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-UE
Comments
Fucked if I know. Hell, fucked if anyone knows.
The Fae mirror humanity, to an extent. Well, no; it's more correct to say that the Fae mirrors the natural world, to an extent.
The Faerie themselves are divided in two. The Seelie and Unseelie. Nobody really knows what drove the two groups apart; some say it's a difference in their goals, some say that it's a difference in their nature, and some say that the two mirror different aspects of humanity.
They can, however, be classified into two general groups. The Seelie are generally benevolent, or neutral to humanity's goals; the Unseelie are generally malevolent, or neutral to humanity's goals.
There are some general rules for dealing with the Faerie. Many of them cannot lie (although whether this means they cannot tell a falsehood at all, they cannot say anything that they think to be false, they cannot omit things, some combination of the above, or something else entirely, depends on the Faerie in question, and often even the Faerie's mood and the time of day). They can often use glamours, meaning what you see, hear, and feel may or may not be what is truthfully happening. The Fae often have the power to bind you to any agreement you make, with dire consequences if you break the agreement. Many Fae seem to hate the touch of cold iron- and cold iron specifically.
Of course, whether any of these rules applies to any given Faerie... is up in the air.
The 'Fae' refers to the collective. That is; the same way you may say 'animals' and mean 'insects, birds, mammals (humans included), reptiles, amphibians, and all other living creatures', one would say 'Fae'. Goblins, trolls, redcaps, kelpies, changelings, ogres, fairies; all of those and many hundreds of thousands more can be referred to as 'Fae'.
Much like the Faerie, there are some general rules on how to deal with them- they won't acknowledge your existence if you don't acknowledge theirs, cold iron harms them, they can't cross thresholds or running water- but whether it applies to any individual Fae creature varies.
If you meant something else, I apologize, and I'd ask you to clarify what you meant.
[A]
Now i know what we're dealing with.
Hmmmhhhmmmhhhmmm. I'm a bit torn. Would you mind if I ask you to count me as [A] if there's a bind? (edit: or a tie. Or whatever it's called.)
Edit #2: so, the goblin that tore our heroine's leg, was a Fae?
Yes. It was killed soon after by one of the guards accompanying the merchant you were travelling alongside.
Okay. I will register you as that. I assume you don't have a vote if there is no tie then?
On the latter: yes, that's what I have in mind.
[Two and a half votes for A; A wins.]
You back away slowly. There is no way you are going to approach the Fae at night without significantly more advantages than you have now.
At this point, you're exhausted. Walking with a wounded leg is a bad idea in the best of times; walking for hours in a forest with rocky ground is a terrible idea. You're lucky that you didn't reopen the wound. The Fae are out to play; and with midnight approaching, there's a good chance you'd encounter a Faerie.
You limp back towards the city. Night time is probably too late to grab a room at an inn; you'll just have to try to find somewhere else.
There's a remarkably alert stablehand still awake in the stables of the tavern you had visited earlier. After slipping him a few silver, he "forgets" that he saw you there at all.
You grimace, and find a relatively clean pile of hay to settle on. You'll likely spend the rest of tomorrow grouchy and smelling like horse, but at least you can get some sleep in relative security.
You close your eyes, and are asleep within minutes.
----
You awake with the sun, as it hits your eyes. Awake, but not quite alert, you realize that your stomach is grumbling; you didn't eat for most of yesterday.
Sighing, you climb to your feet and slip out of the stables, saving the stablehand from having a lot of explaining to do when the tavern's owner came around.
You decide to...
[A] Go back out to the Western Woods and check out the area the Fae had been last night. There's a chance they may have left some clues behind.
Go to the southern woods again and scavenge for something to eat and a resting place for tonight. The Solstice Festival is tomorrow; you'll need the safe sleep.
[C] Go scavenging for materials. You're starting to run low on coin again.
[D] Start your preparations for tomorrow. In order to summon the dead, you're going to need to find a very specific area within a graveyard.
[E] Something else. (Please specify what.)
Food now, other stuff later.
I'll take [C] for a difference. But, when did I miss the part about summoning dead? It doesn't seem to be a metaphor for relieving hangover, at least.
I think it's a thing about our character that we don't know yet :V
That's why I'll take [D]. She's a witch, after all.
Witches need to eat too, though.
food now, necromancy later
Witchcraft ain't fun on an empty stomach.
I was honestly surprised that nobody asked why you were in town for the Solstice Festival. I thought I made it clear that you were in town for an Important Reason (tm), but I guess not.
So, to make it clearer, you're in town here because this region is fairly close the Woods- the forested region which extends indefinitely west, home to the Fae. This makes it easier for you to summon things.
The dead are particularly difficult to summon, as you have to reach across both distance and the veil between what's alive and what's dead. As you're not willing to go to the truest extent of necromancy- sacrificing life so that the veil parts momentarily, allowing you to seize spirits much easier- you have to stack up every advantage you can get; being as close to the Fae as possible, doing the summoning on a solstice eve, doing the summoning where death hangs heavy, and having a piece of the departed with you. (In this case, you have the woman's fingerbone.)
You're planning to summon the spirits of one of the guards who was killed in the confusion when the princess was kidnapped. This will, hopefully, give you a lead as to where to start looking; what direction they fled in, if they said anything, and if the guard caught a glimpse of the attacker.
Anyway, new post upcoming.
[Four votes for B; B wins.]
Stretching your sore limbs, you look towards the sun. It's newly risen, probably not having been up for even an hour.
You have less than two days until the eve of the Solstice. Not as much time to prepare as you'd hoped you'd have, but then, nearly bleeding out from a stab wound to the leg tends to slow one down.
The first thing you're going to do, you decide, is find a camp for tonight, and some food. Sleeping in a stable is all well and good, but you need to conserve your remaining silver (you fondle your pouch forlornly; you have only fifteen silver left), and you need to eat something before doing anything else. For a moment, you wonder idly if you should find yourself a walking stick, too.
You head back over to the crossroads and begin heading south.
You arrive in the southern forest soon enough. For some reason- some witches and wizards speculate that it's due to the ocean up north, while the south features nothing but a grassy plain- the Fae never seem to populate South.
(Personally, you always wondered how that works- after all, if you walked south to Veridan's Plain and looked north, the Fae would be as populous as they ever are in the north, while if you walked north from Veridan's Plain to Iidan's Fall and looked south, the Fae would be scarce. It's just another oddity of the world, as far as anyone can tell.)
You begin searching for a good camping spot. What makes a good camping spot tends to differ from day to day, but there are some general guidelines; it should be near to a source of running water, it should feature a tree in some form or another (preferably rowan, elm or willow), and the ground should be soft enough to rest comfortably upon. Wild animals don't bother you much; they rarely bother hedgewitches, and extend the same courtesy to you, even if you aren't a true hedgewitch.
Eventually, you find a stream. You follow the stream on its course until you find a willow tree, then duck further inland, where you know more willow trees should be located.
You soon come across a clearing, bordered by a copse of dwarf willows. That should be good enough; it's not the size of the tree that matters, after all.
Humming, you set your pack down and look for a branch. You find a small one, about as thick as your thumb, and begin tracing a circle around your new camping spot. The circle is made wide enough that you can walk around in it, and lay down comfortably without risking rolling out of the circle if you move in your sleep.
When you finish drawing the circle, you place the branch down next to your pack and draw a silver knife from your belt. With a practiced cut, you reopen the half-healed wound on your hand and splash blood on the circle. (You have never been sure if spilling blood is actually necessary to create the ward, but you have no desire to test if the Fae will still be able to see you if you don't.
With your camp made (gosh, you hope it doesn't rain), you set out to find some food. Generally, you can find some wild fruit and mushrooms easily; in fact, mushrooms are so abundant in the forest that you are thoroughly sick of eating them.
Luckily for you, the region you are in is close enough to the western forests that fruit trees grow abundantly. You don't have to wander too far away from your camp before you are able to find a pawpaw tree.
Eating a couple of the fruits doesn't make for a particularly well-balanced breakfast, but it's enough to tide you over until lunch. You drop the seeds in a small hole in the ground, hastily shoveling dirt over them, and pick several more of the fruits, just in case. You determine to buy some new rations when you are back in town (bread and cheese generally last a while, if they go stale, and you can pick up some fried fruits and nuts if you're willing to spare the expense).
You turn back to camp and pick up your pack again. The branch you used to draw your ward may make a good walking stick, as well.
What are you going to do next?
[A] Hunt for reagents you can make poultices and medicines with. You could end up needing some medicine yourself, and selling the excess is a good way to stock up on coin again.
Head back over to the western woods and examine the spot where the Fae were last night, looking for clues as to the mysterious black figure's whereabouts.
[C] Head back into town. You can buy some bread and cheese there, and you need to find a graveyard to use tomorrow.
[D] Something else. (Please specify what you would like to do.)
[A]
We're already injured; let's not get moreso.
[A]
[Three votes for A; A wins.]
You don't have too much equipment that you could use to make reagents with- mostly bandages, a canteen of water, some vials and sealing wax, and half a dozen one-ounce vials filled with coconut oil and vanilla extract. Still, with that, you should be able to make some medicine.
The first thing you do is head back to the stream where you had found a willow tree, then strip several small pieces of bark from it. Powdered willow bark is a great ingredient to use in poultices; it's a somewhat effective pain reliever.
After that, you begin hunting around the forest. You have a general idea of what you're looking for; you lack the equipment you'd need to extract many of the materials you would use normally- poppies are abundant here, but you can't properly press the seeds, so you can't get any poppy oil.
You are, however, lucky enough to find a copse of Melaleuca Alternifolia- tea trees. You extract several leaves from it (a couple of dozen leaves; enough for your purposes, but not enough to badly harm the tree).
You also find some small Aloe Vera plants. This is a lucky find; you can extract the sap from the plants to fill your smaller vials, making a small amount of aloe vera sap, which can be sold as a fairly effective treatment for burns.
You continue to search around the area for some time, but you don't find anything else. When the time begins to approach uncomfortably close to noon, you decide to head back to camp and begin the long process of extracting the oil from the tea tree leaves.
----
You powder the willow bark as you slowly make the tea tree oil. Once the bark has been powdered, you carefully place the bowl containing the powder to the side, and begin the long process of extracting the sap from the aloe vera leaves into a vial, occasionally stopping to skim the oil from the cup collecting it.
When you have extracted as much oil as you can from the tea tree leaves, you collect the remaining water and throw away the leaves. The water is still warm, so you begin mixing it with some of the powdered willow bark, in a separate bowl.
When you have turned it into a thick paste, you withdraw the clean bandages from your pack and cut off a length. You carefully spread the paste over the cloth, making sure to cover the entirety of it, then take the (overused) poultice from around your leg, where the hedgewitch had tied it to your leg some days earlier.
You use the remaining water to quickly wash out your wound, then press the new poultice over the stab wound. You tear off a new strip of bandage, then tie it around the poultice, securing it firmly around your leg.
With that done, you reach itno your pack again and withdraw a large, stoppered beaker. You take the stopper off and carefully pour the remaining powder into it, then stopper it again.
Once that is done, you take your vials of coconut oil and vanilla extract out and carefully unstopper them. You add the tea tree oil to each of them- no less than ten drops in each, no more than twelve- then drop the now-empty vial in your pack, making a mental note to wash it out later. You then stopper and seal each of your new vials, carefully placing them in your pack so they won't break.
You pack up your gear again, quickly drying your pot and steaming equipment and placing them back in your pack, then stand up. You head off to...
[A] Go back to town. You really need to locate a graveyard sometime today.
Head over to the western woods. You've waited over half a day already; any clues have likely been lost, and waiting any longer only reduces your chances.
[C] Head back to town and try to sell your vials of pain-relief ointment to an apothecary. Selling five of them should earn you a tidy profit, and allow you to buy rations so you don't have to live off of pawpaw and mushrooms.
[D] Something else. (Please specify what.)
I skipped over a lot of the process of actually making the medicines here, in favour of trying to not bore everyone. If anyone's curious, you can find the methods for extracting tea tree oil here.
[A]. Graveyard! Summoning! Ooogy-boogy!
[C]
I'm gonna go for . Someone has to finally take this option.
Heh, making herbal medicine. Brings back memories. There was a time when I heavily lurked on survivalist websites, they had lots of these kinds of stuff.
[A]
[Three votes for A; A wins.]
You carefully tuck the bandages around your vials, ensuring they won't break, before pulling your gear onto your back and beginning the walk back into the city.
The city is lively at this time of day. People are bustling to and fro, preparing for the Festival tomorrow; setting up stands, moving goods around, and quietly assessing areas.
There are three main types of areas graveyards are built in. They are often built at the highest point in towns; this is the oldest method of making a graveyard, and is rarely done any more. Corpses have a disturbing tendency to turn up mutilated and masticated in them. They are similarly often built at the lowest point in town, to accommodate crypts that are built underground- to lessen the impact of the schism between a high-built graveyard and an underground crypt. And, lastly, they're often built around sites of significance- around an ancient oak split by lightning, or an execution site where an innocent man was drawn and quartered.
Without asking around, you don't really know where to look for any sites of significance. You worry at your lip, then look around, trying to locate the highest point in town.
In the northern part of town, there's a small hill. You begin to limp over in that direction, silently cursing at your decision not to grab a walking stick while you were out in the forest.
Schisms are often considered to be important when dealing with magic. You don't know why, although some wizards theorise that it is the contrast. Schisms are the reason so many wizards who go dark like to despoil innocence- the contrast between the innocence and the depravity inflicted on them lessens the resistance against rituals. It's also why meditation is so good at clearing one's mind for acts of magic- the contrast between your complete stillness and the world's movement makes the magic less resistant against you, for a short time.
You arrive at the hill some time, and grin slightly. There is a graveyard there, although that doesn't necessarily mean it's good enough for your purposes.
You look around. Seeing no-one around, you silently slip inside, then hurry in before any passerbys can come along and see you.
You start searching around. The graves are laid out in neat, tidy rows- the bane of anyone attempting necromancy, as the tombstones being inside the ritual circle tends to have a disruptive influence.
There is a small, undisturbed plot of land at the very tip of the hill- someone has conspicuously left this spot alone. You frown; there may very well be a good reason that this spot has been left undisturbed, but it's the highest point in the cemetery, and you're not sure that you can draw the ritual circle without disturbing the gravestones, otherwise.
The sun is starting to lower in the sky, however. You estimate you have six to seven hours of daylight left before night-time.
Your choices are limited.
[A] You can use the high point of the cemetery to draw the ritual circle. You don't know if it will have any negative effect on the ritual, but it might.
You can duck further into the graveyard and knock over several gravestones. This will probably make it even easier for you to perform the ritual, but you'd be knocking over people's gravestones.
[C] You can leave this cemetery alone entirely, and wander the town in search of a low-built graveyard. It could take a while.
[D] Ask someone in town where a low-built graveyard is.
[E] Ask someone in town where significant sites are, and hope that a graveyard was built around one of them.
If you choose to use this graveyard, you'll probably have time to do something else.
[A] Go to the western woods and attempt to locate the black-cloaked figure.
Attempt to sell some of the medicines you just made. You could use the coin.
[C] Go to an apothecary and buy some silver and some black cloth to make a charm with. You might be able to fight off the Fae's glamour with it, if you decide to go back to the woods at night.
[D] Go to a tavern and attempt to listen in to rumours again.