1220, Autumn
With our labs now all fitted out and ready for use by the end of last season, it was time for the magi of Druids’ Dale to sit down to start reading books. Pisciculus was interested in improving her Intellego, since she needed it to learn Thoughts Within Babble, a spell that would let her understand the locals. Allistor was after the book on Parma Magica, and Múireann went for Creo.
Jack and Knox spent the first few weeks of the season exploring the local woods and talking to some of the locals. An activity made difficulty by the fact that Jack barely spoke any Gaelic, and Knox didn’t like talking to anyone. One of Jack’s aims was to try and find out about a local faerie place at Puck’s Glen. The women at the nearby village were willing to talk, sort of, but quickly clammed up as soon as he mentioned the Glen. Eventually, after a lot of beer drinking with the men he found out that the glen was home to the Red Lady, who dealt with “women’s issues”. She was a fey of some kind, and didn’t welcome men.
After nursing a hangover, Jack returned to the covenant and let the magi know the details. Pisciculus, Allistor, Múireann and Sid decided to take it upon themselves to investigate.
Múireann and Pisciculus first went back to the village to talk to the women. Specifically, Múireann spoke and Pisciculus lurked in the background. The Red Lady liked gifts of milk, bread and honey, and gave advice and remedies for young women. Apparently there was a similar Red Lady down at Dunoon, but she had apparently gone peculiar of late.
So we headed to see the Lady, who dwelt in a small glade by a pond. After we put down our gifts, there were ripples on the surface of the pond, and the water took the form of an old lady. She and Múireann spoke for a while, with Múireann translating for Pisciculus. She seemed quite friendly, and was grateful of the gifts, granting us a handful of her water in return.
She advised us against visiting her sister to the south at Dunoon, since something was amiss, but on the other hand she would be grateful if we could investigate the problem since we apparently looked like we knew what we were doing.
Afterwards, we determined that the water held a pawn of Aquam vis.
So the four of us headed down to Dunoon, getting there for night fall. The local innkeeper didn’t seem too glad to see us, but we got a room for the night. Sid and Allistor decided to go to the local pub for a drink, and got a rude welcome. Allistor especially was looked on with a lot of suspicion, and no-one was really happy until after he’d left. Sid seemed to get on with people okay (other than his association with the magi), and managed to not get caught when leaving with some extra possessions.
Sid and Múireann ask around in the morning, since they both speak the language and neither give off a bad aura. We are directed towards a small community up in the hills, where we find a middle aged man sitting outside a small house on a rocking chair. He is both blind and deaf, and apparently dumb as well, but his mother is inside. She looks barely ten years older than him, but seems to treat him as her son.
After some discussion, it turns out that he was in reality about 20 years old, but had gone up to the mound to spy upon the fey dancing naked under the full moon. He was found the next day, cut and bleeding, unable to speak, hear or see, and looking a lot older.
Pisciculus cast Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh upon him, and indeed his sensory and vocal organs had all been destroyed. His body was failing, growing old far too quickly, and he probably wouldn’t last the year. There were residuals of Perdo, and possibly Rego magic on him.
This place also had a Red Lady, but she was not up at the mound where the dancing had been, but down in the other direction. Since that night, she has been acting oddly. She had turned away at least one woman, and another had run away screaming. Something odd was going on there.
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