1236, Winter 2

Knox was searching for a likely fishing spot along the edge of the Loch. He spots some tracks of clawed feet in the grass. Following them, they suddenly take a long detour off the road, heading south, then curves around and rejoining the road several hundred yards later.

In the midst of the area detoured around, there is a curl of smoke coming up from a cluster of trees.  Going to investigate, there is a small house. Well constructed, but looks quite old. Smoke is coming from the chimney.

I knock on the door, and an old lady with a wrinkled face opens it. She looks suspiciously up at me, and I ask whether she’s seen a wolf carrying fish. She hasn’t. She has a son called Ewan, who also hasn’t seen a wolf carrying fish. She doesn’t appear to have sharp teeth or big ears.

She invites us in for food and drink. She takes an immediately liking to the wee bairn who is Maedbh, and grumbles about us making her walk. She calls out to Ewan to come meet the guests. He comes down the ladder. He is a 30 year old man wearing a torc. Knox recognises the clothing style as typical of the Campbell clan.

The way that the two talk, it sounds like they expect to be treated with respect. There are some good quality items around the house, such as a good quality sword and shield, and the odd bit of expensive good. When asked about the sword, the son is happy to talk about how it’s been passed down through his family – though he seems to be upset about mention of his father.

So I just bluntly ask what they are doing here if they come from such a respected family. Ewan was the son of a chief, a bastard son. They found out about a month ago that his half-brother became clan chief. Ewan is upset, and excuses himself from the conversation, going outside for a bit.

We leave them to it, and go back to following the tracks. They do head to a fishing spot by the shores of the Loch.

Knox sees signs of scratch marks on the rocks here, as if something big and heavy had been dragged across them. It looks like they go between the Loch and the hills, but which way they are going isn’t possible to determine. Knox follows the tracks up into the hills, but after a few hundred yards he looses them. There’s not much around here, except for a small fishing shack down by the Loch.

Allistor flies north, finding some long marks in the ground. There is a crushed cottage, and there are some crushed wagons and dead cows and crows in the area. The animals seem to be poisoned rather than crushed though. Amongst the wreckage of the cottage there are remains of clothing, which has similar styling to it as that of the Campbell family. He thinks that the long marks are snake tracks. A very big snake.

Allistor fills us in when we comes back to rejoin us. He meets up with us as we reach the shack. There is a small jetty here, and nobody home. The magi aren’t able to decide what they want to do, and before they’ve managed to decide the fisherman comes back to shore as the day is ending.

He doesn’t notice us until he’s unloaded his barrels of fish. He asks us what we want, and I just say that we’re enjoying watching someone work. Asking about the Wulver, he says he’s seen something paddling around at the end of the Loch. It catches fish, and takes them to those in need. He was scared of it first, but it’s never done him any harm so now he just leaves it alone.

We head back to the village over night, then the next morning we head out and try to find someone to take us across the Loch. When asked about whether they’ve seen any large creatures, one does mention once seeing a large serpent like thing swimming under the boat.

We get to the other end of the lake by the afternoon, and head up to where the markings and the crushed cottage are. When we get there, there is a man staring at the ruins of the house. He identifies himself as Patrick of Clan Campbell. He is here to determine what happened and how much effort would be needed to rebuild the place. There were also his relatives here, and given the state of the local cow, he is somewhat concerned.

He asks us to help searching through the ruins of the house. We find a crushed body, which is in a bad state, not the least because it’s been dead about two weeks. We carefully rescue it from the ruins so that Patrick can take it away for burial.

That night he tells us stories. Things have been going badly recently, and some say that the new Chieftain is cursed. That’s about when the bad things started. Several people have been found dead, as if they were killed whilst running towards the Loch. Others who went looking for it, were found dead with froth upon their lips. I ash him about Ewan, and he’s aware of him and his mother Elsa.

He sings a song about about a water beast that poisons its prey. If you can get to water before the beast does, then you won’t die. This explains the actions of those that were found dead.

Conversing with Maedbh, we both agree that we’re not alone in thinking that the blame for whatever is going on, is down to Ewan or his mother.

The next morning, Patrick leaves. He points out to Allistor that there is a group of Gruagach living not far from here. We have a couple of Gruagach living at our covenant, though I haven’t seen them for a while. Possibly they’ve wandered off or have lost themselves in their labs.

It is decided to head to see the Gruagach. A man and woman come to meet us, and Allistor identifies himself as a magus of House Ex Miscellanea. They relax somewhat at this point and invite us in for a chat when Allistor asks about the serpent. Apparently they are both Gruagach.

They had heard that there was possibly a curse on the new clan chief. They weren’t aware of Ewan and Elsa, but thinks it’s possible that they could be responsible. They do have motive after all. At this point the magi start talking magic stuff. It seems to be a discussion about how someone could be summoning a big monster. The man does mention an old story – something about a stepmother controlling their son via something around their neck.

Ewan was wearing a torc.

There was an old Irish story that told of a witch who controlled the King’s son who was a monster or something. Whilst it was coiled around his neck he was under her control. My Latin is rusty though, so I’m not entirely sure.

The maga, Elonor, is younger and not as good at Latin either. Knox speaks to her a bit in Gaelic, and the two of them hit it off a bit. There seems to be some embarrassing courtship, with neither of them quite seeming to know what to do. It’s quite amusing. Later that night, the two of them seem to have vanished.