, the rest of her body tensing as well. With some effort she hauls herself up and out of the water and into the room.

After taking a minute to recover, Sigrun explores the space. At the rear of the room, a 10 foot tall closed door blocks passage deeper. It lacks visible hinges, but the wall next to it bears the imprint of a scaled up humanoid hand embossed into a panel. Sigrun places her (smaller) hand within the impression and the room comes to life around her. The ceiling, previously a featureless expanse of dull metal, begins to glow with some inward iridescence. Lights wink on all along the instruments scattered around. The edge of the panel she’s touching illuminates with a red border and a brief sharp trill noise comes from all around.

Cautiously she retreats towards the entrance, looking over the now-lit room. Nothing about this place feels familiar. She sits for a little while letting the healing potion do some of its work, then decides resting further away would be better. She leaps from the deck of the vessel back to the rope she dropped earlier, painfully climbing it back up to the opening. Then she rests on one of the partially buried steps to get out of the chill waters.

Rana, having watched this whole exploration as a bat, snaps back to her body far above to relay what they’d found to the rest of the group. Arguments ensue. Most of the group agrees that they must have found an angelic warship down there. There is disagreement about if they should give it to Torstein. Ultimately, they settle on him being the lesser evil, and decide to pass on the ship’s location in return for help against The Crown.

Recalling his long ago promise, Rana pours some of the water given to her by Terje into the mouth of one of her crows. After a few minutes it awkwardly comes to life, struggling to stand and catch its balance. After looking around, it furtively makes exploratory cawing noises until it works out basic operation of its syrinx, then poorly barks out a greeting in norse. Then, in more rough imitation of human speech, indicates to Rana that she should also pour herself into the crow body.

Rana quickly discovers that sharing the corpse with another “rider” is an uncomfortably intimate experience. Terje too, seems happy to get it over with as fast as possible. Their emotional states, hopes, fears, are all laid bare to each other. In this shared space, she passes along her knowledge of the route. As they both begin to return to their real bodies, Rana briefly notices that they aren’t the only two souls there… privately, she harbors suspicions that this has something to do with her broken pact with the Man-In-Crimson.

Minutes later, the shaman and a few other of Torstein’s best soldiers arrive. Suddenly, from thin air feet from them, the warriors turn corners that do not exist, stepping lightly into the space. They all hash out a plan: in payment for the route, Torstein and his rebels will use the Angel ship to attack the Crown Army stationed at Fort Miray. The New Harvest will begin their uprising in the city, prompting a counter attack, which should be wiped out by Angelic weaponry. A small cadre of Torstein’s warriors will also be made available to help them in their raid.

Finally, they hear footsteps on the stairway behind them. Into view steps an 8' 6" mashup of Torstein and an Angel, pure white wings furled behind him. His skin is mottled, in some places a blemish free statuesque perfection but in others his original flesh remains, taught and cracking. His gait is confident, yet has a notable hitch when putting weight on his left side. His eyes are bright with pain and conviction.

You are all true friends of the north. Your aid here shall not be forgotten.

With that, he and the other warriors step away into nothingness.

Session 21

[ Thursday January 1st through Saturday January 10th ]

The group leave the meeting with Torstein above the Hall of Stolen Thrones and return to Summer’s Breath. There, they make plans and lay the groundwork for the insurrection to come. Gear is purchased and stockpiled at hideouts, new bolt holes are established, allies are rallied.

Rana visits Storm Hammer and the urchins, trying to get them to leave the city and join her tribe for safety. Many, especially those sick or very young, take up the offer. Storm Hammer himself, and many of the other older children refuse. This is their city, and they will fight for it. Those that stay agree to be runners, bringing dependable messages around the city. A few will also keep watch on the comings and going of the Foreign Zone, feeding the information back to Kaz.

Cai loops Arthur Copperswat in on the plan, and they empty the Holy Empire provided fund to aid purchasing and bribes. Various unaligned criminals groups scattered across neighborhoods are paid off to aid the coup. These payoffs are held until late in the week to avoid chances of leaking information.

Sigrun works with her old comrades in the Crow aquatic raiders, setting up mines around the harbor and on Crown ships already docked there. They primarily focus on the ability to sink anything that attempts to make for the harbor, but ultimately leave the waterways and docks intact.

New Harvesters, the most trusted and loyal of their resources, are tasked with focusing on taking and holding the public works once things kick off, and secondarily on other important targets in the Foreign Zone. Student revolutionaries and criminal elements are tasked with taking and holding the city’s walls.

Crow strike groups hidden around the city have been massing for weeks, and they coordinate with the Harvesters to focus on the garrison and governor’s mansion (and its barracks). Arthur helps them out here, supplying them with floorplans and stolen keys, as well as a single squad’s worth (5) of uniforms each of city watch and the army.

Major gates and bridges are mined with many of the explosives from Karl’s storage unit. Supplies of Vanja’s poison gasses are given to the groups around the Foreign Zone with the aim of quickly neutralizing arcanists.

Arthur, also comes in handy redirecting suspicion and laying counter intelligence about their schemes. Not all information about the coming attack can be hidden, but he does a good job making it hard for Crown Intelligence to see the overall pattern or goals.

On the 9th, the main group departs the city by boat. After stripping it of its mirrors to make it more innocuous, they sail the Golden Fields up the further western fork of the Cold River, up past closer to Fort Miray. They hide it with some crew just beyond the northerly bridge. Their escape plan is to return to the boat and sail it briefly north to the fork, then back down on the eastern river and straight into the city.

In total, the group heading to Fory Miray in search of Karl is:

• Rana.
• Sigrun.
• Cai.
• Mattias.
• 5 Holy Empire agents:
  • Arthur’s bodyguard Benedict “Benny” Prothero.
  • 4 others.

Kazimir stays behind in the city to coordinate the uprising there.

Session 22

[ Saturday January 10th through Sunday January 11th ]

The light of man is the light of the hearth. Full of warmth, of vigor, of charity. The light of The Angels though… that is the light of power. It is fury and artifice incarnate, it is their will writ large upon the world.

— Judgement Martin (canon. St. Martin 61 H.A.)
[ presented in a speech to The Illuminated College of Albioch class of 39 H.A. ]

The group spends a cold night camped in the forest north of Fort Miray. Many miles away, their carefully laid plans manifest in earnest:

If you weren’t on edge, you wouldn’t have noticed it, but in the predawn chill you can feel gentle rumblings in the earth. Something stirs in the east. From your vantage in the trees you can see a wave of caution spread through the active night watchmen upon Fort Miray’s high walls. Minutes pass. Staccato thunder barely reaches your ears. General quarters is wrung within the Fort. More minutes pass. To the east a bright light flashes briefly. It is followed by a single loud thunderclap. Tension in the Fort visibly increases. Watches along the wall increase and a clamor of alarms and the movement of many people echoes across frozen earth to your hiding space.

Hours pass. A vague lightness to the horizon marks morning’s approach. A few small groups of riders have ridden out, and a few companies have arranged themselves on the fields outside. The whole base has become a hive of activity. Two airships have taken off and are circling a few hundred feet up. Siege machines have been dragged from buildings and are being lashed to steam wagons. The sounds of semi constant explosions and artillery fire have been reaching you from Summer’s Breath for some time now.

Benny and his squad seem nonplussed. One passed around a thermos of tea at first light. They’re playing cards quietly, hiding from the breeze in the hollow of some roots.

Suddenly, a loud steam whistle blows thrice and the rumble of large gears drowns out nearby noise. The great gates of the fort grind open. The march begins in earnest. It takes another hour before much of the line has passed your position. The ground reverberates in time with their fast-march.

And then it is a summer day. Your cheeks flush and tingle in the heat. Your vision goes completely white and all noise ceases. For a brief moment, you only know you are alive by the vibration in your feet. Then the pressure wave from the steam explosion knocks you over. Any arcanometers you are carrying tremble and catch fire. As soon as it began, it is over. You blink back the light, and dig yourselves free from a light covering of broken frozen tree chunks. Off to the north east, a roll of explosions reaches you, followed quickly by another pack from the south east.

Benny leads a short prayer:

By their hand we hath inherited this world and yet by their hand we may be unmade.
Amen.

The group quickly mobilizes, shaking off the enormity of destruction and sticking with their plan. Along the main road destruction is more complete than they had anticipated. An eery silence settles along the fields. Only their footfalls and the sizzling and crackling of cool air settling is audible until they reach much closer to the fort proper. The fort itself it in chaos and reeling. The lower field tents have all collapsed and are the sight of some commotion, soldiers trying to free each other from the tangled canvas. On the main road, the tall watch towers have fallen, and the surrounding buildings sit shakily on their foundations. The group hear cries from inside the roadside storage depot, and investigate to find a dead quartermaster half buried under a downed wall. Rana does a quick ritual and takes over his body. Two of the Holy Empire agents ferry her sleeping form back to their forest camp, guarding her and their collective escape route.

The group heads inward, all in uniform now. Alarm bells ring discordantly in every direction. Survivors dig wounded and dead from nearby buildings and trickle in a winding line upward toward the fort itself. The outer medical ward looks shaky, timbers creaking and dust shaking free along cracks. The group heads uphill from there, making for the south east gate. A sergeant is half heartedly trying to order the shuffling line of wounded away, but the gate’s gearing houses are aflame in some secondary effect of the outpouring arcane energy. At the gateway to the inner keep courtyard, a more direct defense has formed. A semicircle of the leftover fort defenders has formed, ordering the mob back while engineers stifle the flames to get the gates working again. Worried about their momentum, Mattias shoots one in the head, hoping the chaos will hide the shot’s source. The crowd panics and charges, with soldiers shooting at the wounded.

Adding to the chaos, Rana walks over to the stables. Animals always shy around the dead, somehow more in tune with the unusual. She intentionally spooks the horses, which stampede. Using the situation as cover, the group scans the buildings. Tucked into the southeastern corner, between two older pre-existing buildings¹, is a new two story narrow brick building bearing no windows. A small plaque next to its door bears the text:

Intelligence Field Office
NO ADMITTANCE

Cai picks the lock with Sigrun shielding him. The group moves in quickly and Mattias locks the door behind them. The ground floor of the building holds two rooms. They start in an entry hall, with book cases, a comfortably appointed sitting room, and an arcane heater (signed around its vents). Beyond, through a doorless threshold, sits the second room: it is comprised of only a hotelier’s desk (behind which stand an attendant and an intelligence officer, both armed) and a spiral staircase heading in both directions.

A brief firefight and scuffle ensue, ending with Rana’s quartermaster missing a large some of their brain and both crown foes dead. The attendant was quickly strangled while the officer ended up shot as he rolled down the stairs. Rana takes a risk, and pours herself between vessels, something forbidden by her teachings. It works, but in her untethered moments she notices that the area around her is full of confused lost souls, yet to be collected. Something, out in the killing field, perks up and notices her as she pours herself into the dead attendant. Immediately, she rises and hurries through a number of rites, praying for forgiveness.

Benny and his companions head upstairs to check for anything useful while the main group descend in the basement below. There they find a hurriedly scrapped archive: walls lined with document cabinets empty, a well stoked furnace choking with paper ash, and emptied weapons lockers. The room has three exits, tidily labelled with plaques in Turkish:

• West, a door: “Keep Cellars”
• Southeast, a door: “Escape Route C”
• Downward, an elevator: “Site 8 Access”

The elevator cage itself is missing, and its shaft is covered over with a simple enclosure. The whole thing runs on a nearby steam core, with a backup gravity weight. The group decide to head downward, basing on Mattias' dream of Karl being somewhere deep below the fort. They pry open the safety hatch and climb down the support wire in the following order:

1. Mattias.
2. Sigrun, carrying Rana.
3. Cai.

At the bottom (80-90ft down, below the ground layer of the surrounding country side) is a mining explosive dug room, held up with an array of wooden support pillars. Paths through the cavern are illuminated with arcane work-lights set atop spikes. ~8 feet into the cavern from the elevator is a crossroads, one path leading north, another leading south west. A squad of crown intelligence soldiers guard this crossroads.

Mattias sneaks into the room and sets up for a good shot, flanking the soldiers. Rana climbs off Sigrun’s back and sneaks just far enough inward to hide behind a pillar before Sigrun causes a ruckus moving the elevator car out of the way to squeeze inward. At the noise the soldiers spread out, three aiming at the lift, the other two guarding their backs. Rana steps out in the attendant’s body, to which one of the soldiers yells “what the fuck are you doing down here Hamza?” before noticing the charging shape of Sigrun behind. A battles ensues, with Sigrun getting shot in the leg and Rana-Hamza being shot through a couple times while the soldiers are dispatched.

The group take a second to catch their breath, then read the signs labelling the paths:

• North: “Specimen Collections”
• Southwest: “Site 8” & “Railyards”

Reading the tracks on the dirt floor it appears that much more traffic has headed southwest.

Session 23

[ Sunday January 11th ]

While taking a breather at the crossroads, the group debates which route to investigate first. Mattias argues for Site 8. Rana meditates, calling out to the small part of the Knave of Teeth that seems attached to her, in hopes of getting some clue on direction. She receives the cryptic response:

He approaches my domain once again, this time clad in armor.

Rousing herself from this, she notices the flavor of metal and salt; in her reverie she must have been chewing on her cheek. She relays her information to everyone else, and they agree to head for Site 8 immediately.

The southwest path takes them down hundreds of feet of winding passages made of interlinked blasted-open caverns. The entire area appears to have been dug out as expediently as possible, with little concern for aesthetics or efficiency. Each space is thick with simple supporting columns. Only the main path has been illuminated with more arcane lights on posts.

“Scouting” ahead with his blindsight, Cai realizes the path ends in a heavy oak door, unguarded on their side. The group hurries ahead, no longer worried about their noise. When they reach the door they find it locked, with a specialized arcane mechanism in addition to the tumblers. Through its thick surface they hear the rumble of machinery.

Cai goes to pick the lock, using his journeyman skills with the arcane to complete the circuit he finds there. It works, and the lock clicks open, but some of the energy now flowing through the circuit continues onward. He realizes—too late—that a proper key to this lock would have shunted some of the energy elsewhere. Instead, the excess energy triggers an alarm mounted on the other side of the doorframe. The group bursts through, ready for a fight.

They emerge into a much larger roughly circular chamber, hundreds of feet across. Their entrance sits along a lip of rock surrounding the northeastern corner, leading to a mine-entrance-like downward slope crosscut by ramps. To their right, northward, a pair of buildings have been built along this lip: a hastily assembled barracks and administrative building which bears the Crown Intelligence seal. Down on the main landing, three stories below, most of the space is taken up by two wide set train tracks. They run parallel to each other, both heading into a narrowing dark tunnel to the southwest.

The near track has no visible train cars, but two large chains run from a huge winch down into the darkness. Between the chains a rubberized air hose, roughly 6 feet in diameter, connects to a wheezing set of automatic bellows. The far track holds a couple small train cars, each about 30 feet apart and holding 10 foot diameter rings. The end of this length of track holds a fixed artillery piece, aiming down the ring-line.

South of the tracks sits a small but well equipped machine shop. Extra train car parts, axles, hoists, etc, fill the space. In the middle of the partial ring of buildings, some engineers have started a very hot alchemical pit fire, and are hurriedly feeding smaller equipment into it.

North of the tracks a freestanding wall has been built, with a solid door set into its center. The area around the door is soot-stained like the edges of a fireplace, and the ground around it has standing drifts of ash. In front sit two mounted gun emplacements, both pointed towards the door. Nearby, an unusually armored soldier (wearing a rebreather and air tank, while carrying a quiver of scrolls) is debriefing a small crowd of nervous looking officers.

Immediately in front of the group as the enter, two soldiers in steamcore powered exosuits are carrying an onyx spike onto the nearest ramp. Seeing the intruders, they drop the spike and move up to engage. Sigrun and Mattias get into a brawl with them, while Cai slips past to open fire on the crowd below. Rana moves around in the other direction, headed for the administrative building.

Fighting ensues, and ultimately Sigrun and Mattias are victorious, though somewhat bruised. Cai succeeds in causing chaos elsewhere, and manages to move to the far side of the room near the standalone wall mostly unseen. Rana, surprising the staff in the building by inhabiting someone they recognize, succeeds in taking an unranked (but with an air of command) crown agent hostage and dragging him outside.

The group (sans Cai, who is still hiding below) ends up in a standoff: two Knockers and some additional soldiers vs the three of them and their hostage. Mattias takes the lead on negotiations, though the leader is evasive in his responses. They initially agree to “let his staff leave” in return for answers. The knockers and surviving staff set up near the standalone door. Unbeknownst to them, Cai has set a shaped charge on the reverse side. The leader angers Mattias, and he gives the signal for sudden violent action. Cai detonates the charge, and Mattias shoots the leader and the one Knocker who stayed further back to watch over him.

Following the tracks, they walk miles into the narrowing darkness, headed southwest. They pass a few more ring-holding train cars, each bearing arcane worklights, and then another car on that track holding a large and very clean mirror. Shortly after that track ends and the passage narrows to around 40 feet wide, centered around the other track. By dead reckoning, they figure they’ll soon reach the borders of the miasma, but underground. Rana drips some of her blood on one rail, then does a short ritual to try and establish a conduit for souls along it.

After a bit more walking they start to notice the change in the air: the reflective specs of nothingness, the bittersweet smells from memory. Ahead, the lights of a large train car become visible. They slow down and creep forward, aiming to surprise whoever is left out here. Reaching the train, they realize that it is made of up of large roughly quarried piece of onyx, placed on top of a traditionally made base. Each slab is roughly a 20 foot square. Some have a clean side, while the other edges look napped and fractured. Metal catwalks run along the sides. Ahead, work-lights illuminate soldiers slightly beyond the train, aiming further down the tunnel. Occasionally, nightmarish creatures (wolf-like things, then some great bird-thing) attacking another group of cowering figures. The soldiers fire of shots now and then.

The group sneak onto the left catwalk, and through an airlock door into the onyx-housed space. Inside, the train is a crowded workshop space. Every conceivable religious practice has at least some small workbench or acknowledgement: from arcane tools, to a small tank of glowing coral, to a gamelan that includes a sami drum. Fresh air fills the space from the umbilical cord. Towards the front, an inward glass sided “V” cuts into the space, its edges also napped. Outside, in the crook of the “V”, an older norse man is visible strapped into a chair.