To the Hall of Balthi

[Telcontar]

  ?

[Eclecticon]

It is now.  I should commend you, I suppose, for at least thinking about keeping your AP tally up to date. 

[Eclecticon]

Skulking, creeping, darting from one hidden place to the next, Hathcyn seeks a gap in the palisade.  The wan and shifting light of the moon through the mist casts deceptive shadows that now invite his attention, now reveal timbers set flush against one another, or a gap too small to attempt.  Finally, after much darting too and fro, there it is: two timbers knocked askew by some desperate struggle where hasty repairs with hempen rope are now failing, leaving an opening too small for even the gauntest and gangliest of goblins, but just right for a fox! 

Summoning all his speed, he breaks cover and streaks like a falling star across the cleared space before the defences of Black Tarn Hall.  Choosing his moment as carefully as he may, he leaps... and lands in a slightly ungainly tumble within the bounds of the palisade.  The scent of putrefying flesh, already strong in the nearby woods, becomes stronger still, and his nose twitches momentarily toward a small pile of dead orcs, dragged from where they fell and left to rot for want of wood to burn them. 

In the dimness, hidden by darkness from mannish eyes but plain to those of a night-goer, a man plucks something again and again from a protruding leg at the bottom of the pile.  Though he bears a rude helm of iron and leather, and his face is hidden by his prodigious beard, his age is betrayed by his fingers, gnarled and twisted by hard years.   Not long does Hathcyn need to behold him to realise what he does.  How desperate must these folk be, he wonders, to seek maggots begat in orc-meat?

But to this man, he is naught but a creatures of the woodlands.  Arbogast surely is within the hall, and it is there that Hathcyn goes on cunning paws, wriggling under a door with scarcely more difficulty than he passed the outer barrier.  Within, he spies some six score forms, many reclining on improvised pallets or the bare earth floor, their scents heavy with the tang of blood.  A similar scent mixes with the familiar signature of the Fire-watcher, and briefly the spirit-fox fears that some dolorous blow has laid him low.  But no.  Though his eyes are sunken and his limbs slack with fatigue, he holds his wife to him and in the light of the fire is revealed as uninjured, if not wholly hale. 

Focussed as he is on his family, Arbogast does not spot the fox until Hathcyn prods his leg with a paw.  The Fire-watcher starts from his reverie and looks fearfully down before furrowing his brow. 

"I know just such a fox as you, that would be bold enough to enter a hall of Men and molest those it found within.  Hathcyn?" 

Hathcyn, pleased not to require an introduction that is difficult, at best, with a vulpine snout, nods his head. 

"Aha!  Then my messages have been heard!"  Powerful as the look of sheer relief is that comes across the haggard face of the Fire-watcher, the scent of his emotion is even moreso.  "Tell me truly, do you come as the harbinger of a host?" 

Another nod, fox-eyes meeting man-eyes throughout. 

"And you will be..." for a while, Arbogast plainly struggles to calculate the miles and days.  To assist him as much as he might, Hathcyn scratches a crude design into the dirt, suggesting a lamp. 

"Near Balthi's hall!  Then you are not far, not far at all!" 

The Fire-watcher, released from some inner tension, slumps against the side of the sleeping booth, the forces of sleep already conquering him.  "I shall tell them in the morning: my friends approach, and we shall be delivered from our torment.  'Til then, we shall endure.  And afterward, life shall go on..." 


Behind the scenes, I've been steadily depleting Arbogast's Hope points as the siege drags on.  After this, I'm going to restore one.  On a personal level, nice going, Tom! 

[Eclecticon]

You probably have a bit under an hour before dawn snaps Hathcyn's spirit back to his body.  Anything else you want to do?

[Telcontar]

  sweet! I like it. Since I dont need to worry about making it back I'll try my luck at a better recon of the Orcs.

Hathcyn has enemy-lore Orcs so he'll know what to look for.

[Eclecticon]

Once he is certain that his friend slumbers peacefully, Hathcyn takes his leave and passes once more out into the cool of the early morning.  Already, he feels the tugging of the approaching dawn drawing his spirit back to the confines of his body, and yet there remains an important task yet to do!  He passes by the old sentry without alerting the starving man, and with a gathering and releasing of his small body's might, he is once again without the protection of the settlement and darting into the woods, intent on finding whatever fell being is the lynchpin of the goblin army. 


I'm going to be pretty quick about this, because I feel like we've spent long enough on this side mission.  First, He'll need a Search roll:

1d12 : 12, total 12
Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6

[Eclecticon]

...Huh.  I can't honestly say that I was expecting that to work. 

Okay, moving on.  If it were anyone else, I'd make them roll Stealth, but being Wary and Swift is a pretty good combination to get that done without a roll. 

[Eclecticon]

Like liquid night, he passes from one knot of brawling, singing and entirely unwitting goblins to the next, following the subtle clues that show the power of one band over the other.  Ever closer does he move to the terrible will that binds together the foes of the Men of the Black Tarn, until finally he comes beneath a great oak, its spreading boughs now crawling with forest goblins, beneath which a knot of orcs that the Longspear knows for black Uruks of Mordor, bandy-legged and bulging-armed with skin the colour of blackened iron.  Seven in all, they jostle and bicker beneath a tall and sharpened pole, on to which the head of a long-dead Man has been rammed and bound with wire. 

Though he has not long enough to watch the orcs to reckon which might be the leader, and in any case the answer might be different by the next night, this is clearly the standard to which the goblin host has gathered.  Marking the sight of it, and the orcs who defend it, he allows the rising sun to draw him back to his body and opens his eyes.  Red are they, and aching.

[Eclecticon]

By mid-afternoon the day after Hathcyn's nocturnal wandering, the companions have left the outlying steadings behind and have come within sight of Woodmen-Town.  Where Woodland Hall stands proud and clear above the surrounding trees, Woodmen-Town almost seems to wrap them about itself, such that the transition from the narrow path through the undergrowth to a cleared area where graze a handful of sheep and cattle, to the thorn-topped wall of wood around the town itself seems almost a gradual thing, not a hard line separating the lands of Men from the wild beyond.  For this has been for centuries a home of the Woodmen, and they have shaped it just as it has shaped them. 

Their coming has clearly been announced already by Ingomer's river-borne messengers, for no sooner are they spotted by lookouts than they are ushered, not to the Hall of Balthi, but to the market-tree, where the warriors of the town are already gathering in great numbers.  A hundred, Grimbeorn reckons, are at arms already, and more are expected.  As they draw near, a cheer goes up to greet them.  "Hail new arrivals!  Hail keen eyes and fell hands!" 


Over to you guys for anything you want to do.  I would suggest, given Hathcyn's Weariness, that you overnight here, but it's really up to you.  You can give them a stirring speech and push straight on, if that's what you want. 

[Telcontar]

  how far are we from The Tarn? Two more days?

[Eclecticon]

You're about six days away from Black Tarn Hall, or eight if you go via Rhosgobel.  So technically I shouldn't let you spirit-fox all the way there.  But he's Swift, and he's a fox not a bear, and it makes a better story this way. 

[Eclecticon]

Doug, Matt, feel free to chime in here as well.  I know it's been the Tom-as-Hathcyn show for a few days, but we still love you guys!

[Telcontar]

Since its already almost evening i think we should stay here. The few remaining hours of daylight may allow the gather force behind us to close the distance.

[Eclecticon]

Hathcyn, spent from the last night's labours, accepts a mead-horn and collapses gratefully before a fire, not to stir therefrom for some considerable time.  Esgalwen and Grimbeorn, known to the kin of Arbogast, are cheered and introduced to a bewildering number of warriors young and old, as well as wives, cousins, elders and children.  Every person in Woodmen-Town who has dreamed of winning glory with axe head and bowstring, it seems, wishes their name to be known to these famous outsiders.  The shieldmaidens, of whom the Woodmen host counts a great number, are especially eager for the recognition of Esgalwen of Gondor, champion of many lands.

As the fires die down, the conversation shifts from the immediate circumstances to what awaits them.  Though the warriors of Woodland Hall have yet to arrive, the Woodmen are not concerned.  Armies necessarily travel slower than small bands, and Munderic, whom the Woodmen know for the Ponderous, is considered hardly a leader who will drive his men tirelessly onward.  "They will be here tomorrow, or the next day," comes the constant refrain. 

Meanwhile, the folk of Woodmen-Town debate whether to bring the Lamp of Balthi with them.  "Its light will shield us," say some, "and guide more of us home than would otherwise return from a battle." 

Others scoff at this thinking.  "The Lamp is far too important to risk in battle," they say, "save that the whole of the Folk is imperiled.  With the warriors days away to the south, its light is needed here to protect the old and the young, who might not defend themselves against the dark things that dwell in the forest." 

Come the dawn, the companions awake well-rested.  Amid the excitement and trepidation of an army readying itself to march, they gather once again the gear of war to their hands. 


It sounds like there isn't a lot of extra preparation you guys want to do here, so we'll move things along.  You can involve yourselves in the debate over the Lamp, or not, as it suits you - you'll notice that I left it unresolved.  When you're ready, we'll do the journey thing again as you head to Rhosgobel.  Your outlaw scouts should be waiting for you by the time you arrive. 

EDIT:  Mechanically, a night's rest with friendly company in a safe place clears out all your fatigue, and Hathcyn is no longer Weary. 

[tomcat]

Sorry, Paul - I am here and keeping up. I just haven't had the time to post.

This post will fall on the night of the Woodmen debating the taking of the Lamp.
Worry grew in Esgalwen's heart like a weed that fills a garden. Hathcyn's recount of the conditions of the Tarn had only helped to exacerbate her fears. The fact that the muster was taking so long and even necessary that they must serve as envoys to each settlement struck the Gondorian as odd.

At the table in the Hall of Balthi, she questioned the elders. "We have been marching for days now, from the House of Beorn, since word came to us of the plight of the Black Tarn. First to Ingomer of Woodland Hall and now here, only to move on with the new day to Rhosgobel in hopes that we can persuade them, too, for help.

"It makes me wonder the purpose of the Folk-moot that most of us here attended, per Ingomer Axebreaker's call,  those years past. Was it not agreed upon to unify the Woodmen of the Vale for mutual protection? Why must we plea with each other for assistance?" She munched thoughtfully on a the piece of bread in her hand. "In Gondor, we created an alliance with your folk that lived within the northern vale, under Eol. He rode to Gondor's defense and so was rewarded with the lands of Calenardhon, which is now called Rohan. That alliance has always remained strong between our folk."

A few voices rose in murmur of that story and how Eol and his people won great renown. Esgalwen continued when the additions to her tale faded, "In the south, we have fashioned a series of beacon towers that run along the length of the northern highlands of the White Mountains. These towers are in place to serve both the King in Rohan and the Steward in Gondor, to call for aid of the other in times of need. Perhaps such a thing would help the Men of the Vale? Perhaps a series of towers could be built along the eaves of Mirkwood from Amon Bauglir to Rhosgobel, to the lands of Beorn north and Mountain Hall in the west, as a means of sending word for aid?"

Fridwald, old in his years answered, "And who would build such towers, Lady? And who would man them?" His tone was not scornful, but matter-of-fact. Esgalwen simply shrugged, "Like the opening of the road to the north, it would be upon you all to make such things happen and a watch force created. In Ithilien, I am part of the same -a group of Rangers that keep eye on the fences of the Black Land. Each town would build their towers and provide the folk to keep watch. It would be good for all! The resources are easily available with the sea of trees on your doorstep."

The wizened elder looked at the Gondorian and nodded. "It is something to consider. It would have given Amaleoda and her folk a way to send word to us all."

It was then that the conversation turned to the Lamp of Balthi - the question was whether it should be taken south in this endeavour.