1237, Winter 3

What do we do now? Head back or continue to investigate? We decide to head north to the village of Byrness, where the villagers had reported a loud bang and flash of light to their south. We’re not sure if it’s related to the destruction of Horsingas or not.

Arriving at the village, there are some signs of damage – mostly to roofs and the odd side building. As we approach, a couple of older people head out to meet us. One introduces himself as the innkeeper, and wants to know if they can offer help.

We let Maedbh do the talking, since she’s the only one of us they will be happy to talk to. They speak of the earthquake, which was worse than they’ve been used to. They provide us with their fancy room, so that we get some privacy. They do give us the odd glance, but the locals don’t seem to be too fussed by the presence of myself or Allistor. Maybe they’re used to dealing with magi. Or have seen something much worse.

We send our grogs Malcolm and Donald down to the bar to talk to the locals. Maedbh also goes down to be talkative, but Allistor and myself find a corner to lurk in whilst we eat a meal. Maedbh checks the aura, and the village doesn’t seem to have one.

Malcolm seems to fit in well with the locals, and gets lots of information out of them. Just before the earthquake, which they’d been expecting, there was a bright flash of light between the road and the hill. There is apparently a circle of four stones. Apparently some kings were buried there, but there is some confusion about whether it was three or four kings,

Allistor and myself leave the inn to head down to the stones. When we find them, there are three standing stones and one which has fallen over recently. The fallen one is the largest. There was a grass fire here around the fallen stone, and some of the nearby trees have fallen over.

There is a level 4 faerie aura here, and the magic seems to be unsteady. Allistor thinks that lightning struck the stop of the fallen stone. He also finds that someone seems to have cut out a chunk of stone. However it was cut out, it was done very evenly. The stone here is very similar to the stone of the dagger we found at Horsingas. It’s possibly the stone that was used to make the dagger?

Talking to the innkeeper, Maedbh finds out that a young couple were visiting the inn on the night of the explosion. He thought they were married, but they looked very similar to each other, as if closely related. Though, the woman had blond hair, and the man had dark hair. They shared the fancy room over night, and given the sounds coming from there, he wants to assume that they were married.

Maedbh meets up with us at the stones, and tells us of this. Maybe we should check the bed in the fancy room for any signs of arcane connections.

Maedbh complains that she is seeing weirdness. She tries to cast a spell, and loses control. What we see is that she suddenly darts to the side, as if dodging something unseen. She draws her sword, swinging at the air. 

Thinking on it, it’s as if there’s something there, but it can’t be perceived. 

I ask Maedbh for the stone dagger. She passes the bag containing the dagger to me, but gives a sudden start and drops it. I pick it up, and move away from Maedbh where she is swinging her sword around. She also decides to moves down the hill away from us, where it is safer for all concerned.

Taking the dagger out, it seems to match the hole and type of stone.

Back at the inn, I try to see if I can find any arcane connections left behind in the room.  I put together a spell to find remains of corpus, though it’s a struggle and have to limit myself to the sense of smell. That makes searching the room difficult.

Eventually I find a long blond hair, and some short curly black hairs. I manage to cast a spell on the long blond hair to get an idea of who it came from. I see a naked blond woman, young and very pretty. She has no scars or tattoos, and her skin is unblemished. In my vision of her, she is pulling the wings off a fly. That is probably a glimpse of her essential nature.

I really should learn how to display images of what I’ve seen. Instead though, I can change my shape to try and match that of the women. Changing my body to what I remember her looking like, it’s close enough that Maedbh thinks that she recognises the woman – Ciara ex Merinita from Dun-naemhaig covenant. This covenant is on a western Isle just off the Scottish coast.

If it is Ciara, Maedbh knows that she has an identical twin brother – however he has dark hair rather than blonde. It’s a close enough match that it seems highly likely we’ve identified the two responsible.

If the blade of the dagger came from the stone here, then the handle, which was of a different stone, might come from the wall that marks the edge of the two kingdoms where other events were reported. We decide to head south to Hadrian’s wall.