Session 17.5: The Bull

The assassin is dealt with. The hallowed hunt resumes. A lord of the grasses falls.

Last episode, Jakez led the party out from the drowned crater to find Erwann, and beneath the stars he shared a secret his people hold close: every few years, when the stars are ill-favored, a curse crawls from the dark lake and takes hold of a bull-calf that drinks its waters. The Dawn Shield’s ancient charge is to find the calf and slay it, purging the evil with Bright Heol’s light — but the upheaval in the Steplands made them late to the water this year, and something may already be loose.

At Erwann’s camp, Vahid marked the assassin and his confederate among the hunters. The Seeker set his own plan in motion, stoking Anwen’s anger and her storm-markings to draw the camp’s eyes and strengthen her arm, while Mado stalked the killer Tagh. The young warrior struck, but Tagh was too quick, and a desperate spear flew at Erwann’s heart. Anwen, moving with the wind’s swiftness, stepped into its path and shattered it from the air with a thunder-charged fist. The assassins were dragged down and disarmed, Tor’s fist tattooed on their skin marking them as storm-folk.

Now Tagh is held fast, and Padrig’s entreaties to take him alive have gone unheard. The Thunderhead’s wrath is carrying Anwen toward the captive, her fist clenched — and only Vahid can still the storm. But will he? Or will he let Anwen kill Tagh?

You, friends, voted on the answer. Let’s see what you chose:

A near-landslide for Vahid to calm Anwen’s fury. Perhaps something of the young scholar remains—the man who always counseled his friends to be honest and true.

Scene 8, cont’d: Erwann’s Camp

From the saddle, at the top of the rise, Vahid watches the camp in the hollow. Tagh hangs between two hunters, stripped to the waist, Tor’s fist inked plain over his heart. Anwen is crossing the ground toward him, the storm’s wind swirling around her, the grass bowing to her as she goes.

Padrig raises his voice above the din, calling on her again to stand fast. She does not mark him. Jakez’s men holding the assassin look up in fear and awe at the vengeful avatar bearing down on them.

The thought comes to him, quiet and reasonable: Everything the man knows dies with him. Katrin’s name. The hdour’s plans. The Thousand-Year Storm. Vahid needs only to stay his hand, and the path to Indrasduthir’s power remains open to him and a secret to all those who might bar his way.

But then, a memory, a fleeting vision¹: Anwen, her face younger and wet with tears, standing beside a cairn of red stone, speaking to Padrig about the first life she took in battle. How much might Tagh’s death cost her after the storm passes?

He turns the Azure Hand and opens Stormcatcher’s sigil toward her, palm out. He reaches through the staff and finds the storm at once, raging beneath her breastbone. The Hand was made for this. Made to command the Nine Thunders.

Vahid triggers The Azure Hand: 4+5+1+1 Constitution = 10, Strong Hit.

Be still, he bids it. And the storm obeys.

Thin skeins of white-blue light bleed off her arms and swirl across the air into the staff’s head. The gale falters and dies, and all across the hollow, the bowed grass rises.

She turns. Her eyes find him, and the last of her fury turns on him—how dare you!—but it is snuffed out as quickly as it appeared.

Her legs go loose. Padrig and Mado are at her side, catching her, and the wind that swept the hollow dies down to nothing. Beside them, Vahid sees Merid kneeling over Ronhl, both hands pressed to his comrade’s side, calling for aid. At the butchering table, Erwann has not moved. The spear meant for his heart lies in two pieces at his feet, and one of the blackfeathers has leapt to his shoulder, shrieking at the camp as though demanding the assassin’s head.

One of Erwann’s blackfeathers. // Source: Midjourney

Vahid lowers the staff, allowing its gathered power to discharge harmlessly into the earth. “Alive, as you bid, great Jakez.”

Jakez holds Vahid’s gaze a long moment. Then he dismounts and walks to the assassin, his blooded close at his sides, muttering their counsel in the Steptongue. Jakez raises his hand for silence. When he speaks, the Steptongue sounds strangely in Vahid’s ears, fallen as it is from the old tongue of the Stone Lords.²

“You took salt from my table. You were trusted with my band’s sacred duty. And you repaid us with treachery. How far the storm-folk have fallen.”

Tagh spits blood into the grass and looks up. There is no zeal in his face. Vahid has seen the Stormcrows die, calling on their master with the last breath in their bodies, and this is not that. This is a man looking for a way out.

His confederate, pinned and bleeding, supplies the zeal, screaming from the ground: “Ashes to the children of Heol! Tor is the only true god of the tu’d, and Cirl-of-the-Storms speaks with his voice!” He is silenced with the butt of a hunter’s spear, his head falling limply back to the ground.

Tagh waits for the echo to die. When he speaks, it is to Jakez, in the tone of a man discussing the price of a goat. “We are at war, mighty Jakez. In war, much is permitted. I did as my meistr commanded.”

“Just so,” Jakez growls. “My men wait for their meistr’s command, too. They think we ought to take our time unseaming you.”

“What I know dies with me, then. Cirl-of-the-Storms’ plans. The warriors in his muster.” He pauses, looking up at Vahid. “What he fears.”

“You would break faith with your meistr?” Jakez asks.

“For my life? Of course.”

“Then speak.”

Tagh bows his head with mocking courtesy. “Forgive me, great Jakez, but I must ask for your oath upon Heol’s name.”

“Was my gift of salt not oath enough? I will not promise your life until I have weighed your words,” Jakez says through gritted teeth.

Tagh snarls. “Then get on with the unseaming, Jakez. And Cirl-of-the-Storms will avenge me.”

“Perhaps I might serve, meistr Jakez,” Vahid calls from the hilltop. The Steptongue leaves his mouth strangely shaped, spoken like an elder, and all eyes in the camp go to him. “I have learned… a method of seeing the workings of a man’s mind, to cleave truth from falsehood.”³

Jakez’s eyes narrow. “Step carefully, Vahid ebn Sulaim. Izzak is back at our camp, waiting to name you a dealer in black magic.”

“Let the magus perform his tricks,” Erwann says, breaking his silence at last. “Our need is great.”

Jakez answers this with an angry wave of his hand, but does not gainsay. “Very well, you dog. I will spare your life if you speak the truth about your master’s secrets, I swear before Heol.” His face twists to speak the bitter words.

Vahid comes to the center of the camp, standing before the assassin. He breathes deeply, shutting his eye tight and reaching for the key within his mind. He envisions the turning of the key, its manifold teeth catching against his thoughts, and a strange, unsettling sensation permeates him as the world of flesh falls away and the mists and eddies of thoughts and passions replace it. When he opens his eye once again, he is surrounded by a riot of minds — the sickly green of the hunters' edged suspicion, Jakez's red wrath, Anwen's grey regret, and Erwann's ice-blue calm.

Vahid triggers Seek Insight: 6+3+1 Wisdom = 10, Strong Hit

Vahid holds three. Because he has activated his The Eye, Opened arcanum, he can ask the question ‘are they lying or trying to mislead’ when spending Seek Insight hold, so Vahid will use these to ascertain Tagh’s truthfulness.

He regards Tagh; the assassin’s thoughts twist like a snakepit. “How many ride for Cirl-of-the-Storms?”

A flash of gold. Pride. “Six hundred and twenty-four riders at the last weapontake. More gather every day. Cirl’s legend is growing.”

“True,” Vahid says. A fearful stir runs through the camp; Vahid sees it as a pale wave of fear that takes hold of the assembled riders. A mighty host. Far more than attacked the Delve. More, belike, than Stonetop could stand against.

“Where does he mean to ride next?” Jakez demands.

“To Stonetop. Before summer’s end.” Tagh smiles at Vahid.

“True.” Jakez’s men murmur among themselves, but they do not seem relieved by this. They know they will still have to fight him, even if Stonetop is next.

“Why did he send you to kill me?” Erwann says. The blackfeather on his shoulder punctuates his quiet question with snapping jaws.

Tagh’s smile grows into a cruel grin. “Our Heoling witch, Katrin, gave him your name. You spy upon his designs with your magic, and he wishes the Dawn Shield blinded.”

Erwann’s face falls in disbelief. “Katrin? She marked me for death?”

“Aye. All to please Cirl. She knows the truth: My master’s fate is too powerful to turn aside. The only choice is to join with him.”

Erwann looks pointedly at Vahid. “Katrin named you. It is so,”⁴ the Seeker replies.

The spirit-talker’s face darkens. “What will he do, after he has taken the Storm Hill⁵?”

“Take all that they have. Treasure, thralls, land. And then to Marshedge, and to the Marches. The tu’d shall be as a storm again, and every great warrior can rise to be meistr in his own right. Perhaps even the Dawn Shield might ride with us then.”

Now, his thoughts grow very still indeed. Only the slightest tremble, like a fly landing on a spider’s web, betrays his deception. Vahid shakes his head⁶. “Now he dissembles.”

“Very well,” Tagh snaps, before Erwann can reply. “Some great power rests beneath the Storm Hill. More than that, he does not tell me, for I do not need to know. I am a knife-man; the spirits have no love for me.”

Vahid is silent for a moment. I must tell all, now. Or I will have to lie a hundred times more. He crosses to the spirit-talker’s side, whispering for his ears only. “I have word of his plans, Erwann. From Katrin. She gave your name only to win Cirl’s trust, that she might thwart his greater ambition.”

Erwann nods slowly. “I would speak more of this. But I cannot let this upstart hdour sway us from our sacred duty at the lake.”

“Aye,” Jakez says warily. “First, we must hunt.”

How can this hunt be of such import, next to the machinations of the sorcerer? Vahid tries to peer into the old nomad’s thoughts, but his mind’s eye has closed, and now he can see only the meistr’s grim face.

“Then let us aid you in your charge,” Vahid says. “You have seen what strength we can command.”

Erwann looks to his blackfeather for a moment. The thing turns its head, pointing its shiny black eye at him, and a silent moment passes.

“Very well,” he says at last. “But first.” He crosses the camp, hands still bloody to the elbows, and stands before the assassin. Without another word, he raises up his skinning knife and draws a swift, hard line across Tagh’s throat. The assassin’s eyes widen as red gushes from the wound, and the men holding his arms let him fall, nearly as surprised as he is.

Jakez groans. “Madman! I am forsworn! Is the band’s honor worth so little to you?”

“In war, much is permitted.” Erwann’s voice is dead level. “Now let us be about our hunt.”

Scene 9: Nearing the grazing grounds

They ride out before an hour has passed. The second assassin never woke: Erwann drew the same red line across his throat before the column formed, with no more word than he had spent on the first. Merid and a pair of Jakez’s blooded stay behind to give Ronhl to the carrion drakes and the crows, and to bury the assassins in the cold earth where neither sun nor storm will find them. Padrig remains with them, watching the Heolings’ rites in silence.

The grounds lie east of the lake, where the rim country flattens out, the grass grows tall, and the whole of the land seems to lean downwards toward the dark water. The herd’s trail is not hard to find. Even Vahid’s untrained eyes can follow it: a swath of churned earth a hundred paces wide, the grass cropped and trampled, dung drying in the sun.

The hunters are quiet as they draw close to their quarry — none of the easy banter or song that Vahid has heard from the Stonetop hunters as they ply their trade in the woods below the village bluff. It is silent, save for the beat of hooves upon the earth.

Padrig overtakes the column where the trail bends toward the water, and falls in beside Vahid without a word, stoic as ever. But the Seeker does not need to open his mind’s eye to see what is written on his face: The old bandit is bone-tired. His new-sworn duty to Heledd and his hearth call to him, the wound on his hand still troubles him, and he is burdened with deaths: Maikl’s blood in the water, Ronhl given to the crows, Tagh’s throat opened after his life had been promised, and all the dead of the Delve at his shoulder.

Then Padrig says, quietly: “No birds.” The sky above is empty. No larks rising from the grass ahead of their horses. No crows drifting on the wind off the lake.

One of Erwann’s blackfeather drakes throws itself up from his shoulder and beats out ahead of the column, low over the grass. Vahid watches it go out, circle once, twice — and come back. It lands hard on the spirit-talker’s saddlebow and goes still, feathers flat against its body, making a low, quiet chirp deep in its throat. Erwann looks at the little beast for a long moment. Then he turns his horse towards where it would not land.

The horses are reluctant to crest the rise. Fifty paces from it, they begin to fight the reins, stamping and rolling their eyes, until Erwann exhorts his stallion with a quiet nicker in its ear, and the beast takes the lead, the others falling in behind it. Finally, they reach the top of the rise and look down upon a fallen king.

The bull lies on its side in a circle of flattened grass, a mountain of brown hide and gore, each yellowed horn longer than a scythe-blade. It has been opened from brisket to hip, and its insides are strewn across the trampled grass in great red streaks. The vault of its ribs stands open and empty beneath the sky, and the body has been fed upon. Yawning crescents, each wider than a man’s two hands can span—the throat torn, a haunch barely hanging by sinew, one side of the face consumed, eye and all. A cloud of flies swirls over it, filling the air with a maddening drone. Nothing else has touched it. A day old, perhaps less, and every scavenger on the Flats has left the greatest feast of the season to the flies.

On Erwann’s shoulder, the second blackfeather turns its face away and screeches.

“What did this?” Anwen asks, fighting her mare as it tries to dance back from the hilltop.

“Our quarry,” Erwann says, his Stonetongue clipped and accented. “Our duty. If we do not kill it, it will soon lead the herd into the lake.”

“To drown?” Anwen asks. “Why?”

“If they drown, it will be a mercy. The lake will draw them to the depths.”

“And in the depths?” Vahid presses.

Erwann makes a sign against evil, and the other hunters follow his example. “It is ill luck to speak of it. Come.”

They leave the fallen king to the flies and follow the herd’s trail south, the shadows growing long. Soon there is sound again — the first in miles: the low, contented rumble of cattle, carried on the wind with the smell of dung and crushed grass. At Erwann’s signal, the column halts, and they go up the last rise on foot, crouched low, and put their bellies in the grass at the hilltop.

Below them, spread across the shallow vale between rise and lakeshore, is the herd. Hundreds upon hundreds, a sea of lowing beasts, grazing placidly, tails switching at flies, calves butting alongside their mothers. All seems well.

Padrig triggers Seek Insight: 4+2+2 Wisdom = 8, Weak Hit

Pad is the natural PC to survey the field here. He gets one question from Seek Insight, and uses it immediately to ask “What here is not as it appears to be?”

Then Padrig, flat in the grass at Vahid’s shoulder, says: “Smoke. There, in the midst of them. Is the grass burning?”

It is not smoke. It rises from the center of the herd in a thin veil, the color of porphyry where the sun catches it, with motes that drift in the breeze like ash. Vahid catches what might be the smell of it, and even a whiff turns his stomach.

And beneath it, what Vahid had taken for a rise of the earth moves.

A thing of vile corruption. // Source: Midjourney

It comes up out of the herd like the Thrice-Betrayer’s dark barrow. Half again the height of the slain bull, black where it was dun, and wet — its hide shines and drips like the beast is soaked in blood and still bleeding. Along its spine and shoulders stand gnarls of purple flesh, clustered and swollen like galls upon a tree, and they rise and fall as though they are breathing. All around it, close enough to touch its legs, the cattle graze on, untroubled.

Its head rises from the grass, and its jaws bespeak its terrible appetites. Teeth jut at every angle, yellowed and jagged. As they watch, the thing turns and bites at a nearby cow, tearing into the poor beast’s throat as it shrieks and kicks, borne down to the grass by the monster’s bulk. The hunting party looks on, horrified, as the abomination lowers its jaws to the bellowing cow and begins to eat.

The rest of the herd responds, bellowing back and trotting away, giving the horror a wide berth, but their fear passes swiftly. In only a few moments, they are calm and grazing again, returning to the creature’s side as it continues its bloody feast.

“Heol is my light and my refuge; I shall not fear the arrow that flieth by day nor the pestilence that walketh in darkness,” a thin, frightened voice begins to pray in the Steptongue, and other hunters take it up. “Heol, our salvation and illumination, cover our heads on this day of battle.”

Erwann rises to one knee. “Do you pray, Seeker?”

Vahid regards the spirit-talker with his pure-blue eye. “If the gods heard our prayers to deliver us from darkness, would such things walk the earth?”

Erwann claps the Seeker on the shoulder. “The gods listen. And they sent us.”

And that closes out the episode! We’ll leave our heroes right there on the rise, looking at the beast that they must kill to win the Dawn Shield’s cooperation. The hunt itself lands a week from today, on 7/27. Thanks, as always, for reading. If you’ve got a moment before you return to your labors, stick around for some GM notes — we’re going to talk about the craft of making and foreshadowing monsters with a (hopefully) fun bit of reader choice.

Monstercraft & Foreshadowing

I will confess: I had a lot of fun writing this monster, and I laid it on pretty thick — arguably, too thick for what is essentially a sidequest. In a proper novel, I can imagine this sequence getting cut or slimmed down dramatically.

But in a TTRPG, all this purple prose (about purple smoke and purple flesh) serves a purpose: It telegraphs to the PCs what they are in for when blades are drawn and battle begins.

Dungeon World has a GM move for this: Show signs of an approaching threat. Stonetop’s version is announce trouble (onscreen or offscreen). These can mean big threats off in the distance — the hdour’s growing host, for example, which was also referenced in this episode. But it can also apply in extremely concrete and immediate ways, like when you show what a monster is capable of before the fight begins.

When on the trail of a monster, every dreadful detail the PCs encounter is a handhold — and when the fight comes, being able to predict (and hopefully respond to!) the monster's moves are how PCs get paid off for paying attention. So, when the PCs are tracking a dragon: Scorched grass, tree trunks bent by a terrible wind, claw marks deep into the mountain side, we learn that the dragon breathes fire, can summon gales with its wings, and its claws can bite through stone. Good to know!

In that same vein, Scene 9 handed you all those planted details. The bull carcass, gutted and fed upon. How the birds and the horses behaved. The miasma rising from its body. Its unnatural tumors. Its massive jaws, and what it did to one of its own herd, and the strange hold it still had on them.

Stonetop, and its ancestor Dungeon World, build monsters fiction-first. The DWSRD reads: “Every monster starts with a clear vision of what it is and what it does,” and the stats “just reflect the description.” We’ve gone into detail on the whole process before — the Yellow Cloud Champion’s full breakdown in Session 7, and Odo Thriceborn’s build in Session 13 — so I’ll skip the questionnaire this time and focus on the fun part: the monster moves. A monster move is an imperative phrase describing what the thing does — no numbers, no rolls. Odo’s arsenal was these three moves: Manifest a monstrous form. Know something he couldn’t possibly know. Command or terrify those marked by the Howling Curse.

Mechanically, they’re GM moves: I reach for them “when there’s a lull in the action or when the players give you a golden opportunity” — which in practice means when a PC misses or weak-hits. These monster moves define the shape of the fight: When you write them, you’re envisioning all the things that will likely happen in battle, so writing good ones directly contributes to creating a fun, thrilling, and dangerous fight.

This week’s reader participation is a creative exercise: Write this monster’s moves. Think about what we have seen and share your take in the comments, as sharp, imperative phrases — what will the corrupted bull do when Anwen and Vahid come for it?

Here’s an example from my notes: Terrify mounts and beasts of burden. An easy one to sacrifice, since Anwen and Vahid already noted this and have dismounted accordingly.

Comment on the post, and I'll harvest some submissions for next week's fight, canonize them into the creature's move list and stats, and credit the authors when their move lands on our heroes.

1

As part of this sequence, I had Vahid trigger Recall Memories, his custom move that simulates his growing possession by Stormcatcher, to access his past self’s love for Anwen and her desire to balance her compassion with being a warrior and protector. I scored a weak hit, giving him a fragmentary memory.

This serves two purposes: It adds a bit of flavor as to why he makes the decision he makes, and shows that old Vahid still is strong within this Vahid/storm-spirit/Indrasduthir amalgamation, and it also gives him advantage on the next roll, which he certainly doesn’t want to miss.

2. A brief aside about Vahid’s languages — when Vahid aided the remnants of Gordin’s Delve, he called upon some power that cost him his mastery of many tongues (represented by the move Polyglot). During that session, I envisioned him losing Marchsprech, Sunghaian (the language of the Barrier Peaks) and even Lygosi (his mother tongue). Steptongue was included in that list.

That was a mistake — mostly because it would be a pain in the ass for Padrig to be the only PC who speaks Steptongue. At the gaming table, it would mean that Pad would have to lead in every Hillfolk scene, which risks being dull for the other player-characters, and here in a serial fiction, it limits our ability to shift POV (like here, for example, where we move from Anwen who can’t speak the Steptongue, to Vahid, who can). To support our retcon in the fiction, I included the line about it sounding strange in Vahid’s ear, descended as it is from the Stone Lords’ language, which Vahid knows better now because of his growing gestalt.

LLM Writing Note: Regrettably, that episode also described Steptongue as a “trade pidgin” used between the Delvers and the Hillfolk. That’s just straight-up wrong on a few levels, and it was an LLM glitch that I failed to edit out. I will strive to be more diligent!

3. Here, Vahid refers to his non-Storm-related arcanum, The Eye, Opened. He began play with it, and has used it a handful of times to strong effect.

4. Vahid doesn’t spend a hold here, since he already knows the answer.

5. The Hillfolk name for Stonetop.

6. Last hold spent!