1239, Autumn
Following on from our previous session of Ars Magica Druids Dale, we finish the strange dreams that some of our characters are having. By this point, my companion Jack has wandered away from the others and is doing his own thing, so what the others did isn’t included in this.
After that, we finish the year and make our aging checks. We also realise that Jack’s children are almost all grown up by now. His son, Robert, is 15 and his daughter Tiffany is 12. We need to begin generating actual characters for them.
Robert is following in his father’s footsteps, learning the sword and how to sneak around. He also seems to be getting on with the local girls. Tiffany has a habit of vanishing. She’s taken a liking to the covenant’s pet oliphant and also the troll, Timothy, and is spending a lot of time with them.
Jack – Autumn, 1229
I am clambering up the leg of the ‘bean stalk’. There are stars above, and clouds below. The entire leg moves, and I going on desperately to the ‘hairs’, waiting for things to settle down. Eventually I reach the body of the creature. The back is covered by the thick hairs, and I struggle to make my way through them. It’s like moving through a thick first.
As I move through, something comes rushing at me. I draw my sword, thrusting forward with it like a spear, allowing it to impale itself upon the steel. It’s odd. Like a dog, with a snarling snapping mouth, but it also has too many legs, and antenna growing from its head. I kick it off my sword, and continue forward.
As I approach the neck of the beast, I start looking for something vulnerable. There are some large, multifaceted eyes, which are probably squishy, but I want to try and hit something vital rather than something that would just inconvenience it. I find a joint, and stab down into the flesh. I get the sword all the way down to the hilt, and make a reasonable wound, but given the size of the creature, it doesn’t seem to notice.
This approach doesn’t seem to be working, so I decide to go for one of the eyes instead. I hack and slash at the eye, tearing into and spilling ichor all over the place. The who beast shakes, and it’s movements seem irregular, as if it is in pain.
Something swoops at me from above, and I drop down, letting it pass over my head. Were I’ve been hacking at the eye, there are big holes now. I drop down into a hole, and start hacking away at it, burrowing deeper into it. The ichor fills the wound, until it’s filling the wound and covering my head.
It trashes and shakes, I continue to hack, until things fade to black.
I am woken my Rhona. Apparently I had been thrashing around and crying out in my sleep, and she was trying to shake me awake.
Maybe it was all just a dream, but for some reason my sword is blunt and stained. I’m also not finding the magi quite so odd to be around for some reason.
1239 – End of year Rumours
- Astonishingly, the new year passed quietly. While the ground did rumble and complain no major earth tremors have been reported. Many have taken this as a sign of God’s favor on the forthcoming marriage of the King.
- In world news, an heir was born last year to King Henry of England, he is Edward, first of his name. An Army of French Crusaders has been defeated at a place named Gaza, it is thought fighting may continue in the area for some time.
- Depredation upon merchants and other travellers along the Falkirk to Stirling road continues despite a brief lull last year. Peasants claim that the forest bordering the road has become ‘darker’ and none dare journey into its depths.
- The people of the hamlet of Keoldale have been found in some form of deathless slumber. They cannot be awoken and will not eat nor drink and yet they still breathe. Their bodies are wasting away and none have been able to offer any assistance. A powerful curse is suspected.
- The Maga Eabha ex Merinita is dead. Her body was discovered on the road to Loch Leglean. It is whispered that she did not die easily, her head had been removed, she had been stabbed through the heart and her body was covered in cuts and slices leaving her exsanguinated.
