You confront the Chaos invaders at Birchcross. They have the numbers, but you are seasoned Chaos-slayers and even the nastiest of them have difficulty facing you (they were all ~85% or less in best skills; or often less). On the north side of town Fraud and Shrett face a larger group consisting of a naked, horse-headed broo with thick scabrous skin, wielding a glowing sickle; and a slavering, pus-sore-covered goat-broo with sickle; and a foul-smelling disease spirit; and a crazed, scarred woman with glowing sword and dagger; and a typical goat-broo with mace and shield. On the south side, a scorpion man in heavy armour and wielding a glowing shortspear; its left hand ending in a scorpion-pincer; is charging Bog and Boamund, under covering fire from a fierce archer. They all seem to have no trouble entering the darkness around the crossroad’s centre, but Nemiast and especially Renuvela are blinded and confused by the darkness. As they close in, some throw spells at Shrett and Boamund; and one evokes a powerful Crack spell that splinters Fraud’s shield.
Shrett soon is surrounded, by the spirit and two broo. But Fraud comes in to help, and drives off the spirit before it can do harm. Shrett holds his own desperately against the broo, and soon the pus-broo is downed with a single sword-slash to the head, then the woman too, who has closed in a bit late; her left leg rendered a bloody mess. Meanwhile Bog makes short work of the scorpion man, crunching his thorax and then smashing his face. The archer is firing Multimissile arrows at Bog and Boamund but they all bounce harmlessly off their armour. Bog hurries over to help Fraud and Shrett, and together they wear down the tough horsehead-broo; and the goat-broo “Stinkball” is knocked out by one sword blow after holding his ground for a while. However, amidst all this melee, Nemiast has been slowly moving across the square, and speeds up as he crosses toward the edge, then as he leaves the darkness cloud, with Boamund close behind but too slow to grab him, Rolthor appears out of the shadows into the daylight, pulling Nemiast along with him as they speed up to a fast run. Shrett soon pursues, whereas Bog ensures the scorpion man is dead and then joins the chase, a bit unsure of what’s going on. Fraud and Boamund lag behind, knowing they have no chance of catching up to the two escapees. Renuvela eventually snaps out of her magical befuddlement and the darkness magic withers in the sunlight. The archer has fled and Rolthor and Nemiast are well down the road to the west. Yet Shrett is the one closing in the fastest, and as he does Rolthor slows down to procure a head out of concealment in his robes, turning it back to face Shrett. Its dead eyes and mouth crackle with electricity and a massive lightning-bolt screams across the crossroads, striking Shrett who is caught flat-footed by the powerful spell, and his left leg is charred by the blast. Shrett falls; is he dead or alive? Nemiast and Rolthor escape as Fraud comes to Shrett’s aid and bandages him. Soon the Estali patrol led by Damaia comes in, ashen-faced and weary, explaining that they were assaulted by crazed ghosts (Thanatari Mad-Head Ghosts, it turns out) at the fires, and it is of course clear to all that this was an orchestrated diversion so that Rolthor, now clearly a potent Doom Master (priest) of Thanatar the Headless God, could abduct Nemiast. Damaia sends three of her patrol to ride down the two of them, but the patrol never returns. You ask if she could take you to chase them, but she says they have too few horses to carry you all.
Renuvela confesses to Fraud in private, within a temporarily abandoned farmhouse, that she seeks Arkati, not the Sun Temple; that she has seen how you have faced Chaos down, and also how you are diplomatic; and that she has indeed withheld information and lied. She hopes he will come to understand she did this out of love for Nemiast; all that she has left; in desperation. Indeed, he is not Sun-blessed but much worse. Since birth he was strange – indeed, very curious and showing promise for a future philosopher or priest – but at his adulthood initiation ritual in Orlanth’s hall Karulinoran he met one of the Storm God’s brothers, who took him outside where a wounded man lay. The man died as Nemiast inquired if he could be saved, and the brother said that Nemiast had seen a great secret whose answer most people do not want to know, and he can show Nemiast more where the wind does not blow. They wandered and saw a ram that caught fire, and Nemiast tripped then fell into a cave, where he met a headless man who asked for the head of the ram from its burning carcass. The headless man put the ram’s head on his shoulders and told Nemiast to seek him again to gain more knowledge. Nemiast returned from his ritual and the adults knew that evil things had happened to him: he had become tainted by Chaos. They sought to sacrifice him to the flames but Renuvela fled with Nemiast, and thus you met her. Perhaps those boars did not like Nemiast for what he was…
Fraud is of course upset by this revelation and says that, while Arkat might help her (Fraud knows that if Nemiast were trained as an Arkati, illumination could control the Chaos within), he must honour his deal with the patrol and take her to the Sun Temple. She weeps and pleads but hears him out and soon is just too despondent and exhausted to do anything about it, clearly with no way out this time. Fraud tells the group what he learned. Damaia says that they are too weak to make it to Tolin now, and the roads will be crowded anyway with traffic to a Festival in Tolin, so you choose to camp there in Birchcross. Damaia agrees to take Shrett to the Lightbringer temple in Tolin, sure that he can be healed by the Chalana Arroy priestesses there. But Damaia Evershine sees Bog’s shield and inquires of its Estali iconography. Boamund delicately and honestly explains how it was a gift from Compt Fiveeyes Lothair, honourably won by him, and she accepts this as the way that battle goes. She adds warning that coming into Safelstran cities bristling with weapons will raise issues. You should not expect to be able to bring weapons into temples, houses, etc., but expect to often have to check them with guards or something, and some cities even prohibit weapons within or else require permits and bureaucracy.
Feeling better rested but maybe saddened and sour about Nemiast’s grim fate, you make a quick journey to Tolin the next day. The prior night, Shrett had used his skills to make Fraud a new bronze kite shield. The road is indeed crowded with people coming for the High Holy Week of the Estali Fertility Festival, which is happening across all of Estali (and similar things elsewhere in Ralios), to celebrate the Great Green Lady and her kin. The people are in high spirits and many carry samples of the harvest’s bounty, the local crops being spelt wheat, rice, beans, and fruits (especially grapes, apples, peaches). Damaia jokes to Boamund that he will be very popular in Tolin, and it’s clear that this is because he is handsome. (Fraud might feel as twinge of jealousy as she does not even look to him)
Tolin guards near the eastern edge of Estali County. At a population of maybe 5000 people, it is bigger than most cities you’ve been to except Handra. The people passing in and out are varied; some of it much like you saw along the main road, but some of it striking. First, there are the Galanini horsepeople, who are fair-skinned and often blonde, and vary in dress from styles more like Pralori hsunchen/Hykimi to Auloring barbarians to more civilised styles, often with rich decorations of gold in those cases. Second, the people reflect the settlement. This is not like anywhere you have been before. It is a society ruled by women—there are some women warriors, and you see women acting in charge, and symbolism worn by people and on the architecture emphasizes that this is a matriarchy. And it is not at all a Malkioni society. There are few Law runes; few Western inscriptions; and few depictions from the life of Malkion or Rokar. Instead, there is some Lightbringer iconography, but a solar horse-woman style dominates; and you also recognise motifs as coming from Ehilm (~Yelm) in a theistic context; very much about imagery of the gods and their acts. And it is a curious mix of that culture with that of beast-folk. While horses are everywhere, you see people that you’d consider more like animists or even Hsunchen around the streets, especially on the edge of town where the homes are more humble. The pungent aroma of the smoke of kafl leaf abounds, coming from many people’s curled ceramic pipes. Street traffic is not just bustling, but now very disorienting and distracting with its endless parades of festival-goers and holy people and decorated platforms and grains and fruits and musicians and beasts and… people having orgies in the streets. And serpents slithering down rain gutters on the sides of streets or up and down buildings; given wide berth by the populace. Some celebrants wear horse masks with their hair styled as manes; quite a few of those are boisterously engaged in various sexual activities. You think back to the celebration at the Temple of Bones of All Beasts, feeling parallels. You also are struck by how these Galanini are not just uptight sun-worshippers, but rather know ways to enjoy themselves… to put it mildly! The patrol leads you into Tolin, and you get some interested looks from the gate-guards.
As you pass down a street toward the central plaza where the Sun Temple is, Boamund and Fraud see a short, darkish figure in a hooded cloak watching them from an alley off the main street, then darting down it. Boamund can’t catch up, but sees that the person has dropped a leather-bound lead tablet. He unwraps it and sees a lead tablet inscribed with a mix of symbols; the tablet has seven faces (sections) that seem mobile. He shows it to you and Fraud recognises it as Arkati code, so you wrap it back up to investigate later.
The patrol takes you to the centre. The town is set up in concentric rings in a half-circle open to the lake, with the quality of buildings and even residents’ well-being increasing as you wander toward the lake and its port. The central plaza is conspicuous for its great, ornate, gold-domed Sun Temple (of Ehilm) on the lakeshore. The Sun Temple is designed in the form of the god’s chariot on ten pairs of wheels at its base; each wheel pair decorated to show one of the five seasons; and drawn by seven spirited horses flanking a central staircase. The temple is heavily and awesomely decorated with gold, and precious gems on the horses. The Festival continues around the plaza, some practitioners coming close to the temple and being politely shooed off by guards. Damaia gets a temple functionary to come down the stairs to meet her and then Renuvela is taken within. You wait for 30 minutes with the patrol watching along too, but Renuvela does not return, so you leave. Bog tries taking a step up the Temple stairs and then is warded off sternly but politely by guards. At least Damaia has spoken for you, that this troll can be tolerated.
Damaia takes Shrett to the Lightbringer temple on the plaza, which has numerous shrines within. There, a white-robed priestess of Chalana Arroy, the White Lady, blesses Shrett’s maimed leg with a Heal Body spell, which suddenly leaves his leg good as new, and Shrett is feeling pleasantly warmed by the experience, which is quite different to that provided by a Saint Xemela formula. He gives her a reasonable donation of silver in thanks. Damaia asks if there is more she can do for you now, and she tells you of some local establishments, one of which she recommends as a place you should be able to get a room at for the night; busy as Tolin is. She thanks you for your honourable conduct and you thank her for the same. “The Galanini value being fast, alert, cunning, compassionate, and honourable,” is her reply. She has acted as a proper Galanini would. She wishes you well and you part ways.
Boamund goes to the Sun Temple and speaks to another functionary, who is patient with his questions about the Young Yelm but firm that Ehilm is different (Ehilm is more equal to, or even subservient to, Galana the horse goddess her). Boamund gets the Ehilm initiate (a woman; it turns out all Ehilm representatives here are female, which is VERY unusual!) more comfortable and has an interesting conversation about Ehilm, the Galanini and Estali. (info below) Bog has a fantastic time enjoying the abundant street food in Tolin’s festival. He stumbles back to the tavern later, stuffed and drunk. Shrett, still weak from his wound, relaxes over some ale at the tavern.
In your room at the tavern, Fraud unwraps the tablet and inspects it. He finds the code remarkably easy to decipher. The code even is somewhat familiar to him. He is able to move the seven “cells” around by a strange sorcerous mechanism that lacks any gears or other devices. It is a rough map of southern Daran county showing a few key features along the Jrimb River, with “The Wanderer” written above three Disorder runes and words by them: Paschal, Elfchild, Ornim. He finds this rather exciting. He also deciphers a hidden protection to the tablet: a non-Arkati Chaosbane adherent opening it would be hit with a Darkstrike as the tablet destroys itself. So he seems to have made some kind of connection with his secret cult!
Boamund learns various general and specific things related to Ehilm, over time: 1. (whispered) Beware of Sun Horse riders and Ehilm god-talkers. The Queen (Ingye of Galin city) has them scouring Estali and beyond for those with the beast-blood, or forbidden affiliations. She has many more allies than these, too. All within Estali County should fear her power. 2. Some say that the original horses could fly and Trickster or Humath took their wings away, but the Galanini know that the first horse Galana (later the mount of Ehilm) had claws and fangs and a horn that it got from the Trickster or Humath, and that it was Pendal (Basmol) who ripped them off, and some say there were wings too. Different Galanini cities favour different stories. 3. The pure Galanini of beast-blood are returning, but even they are seen as foes by Queen Ingye. They don’t need to be chieftains to turn into sun-horses with magic, and the human mothers wed sun-horse (beast) fathers. This is scandalous! 4. The common people of the Estali League fear omens of Arkati darkness descending from all around, but especially something new from the north, or so the prophets hint. 5. The eastern barbarians have a history of disagreement, to put it mildly, with Safelster (especially on its eastern borders). People worry that the Chariot of Lightning sect will come here to challenge Ehilm. It has happened in Helby County. This is a popular topic of concern all around Estali. 6. Ingye, Queen of Galin city: The beautiful 18-year-old Ingye ascended to the throne of Galin three years ago. She relies heavily upon the counsel of her uncle Keye, who serves as her military warleader. She recently married the noble knight Meime, the Tournament King of Kustria (a western Safelstran city-state), creating a powerful alliance that worries some other Safelstran cities. 7. Religion is different in Estali. Shamans are still welcome amongst the Galanini but they are not of our people. They come to us from the Pralori Serpent-Beast Masters. We are led by female Chiefs, who are worshippers of Ehilm. No priests serve Ehilm here. We have god-talker acolytes of Ehilm, all of them women, that work with our Chiefs to maintain the faith. Some of our people value the Twin Storms, Orlanth and Humath (who are equals), and other Lightbringer gods are popular.
You elect to remain in Tolin to enjoy the remainder of the Festival, relax, talk with the locals, and Shrett makes new bronze lamellar armour for himself, as his old suit was acid-burned. You think over the fact that there is a powerful sky-river (Lorion) cultist in charge of Tolin but figure it would be impossible to gain audience with her. You talk over events, rest, and make the short journey to Estali City the next day; at the start of the fifth week of Earth Season. The road is still busy, but now not with festival-goers.
Estali, the capital of the Estali League, is an amazing city even from the outside. There is a large port perfectly positioned on the river’s mouth and Lake Felster. Its docks host dozens of merchant ships and a large business in fishing, and then many naval vessels, including a colossal four-storey royal war barge decorated in gold and iron, bristling with weaponry. Timber flows from upstream and is collected with a hubbub of well-practiced activity on both river shores. There are throngs of tents and wooden houses and market stalls, as well as fields and stables and their horses, just outside the city. A huge wall atop a rampart encircles the whole city, decorated with statuary heads of vigilant horses and warrior maidens and coiled serpents and such. There are stout watchtowers and guard houses all around. The walls are endowed with a sensual vitality, crowded with colourful bas-reliefs and mozaics with the grain goddess Ralia holding serpents, horse-headed golden-maned Sky Gods, wrathful Storm Gods, green-skinned fishy lake goddesses and blue-skinned river gods. To a Rokari, the ostentatiousness here would be terrible blasphemy. The people here are as diverse as you’ve seen elsewhere in Estali; perhaps more so; although the Hsunchen don’t stand out as much.
Mounted soldiers, including women, by the gates give everyone a wary looking over. You get through with some scrutiny and questioning, but the guards don’t seem too bothered by your oddness and all of your armaments. Your impression; perhaps even awe; of Estali only grows upon entry. It makes Tolin look simple. This is no humble fortress for horse-riding barbarians. It rivals most “civilised” Malkioni cities and radiates centuries of proud history, glory, and power; dating back even perhaps to the Godtime. Unlike some cities you’ve visited elsewhere, Estali has never been razed or plundered, even though it has traded hands over many centuries. So it is in remarkably fine shape. The city’s magical energy often is strongly palpable. Many of Estali’s structures are made almost entirely from red clay bricks. Even the main streets are paved with these bricks. Some of the houses tower like sheer cliffs, three storeys tall. They have windows which are filled with clear, flat glass; you’ve never seen this before as a city’s common feature. Long, wide streets head through characteristic Estali concentric rings of buildings and side-streets toward a central compound, above whose strong walls plenty of towers and temples and forts peek; most of all a palace toward its northwest side.
A well-dressed teenage boy of athletic build, with freckles and blonde hair, approaches you as you enter. He says he is named Hunla, and offers his services as a guide. He is working toward joining the Guild of Guides, but says he isn’t yet old enough to do so, yet argues that his skills are excellent, he knows Estali well. You see other guides offering entrants to Estali their own services, and Fraud opts to haggle with Hunla, who enthusiastically participates, even though he agrees to a lower price but just loves the idea of leading you around town, impressed by your exotic looks. You go down a central, wide thoroughfare with a mix of activites happening. There is a market lining it, much as there are markets in many other places around town— Estali is a major trading hub, and its wealth is obvious. You see spices, incense, perfumes, rich woods, glass, carpets, ivory, leather, pottery, wines, oils, dried kafl leaves, trained slaves, exotic pets, and other luxury goods, filling the air with heady aromas. The bright lustre of silver and gold, and the dark shadows of secrets and pleasures, draw mercenaries, scholars, and sorcerers from across much of the world. You don’t stand out much, but you do get your share of curious looks.
Down that thoroughfare, Bog hears a squeaky trollish voce and sees a female trollkin dressed in fine leather trousers and jerkin is on a street corner calling out in Safelstran and waving a clay tablet around. She then asks in Darktongue when Bog approaches and addresses him “Can you read?” He says no, and with a hint of disappointment she asks him to bring someone that can. “We can read the stars to answer your questions! Come look!”. The tablet reads (in Safelstran) “Do not allow DARK FATE to overwhelm you! Worry not that EVIL RIVALS seem to possess SECRET KNOWLEDGE that YOU LACK! The STARS can speak! Visit MARTHEDES THE STARSEER on JRIMBSIDE to PEER BEHIND THE MASK and discover what you are missing! The IMPOSSIBLE LANDSCAPES of your FUTURE await your discovery!” Fraud knows this as an Arkati invitation. “Impossible Landscapes” is perhaps the most (in)famous Arkati grimoire, of the secrets of heroquesting, which the Godlearners took and used to ill means, but were also cursed by it, adding to their downfall. Fraud tells you about this and you mull it over.
You ask Hunla to show you around the major sights of Estali for that afternoon, starting with the central compound where the big Palace of the Archon (Nikias Waldrada) is, and the largest temples. He notes that, overall, the city is notable for its markets, arena, port and military harbour, various neighbourhoods from wealthier (mostly on the periphery within the walls) to ill-reputed (a dense ghetto on the southeast side), and more. Most notably amongst the temples are The Great Library of Lhankor Mhy (one of the largest in Glorantha, Hunla says) and The Temple of the Great Green Lady (where Alangellia presides, as nominal ruler of Estali and High Priestess of the Goddess of Estal the Great Green Lady/Ernalda). There also are Lightbringer, Humath, Rokari/Invisible God, Ehilm and plenty of other temples. But none to Arkat. At least not openly…?
Your imminent goals are to: inspect the temples (Bog and Shrett to Great Green Lady; Boamund to Ehilm; Fraud to Lhankor Mhy) then find a good tavern (Hunla knows many), then maybe go to Tiskos and/or Gamol, depending on what you learn next.
There was also something funny that Bog witnessed, as he tried chasing after Rolthor and Nemiast: the priest shouted back at him, “So cometh Urcheth!”. Bog didn’t know this name. Surely nothing important. Not ominous at all. Nothing could come of it.
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