13 November 2005 session notes--

the months of Shame and Mercy, and a great deal of Communion

names

Nishobato’pa’, the Wolf priest, who’s given up his name, played by Jake;

events

Calvus spends time with Ndapé, while they’re gathering supplies for their multi-tonal singing kites, updating him on the shifts in political situation and timetables.

Ishta writes to Utchka, her “sister,” and invites her to come for a visit. She’s working on making her foundation a little more stable: courting favor with the Finger and the Princeling, and actually courting the Princeling.

Jerry’s sending a letter to Gi. He wants to know what his powers are as Mayor. Just acting as liaison to the magi is stupid. And say hi to Mom.

Gieron’s setting up the brewery. He should have some booze ready in a couple of months, some green wine, some young beer, but he’s not yet ready to have Lhinkokow-oshi cut off the Scarecrow King.

Blesséd dies within the week, never having regained consciousness. He is buried as a Fisher priest.

Gi’s travelling “outside the map,” where things get weird, and encounters a wild earth-power, in the shape of a wyrm or dragon. —At Isrillion, Gratuitus bends Gi’s ear whenever he can to discuss Eleanoreanism. His apprentice prances about, making horse noises. Gi delivers four books and his gift of vis and pays respects to Asonder and tells Elias how much he liked his book. —At Ænigma Novalindenis, he has an awkward reunion with Phrancor. They travel together to Fumus, taking longer than they ought to, as Phrancor is not averse to resuming their relationship. For a bit. —He stops at Annalum to say hi to Caleth, and hooks up with Nil at that point. —At Lyridice, he hooks up with various magi coming to visit Nemus Animæ, as well as Regina Maris Loreata, a pen-pal.

(At Isrillion: Asonder has booted Gratuitus out of the role of Legatus, and he tells Gi the Mistress of the Hunt will give Gi’s horse-son to him when the stallion’s had enough time to sire a new generation on her mares. Does Gi want the stallion? Gratuitus is working on various projects, including Hubris’ message-system, with oddly modified rabbits. Catherine Caroline still has a room at Isrillion, but she hasn’t seen it in years. Elias is out of sorts, having finished his first book. He took part in the valley’s purge of bandits. The Septimus died in those battles; Lefty had two strokes, and is no longer with us. Mister Blue keeps talking about going on a road trip, and Tydfal keeps talking him out of it. A survey team – a master miner and his crew – are working on resurrecting the mines. —In general, Isrillion’s doing much better, a high-spring covenant, well on its way to summer.)

(At Fumus: A number of new magi, all Manerean suck-ups eager to curry favor with the Primus presumptive.)

The fat Monkey stops appearing in Ilba’s dreams.

Somnex sends a letter of apology to Nemus Animæ which, loosely translated, reads as “Go fuck yourself.” It includes a pawn of vis. Sonata apologizes for the rudeness of the covenfolk and their base ignorance, and includes a pawn of vis.

Utchka will write to Ishta to let her know she’s coming, but not Tully; Tully, after all, hasn’t let her know he’s been alive for the past twenty years.

M143 has been corresponding with Perdix.

Nil starts getting letters from Cristoférians all over asking him, while he’s in Gætan, if he could perhaps look into...

Cameron continues building magical connections between himself and Nishoba. —Sonata sets him to searching the books of Lem for monkey-references, and works weird Monkey-mindgames on him. She gets a letter (after twenty – thirty days) from Gratuitus, letting her know about some choicely Lemmish monkey references.

The iridescent beetles are very active down in the cellars. Calvus does some work with them, corresponding with Mens about them.

Perdix moves Ishkin into their rooms, setting him up on a pallet under a sort of tent by the rhododendron. Ishkin is deeply suspicious of Ilba – a Monkey-killer Monkey who’s being trained as a dragon-wizard; basically, she’s a vengeful evil spirit in the form of a fifteen-year-old girl – and Ilba’s jealous of anyone who takes up Perdix’ time. Perdix is saddened that their attachés aren’t getting along. They’re teaching Ilba Cholæic, first by going phonetically through the parma ritual, then teaching her the grammar of it. She’s to wear a parma ring whenever she leaves the trunk, and sleep only in the trunk.

Murray’s training the guards in strength- and speed-building exercises, and sets up mobile sentry patrols.

Ishta’s warning Nishoba to, in his friendship, encourage her oddities, to take the “heat” off them: he needs to tone down his theocratism and play hers up.

Bubbles goes through a relatively good period. He invents pigs-in-a-blanket, which prove a hit.

Perdix, Calvus, and Sonata all write to Leonis.

7th Mercy

scenes

The Wolf priest appears at the Great Hall, a strange, smelly man, with six small children crawling about him, barking, yipping, howling, and eating things. The chatelaine approaches. He tells her he’s looking for Calvus or Murray or Ishta; Calvus and Ishta are both heading over. The Wolf priest explains the children are his nephews and nieces and grandchildren, and says he has concerns. Calvus introduces Ishta, but they’ve met. —The Princeling, with the hunts and the dogs, the Wolf priest is concerned the game will be driven away. So he’s leading a hunt in three days, and taking a great number of Wolves. Calvus wants to know if he has an exact number. The soldiers are up to 80-some-odd; almost 50 are Wolves. Murray’s approaching. Ishta’s fairly certain the Princeling’s hunts are formal, ritualistic; the Wolf priest knows, but he’s worried it will still disrupt the game. Ishta asks the chatelaine to bring some sweets and something to drink and some beer. A couple of the kids get into a fight, and the Wolf priest arms them with chairs and sends them outside.

Murray tells the Wolf priest it’s a shame the military will be busy three days from now; the Wolf priest points out what good training a hunt will be; Murray agrees, shame they’ll miss it. Murray tells the Wolf priest he’s got no standing to call this hunt. The Wolf priest tells him he isn’t calling for it, but it’ll happen, nonetheless. Murray and Calvus tell the Wolf priest they can’t let a third of the military head out for a hunt. The Wolf priest says he doesn’t want anyone to break his oath, and if anyone comes to him to ask what they should do, he’ll send them to Calvus and Murray. The Wolf priest hopes that any men that go absent will not cause the covenant any hardship.

Outside, where the kids are battering the chairs to death, a cloud of birds flutters into Sonata. The kids charge her, shouting Crow! Crow! She tells them to leave her alone. They slink back, spitting. Sonata strides in to the Great Hall, greeting the Wolf priest. She asks is he has received the message she gave his cousin. He isn’t here to deal with that, but it’s convenient enough; he checks on the kids, gives them fresh chairs, and he returns, and Sonata leads him to a private room. Ishta joins them. Sonata says she can’t speak your language very well (“I speak it quite well,” says Hoopoe). Hoopoe makes him nervous, but he’ll deal. Sonata asks if he lives outside the village; he says yes. She means more villages in general. Ishta points out that Wolves generally live in the forests. She asks if he’s one of the four priesthoods; he agrees. She says she’s studying – Calvus appears. You were studying? I’m studying one of the other four. Which? The Monkey. Mmm. She points out the problems they’ve been having with Monkeys; he knows. She wants to learn the ways that Wolf priests bite Monkeys. He’ll be very happy to help her. The four priesthoods don’t like each other? Yes, he says. Do you also fight the Crow? We don’t see them much around here. Is that why the birds bother you? We keep birds at my home, he says. My daughters. For hunting. Our birds do not talk. —Some discussion of dealing with familiars; Sonata asks him not to hit her familiar, ever. It’s a matter of law. But apparently it was a joke that misfired. Anyway, he’s happy to tell her how they fight Monkeys, but now’s not the best time. —The Wolf priest says he’ll be leading many Wolves on a hunt in three days’ time. Many not in the service of the magi. If those that do serve ask whether they should come or not, then he may tell some of them to stay, but if they choose to come, he won’t stop them. He still wants to defuse the dispute by turning the hunt into a military exercise. He has to go, and see to his children; he offers to bring some chairs from his own home, but that won’t be necessary. He gathers up his kids; Ishta goes to the kitchen and fetches a jug of red moon, and some bread and cheese for the kids. The Wolf priest tells Ishta that had the Brewers taken action against her, the Wolves would not have joined them; she thanks him. He tells her she’s welcome on any of the Wolves’ hunts. She wants to know if he’s come across any oddities, any magical oddities in the forest, like the hungry woman. He says he hasn’t, but he’ll tell her if he does.

That night, Ishkin’s asleep, entangled in sweaty, nasty dreams of Ilba and Shotik and Abakoshi, when the fat Monkey priest shows up. He lets Ishkin wake up so he can see the room, and then puts him back to sleep before he can warn Perdix; the Monkey priest leaves a small penumbra of himself to hold Ishkin a prisoner in his dreams.

Abakoshi’s standing before a lectern in Bethelion, listening to the Procopian lecture about the opening essay in Vir Macer’s de sedico, only it shouldn’t be her, and anyway she’s too tall. The fat Monkey priest says he knows nothing about seigecraft, and pulls up a chair from the coffeehouse downstairs from Perdix’ apartment in Evasendia. Perdix sits on two chairs. The Monkey priest calls Ilba into the dream and explains who he is – the laziest peasant around, who spends fifteen to twenty hours a day dreaming, and leaving penumbræ of himself out to do more in others’ dreams; one of his penumbræ was who they’d dealt with in Ilba’s dreams. He starts to pump them for information, looking for the names of the magi. Ilba does, backwards, as numbers; the Monkey’s about to do something when Perdix jerks awake, and bells start to ring all over the covenant. The Monkey asks them what’s the plan. We’re awake, they say, but no, they aren’t. The Monkey doesn’t want to fight; Perdix says he wants something they won’t give up, so they’ll fight. He says he’ll come back when they’ve calmed down a bit. And Perdix wakes up. Abakoshi tries to wake Ilba; Shotik heads for the door, but Ishta and Sonata and Calvus are already inside. They try to wake Ishkin, and Sonata dives into his mind, and sees him held deep within his dream by three ferrets; she tries exploding them in bursts of feathers, and eating them, but it does no good. They’ll have to wait for the ferrets to lose interest and Ishkin to wake on his own.

The Monkey priest asks Jerry if he’s in charge, and Jerry asks the Monkey priest where his pants are. The Monkey priest says pants get in his way, and Jerry says he isn’t in charge. The magi says he is, but that just means he can go to them whenever there’s a problem and say hey, there’s a problem. Then he wakes up as the soldiers Murray sent around to wake everyone wake him by banging pots.

Ilba isn’t going to sleep for a couple of days.

meta

A Hunt is proposed, with the Princeling housing a pack of hounds at the covenant, and Ndapé inviting the apprentices along on a hunt of their own.

Barry allows as how he’s got a kids’ plotline in mind, so it is suggested we create kid characters and keep it in mind. No real apprentice-fodder, but priest-fodder is possible.

Utchka (perhaps to be played by Jake), Nil, Gi, and M143 (to be played by Matt) will all end up in Okla Lokchok – or perhaps hooking up at Bethelion or Lyridice, given that Gi’s itinerary is not unknown – to travel together to Nemus Animæ. Some or all of them might end up using the sledge.

Kip was concerned about Aha, who he’d originally imagined as a male, before it was decided the Weaver priests ought to be female; he’d imagined Aha’s voice as more of a stoner-type, but switching gears suddenly, he found himself falling back on a Minnesotan pepper-pot, very similar to Kim’s Cook, who isn’t Gætani at all.

Cristoférians called up by Annalum get a letter sealed with yellow wax. The Yellow Seal.

Nishoba’s planning on tapping his fellow apprentices for another meeting “down in the well.”

Ishta will be hiring entertainers to play the Scarecrow King – ringers from the city, and not the usual wandering Lyre (and Monkey) priests.

We will make a point of negotiating foodstuffs for the next session at some point during each session.

Jake’s playing the Wolf priest; Dylan’s playing the Corn Maiden. Jake’s playing Utchka.

“How is he armed?”

“With children.”