Session 4.3: Betrayers

Negotiations break down. Anwen learns the truth.

In our last episode, the party had split, with each member pursuing their own aim. Vahid successfully impressed a powerful merchant with the power of the Azure Hand, Anwen took one step towards uncovering the truth about her mother’s past in Marshedge, and Padrig confronted his old bandit chief, Brennan, and told him that Pad and the Claws are quits.

We ended last episode in the Guard Hall, as Padrig was breaking the bad news to Brennan. Brennan just wouldn’t take no for an answer, and ultimately Padrig had to make a choice — does he back down, and let Brennan think there’s still a chance to win him back, or does he take a hard line. Let’s see what you folks chose for our Marshal today:

Padrig is fed up. A small part of him knows that Brennan could be dangerous, but he’s come too far to back down now. Let’s return to the scene in progress:

Scene 5, continued: The Marshal’s Study

“No,” Padrig says. “I’ve fought for you, killed for you, buried my friends for you. It’s enough. You and I are over and done.”

Brennan takes this in quietly. He steps up to Padrig and puts his hands on his shoulders, the scaled steel gauntlets heavy against Padrig’s leather tunic. His bright blue eyes scan Padrig’s face before falling downcast in sad resignation. Then he turns away, takes up the jug of wine from the table, and refills the two goblets. “You know your mind, Padrig, I’ll give you that. It’s a shame it has to end this way,” he says.

He turns and offers one of the goblets to Pad. “One last drink. And then we part as old friends.” Padrig takes the goblet, but his eyes track Bertrim, slowly, casually moving towards the door, his hand going to the dagger at his belt. When Pad glances back at Brennan, his old chief is already rushing forward to strike.

Pad slips under the blow, narrowly avoiding Brennan’s gauntlet in his throat and reaching for his blade as he shoves the bandit chief aside with his shoulder. He races for the door, and Bertim blocks his path, a wicked curved dagger in his hand. Padrig rips his sword from its sheath, but Bertim is already inside his reach, lashing out with his blade. Pad feels a burning pain in his side and a gush of wet, warm blood. He shoves Bertim away, putting his iron between them, but it’s too easy — Bertrim backs off smoothly, waiting out of sword reach. Brennan circles around to flank him, his sword out, but doesn’t move in to strike either.

Padrig backs up, towards the door, keeping his eyes on each of them, one hand clutched to his wound, the other holding his sword raised to fend them off. “Gods-damn you. Why couldn’t you just let me go?” he asks.

Brennan returns his gaze, his blue eyes gone cold. He speaks in a low, deliberate tone, no longer bright and cajoling. “None of that, old friend. I know what you’re about. I see the truth now.”

Padrig reaches the door. His sword feels like lead in his grip, and as he tries to reach for the door, his arm feels stiff and wooden. He leans against the stone threshold for a moment. “Brennan,” he rasps. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Brennan steps forward, slapping Padrig’s sword to the ground with a gauntleted hand and seizing him by the throat. He leans in and whispers into Padrig’s ear. “The weird sisters warned me in my dreams. ‘Beware the betrayer who arrives in the flesh of a friend,’ they said. But never in my wildest imaginings did I think it could be you.”

Padrig’s vision is dimming at the edges, and his knees give out beneath him. He slides to the floor, still clutching his wound. The pain of it has faded into a cold, prickling numbness. Bertrim smiles blandly at him, and shakes his dagger at him like a scolding parent. “Extract of Crowsbane,” he says. “The drug works quick, no? The Herbalists’ Guild carefully controls the supply, or so they believe.”

Padrig’s vision narrows to a point, and he hears Brennan speak to Bertrim as though from a great distance. “No need to gloat, Cousin. Take him down to the cells in the cloaca. Quietly — tell no one of this. We need to find out who he’s already turned.”

Scene Breakdown

Let’s look at how things went very, very wrong for Padrig here. First off, he didn’t realize that Brennan was already on edge, thanks to some supernatural whisperings in his ear. This is drawn from a reader’s suggestion on the last episode — They posited, and I agree, that it would be interesting if Brennan had found a secret ally that might make him more dangerous and more capable of achieving his dream. Padrig will probably want to learn more about that, once his more immediate concerns are handled.

The conflict began when Brennan offers him the wine — Padrig triggers Seek Insight, and scores an 8, getting him the answer to one question. In this case, he asks “What should I be on the look out for?” and the answer is immediate: Brennan is preparing a coup de main under the guise of his ‘one last drink.’ Padrig then tries to dodge out of the way and head for the door, triggering Defy Danger. Rolling (with advantage, thanks to his Seek Insight result), he once again scores a weak hit with a 7 — he avoid Brennan’s strike, gets past him towards the door, but is confronted by Bertrim.

Padrig has never really liked Bertim, and he has a weapon out, so Pad has no compunctions about cutting him down. He triggers Clash, but his Strength is +0 and he rolls a 5, which is a miss.

Now, looking at this from the GM’s perspective, the most straightforward thing to do is deal Bertrim’s damage and continue the combat until Pad is dead, he kills the other two or escapes. But, going that route is probably not ideal for Pad’s story — he’s alone, and not really a match for Bertrim and Brennan, who can probably deal enough damange to down him in a couple of exchanges.

Fortunately, the GM has other options in PbtA games. Let’s take a look at the GM moves.

We’ve used these a lot in the past — Announce trouble (when Padrig spotted the Hillfolk from far off; when Vahid saw the Green-Eyed Crinwin), Ask a provacative question (When Tymon Ammar made his offer to Vahid), Separate them (when the Nosgolau ensnared Padrig; when the pickpocket separated Anwen from the party). Sometimes these moves are ‘soft,’ — the characters have time to react or to mitigate them before the damage is truly done. Other times, especially when a player rolls a miss in a high-stakes situation, you make ‘hard’ moves where the situation turns decisively against the heroes.

This, clearly, is one of those times. We’re using the Capture someone move — Padrig rolled a miss, and rather than dragging out a combat that would probably leave him dead, we’ll put a poisoned blade in Bertrim’s hand and capture old Pad instead. Let’s open the next scene and give our Marshal a few more choice words with Brennan:

Scene 6: The Cloaca

The cloaca: Ruined, flooded tunnels and chambers built by the Makers beneath Marshedge, now used as prison and sewer.

Padrig awakens to the sound of slow-running water. He is laying on dirty straw, piled over smooth, black stone. His wound has been bandaged, but absent the poison’s numbing effects, it now throbs with pain. He rises, painfully, to sitting, and casts his eyes about in the shadows. It is dimly illuminated from above by a soft, silver light from a globe of milky white makerglass, embedded in the vaulted ceiling.

His cell is a circle of stone black stone, roughly 20 paces across. It is bound not by walls, but by empty space — Padrig rises slowly and limps to the edge, peering down into a slow-moving mire of green-black water at the bottom of a long, long drop. The smell of wet rot rises from below.

Looking across the chasm, he sees a dozen other circles of silver light, illuminating identical cells, a few of them occupied by distant silhouettes, laying on the straw or pacing their circle nervously. The chamber is massive, Padrig realizes, large enough to encompass Stonetop’s entire village green, monolith and all.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Brennan’s voice calls from above. Padrig looks up to the source. The Marshal of Marshedge is looking down from a murder hole — the domed, black stone ceiling is dotted with them, each one centering a cell. “No one knows what the ancients used it for. The whole place is covered with their scratchings — the Old Families had scores of scholars down to study them, to no avail. So now they throw people and things they’d rather forget down here.”

“Is that what I am now, Brennan?” Padrig says.

“Oh, I’ll never forget you, not til’ the day I meet the Lady of Crows. You were like a son to me, Pad. Your betrayal is a cut that will never heal,” Brennan replies sadly.

“What fucking betrayal?” Padrig screams. His side burns, his throat is raw.

“Don’t play that game with me, Padrig!” Brennan snarls in reply. “I see you truly now. I have to applaud, this gambit of yours to divide the crew is a very subtle ploy — worthy of one of Bertrim’s schemes. But I was forewarned. Every dream the weird sisters have sent me has come true, and now here you are, bringing the rot of disloyalty to my people.

“All of this is because of some dream you had? Some bog witches whispering in your ear? You’re mad.” Padrig sputters.

Brennan laughs. “If madness this be, I welcome it. Ever since I set my sights on Marshedge, the weird sisters have visited me in my dreams. I dreamt of the old Marshal, dead. I dreamt of old Grandfather Hawtrey, his piles of gold and his cursed son. I dreamt of a dozen men, hanging from the gatehouse. I dreamt of a crown of silver, reforged from four broken pieces.” he pauses, laughing again. “I have no need for a crown, of course — I will set it aside to rule alongside my brothers-in-arms.”

“And what do your brothers-in-arms think of your dreams?” Padrig asks.

Brennan shakes his head ruefully. “I haven’t said much about them, truth be told. Common men — even warriors — find the workings of fate to be frightful. It is a burden I must bear alone. I only tell you so you know that we don’t have to play these games. I want to know who you are in league with.”

Padrig spits. “I have nothing to tell you. I’ve dealt straight with you from the beginning, as I always have.”

“Pad, be reasonable. Bertrim is eager to come down here and go to work on you, and his craft has only improved. He never really liked the superior airs you put on; I think he’s been imagining this moment for quite some time. Just tell me who you’re working with. Grandfather Eldershaw? Did Jahalim get to you? Who in the Claws is with you?”

Padrig stares back at Brennan, silent and numb.

“Or was it personal? Do you blame me for what happened to Ionas? Tsk tsk, Pad, he was under your orders when he died,” Brennan says.

“Send Bertrim. I’d rather see his face than yours.” Padrig growls.

“You’ll feel differently soon, I promise you,” Brennan replies, and then is gone.

Scene 7: Fen-Walker Hall

Fen-Walker Hall is at the northernmost tip of Marshedge, jutting into the still, murky waters of Ferrier’s Fen. It is surrounded by the Mire: A tangle of wooden shanties, balanced precariously on stilts above the bogs and muddy ground and connected by narrow, swaying walkways and old rope bridges.

Ozbeg and Anwen approach the building, flanked on both sides by ramshackle fishing docks and boats bobbing in the shallow green water. It is a squat structure of weathered timber, two stories tall, standing on great wooden pontoons, lashed to the walkways and docks in a dozen spots. The eaves and latticed windows are carved in the shape of marsh creatures — twisting serpents and leaping carp — and above the open double doors hangs the bleached white skull of some broad-jawed, hook-toothed river monster.

It is late in the night, the moon is high in the sky and the low, deep thrumming of frog song can be heard without pause over the waters of the fen. Anwen and Ozbeg step through the threshold into the darkened hall. There are a few burning rushlights still casting light, and dour-looking men and women are scattered in pairs and threes, talking quietly among themselves, seated on rush-woven mats at low tables.

When Anwen and Ozbeg enter, all eyes turn to them, and conversation in the room drops to a whisper. Anwen looks around the room for a friendly face, but finds not a one — the grey-cloaked Fen-walkers look at her and Oz as though expecting some dark news.

“It’s a late hour to come to our hall, fellows. If you want to venture out into Ferrier’s Fen after dark, I hope you know what it will cost you,” says a lilting voice from behind them. Anwen turns and sees a slight, bent figure sitting cross-legged on the ground, just to the side of the open doorway.¹

She is a bit older than Anwen, wearing in a grey, woolen dress with her stringy black hair bound up in twin braids. Her hands work quickly and diligently to cut and bind up small bundles of Bendis root in her lap — Anwen notices the pale green root flesh just as the eye-watering smell hits her in the face.

“No, we’re not here to go out into the marsh,” Anwen replies, holding up her hands placatingly. At that dismissal, the other fen-walkers return to their quiet conversation and burning pipes.

“What brings you here, then?” the young woman asks cheerily, without looking up from her labors. “We’re not much for company, as you can hear.”

“I’m looking for someone,” Anwen says uncertainly. “A woman named Sianna, who knew a Fen-walker named Connor. Do you know either of them?”

The room falls silent again. The young woman looks up from her labors. It is now that Anwen first sees her face — smooth, freckled cheeks and a ready smile, but the flesh above her cheeks are pock-marked and twisted with scar tissue, and where her eyes once were are now two shallow pits of ravaged skin. “They aren’t strangers to me, nor to anyone here. But you are. Who comes in the dead of night, asking about absent friends?” she asks. Her voice is still friendly, but with an edge of urgency.

Anwen swallows. “Your eyes,” she blurts out.

The girl laughs. “Yes, they take many a suitor’s breath away! But I am still married to the fen, though it has done me wrong. My name is Aela. Who are you?” she asks again.

“Oh! I’m Anwen, of Stonetop. This is my brother-in-arms, Ozbeg,” she says.

“And why are you looking for Sianna and Connor?” Aela probes, her voice still bright.

“I… knew Sianna, from when she was in Stonetop. She was very kind to me, and I owe her a great debt. My friends and I came to Marshedge to trade, and I wanted to seek her out and repay her,” Anwen says, hesitating before each near-lie.²

Ozbeg shifts uncomfortably as the other fen-walkers in the room mutter among one another, watching this exchange intently. One man rises and moves with purpose to a door at the far side of the hall, which he raps on sharply before entering.

“I see,” Aela says. Her hands absently return to her work, slicing a dirt-caked root into strips with a short, sharp bronze knife. “Best you sit down. The news I have for you is not good.”

Anwen sits on a low bench facing Aela, who puts her root and knife aside and takes up a small clay pipe, lighting it with a rushlight and taking a deep drag before she begins.

“I’m sure it’s true that Sianna was kind to you. She was always kind to me, too. But the world isn’t always so simple as kind and cruel,” Aela says. “She made promises to her brothers and sisters of the fen, and she broke those promises one after the other. So justice was done. If it wasn’t, what worth would our promises have? Why would anyone keep them?”

Anwen chokes. “What are you saying? Is she dead?”

Aela shakes her head. “It’s best that you think of her that way. Whatever debts you owed to her, consider them paid.”

One of the fen-walkers, watching and listening from across the hall, shouts angrily. “She’s not dead, but she fucking should be! We should’ve stretched Sianna’s neck after Alastar dragged her home from Stonetop.”

A woman rises to her feet, knocking her chair to the ground. “You’re a bloodless cuss, Lorcan. She’s one of us, and she’s fought as hard as any of us! What does it take to earn a little mercy?” she cries.

Lorcan rises to his feet, snarling “Mercy? Where was the mercy for those she led out into the fen, and who never came back?”

“Quiet! All of you!” a bellow cuts through the growing rumble of the crowd and they fall silent. The speaker is a man, short but powerfully built, with an aging, craggy face and short, frizzy salt and pepper hair, just emerged from the door at the far side of the hall. He is armored in a breastplate stitched from a strange, scaly hide, and at his belt is an iron-shod cudgel.

He strides to the center of the hall, the eyes of every fen-walker on him. “Lorcan, take two men out to the southern fields. The frog song is too loud tonight; The suarachan may be out and hunting. Cela, two of the punts need fresh tar before morning. See to it.”

“Aye, Alastar. As you say.” Lorcan replies. He and the woman who spoke against him file sullenly out of the hall, shouldering past Anwen and Ozbeg.

“If the rest have naught to do but gossip and bicker, I have tasks for each and every one of you,” Alastar says. “Begone.”

And so the hall empties. As Aela makes to rise, Alastar rumbles: “Not you.” She returns to her cross-legged seat, again busying herself with her knife and twine.

Alastar stands over Anwen. “Who was Sianna to you, girl? The truth, now.”

“My mother,” Anwen says, meeting his gaze. “Who was she to you?”

“My right hand. And Connor my left. I suspected they had grown close to one another, but I relied on them. I was far too lenient,” he replies.

“Where is she?” Anwen asks.

“She is in a place where forgotten things go. It would’ve been better if you had forgotten her as well, and stayed in Stonetop. Do you know what it means, in our law, that she is your mother?” Alastar asks grimly.

“I know fen-walkers aren’t supposed to marry, or bear children,” Anwen says.

“Yes,” Alastar replies. “Our law is that their children’s lives are forfeit, lest a secret sickness spreads.”

Anwen’s hand goes to her belt — a curved iron sword, taken from the fallen Hillfolk, hangs there. “I am not a child,” she says. “Why has she been forgotten? What did she do?”

Alastar looks at her, his eyes narrowing in appraisal. “17 years ago, she deserted her brothers and sisters here. I suspected it had to do with her and Connor’s affair, but I let the matter lie. You look to be about seventeen, eh?”

Anwen nods numbly, and Alastar continues. “I put it out of my mind. Until six years ago, when Connor was taken by the Fen Blight. He had been hiding it for who knows how long.”

Aela breaks her silence at this. “I think it was the memory of Sianna that kept him tethered to us, as the blight ate away at him. But the memory wasn’t enough.”

Alastar shrugs. “Perhaps so. As the madness came upon him, he became erratic — untrusting of his brethren, quick to anger and to violence. Then, one night at mess, he snapped. Raved about how the guild had kept him from his beloved, that we hated him for what he had. He drew his blade and slew another man, and then disappeared into the fen,” he says. “I hoped that he had died out there — sometimes that happens with the blight. But then a few years later, our patrols began to spot him. He was changed. Monstrous. And filled with hatred for us.”

“She told me that he was dead. That he was killed protecting people from the monsters of the fen,” Anwen says softly.

Alastar grunts disapprovingly. “True, I suppose. From a certain point of view. The man who was Connor is certainly dead now. The Fen Blight killed the man, and left in his place a monster.”

“Why did she come back here?” Anwen asks.

“She came back because I fetched her back,” Alastar replies. “When Connor went mad, talking about his beloved, I knew it could only be Sianna. I spoke with merchants who had traveled to Lygos, to Gordin’s Delve, and to Stonetop, and eventually, I found her. I traveled to Stonetop to awaken her to her duty — to help us hunt down the creature her lover had become.”

“Why her? Surely you have enough fen-walkers,” Anwen says. “My mother wasn’t a warrior.”

Alastar snorts. “Your mother was one of my best. Not a warrior — warriors die in the fen. But she was strong and quick, bold and cautious by turns, and stubborn as a wisent. A man like Connor, taken by the blight, is among the most dangerous things we face out there. If any of us could have killed him, it was her.”

Anwen nods, understanding dawning on her face. “So she did her duty. Where is she now?”

Alastar grimaces. “She set out to do her duty. But she betrayed us again. She led a half-dozen of her most able brethren into the fen and the creature killed most, and maimed the rest.” He glances down at Aela, his eyes full of sorrow. “But Sianna was spared, and unscathed.”

Aela continues the tale. “I was there, Anwen. She had a spear of bronze, aimed at the creature’s empty heart. A perfect opening, bought with the lives of our brethren. And she hesitated. I saw it with my own eyes. And then it came for me.” She shudders.

Alastar looks back to Anwen. “When she returned, she confessed everything. But there was nothing for it. We could not leave it alive; It had already begun to hunt our people when we ranged into the deeper fen. I told her she would have to try again, and she refused,” he says. “So I cast her into the cloaca, our place of forgetting. Until she is ready to again return to her duty.”

“You have to let me see her. You’ve no right to keep me away from my mother,” ”³ Anwen says.

Alastar ponders this quietly for a moment. “Very well,” he says. “I will take you to see her. On one condition: You must persuade her to take up the hunt. The monster that was her lover is still out there. It knows all our tricks; We need her help to lure it out. I owe it to my people to see this done.”

Anwen considers her promise carefully. “Very well. I will help you, Alastar. Take me to see her,” she says, offering her hand. He looks down, and clasps it.

“Come,” Alastar says, leading them from the hall.

We’ll wrap up here! Next episode, Anwen will visit the cells in the cloaca, and see her mother. She had initially wanted to ask what to do about her initiation, but that may take a back seat, given all she’s learned here.

Of course, while she’s down there, she also has an opportunity to find out that Padrig is imprisoned there, opening up the possibility of a fun little jailbreak scene. Hopefully it doesn’t feel too convenient that their paths cross in the cells below the donjon — for me it feels like just the right amount of coincidence for a tale of high adventure. Let me know if you feel differently in the comments.

This episode is a little shorter than the previous few, largely because I didn’t write my way to a decision point for a reader poll. I’m excited to keep adding interactivity into the story wherever possible, but I think every episode is a bit overkill, and sometimes leads the choices to not be quite as interesting as they could be. As above, happy to hear any thoughts or feedback about reader poll frequency in the comments.

Thanks as always for reading, and I’ll see you in your inbox next week!

Next Episode: Session 4.4: Reunion

1. Hitting up the Ironsworn Character Oracles for a quick descriptor for this NPC, we get Sailor for her role and Wounded for her descriptor. She once plied the Marsh on a punt or a fishing boat, but now is shorebound by a serious injury.

2. Anwen is being evasive here, trying to not let on who exactly Sianna is to her. She triggers Defy Danger using +Charisma, and scores a 5 total (Anwen’s CHA is +0). As a result, it’s clear to the people watching that she is nervous and dissembling, and we Announce Trouble by having one of the fen-walkers head off to cause some sort of trouble.

3. Anwen triggers Persaude here, rolling with advantage because of her Speak Truth to Power move. She blows the doors off with an 11, so Alastar is going to agree, or reveal the easiest way to persuade him.