Session 10.2: Not such easy prey

The party meets fellow travelers. The Hillfolk are restive. Something is amiss.

Last episode, we saw the end of winter and the beginning of Spring. Our heroes seem to be riding high: Anwen is settling into her role as Marshal, the militia is growing stronger with Pad’s training, and Vahid’s plans to improve Stonetop are coming to fruition.

With those homefront concerns put to bed, Vahid pushed the party to once again look outwards: they know that their enemy, the Hillfolk sorcerer known as Cirl, is in search of Stormcatcher’s Crown, which would allow him to steal the power of the arcanum hidden beneath Stonetop to aid in his dreams of conquest. The party intends to find Stormcatcher’s Crown first, and to do so, they are off to Gordin’s Delve in search of aid.

We left the party on the road to Gordin’s Delve — the journey is roughly eight days, and we’ll jump into a scene a few days into the trip. We’ll be using the GM move Announce Trouble (now or future) to start representing the threat of the hdour’s presence, while we also explore the answers to the Keep Company move we triggered for the journey.

Housekeeping: Leveling Up Vahid

We already chose new moves for Padrig and Anwen in Session 10, but Vahid has been lagging behind a bit. I’ve been struggling with what move to take for him from the Seeker playbook — none of them felt quite right for the journey he’s on right now. At the end of the day, I decided to borrow a move from another playbook — specifically, Spirit Tongue from the the Blessed playbook:

Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg

Vahid has seen the spirit tongue spoken (by Katrin, during their sojourns with the Hillfolk) and has experienced speaking it (when he inhabited Cirl the hdour’s consciousness during his vision quest in Session 7.3). He also now has a spirit servant (the storm spirit bound into his cloak), and he has been able to communicate basic concepts to it using the power of the Azure Hand. It’s reasonable to imagine that his ability to communicate with these denizens of the unseen world is developing — especially since he’s quite skilled with languages already (he started with the Polyglot move).

But I think the move could be a bit more adapted to Vahid’s particular situation. For his purposes, we’ll change the following elements:

1. Vahid’s version of the spirit tongue speaks only to spirits, not beasts of the wild.

2. Vahid must be holding the Azure Hand to speak to spirits. He uses the control over the flow of elemental energy to make himself understood — a bit like spirit sign language.

3. Since we added two limitations, we’ll add a benefit as well: When communicating with elemental spirits — wind, storm, fire, earth, etc. — Vahid has advantage when triggering moves like Persuade or Defy Danger. The Azure Hand’s power commands their attention very effectively.

With that bit of character housekeeping out of the way, let’s get back to our journey!

In Spring, the Flats are a seemingly endless sea of green. Source: Midjourney

Scene 3: A watering hole, three days from Stonetop

The Flats roll on and on, gentle hills and fields of green grasses, as far as the eye can see, cleanly cut by the black line of the old West Road — still pristine, centuries after the Stone Lords laid the last of the rune-carved paving stones.

Here, the road crests a long, gentle rise, and in the dell below, cold snow melt has pooled in a muddy field into a broad, shallow watering hole, almost as big as Stonetop’s village green. The road cuts through the pool, with a waystation plaza near the center, the brown water lapping at the carved stone’s edge. Padrig calls the party to a halt with a raised hand.

The waystation is occupied by two dozen motley travelers and their animals — a pair of brown packhorses and a bony ox pulling a wooden cart laden with roughspun sacks. A pair of tents — one of patched silk, the other heavy canvas — are erected near the center of the circle, at the base of the carved milestone.

Some of them are variously armed and armored — a pair with spears, another woman wears a sword at her belt and a shining coat of polished bronze scales, and a fourth man leans on an unstrung longbow. They, plus a stocky, black-skinned man wearing a patched silk kaftan, stand apart from the rest, talking quietly. The remainder of their company waits restlessly on their packs or ragged blankets, talking amongst themselves, playing at dice, or laying on their bedrolls, looking up into the blue sky and shading their eyes from the midday sun.

Pad squints in the bright noon sun, carefully seizing up their fellow travelers. “What do you make of them, Pad?”

Padrig triggers Seek Insight: 3+1+2 Wisdom = 6, Miss

Our first miss of the session! Given that this is a fairly low-stakes moment and we’re early in the session, I don’t want to escalate too dramatically here. Instead, we’ll just let Padrig know that there’s nothing particularly remarkable about this caravan to the Delve, but something is bothering him about them and he can’t quite put his finger on what.

From the GM’s perspective, we’ll stipulate that something is fishy about the caravan, but we don’t have to decide exactly what just yet — I have a few ideas I might advance, depending on where and when the next Miss happens. For now, we’re just putting the PCs on edge!

“Merchants and immigrants, bound for the Delve, as we are. Hard to say where from — maybe as close as Marshedge, as far as Lygos or the Barrier Peaks. The mines draw all sorts of folk to them.” Pad frowns.

“What is it?” Anwen prods, sensing something in the old bandit’s voice.

“Not sure. Something just seems amiss.” Pad looks to Quill, who shrugs noncommittally. “They’ve been camped here all day, at least. Folk don’t tarry on their way to the Delve.” He shakes his head, leaving unvoiced the rest of his unease.

“They look more bedraggled than dangerous,” Anwen says. “Maybe something’s stranded them here, and they could use some help. Let’s parley with them.”

Vahid shakes his head. “I ought not. My… marks might put them ill at ease.” He self-consciously tucks his scarred, blackened hand into the folds of his cloak. “I will remain aloof, and learn what I can from here.”

Quill raises his brows at this, but says nothing as Vahid’s third eye begins to glow¹.

Anwen looks to Padrig for guidance. “He’s right,” Pad replies. “I’ll go down there and speak for us. You three stay here. Anwen, let them see Bearkiller²’s blade.” His lips quirk up in a quick smile. “And stand up on this hill like you’re the champion of Stonetop.”

Anwen nods, and sets her face with determination, unslinging the ancient Makerglass blade from her shoulder and leaning on it like a walking stick. Below, the travelers have taken note of them. The silk-clad man — apparently the caravan master — approaches with one of his guards, and Padrig strides down to meet them.

“Mahel, effend. Efir Lygosh eb tari? Sprach ze Marchsprech? Karsh-talak balu? Do you speak Steptongue?” he asks, searching Pad’s face for any understanding. He’s a short, fat man with a thick, curly beard, and he wrings his sausage fingers as he rattles off his trade-tongues.

“Steptongue, aye.” Padrig says, holding up a hand to stem the tide.

The merchant chuckles. “It is a shame we must treat in the language of thieves, killers, and horse lovers. Damn the nomads, may the Things Below take them.”

Padrig shrugs noncommittally. “We are from Stonetop, and have no quarrel with the tu’d.”

The merchant spits on the road and smiles sourly. “How nice for you. And who might you be, Stonefolk?”

“Call me Pad. I speak on behalf of Anwen of Stonetop, the village’s marshal and champion,” Pad says, nodding to his friends on the rise above.

The merchant peers up at them with an appraising eye and looks left to his guard. The guard, still leaning on his bow, mutters something in Lygosi and the merchant considers it, and nods. “Is that a Lygosi I see with you?”

Padrig turns back to look at the party. From here, Vahid cuts a mysterious silhouette, the hood of his sky-blue cloak shading his pure-blue eyes, and the Azure Hand clenched in his scarred right hand. “Yes,” Pad allows. “That is Vahid ebn Sulaim, a scholar from Lygos who has taken residence in Stonetop. And who are you, sir?”

The fat merchant straightens the rings on his fingers — silver adorned with dull and chipped stones — and bows shallowly. “Raouf ebn Raouf is my name. My family has sold rice for five generations, though I have sold farther from Lygos than my fathers ever dreamed of,” he says, bowing proudly.

He gestures to the guard at his side. “This is Cicatrix, my guard-captain. A trustworthy man, he has been with me on this trek from Lygos a half-dozen times.” The lean, olive-skinned Lygosi archer has a shorn head and deep, sunken eyes which flick between Padrig and the rest of the party on the rise above, taking their measure. “The rest are my hired blades and some dregs, headed for the streets and the mines. Aratis bids us to be charitable, after all — we protect them on the long journey so they might seek their fortunes.”

“The Lawkeeper smiles upon you, no doubt. Why are you stopped here?”

The merchant and his guard exchange a surprised glance. “You have not heard? The Hillfolk have called a raiding season, and their bands are roving out for blood and stolen iron. And what’s more, the magic of the Makers’ roads has finally begun to fail, leaving us to fend for ourselves against the savages!”

Pad scoffs. “There are always rumors that the roads are failing, but they never do.”

“It is true this time! I have seen it with my own eyes — stones cut and carved by the Stone Lords’ own hands, scarred by lightning and torn from the earth as though by the hand of an angry god. A mile from here, there is a stretch of broken road that takes a day’s journey to cross, and the nomads lay in wait. We are camped here waiting for fellow travelers, so that we might form a caravan large enough to persuade them to seek other prey.”

“How many caravans have been attacked?”

“I have heard of three this season. The nomad warriors are particularly bloodthirsty this go ‘round — they have left no survivors to tell tales.”

Pad nods grimly. “Let me speak with my people. We may be able to help each other.”

Raouf calls out to his back as he returns to the party. “Even with your party, we only have seven fighters. We would be wise to wait a while longer. I hope you are well provisioned!”

In conference with Anwen and Vahid, Pad lays out the road ahead. The Seeker strokes his beard thoughtfully. “The breaking of the roads must be the work of our enemy. When we first heard of him, his followers claimed he could overcome the power of the Makers’ wards³."

“Aye, hard to see any other way to explain it,” Padrig says.

“We should make haste, then. If he is here, he may also be seeking the crown.”

“The caravan master is in no rush. He wishes to wait for more travelers to arrive before braving the break in the road, and he is right — it is the cautious move. We should consider it.”

“If he lays hands on the crown, the hdour’s next move will be towards Stonetop. The battle will come quickly to our home,” Vahid counters.

“Vahid is right,” Anwen says. “And so are you, Pad. Waiting would be the cautious move. But if we have a chance to steal his power from under his nose, we have to take it. We should move — with or without them.”

Padrig chews on this for a moment, and looks to Vahid. “Can we trust the caravan master? What did you see, Seeker?”

Now we we can find out what Vahid was able to learn with his third eye while Padrig parleyed.

Vahid triggered Seek Insight: 6+2+1 Wisdom = 9, Weak Hit

He gets one question, drawing from the list given by The Eye, Opened arcana⁴. Vahid's a canny Lygosi, so he knows the question "Are you lying or trying to mislead?" isn't necessarily very probative when speaking to a merchant heading to the Delve -- he might be perfectly harmless, but still have a guilty conscience, so instead he asks "What are you most afraid of?” We’ll get his answer in the fiction:

“I would not buy from him, but I think he can be trusted as a traveling companion. He is afraid of the Hillfolk, no doubt, but he is more afraid that his customers in the Delve will learn he is mixing his rice with sawdust,” Vahid replies cooly.

Quiet Quill chuckles. Anwen looks disgusted, and glares daggers down at the merchant. Padrig puts his hand on her shoulder. “Peace, Anwen. We’ll have to treat with worse folk than him in the Delve. Save your wrath for the hdour. I’ll speak with him and see if I can persuade him we’ve enough iron to scare off any raiders.”

Reluctantly, Anwen buries her rising anger and Pad trots off to speak once more with Raouf ebn Raouf.

Padrig triggers Persuade: 1+2+1 Charisma = 4, Miss

Two misses in a row! I think we can safely say something is amiss in this caravan. We don’t want to slow the party down here, so we don’t represent the miss as a failure to persuade the caravan, and instead reiterate that Pad still has a bad feeling about this.

Before long, Pad has secured the caravan master’s agreement. “He was unsure at first, but the three of you looming large up on this hilltop seems to have convinced his guard captain — or perhaps the man simply wants to get where they’re going. We’ll camp here with them until dawn tomorrow, and then make our way across the stretch of broken road as quick as we can.”

Despite the good news, his face is dark, and Anwen senses unease in his voice. “What’s wrong, Pad?”

“Couldn’t say. Something just doesn’t feel right. Belike I’m just on edge — last time I came this way, I had lost a dozen friends. I’ve no stomach to do it again.”

Anwen puts her hand on his shoulder. “We can wait if you think it’s best. We trust you, Pad.”

“No. The Seeker is right, we’ve got a mission and there’s no point in wasting time. Best we take this chance to cross dangerous ground in greater numbers. Quill and I will get our camp set up. Anwen, it’d be worth it for you to take the measure of the other caravan guards.” Pad meets Vahid’s strange blue eyes but does not venture to give him a task. Instead, the Seeker drifts away from the group, keeping a quiet vigil over the endless grasslands at the road’s edge⁵.

Scene 4: A stretch of the Maker’s Road, four days from Stonetop

After a day’s rest, the party, along with their new traveling companions, continue their trek west. Padrig marches to the front with the caravan master and his captain, while Anwen, Quill, and Vahid bring up the rear.

A mile from the waystation where they rested, they see with their own eyes the destruction the rice merchant had told them of. A yawning crater splits the road, and the heavy basalt paving stones of the Makers’ Roads — seemingly immovable and inviolate — have been shattered by some terrible force. Their smooth, matte black faces are shot through with thin, branching patterns, like lightning illuminating a dark night.

As the caravan crosses the crater, every man and woman present feels the magic of the roads fade, leaving them alone and exposed on the wide open plain, and the mood grows dour and anxious. As the road stretches on, they see more destruction — a waystation destroyed, its mile-marker obelisk split by lightning, and more craters where paving stones have been uprooted, shattered, and scattered like chaff in the wind.

They march for hours in near-silence, every eye scanning the horizon for a sign of a coming raid, but no such sign is seen. Others, however, were not so lucky. Near midday — halfway through the stretch of broken road — Padrig and Cicatrix spot a grim sight as they scout the road ahead, and before the caravan can approach, they call a halt and convene with the caravan master.

Raouf’s face is lined with worry. “What is it? An ambush ahead?”

“In a manner of speaking,” the guard-captain replies with a thin smile.

Pad grimaces. “Some unfortunates on the road ahead. It is a grisly scene — I counted at least a dozen bodies, and the carrion drakes have been at them.” For Anwen’s benefit, he repeats the news in the Stonetongue.

“Tch. Fewer than us, at least. Maybe we are safe,” Raouf replies.

Anwen catches only a few words of the Steptongue, but the tone is clear, and her eyes narrow at the caravan master’s callousness, but she does not remark on it. “Who are they?” she asks.

“Hard to say, from here. It would be worth it for us to take a closer look. You especially, Seeker,” Pad says, looking to Vahid. He stands slightly back from the conference, watching impassively. He nods, and sets off down the road, the aetherium foot of the Azure Hand tapping rhythmically against the paving stones.

Cicatrix watches him go, and then catches Raouf’s eye. Some unspoken message passes between them, and the caravan master leans towards Padrig and speaks quietly in the Steptongue. “He is a scholar, you said? A scholar of what?”

“Ask him, if you like,” Pad deflects. He motions to Anwen, and they jog to catch up with Vahid. Cicatrix, the guard captain, moves to follow them, watching their party carefully.

Two hundred feet down the road, in a shallow depression, they come to the site of a merciless ambush. The first corpses they pass are those of three young men, perhaps once guards, but now stripped of arms and armor. Their wounds are in front, broken arrows and the thick, ragged cuts of adze. They lay where they fell, splayed out with no dignity or peace.

Vahid stops by their wagon, a rough-cut affair made from logs lashed together with heavy, unspoked wheels. It has been split asunder by some terrible force, its wood scorched black and splinters thrown all about.

Scene Breakdown

This scene, needless to say, serves the purpose of setting up one of the major threats of the coming arc. From the GM’s perspective, it’s less than ideal if the PCs have all the time in the world to dilly-dally, befriend the locals, and get entangled in various side stories⁶, so early on we set up some time pressure: The Stormcrows are here, perhaps the hdour is as well, and time is of the essence.

Pad and Vahid survey the scene, each with their own unique insights, aiding one another:

Padrig triggers Seek Insight, aided by Vahid : 6+3+2 Wisdom = 11, Strong Hit

Vahid and Pad get three questions — he’s studying the scene, but also considering what he knows about their ongoing struggle with the hdour and what moves his enemy might be making, and Pad is helping out, adding his knowledge of Hillfolk culture and the tactical situation. They start by asking “what happened here recently,” followed by “who or what is in control here,” and they save one question, until the very end of the scene. We’ll deliver all the answers in fiction and I’ll footnote where they emerge:

“There can be no doubt — the hdour is here. Or one of his Stormcrows that he has lent some sliver of his power,” Vahid says in the Stonetongue. “It is as it was at the Sun-Spear camp — they called down the power of the storm on these unfortunates.”

Anwen has gone farther down the road, and Pad sees her pale at the sights ahead. More of the slain are scattered across the roads, blood smeared black on the basalt paving stones. These poor souls did not fight, and in their flight, they were ridden down by the war-bred upland steeds. At the roadside, there is a line of bodies — folk who had surrendered, lined up, and were slaughtered like lambs.⁷ Flies buzz, and everywhere there is the terrible smell of death.

Padrig looks at the carnage, his head hanging low. “This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it. The nomads are fierce, but most of them don’t indulge in wanton cruelty.”

Vahid comes to his side, his eyes solemn and downcast as well. “This is Cirl’s work. In my vision, I saw through his eyes and felt the hate in the depths of his heart. You had the right of it, Padrig — he wished to draw the Heolings into a feud with the storm-folk bands to rally them to his banner. And failing that, now he turns his ire on the Delvers.”

“So it seems. And breaking the magic of the Makers’ Roads was a show of power that has drawn more riders to his banner.”⁸

Anwen is still looking down at the fallen who were executed at the roadside. “We have to stop him. First the Sun-Spear, now the Delvers. We can’t let this come to Stonetop — or anywhere else.” She turns to Padrig. “Let’s get the caravan moving.”

Cicatrix, looking on as they speak in the Stonetongue, clears his throat and addresses Padrig. “If plans are being laid, it is only right I share in them, friend.”

“Of course, friend,” Padrig hastily switches to the Steptongue.

“Why dissemble?” Vahid asks calmly. “You can speak the Stonetongue, can you not?”⁹

The guard captain clears his throat, and bows lightly. “Yes, forgive me. I should have said something, but the matter seemed like something my employer would wish to know, and you had already begun,” he shrugs, and adds apologetically, “I have spent time in Marshedge, and picked it up there.”

Vahid strokes his beard absently. “Perhaps it is for the best that now you know. The Delve must be warned that this feud will be a bloody one.”

Cicatrix’s face sours. “Shame. The truce was a fine time to be a guard.”

Pad nods. “Might be this trip ought to be your last, friend.”

The captain nods piously. “May the gods will it.”

“Back on the road, then,” Anwen presses.

“Aye. We should move the bodies to the side — the sight of them will spook the other travelers, they might turn back, or worse, scatter,” Padrig says. “Maybe we can pay these poor devils a bit of respect as they go to meet the Lady of Crows.”

Vahid looks east, back towards Stonetop. “If fortunes favor us, we are far enough from the Crossroads¹⁰ to avoid a brush with anything from beyond the Last Door.”

“Pay what respects you must, but be swift,” the guard captain admonishes. “The ones who did this may yet return for more prey, and it will take us time to find a good, sheltered campsite to rest the night.”

“If they come for us in the night, they will not find us such easy prey,” Anwen says grimly.

“No, they shall not,” Vahid echos, his eyes flashing as the storm spirit in his cloak stirs.

Together, they move the bodies from the road, laying them among the grasses. Vahid mutters a few words from the Hieros Nomos of Aratis. Anwen presses her axe to her chest and looks down on the dozen slain — some old, but most young, like her. They are Marchers and Marshedgers, Lygosi and Peaks-folk, and some that she cannot place. “We’ll put a stop to this,” she whispers. “I promise.”

It is a few hours before sunset when they get the caravan moving again, and the emigres chatter among themselves in a half-dozen languages, speculating about the cause for the halt. The march continues until near nightfall, when Cicatrix and Padrig light torches and venture from the road in search of a sheltered campsite. They settle on a small, rocky depression, sheltered from the wind and sight by a pair of enormous fallen columns, the size and breadth of the towering trees of the Great Wood.

In the lee of the columns they make camp, the caravan master and his guards erecting their tents leaning against the stonework, and the others scattering their bedrolls around a few smouldering campfires. Padrig and Quill make camp a stone’s throw apart, watching the silhouettes of the caravan guards move between the fires.

“Something still doesn’t feel right,” Padrig grumbles.

Quill sighs, and nods.

We will pause here, and try something a bit different in the way of a reader ‘poll.’ Thanks to the Miss result at the top of the episode, we’ve established that there is danger in or around the caravan, and Pad’s conveyed that to the party within the fiction.

I thought for a bit about what could be a reasonable threat to advance in this situation, and after some hemming and hawing, I settled on one. It is:

1. A threat to one specific PC, and not something that they’re all facing.

2. Already established in a past episode, and came as a result of a decision that PC made.

Based on those two stipulations, I’m curious if you, the readers, can wager a guess who or what is sneaking up on our heroes?

If you have a theory or two, head down to the comments and post them up. If the commenter hive mind spots what I’ve hinted at, we’ll give the PC in question a bit of an edge on the threat. If not, they will be caught unawares!

Hopefully I haven’t been too obtuse — if this isn’t a fun exercise, by all means light me up in the comments. I’m figuring this AP Fiction thing out as we go!

As always, thank you so much for reading, and I’ll see you in your inbox next week!

1. Once again, Vahid is going to employ the power of his mystical third eye to read an NPC’s mind from afar. Last time he did this in Session 9.3, it didn’t go great — he rolled a Miss on his Seek Insight and was accosted by two of Owain’s bravos. Let’s hope it goes better this time.

2. So named because Anwen used it to fell a cave bear in Session 9.4, this is the Makerglass battleaxe that was first discovered in Session 5.4 in the Maker complex hidden beneath Stonetop.

3. This was Adm and Loic, two of the Hillfolk raiders back in Session 3.2.

4. For a refresher on that question list, head back to Vahid’s Session Zero

5. Here, Vahid is continuing to play out his Keep Company answer — he is isolating himself, withdrawing from the everyday things he used to be involved with (treating with the caravan master, helping with the campsite), and instead focusing himself on the unseen world.

6. Of course, this kind of play can be a ton of fun too, but we’re doing something different here!

7. This is the information the party receives in answer to “what happened here recently?”

8. This is their answer to “who or what is in control here?”

9. This is Vahid’s answer to the final Seek Insight question, which they saved “what should I be on the lookout for?” — he learns that Cicatrix knows the Stonetongue and has been listening to their conversation.

10. Way back in Session 3.1, we visited the Crossroads — a place where the veil between the realm of the living and the dead is thin, and permeable. Ostensibly, this journey had to pass by there as well, but we didn’t put it in a scene.