Tales of the Ironlands

Kalyra Sophisdottir

Episode 14: Deathly Dreams

Recap

Last time on Tales of the Ironlands, Kalyra and Einari set out to retrieve the medicinal flower known as Night’s Ease from the ruined settlement of Elenmir. They found the place without much difficulty — though thanks to an unfortunate mishap, their travel supplies were all but ruined just as they arrived.

Things took a turn for the worse when Einari caught sight of bonewalkers within Elenmir. His nerve failed him and he fled, leaving Kalyra to face them alone.

Kalyra defeated three bonewalkers, suffering a wound to her foot in the process. After cautiously observing Elenmir from atop a tree, she went in and successfully harvested Night’s Ease from the vines of it that grow all over the ruined central hall of the dead village. More bonewalkers found her at that point, almost trapping her inside the hall. She narrowly managed to get away, but suffered some serious injuries in the process.

In fleeing Elenmir, Kalyra lost track of the path that led back towards Eidynholt. Wounded, alone and lacking any supplies, Kalyra began traveling north through the forest, looking for the road. She soon developed a burning fever, and a journey that had taken but a morning’s walk on the inbound trip turned into a nightmarish struggle for survival on the return journey. She spent days wavering in and out of consciousness, struggling northwards in moments of lucidity. A wolf attacked her, thinking her easy prey; but she killed it, and struggled onward, driven by little more than her iron will to live and a faint fever-memory that safety lay northward.

Eventually she found the road, and began following it north-west towards Eidynholt, too weak to do more than crawl on her hands and knees. Finally, just when she lapsed into unconsciousness once again, a pair of passing travelers found her, and took her into their wagon bound for Eidynholt.

Session Report

Rain falls on the roofs of Eidynholt. The clouds are a surly grey, and the peaks of the mountain tear gaping curls of white out of the bottoms of the clouds as they pass over, like daggers raking wounds in the bottom of the great beast.

Just outside of the town, a worried woman bangs on the door of a hut. “Priestess! Priestess! Are you in? Please, we have a wounded woman with us, open! Priestess, are you here?” And Dagny Olgasdottir opens her door to find two rain-soaked travellers covered in cloaks standing before her.

One of them — a man — has a woman slung over his shoulder, carried from the wagon that she can see behind them, pulled up in front of her house. “Yes, I am here,” she says. “Come in. Bring her.”

The three of them enter Dagny’s house, and Dagny slowly shuffles out of their way, pain obvious in every one of her motions. “In the back there’s a bed. There,” she gestures towards the back with a staff that she supports herself with. The three of them take Kalyra Sophisdottir — for indeed it is she — to the back room and lay her on a bed there.

Kalyra’s face is flushed. Her eyes are closed. She is battered; wounded; bitten. Her red hair falls across the pillow as the man gently lowers her down onto the bed. She stirs in protest and says something incomprehensible.

“Where did you find her?” asks Dagny.

“Crawling on the road,” says the man. “This was the closest house. Anyway, she said your name a couple of times. Dagny. I think she was trying to get here.”

“That would not surprise me. She was running an errand for me. It seems things did not go well.”

“I’d say not,” says the man.

“And who may I thank for her rescue?” Dagny says.

“I’m Colborn. Colborn Grettilsson,” says the man, nodding to her.

The woman, who has pulled her cloak hood back to reveal a head full of blonde hair tightly bound into cornrows says “And I am Anja. Anja Stregisdottir.”

“Good,” Dagny says. “Now, we should work quickly. Colborn, would you be so good as to boil some water for me? There is wood out back ...” And she instructs him where to find the kettle and water. “Anja — help me strip her down.” The two of them remove Kalyra’s clothes and begin bathing her wounds and attending to them as Colborn boils water and brings it to them for this task.

“Was there anyone else?” Dagny asks.

“No,” says Anja. “No, she was all alone. She was crawling towards Eidynholt when we first saw her. She fell unconscious just as we got to her, and she hasn’t woken since. Just ... she seems to be in some pain. She called out some names — yours was one of them.”

“What else did she call out?” asks Dagny.

“She called for her mother, and her father. And someone named Einari.”

“Hm. Einari was her companion. If he is not with her, I wonder what became of him?”

“Well, judging by her state,” Anja says, looking at the many wounds that cover Kalyra — a wolf bite on her left shoulder, many gouges and scratches all across her torso from the bonewalkers, the wound on her foot from the rock in the forest — “Judging by her state, if he wasn’t with her, then he’s probably dead.”

“Well, we can’t know. Did she have anything with her?” Dagny says, wincing in pain.

“Oh, yes,” Anja said. “She had a satchel. Let me get it.” Anja flips her hood back up and runs outside to the wagon and retrieves it.

While Anja is getting the bag out of the wagon, Dagny rests a hand on Kalyra’s forehead. Using her thumb, she gently pulls up one eye to look at it. As before it is glowing pale blue that shows no sign of pupil or iris. Dagny lets the eyelid close once more. “Hmm. You’re a tough one. Good,” says Dagny.

Anja comes back and says “Here, this is her bag.”

“Oh! I had sent her .... I needed some medicinal herbs to treat my own disease,” Dagny says. “Let’s look through and see if she got them. I won’t be much use to anyone in very short order unless I can have my tea.”

So the two of them open up Kalyra’s bag. Within it they find the ruins of her healing supplies. They find her waterskin, now empty. They find two bundles: one wrapped up in silk and the other wrapped in gauze. Dagny takes the silk-wrapped bundle and opens it a little bit, revealing a wooden mask which has cracked in two, diagonally across the face of it. “Hmm. Well, that’s not it,” she says, and wraps it up again.

Anja looks curiously at it as it disappears. “What’s that?” she asks.

“A mask. One that was once worn by an elf, unless I miss my guess.”

“Oh,” says Anja, and Dagny sets it aside.

Then Dagny opens the next bundle and a scent rises up from it “Ah,” says Dagny. “That is what I was looking for. Night’s Ease.” She takes two petals and crushes them, then drops them into a cup of hot water that she pours from that that was boiled by Colborn. She lets it steep for a few minutes, and while it steeps she turns to Anja and Colborn, and begins to speak with them.

Kalyra finds herself walking. Walking through fog and mist. She looks down at herself, and realizes that she is wearing a long flowing garb, something like a toga, but not like any sort of clothing she has ever seen before. She finds this puzzling. Her feet are bare. There’s no pain.

She keeps walking through the mist and the fog, and is pleased as it gives way before her. It clears out, and she finds herself standing on the shores of a lake. The beaches are made of stone: many small stones. They clatter against one another as she walks among them.

In the distance, in the center of this lake, she can see an island poking up. Craggy boulders spiking up out of the water. She looks at it; tilts her head slightly to one side and sets her foot on the water.

She does not fall in. It supports her weight. She takes another step forward, and another, and does not sink. The foggy shore retreats behind her as she slowly and steadily walks across the surface of the lake. Each step sends ripples out from the surface: spreading circles that grow larger and larger until they interfere with one another and dissolve, collapsing into indistinct shapes.

When she comes to the shore of the island, she steps up to it. As with the shore that she came from, the shores of this island are barren and rocky. Nothing grows. There is no moss or algae on the rocks; there are no trees. There is nothing but stone and earth and sand.

Kalyra spends some time looking; just turning in a long, slow arc, looking at everything that she can see: the distant shore of the lake, the rocks around her. All is quiet and still; but as she finishes turning in a circle she hears two rocks clatter behind her.

There is something here. She is not entirely alone.

She turns to look.

Rain falls in the forest outside of Elenmir. A man sits at the edge of what was once a path and is now a slightly more open space in the forest. There is a small campsite by him; the remains of the fire. Rain pelts down on his head.

He lifts it up towards the sky, and Einari is not wearing his mask right now. He looks up. “Where could she be?” he says. “I should never have left her! Ah, so ... what a coward I am.”

He lowers his face once more to his knees.

On the misty island in the center of the cold, black lake, Kalyra turns and looks. A rock falls from one of the large boulders and comes to a rest at the bottom. She sees no sign of what caused it to stir or move. Feeling uneasy, she starts walking forward. When she comes to the boulder, she reaches out a hand and presses it up against the boulder — and immediately pulls it back as she hears screaming, screams of agony. They cut off as soon as her hand pulls away from the boulder.

She backs away a little.

“This is like ... this like the hallway. I feel ...” She looks around.

“Are you here?” she calls. “Are you here?”

And her voice echoes ever so faintly back: here ...

In the bedroom, in the cottage of Dagny Olgasdottir, Kalyra has been tended. Her wounds are clean and bandaged. She lies still in her bed. Dagny is sitting in a chair next to her. Dagny’s head has leaned back against the chair; she’s dozing, keeping an eye on her charge.

... here ...

Dagny looks up. She looks over at Kalyra, who still lies; breathing; asleep.

An empty dish lies beside Dagny on the table. She reaches for her staff and slowly hauls herself into a standing position, and then picks up the dish. She hobbles with it into the main room of her cottage, where she washes it and dries it with a towel.

Anja and Colborn are long gone. The hut is quiet.

“I do wonder what happened to that elf of hers. Perhaps I should ask.”

With the plate dried, Dagny turns and walks to the front door of her house. It is still raining. She steps out into the rain and raises one arm to the sky, fingers extended; and then curls them in, one at a time starting with the pinky; the ring; the middle; the index; the thumb.

From the trees at the edge of the clearing where her hut stands come crows: dozens and hundreds of crows. They burst out of the trees, they burst out of the leaves and form a cloud swirling around her.

“What has become of the elf Einari, companion of Kalyra?” asks Dagny Olgasdottir, and her voice has a real note of authority; it rings stronger and truer than it would ordinarily. “Go. Seek him. Bring me news of his fate.”

The murder of crows bursts in all directions, dispersing across the lands.

On the island, in the mist Kalyra raises a hand to her throat, reaching for the charm that her mother gave her: the iron spiral. Only to find that she’s not wearing it. This annoys her.

“It would be so easy,” she says. She turns back to look at the black waters extending out.

“I could sit down here. I could sit down ... and rest. I could sit down ... and die. It would be so easy ...” and for a moment, Kalyra wants nothing more than to do just that. Face Danger +heart, and adding an extra +1. 9v1/2. Strong hit. +1 momentum.

For all that it is empty of life, this is a peaceful place. And that sense of peace — freedom from worry. All of the trials, gone; all of the responsibility, ended. For a moment, Kalyra wants that.

But then she hardens her hearts. “No. I have things yet to do.” Marked progress on her vow Don’t Just Lie Down and Die. 6/10.

In the forest, a listless Einari is pacing back and forth. “I could ... I should go back! I should look for her, it’s been days, I should be ...”

But every time he turns his face towards Elenmir, something inside of him quivers ... and he turns away again. “Such a coward,” he says.

There is a noise. He looks up. On a branch at the edge of the clearing where he established his camp, there is an enormous crow sitting there. It turns its beak, first one side, then the other, looking at him out of both eyes. Then it mantles its wings and caws at him.

It spreads its wings and leaps into the air, circles him: once, twice, thrice. Then it flies to the northwest, towards Eidynholt.

“What a fool I’ve been! She must have passed me. She must’ve gone back to Eidynholt! Agh!”

He begins packing up his camp to head back to the city in search of Kalyra.

On the island, in the mist, Kalyra turns her gaze inwards, towards the center of the island.

It’s not a very large island. Sufficiently large, however, that she cannot see from one side to the next. There is a rise in the middle of it, boulders and rubble all around. She turns and begins walking inwards. Every time she lays a hand on a boulder in order to push her way forward, she hears the screaming within her mind.

At the center of the island she hears a noise behind her once again, and she turns to look

There is nothing there; but something catches her eye.

On the top of a boulder behind her she sees something glistening in the half-light. She leans forward to look at it. It’s a black fluid, oozing slowly down the surface of the rock.

In Dagny’s hut, she is once again tending to Kalyra. “There, there my daughter,” she say.

She has a dipper full of water, and is gently pouring it down Kalyra’s throat a little bit at a time. “Drink. You need the moisture. There. Good. Good, my daughter. Soon; soon you will be past this. Death does not come easily to those who serve the Black Lady. There.”

She smooths Kalyra’s hair back with her old gnarled fingers.

There comes a pounding at the door. Dagny slowly hauls herself up on her staff once again and hobbles to the door. She opens it.

There stands an elven man, with a mask on. A crow lands atop his head and emits a caw.

“Thank you,” Dagny says.

“What?” says Einari.

“I was speaking,” she says, “To the crow.”

“Oh. Uh, well ... good. Um ... did Kalyra come back?” Einari asks.

Dagny looks at him coldly. “Kalyra? Yes. She returned.”

“Oh, wonderful!” he says. “We were separated. I haven’t seen her in days. I waited for her along the path to Elenmir. I ... I thought she would come back the way we came, but ...”

“She has taken a longer path home,” says Dagny. “Come in.”

Einari steps forward into the hut, Dagny walking before him. She turns her head, points over towards the back room. “She’s there.”

Einari walks into the room. “Oh, sweet ...” he says. “What happened to you?”

Dagny has come up behind him and says “She has not woken. A pair of travelers found her on the road to Eidynholt. She has been in my care these last two days; and it was five days ago that the two of you left. What happened, young man?”

He turns his face away from Kalyra, looks pointedly in a corner, and says “We, uh ... we found a way to Elenmir easily enough. There were bonewalkers there, as you warned us. I saw one of the moving towards us, and I ...”

“You what?”

“I ran. I left her, alone.”

“Humph,” says Dagny. “Well. Perhaps you can beg her forgiveness ... if she lives. You can start working towards that by sitting with her for a while. It’s been some time since I had a proper nap.” She points the chair sternly by the bed, and Einari nods.

“Wake me if she needs assistance,” says Dagny and she turns. Her staff clumps against the wooden floor of the cottage as she goes to her own room.

Einari sits quietly by Kalyra and says, “Oh ... I’m so sorry. So sorry, Kalyra ...”

On the island, in the mist, Kalyra watches as the fluid slowly flows down the surface of the boulder that it’s on, dripping over the edge and splashing onto the rocks below. She steps back from it; turns away; keeps walking towards the center of the island.

From up ahead she hears a noise. For moment it’s difficult to place; and then comes into focus: it is the noise of a spinning wheel.

As she steps up, she has to climb a series of small boulders on a rise at center, and as she hauls herself up the last she finds there is a spinning wheel set in front of the opening of a deep cavern. Sitting at it there is a maiden: an elf maiden, wearing no mask.

The elf maiden has green eyes and her hair is a pale brown, tending towards red, which is held behind her neck with a white piece of cloth tied around it. She’s wearing a white, flowing robe very similar to the one that Kalyra finds herself in.

The woman is spinning, spinning a thread of gleaming silver thread that’s spins off her fingers to the spool. “Welcome,” says the woman. “Have you come to take your ease?”

“Who are you?” asks Kalyra. “Why aren’t you wearing a mask?”

The woman laughs. “Oh my dear. Masks are for the living. I am well past all of that. So tell me: have you come to take you rest? I could do with some help. I have so much to spin!”

Kalyra looks more closely at the spinning wheel and observes that what she’s spinning is a silvery material which rises up; now often with a spinning wheel you have a basket of raw material. Wool, for example, or linen, that you draw from to feed into the thread as you spin. This woman has no such thing. Instead she has a large rock that she’s sitting on, and each time she needs to add to her thread, she reaches down and plucks up silvery threads of material that emerge from the stone that she feeds into what she spinning.

“What are you spinning?” asks Kalyra.

“All the woes of the world,” says the elven woman. “I could use some help. Won’t you take your ease? Come. Join me!” Face Danger +heart. 9v9/3, weak hit.

“You’re spinning ... you’re spinning those screams into thread! Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

“My name is Pala,” she says. “Won’t you join me?”

“No! No, I won’t! I won’t!” And as Kalyra stumbles back a step, the face of this elven woman shrivels and blackens. Her robe, that was once flowing white fabric, frays away into a tattered remnant of itself, and Kalyra can see that the spinning wheel is ancient and cracked, and that the thread is not silver but black.

“Come! Join me!” Pala hisses.

Kalyra turns and runs, fleeing. With every step she hears the screams from the rocks beneath her. She comes to the edge of the island. She steps out onto the water, but this time it does not hold her weight: this time she plunges into it. It is cool, frigid depths. Face Danger +heart. 5v7/10. Miss.

As Kalyra plunges into the water, she’s taken aback. She had expected to flee across the surface, to travel over it as she did on the way in. But this does not happen. She halts, up to her waist in the cold, cold water. Looking down into its depths she can see pale rotten faces looking up at her, and tattered flesh-covered fingers reaching towards her in the water. -1 Spirit, which became -1 momentum to 0. Endure Stress. 7v6/6.

Kalyra has seen some terrible things. She has a sudden vivid memory of the purple eyes of the bonewalkers. She becomes angry. “No,” she says. “Back! I have things to do, and the Black Lady wants me to do them. Out of my way!” Compel +iron, +1 from deathtouched. 5v1/10. Weak hit. If it had been a strong hit I would have let her walk on water again. Oh, well.

The gaunt faces of the corpses in the water hesitate and draw back. “That’s right,” she says. “Out of my way.” Face Danger, at +1 from the Compel. +iron. 7v5/10.

Kalyra looks scornfully back at the island, where the withered form of Pala stands waiting on the beach, gesturing towards her. “Come! Come!” says Pala.

“No.” says Kalyra, and she plunges into the water and begins swimming for the far shore. All around her she can see the faces and the tattered almost-skeletons of these drowned spirits; but they part before her. Occasionally one reaches out and runs a hand along her, part sharp, part slimy. -1 Spirit = -1 momentum to -1. Endure Stress. 9v10/8, weak hit. She presses on.

She ignores the dead forms — all of which appear to be elves, maskless, empty eye sockets weeping black water — and in time she staggers out of the lake on the opposite shore. Her white, flowing robe is soaked, cold and wet. She stands on the shore where she began.

She looks back towards the island. “Do you hear me? I will not join you!” she says. And then she turns and walks into the mists. Marked progress on Don’t Just Lie Down and Die, to 9/10.

In Dagny’s hut, darkness has fallen. Einari is sitting in the room. Kalyra’s eyes flutter open.

He instantly notices. “Kalyra! Kalyra! You’re awake ... you’re alive!” He reaches out and takes her hand and kneels down beside the bed. “Kalyra, I was so scared. I thought you were going to die.”

She looks at him without saying anything.”

“I ... I ... I am so sorry,” he says. “I abandoned you. Left you alone to fight the bonewalkers. I never realized I was such a coward. Can you forgive me?”

She looks at him for a long moment, eyes glowing blue in the darkness of the room.

Then she pulls her hand back and rolls over, putting her back to him.

I think I may have technically needed to impose one more price on Kalyra somewhere in there, but I was caught up in the flow of the story and just let it keep going. I think it works.