You patched up Bog and Boamund burned the bodies while Miguel set off along Gertrude's trail, hoping no more horrors followed her. The tracks ended at a little hillside cave and soon the others came, with Fraud addressing her and a witty reply and repartee ensuing as she emerged. You learned she'd fled the Sottogh in search of a “friend” nearby for help, but she wasn't clear who that was- who would be here to the southwest of Sottogh so near the dangerous frontier with the Seshnelan occupiers?
She gave news: “The fact is, I'm a Sottogh now. I rode the Sclavora [Giranois name for pteranodons] and I proved my blood lineage back to Granno and the elder head of Sottogh. But they don't all agree. Especially not stinky Ilk. So I got to be alone with my thoughts for a couple of seasons until Groad set me free.” She eventually offered (quite easily?) to follow with you rather than seek her “friend”; but she wasn't willing to go into Malkioni “tomb-cities”, having abandoned the colonists' way of life now. And so you left, opting to stop by that farm before visiting Jett's camp to get Bog healed by Maugis. Bog and Gertrude quickly found some common ground while chatting, and she showed him a “borrowed” troll penis she kept for amusement. Gertrude kept giving Fraud a hard time for leaving bloodbaths wherever he went; a new source of tension between two.
You met the farmer women again in their grove and asked how they still got fruit in Dark Season. Indrishi explained it was from good Dronari skill and effort and Seshna's blessing. Fraud got curious about the latter and soon you were welcomed into the hospitality of their little hut and saw the small snaky-draconic Seshna totem that the farmer women prayed to, along with normal Western prayers. Nothing seemed too out of order with all that; Rokari Zzaburi of course would condemn such paganism but not you. The women got a meal ready while you chatted and Getrude entertained with expert dancing and juggling (Fraud sighed, reminded of old times long gone). Then you heard distant hoofbeats and the women froze in fear. Miguel went to the hut's door and saw armed riders coming in. Indrishi said they brought trouble (they'd come regularly before to take tribute, including the ladies' innocence), and that you should not face them as they were very dangerous. But the women also seemed to want protection, you felt, and your sense of justice compelled you to step outside and confront the riders.
They were led by Fayed the Shameless, a former Dronari footman on Big Ron's side who had fought in the war alongside the farmer husband; and eight more riders came with him; the latter were scantly equipped with light leather armour and spears and shields while Fayed bore a broadsword and battle-axe (wearing patchy bronze armour), and together they called up protective sorceries as they charged in whooping battle cries. But they pulled up short of the stream near the hut as you emerged and confronted them. Fayed shouted wild threats of your death, and you called back with warnings and accusations of cowardice. He paused, looking you over and grumbling, then with a curse and a spit he turned his riders around and fled.
Miguel soon followed them to track them, continuing overnight after camping, and found them atop a small cluster of low hills where they had some tents. He wasn't sure if there were more of these bandits or if all were there. He returned to the hut before the next night. Meanwhile, you spent time at the hut, camping outside with Gertrude and Bog bonding some more. Gertrude revealed she was a competent healer/surgeon and fixed Bog's arm injury, which left him very grateful indeed. That morning while the women tended to the fields, Bog got curious about a nagging feeling that the women were hiding something (Miguel too had felt this), and seemed a bit more than just impoverished farmers, with some decent tools and decorations in their hut. So he searched around and found some buried bits of mismatched bronze armour under a hide-rug; this seemed like loot from bodies? Wondering, he snuck into the grove of trees and sniffed out a dead body under the roots of a tree. Aha! The women had been taking bodies to fertilize their groves, and the loot to enrich themselves and perhaps the bandits too? But were they in cahouts and murdering people? Gertrude argued in the womens' favour that this might not be the case, and said she saw they were indeed out in the fields/grove and not out looting today.
You decided to await the womens' return that night and ask. Miguel returned with news of what he saw. At dinner, Bog avoided courtesy and flatly asked the women what the loot and bodies were about. Indrishi grew tense and tried evasively answering but said they made use of “raw resources”. Slowly you got it out of her that they were indeed looting dead bodies from the war but she denied, with outrage, that they worked with the bandits at all. She explained Fayed had gone mad from the war, forming his band of brigands, and she kept her remaining family alive by giving tribute in war loot. The burials of bodies in the grove were Seshna magics that fed on the dead and kept them dead, so Boamund was reassured that he needn't burn them all. Then, in the early night as you talked this over, hoofbeats again became audible (Fayed and his men fumbled their Stealth roll, angry and poorly coordinated and drunken!) so you prepared to fight while the women grabbed weapons defensively.
The riders came in, with Miguel dispatching a bowman who had a firearrow ready. Fayed soon led the dismounted riders to the door, where Boamund and Fraud awaited and Bog and Miguel nearby. Quickly Fraud blinded Fayed with some kicked-up dirt and he was knocked unconscious. Bog threw darkness over the approaching bandits after two spearmen engaged Fraud and Boamund at the door, trying to force their way in. Miguel cast a Phantom Sound spell conjuring the thundering voice of the Talannim commanding them to kneel. He hit one in the head and another was slain and soon they fell into disarray, running about in the darkness and easily cut down, but they also began fleeing. Miguel shot one down as they rode off and Indrishi furiously stepped up to Fayed's body and killed him with a spear-thrust to the neck. You caught three of the bandits in the end and aimed to take them back to Jett to return to war service. The other four, Indrishi claimed, would trouble her family no more. Boamund burned the two corpses. Yeladia praised Miguel for his bravery and there was a little chemistry there, but it didn't lead anywhere inappropriate. Fraud looked to Gertrude and apologized; she scolded him but admitted it was good that the women were safe now. The next morning, you left.
You dropped the bandits off at Jett's camp and decided that you should go further east into the Big Gunge to find out more about the Wisdom of the Nose from Narak. En route you ran into the pathetic little Giranois man named Ferd, who used to lurk outside St Thosos's walls and had some rough times with Vadeli, but never was grateful to you despite your aid. He did like Gertrude, though, and this encounter seemed more than coincidence although they pretended it was. Was he the “friend” she spoke of? He didn't seem very useful.
Anyway you came to Narak's sounder's mud-wallow and all was well. She informed you: “The Sottogh have lost their tie to the land; to the Earth. It is a nymph of the swamp they have lost; an ancient relative of their clan. A Mud Hag! It wandered away and I feel it is greatly disturbed, roving again in the tumult of the invasion and battles on Giraine.” Gertrude also explained: “I learned much from my buddy Groad and from eavesdropping on Ilk. Granno taught the Giranois elders how to be friends with the Mud Hags. The Sottogh's Mud Hag has been lost to them for a few years now. The Sharde and Huru have theirs. This loss hurt the Sottogh and they chose to turn closer to the wall-men in consequence. But now they have turned away, led by Ilk.”
Narak offered to use the Wisdom of the Nose to first try to seek the Mud Hag; later as you travelled west with her and her pig Glut, she related that she thought that the scent revealed the Mud Hag was corrupted by the Yellowskin! Fraud wondered if this was Aria's Well's mud hag?
The trail led back southwest over a day's journey toward the Seshnegi frontier not far from Humbertsville, although you met no trouble. Then finally you came to a lonely, desolate, biting-bug-infested mudflat where Narak explained, "The scent is strong here. We will find the Mud Hag but one of you must challenge her in her domain. She will be strong. You will leap into her mud and wrestle her name from her, then speak that name and command her to return to the Sottogh with us. She will not come easily... Go forth; if one of you falls another must step forward or all is lost. Narak and Glut cannot save you." Fraud volunteered to be the first challenger and you cast spells on him to prepare.
A swirling formed in the mudflats and a scowling, toothy face took shape in the violent vortex. “Oh my lovelies, sweet men of land and sea, what right do you claim to trespass upon the lands of The Mud Hag?” she called out- this was a familiar query that a certain Mud Hag had used years ago… Fraud dove in after challenging her to her stubborn defiance, and combat ensued! She was a powerful opponent but Fraud was ready- she would have drowned a lesser foe in her mud, and she could have bitten a weaker swimmer, but he fought well despite taking an early essence-bleeding wound. Soon he forced her to reveal her true name, Tusynta, and she grumpily told him then to leave, so he did, confused. Narak however was not. She challenged, “Tusynta, daughter of earth and water! In the True Earth Entra's name, of the Path of the Hidden Hand of the Hag, I call on your true name to shake off the curse of the Vadeli Yellowskin! You are weak and lost. My spirit is strong and wise. We will lead you home if you release the pollution that has vexed you.” Tusynta coughed and sputtered and vomited out a thin, shimmering slick of pale yellow fluid onto the mud's surface. Narak dipped her hand into the mud by her feet and stirred it; the current expanded and reached the yellow slick, and the mud dragged it under. The face of Tusynta gave a toothy grin. “Oh my lovelies, that's a welcome change. My face looks upon faces familiar and not. But my memory fails me. Who has freed me and why?” You explained, and the Mud Hag Tusynta, indeed the one from Aria's Well, said “The Sottogh earth holds the true elder. I recall now the sweet taste of that earth of the Sottogh, the dark loamy soil blessed by the blood spilt by Tanosh, Ever-Youthful Lord of the Red River [the Sottogh's Old God; quiescent?]. I yearn to taste it again. Take me to it. I will follow below.” And so you left, headed back to find and challenge Ilk and help the Sottogh re-unite- but it wouldn't be easy…
Narak's value as an ally is now very clear to you all: perhaps singularly on Giraine, she has learned to (1) use her Mraloti Smell Secrets sorcery to bless Glut so he can sniff out Yellowskin curses with the Wisdom of the Nose, and (2) her earth-spirit communication talents enable her to do the same to find Mud Hags and other entities and maybe even influence them.
In chatting, she and Gertrude realize that Gertrude had the dreams of “Wisdom of the Nose” because Narak had been issuing sendings through the Giraine earth-spirits, searching for the lost Mud Hag that Narak had discovered in her ponderings of Giraine's powers. Because Gertrude had become a Sottogh Giranois officially, and was stuck in a pit in the earth, she received one of those sendings. Gertrude and Narak, although they are worlds apart in personality (one jovial and warm, the other dour and harsh), have struck up an unlikely friendship.
Narak and Glut apparently can, if they know who they are looking for, seek out either Yellowskin-cursed beings AND free them now, and the same with earth spirits. You would be thinking that, if Vadeli learned of such talents, she would be in huge danger???
Does Gertrude have value? Well, opinions will vary! She would say so. She relates, after hearing Tusynta's words, that she'd overheard from Groad and other Sottogh that there had been another Elder, back when the colonists arrived some years ago, but they vanished and it was now a sensitive topic. She also tells that she'd heard Groad speak of Tanosh often enough, invoking his name as a war-leader and huntsman, and often in relation to blood; which makes sense with what Tusynta said. The Sottogh used to be skilled in war like other Giranois, in the name of Tanosh, but Ilk turned them toward other pursuits in recent years, or at least channelled that violence toward certain other ends; such as starting to turn against the colonists again lately.
Ferd, well, he just still seems like another hapless Giranois along for the ride. He has shown no particular talents save for being grouchy and causing trouble; disproportionately so even for a Giranois. But Gertrude speaks out for him when she can.
-John
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