Fratricide

[Eclecticon]

"Be not hasty!" the Brown Wizard cautions.  "Tauler said that she slumbers, and I do not doubt that she slumbers here, in the place that she has made her lair for centuries unknown even to me, and wound about with dark spells for her protection and the confusion of her enemies with false seemings.  Trust nothing that you see within!" 

"All very well to say," comes Esgalwen's rejoinder, "but how then are we to find what we came here for?" 

"For years, I have studied her ways, seeking out and studying her webs in the deep and lone places of the forest, and this I have learned: no matter their form, her deceptions are a spider's, seeking to draw you ever deeper until you have trapped yourself beyond hope of escape.  But unlike most, you know that you are entering her snares, and therefore might escape them." 

He grins, half in hope, half in desperation.  "Escape the snare, and you may step beyond it, to her very dwelling-place.  There, the meaning of things will be plain.  The Weaver, like all her kind, will delight in the suffering of her prey, and I do not think that the river-maiden's likeness will be concealed." 

With that, he steps forward, his russet light pushing back the darkness of the cave ever so slightly.  Like a loyal hound, Arbogast follows wordless at his heels.

[GandalfOfBorg]

Grimbeorn grumbles at the cryptic words of the Wizard.  This is beyond his ken and he knows it.  Bowing to his mastery or maybe just his hope, he continues on all the more watchful but also staying attuned beyond just the environment that trick his eyes and senses.

[Eclecticon]

Following his kinsman and lord, Hathcyn ducks his head and enters the cave wherein Tylquin makes her lair.  Esgalwen, for the moment alone outside the threshold, gives a last glance around, watching the indistinct boundary where the growth of trees thickens for any sign of Tauler's presence.  Has he kept his part of the bargain, she wonders, or have we been betrayed and sent to our deaths for his amusement?  Deep within, the gnawing, ever-present thought gnaws harder: would they suffer so if I didn't go with them?  Perhaps I ought to stay here... to keep a watch on the way they must retreat...

But she blinks it away and is once again the stern-faced daughter of Gondor.  Unsheathing Nimronyn, she follows, last but hardly least of the company, into the darkness. 


Righto - some game admin: it'll surprise you not at all to learn that this place is blighted as all fuckety-fuck, so some Corruption rolls (TN 18) are called for:

Arbogast

1d12 : 6, total 6
Rolled 5d6 : 6, 2, 2, 4, 1, total 15

Esgalwen

1d12 : 4, total 4
Rolled 5d6 : 6, 1, 2, 1, 2, total 12

Grimbeorn

1d12 : 2, total 2
Rolled 5d6 : 2, 3, 5, 1, 4, total 15

Hathcyn

1d12 : 4, total 4
Rolled 5d6 : 1, 2, 3, 6, 6, total 18

[Eclecticon]

Esgalwen and Grimbeorn both gain two temporary Shadow points.