Session 5 covered 26 and 27 Coldrise, 1714 PSF. The party escorted Anthusa Toguri out of Argentum and north to Crick's Bend, where Temerity grew up, and the night ended with a dream and a voice.
Synopsis
Leaving the City
Early on the morning of 26 Coldrise, Cassia Brightshield told Temerity that her position was up in the air. A Golden Canary of the Dragoons of Bahamut named Lia Amakiir had asked for Temerity’s training to be transferred to the Dragoons, and until the paperwork was done she had nothing to do.123 The Dragoons had given no reason beyond wanting her.4 Luma asked her supervisor for time off, afraid it would make her look bad, and found the surveyor delighted that she was taking time for herself.5
Rhysaene went looking for a shield. Of the two shops she knew of in the Hearth Wall, she passed over Silverwright Tools & Tackle, a smithy with decent but pricier gear, for the larger and cheaper Sterling Outfitters & Expeditionary.678 Miri Wetherlite was greeting customers at the door in a green and silver uniform, with an emblem of two hands pointing down, one closed and one open, on the breast.910 Before Miri’s smile came up, Rhysaene caught something sad and ashamed on her face, and Miri apologized for what had happened to the sign Rhysaene made her.1112 Each shield on the wall had the same emblem painted small at its bottom point, which Rhysaene knew for the crest of House Sterling, set there more like a maker’s mark than a banner.131415 The shields cost eight crowns, and Miri talked Rhysaene out of paying twelve for one in all metal, which would only be heavier.1617 She asked Rhysaene to lunch sometime. Rhysaene said she would make her another sign, and Miri said she had no cart to put it on.181920
The party met at Luma’s apartment, where Luma was packing her workbench into her bag, and Iva brought Anthusa.212223 Luma showed Iva the map she used to track the others. Anthusa saw only a blank sheet of parchment, and once Iva explained it, she called it innovative.24252627 In her bag Luma found a small wooden replica of her workbench that she had not put there. When she scratched it, jet-black ink showed under the surface and stained her finger, and the replica melted into ink across her floor.282930
Hazel introduced herself to Anthusa as the one who had offered her a home, and warned her that it lay on the border of the Vale, where the protection was weakening.3132 Anthusa cleaned up the ink with a word and a gesture, and said her magic amounted to the basics.33 She did not mind getting her hands dirty, she said, and a farm could not be worse than the inside of an Order prison.34 She had never been further from the city than the outer works.35 Before they left, Hazel told the party that word from Silverthorn said the Sorrow had grown worse in her absence, and that they might meet things it had mutated.36
The Old Road
The party left through the North Gate and took the Old Road, one of the ancient roads, presumably from before the Starfall, which is still cobbled near the city.3738 Outside the gate, tents and market stalls sold rations, traveling boots and plain weapons for self-defense.39 Past the stalls stood the Sterling Timber Yard, a fenced lumber yard with its own docks on the river and a carved sign bearing the House Sterling crest.4041 Luma knew it as the place where her family offloaded their lumber, though these buildings had gone up since she stopped going on the lumber runs, and much of the timber was from Erhadell.424344
Luma carried an ink copy of one of the city’s lava lanterns on her hip, and anyone near her was a good deal warmer.454647 On the road, Iva asked the others what she should look like next. Temerity said a human would be inconspicuous, and Hazel called it the most pragmatic choice.484950 When Iva said she could have horns like Temerity, Anthusa quietly told her that was a little forward.5152 Anthusa told the others that as a child Iva had not yet learned to hold a face, and getting upset, excited or scared could cost her her color and her features, so being around people was dangerous. She was very shy for a long time, and it was joining the Order of the Lantern a couple of years ago that brought her out of her shell.5354
Six hours out, around two in the afternoon, three Light Wardens came south from the fork to Thornwatch, Devyn Marsh and Harwick Stoll on horseback and Petra Ashford driving a cart of crates and barrels under a tarp.55565758 Marsh, a dark-haired man with a light beard, asked how the roads were, and noticed that Iva was a Warden.5960 Stoll, older, with grey coming into his hair and cold dark blue eyes, asked why she was carrying her lantern openly off duty, against protocol, and complained to Ashford that standards were plummeting.6162 Ashford asked Iva’s name, and Iva gave her Warden name, D’Aquino. Told to take the lantern off her belt, she did.636465 Marsh told the other two that they had been recalled, had orders and had no time to harass off-duty Wardens. His apology for the trouble was meant for everyone except Iva, and the three rode on south.666768
Iva asked to put her lantern in Luma’s bag. Inside it is about six feet deep, full of well-kept odds and ends, and written all over in gold ink with the word “big”.697071
A few hundred feet on, a well-trodden path forked north toward Thornwatch over a wooden bridge.72 Hazel and Temerity read the tracks there: fresh ones from the three riders, and a week of frequent traffic on the side road, most of it heading south, with a matching flow north-east along the main road.737475 Hazel took it for more sightings of the Sorrow further into the Vale, and said the people north of there had been kept safe for many years without knowing it.7677
Crick’s Bend
Eight hours out, a sign at a turnoff read “Crick’s Bend, Five miles”, and they reached Crick's Bend an hour and a half up the dirt road beyond it, around four in the afternoon and ten hours out of the city.78798081 Temerity asked the others not to cast magic around her Pa.82
Hazel went back to the general store she had visited a few days before, for its pastries. Rebecca Brice remembered her, but the pastries were sold out until morning, so Hazel bought a loaf of bread for two anvils.83848586
Behind the church, Temerity held up Luma’s tent as a screen while Iva tried faces. Temerity favored the first human one, and Iva came back taller and human.878889 Luma had pulled a chair out of her bag and found a flute on it, another thing made out of nothing, likely not permanent though steadier than the workbench.909192 “I’m really worried that my bag might be at risk of purification,” she said.93 She played it badly, and Rhysaene played her lyre expertly.9495
Inside the church, Wellby Emberthumb was writing at his desk by lantern light.9697 He hopped down from his chair at the sight of Temerity, who picked him up in a hug.98 “Temerity, if I have told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, it is very disrespectful to pick up a halfling,” he said, and kissed her forehead.99100 He had only received her letter that morning, and her bird was still at the house.101 He gave Anthusa Temerity’s old room, offered the rest of them the pews, blankets and pillows, and fetched an old tent when they said they would rather camp on the church grounds.102103104 Asked by Luma, he said he was ninety-six.105 Anthusa helped him cook.106107
Sister Ashryn
While the others set up camp, two people in black robes walked past on the road south of the church grounds: a very tall elven woman in a nun’s habit, and a companion some six inches shorter with a hood drawn over their face. Each carried a brass holder with an unlit candle.108109110 Luma ran at them, hit the low fence and nearly went over it.111112 She knew the woman for a drow, and the woman’s stern face did not match her soft, almost whispering voice.113114 She gave her name as Sister Ashryn. She was sixty-three, and she and her companion had been in town a couple of evenings and were on their way to rent rooms at the Miller's House.115116117
Asked about history, she said she had no family history and no personal history of any kind, having cast away what tethered her to the material, and that families and their histories are superfluous, unnecessary and in the end a hindrance.118119120 Of the Starfall she knew next to nothing, she said, except that it brought to the world what mankind has called the Sorrow.121
She asked Luma whether she had ever known loss. Luma offered a misplaced pair of glasses, then said that she had lost her family in a way, since she was not with them and did not know where they were.122123124 Rhysaene and Iva came over, and Ashryn told Rhysaene she had the air of someone who had known loss, and asked her to describe it for Luma.125126127 Rhysaene said it felt like a part of her had slipped away. Ashryn called it an open wound that cannot be filled.128129 When Luma said loss was the flip side of love, Ashryn answered that abandoning one prevents the other.130131 Her gaze stayed on Rhysaene a long time before she said there was nothing more to discuss, and she and her companion went on up the road.132133 Luma had glimpsed under the companion’s hood and seen light, smooth skin with no facial hair or marks, and little else.134
The Kemble Farm
Temerity walked the thousand feet to the Kemble farm before dinner.135 Henry Kemble, chopping wood out front, pretended not to know her and said he used to know a Temerity who slinked off to the big city, then burst out laughing.136137138139 He told her that Eliza Kemble had run off again without telling anyone where. A couple of nights that week she had missed dinner and come in late, though never past curfew.140141 Eliza had always been mischievous, and more rebellious over the past year, but this was a turn, and it felt to Temerity like it had started when she left.142 He had always expected Trever Kemble to be the problem, he said, and Trever had stepped up.143 Temerity promised to talk to Eliza if she saw her.144
The deer had been skittish that year, Henry said, and Dervan Fisher gave the Kembles and Emberthumb first pick of his fish.145 He grumbled that the people of Dell get uptight whenever Crick’s Bend plants too much grain.146
In the barn, David Kemble was seeing to the animals.147 He complained that she would never let him forget the one deer he missed, and told her she was not much better with a bow than he was.148149 He hugged her and said he understood why she had left when she did.150151 He invited her and her friends to dinner on the way back, and told her she could not leave town without speaking to Juniper Kemble.152153 Trever, he said, was spending a lot of time on the river with Dervan, maybe looking to make a career of it.154
In the kitchen, Maurine Kemble said she had not expected to see Temerity for months, and went out to find Henry, leaving her alone with Juniper.155156 Juniper asked whether she was a Light Warden already, and whether she was in trouble or had been sent home.157158159 Temerity explained the Dragoons, and Juniper said she had always known she was special and was glad they saw it too.160161 Eliza barely spoke to any of them, Juniper said. When Trever went through his rebellious phase he painted rude drawings on the church, which Temerity had to fix, but at least then everyone knew what was going on.162163164 She asked Temerity to stop by on the way back, and apologized for all the ink on her last letter.165166
Hazel in the Fields
Hazel followed Temerity unseen for a while, then broke off across the fields to the rocky ground by the river, too rough to farm, and ran out into it in the shape of a wolf, with Sage at her side, looking for signs of the Sorrow creeping closer.167168169170 She picked up the scent of coyotes and of a couple of deer, and nothing to suggest the Sorrow was especially active there.171 At sundown there was a faint tinge of it on the air, stronger than in Argentum, where everything is cleared of it, and much weaker than what she lived with day to day in Silverthorn.172 She spent about an hour out there, and left wild shape a good distance from town so as not to frighten anyone.173 On her way back she met Temerity coming from the Kembles.174
Dinner at the Church
Emberthumb brought out a tray of corn with skewers, butter and salt for them to roast over the fire, which Luma had built on one of the paths he rakes and edges with river stones.175176177 Iva had never roasted corn, and Luma and Temerity showed her how.178179180181 In the church the table was laid with fish stew, fresh bread, water and milk, and Emberthumb sat at its head in his high chair, deep in conversation with Anthusa.182183184
He asked Temerity to say grace, which she had not done in years.185186 Hazel sat cross-legged on her chair and put a hand on Sage’s head, motioning for Temerity to do the same, and Iva copied Hazel.187188189 Temerity had everyone join hands. She asked the Silver Flame to burn away their fears and worries and to give them a guiding light, and gave thanks for its protection, for family, for friends and for the meal.190191 Emberthumb answered “the flame provides”. Anthusa did not.192
Hazel remarked on how brazen religious folk were with their incantations. Emberthumb said he liked to say a prayer at meals to remember his good fortune, and that he had raised Temerity the same way.193194 The prayer was to the Silver Flame, he told her. Hazel said she hoped it listened, and Emberthumb, looking at Temerity, said that many of his prayers had been answered.195196197198
Temerity told him that the party had helped save a lot of lives when one of the city’s lava lanterns exploded, and Luma showed him her sketches of the lanterns and of the explosion. He had not known how the city was lit.199200201202 Hazel told him that when he had spoken of beholding the miracle of the Silver Flame, she had not realized he meant it so literally. He said humility is a virtue, but that yes, he had been quite literal.203204
Emberthumb mentioned that Temerity’s sheet music, hymns of the Flame from the printers in the city, had gone missing from her old room while he was cleaning it for Anthusa.205206 Hazel took it out of her bag and put it on the table, and said she had left silver on the desk for it, two as she recalled.207208209 Emberthumb slid two silver coins across the table: “If you had asked, I would have given it to you.”210 He told her to keep the coin, since she needed it more than he did.211 Luma copied the music out by hand at Temerity’s request and gave it back still wet, and Emberthumb put the originals away.212213214215216 Asked why she had taken it, Hazel said she had never seen sheet music before.217218
In the lull that followed, Emberthumb asked Anthusa whether she was married. She said she never had been, and that Iva is adopted.219220 After dinner he showed Anthusa to her room and went to bed.221
The Mapping License
Luma went off to map the town.222 She mapped the houses and fields, a one-story tavern with no rooms, the closed general store, the church, and a big farmhouse with a fenced yard and an orchard.223224225 Coming back into the center, she nearly walked into a girl in her late teens sneaking up the road in the dark.226227 The girl asked what Luma was doing by her house, then told her that a mapping license from Argentum was no good in Crick’s Bend. She happened to work in the office that issued the local one, which would cost ten gold under a new policy.228229230231 Luma offered instead to have her follow along and certify her over the next three or four hours. The girl remembered she had to get home and ran.232233 Luma watched her to the gate of the farm. When Luma waved, the girl dove behind a tree, and when Luma called out that elves can see through trees, she ran for the barn.234235236237
The Miller’s House
The others walked up to the Miller’s House to get a better look at Sister Ashryn.238239 It is a big house at the north end of town, just south of the mill, where Jim Miller rents out the rooms and lives in the cellar.240241242 Ashryn was reading a worn black leather book by candlelight in the living room, with a cup of tea beside her, and her companion was nowhere to be seen.243244 She smelled of incense, which she said was of common quality.245246 She and her companion travel the Vale meeting people and exchanging thoughts and ideas, she said, and travel lets you see the truth of the world.247248 Hazel told her that all she had learned so far was that folks from Argentum don’t know much about anything, and Ashryn agreed.249250
When Temerity suggested she talk to Emberthumb, who had taken her in, Ashryn called that charitable, and asked whether Temerity found the world a charitable place. Temerity said charity was the strongest thread holding people together.251252253254 Ashryn found the world charitable in some ways: great gifts abound for those who know how to listen for them.255 Life has a charity to it that is not moral, she said, though she did think it moral to alleviate suffering.256 Asked by Hazel what charity she found in the world that was not moral, she answered: the charity of silence.257258 As she said it, the front door opened and the hooded companion walked through the room and up the stairs without a word.259
Hazel said all silence does is invite the Sorrow. Ashryn asked what made her think the two were not one and the same, and said that Sorrow is man’s name for something men do not understand.260261262 Hazel told her she would not call the Sorrow charity, and Ashryn said she was not insinuating anything.263264 Temerity told her she had best watch her words. Ashryn apologized for any offense, agreed that words carry weight, and observed that Temerity is an odd name to give a child. Temerity said it was not given. “I think you chose quite well,” said Ashryn.265266267268269
Luma came in from mapping and told Ashryn she had not experienced loss yet, though she had almost lost ten gold.270271 From Luma’s map, Temerity worked out who the girl had been: Eliza Kemble, the youngest of the Kembles.272273 Rhysaene asked Ashryn why she asked about loss, and Ashryn said it is the universal experience of everything that walks the earth, and so the best way to learn about someone.274275 She told Luma that one day she would be dead and everything returns to nothing. Luma said she would live on in her stories. As long as there were people to read them, said Ashryn, and Luma answered that she would be on the pages. Ashryn had no answer for that.276277278279280281 Hazel added that as long as life keeps struggling against the Sorrow, everyone is part of something larger after they pass.282
Ashryn stood and gathered her book and her tea. Life, she told Hazel, bountiful though it may be, is finite, and burns low like the wick of a lantern. Decay and emptiness are the only inevitabilities, one day all will fall silent, and to struggle against that invites needless suffering.283284285 “Only one of us will be right in the end,” she said, and went up.286
What Ashryn said had struck a chord with Temerity.287 After she had gone, Hazel said it was a shame the woman had seen so much of the Vale and come out worse for it, that struggling against the infinite nothing is what all life is, and that the Sorrow is one more thing to be overcome.288289 Rhysaene asked Temerity if she was all right, and Temerity unclenched her jaw and said she agreed with Hazel.290291292
The Night
Back at camp, Hazel made her own bed under the tree near the tents and kept her ears open, not trusting the pair they had met and on her guard with the Sorrow worsening.293294 Luma set an alarm spell in front of the church and around the camp.295 By the light of the fire and the perpetual crescent moon, Rhysaene painted “Family”, with a doodle of Temerity smiling.296297298 Hazel stared up at the moon a little too long, as she does every night.299 An hour into Rhysaene’s painting, ink exploded in Luma’s tent, and the quiet sound of scrubbing followed.300
The Dream
That night Temerity stood on the church grounds with no tents, no fire, no house, no fence, no moon and no stars, only the church, the tree, the well and the dark.301302303 A silver-white light flashed at the front of the church, and every step towards it came slower and dimmer, as though she were wading through mud.304 She came round to find a small horned baby with dusky skin sitting at the foot of the church, faint licks of cool white flame fading off the child and scorch marks across the ground.305306
She looked up, in the direction of Argentum as she realized on waking, and saw a single star above the city. A voice came soft as feathers and stern as iron: “Seek the flame, my child, be the light.”307308309
Featured Characters
Player Characters
New
- Ashryn
- David Kemble
- Devyn Marsh
- Eliza Kemble
- Harwick Stoll
- Henry Kemble
- Juniper Kemble
- Maurine Kemble
- Petra Ashford
- Rebecca Brice
- Wellby Emberthumb
Returning
Mentioned
Quotations
- “Temerity, if I have told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, it is very disrespectful to pick up a halfling.” Wellby Emberthumb, on being hugged.99
- “If you had asked, I would have given it to you.” Wellby Emberthumb, returning Hazel’s two silver for the sheet music she took.210
- “I’m really worried that my bag might be at risk of purification.” Luma, on the flute her bag made.93
- “Only one of us will be right in the end.” Sister Ashryn.286
- “Seek the flame, my child, be the light.” The voice in Temerity’s dream.309
Speaking Time
| Speaker | Time | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Dungeon Master | 1:56:14 | 52% |
| Temerity | 41:36 | 19% |
| Hazel | 23:29 | 11% |
| Luma | 20:29 | 9% |
| Iva | 12:37 | 6% |
| Rhysaene | 8:13 | 4% |
| Unidentified | 0:35 | <1% |