Session Notes
Ralluk of the Hundred Tongues stood at the burned site of the old Hay Barn. His Murgathen1 fellows having dragged away the old, sad corpse of the once-feared Shambler to be skinned and essential oils and juices drained, Ralluk watched the last remaining oak post fall into the muck with a sizzle. Ralluk is no leader or strategist, he would be told what role he would play next in this unfolding drama between the hated Gauntlet and the new murderous group, known — as I reported to him — as the Circle of Darkmoor.
“Will they treat?”
I responded that I did not know. That I had witnessed little but impulsiveness and reaction from the Circle.
“Ah. So, they can be manipulated, perhaps?”
I responded that doubtless that was true.
Ralluk nodded his head in that sidewise way peculiar to the Murgathen. His ornate wicker hat interwoven with finger bones from the flightless gobi birds remained implacably perched on the rubbery skin of his scalp. “I will speak to them.”
I cautioned him that the Circle would likely slash first and listen to reason… thirteenth.
He nodded again. The nictating bit of skin moved across his glassy eye. “I must not be too subtle, then.”
Welcome, Dear Reader! It is I, Fluffy, your correspondent from the fens. I have much to share about recent events involving your favorite topic: the Circle of Darkmoor and their on-going assault on the Moat House.
At last reporting, the Circle was hunched in a disused room in the Moat House, licking their wounds. I withheld the exact location in my previous post so as not to guide the Silencers to their holdout before the Circle is ready. Fluffy, my friends, is not quite ready to see an end to the saga of the Circle.
Squeezed into this room, an animated Caretaker harassing them, no doubt, throughout the night, the heroes must have observed the activities being carried out around them within the Moat House’s catacombs. The rounding up and pilfering by various parties. The disputes and threats and recriminations amongst their enemies. While further defenses were being prepared and multiple scenarios were debated, the Circle slumbered, though doubtless with one ear pressed to the door of that shabby room. Did the Murgathen enter the Moat House and confront a small contingent of dwindling Silencers? Did Larsson, captain of the Silencers attempt to lure his erstwhile underling Lucretia out of hiding? Did the witch Vindurain loot the Gauntlet’s treasury and escape via hidden watercraft in all the confusion and preparations? Who can say?
Once the Circle did emerge, they seemed to find themselves alone within the catacombs. There had been the great clatter of the steel plate that secures the catacombs from the surface. As they moved about the echoing complex, there was no sign of the Silencers. They searched and found no one remaining.
Acting on a rumor repeated by Lucretia that the Gauntlet might have had his own secret exit from the complex, they made their way through the concealed door, previously discovered by the cleric of San Nicholas. The Circle dawdled for a bit, examining the room of long-lost Pieter and of Aldmaar. A heavy trunk bearing a significant lock was discovered under the bed of Old Pieter; though it proved too great a task to open given other matters. Amongst the spare apartment of Aldmaar they found a never-used but impressive long bow, doubtless crafted by that famous ranger of old.
However, it was the last room down that hidden hallway that beckoned. It’s great door had been left ajar. Within was a significant horde of items, artifacts, glistening wares of silver and gold, rugs and tapestries of great craftsmanship. And, hanging open and empty, a heavy steel safe. Beneath a tattered rug, they found a grate and beyond it, a ladder leading to a rough passage.
The Circle followed the passage and the trail of dropped coin, ultimately, to the surface, a scant one hundred feet from the Moat House. They emerged, once again, into the fens, unaware of the scores of eyes watching that tunnel opening and their own clumsy splashing about. Did they spot a rough trail leading to the great sea? If so, they did not act on that knowledge.
The Circle wandered in a great Circle of Darkmoor through the dark moors for a time, while the creatures of the swamp watched, contemplated. Licked their rows and rows of dagger-like teeth. Eventually the heroes found the historic Moat House trail, and upon it, a pair of Silencers on horseback returning empty-handed from a vain attempt to find Vindurain and her purloined wealth.
Thus began another battle carried out in well-rehearsed Circle style: running full bore into the teeth of defenses the enemy has prepared with as much coordination and forethought as a pack of wild dogs that finally corners their prey, a thick-skinned, poison-barbed tharg with a separate stomach set aside for each of them.
To their credit, the Circle did manage to slay three of the bandits without losing any of their cohort. Did the Gauntlet and Larsson and two injured Silencers escape, as planned, back into the Moat House and lock themselves back inside and the Circle back outside as if none of this invasion had ever happened? The asking of the question obviates the need to even answer it.
Was there comical scaling, falling and re-scaling of walls? Of course. Did the Circle proceed in multiple separate directions as if even the simplest of battle coordination had never occurred to them? Laughably, yes.
And yet. And yet. They persist. The once vaunted Silencers and their leaders: the Gauntlet, Larsson, the witch Vindurain and the mysterious cultist woman are either fled, dead or hiding in the Moat House exactly as the Circle had done only hours beforehand. The Circle of Darkmoor has not defeated the Silencers. They have not seized the Moat House.
Quite.
- The Murgathen do not appreciate the name given to them by others; would you enjoy being called bullywug? ↩︎
