Session Four: The Miller's Tale

The Delivery

Out of fondness for Jurgen, most of the company assists him with delivering Albrecht’s equipment to the worksite near the shrine. The sun sets, and the steps up to the site are treacherous in the dark. Sabina trips and smashes both her knee and the corner of her crate. Albrecht chastises her but, fortuitously, the crate contains only books, and so the likelihood that anything has been harmed is minimal.

Once all the crates are brought to the site, Albrecht—too preoccupied to look for a lantern, stuns the company by conjuring a small sphere of light. Beneath its lambent glow, he fetches up a crowbar and pries open the crates, checking their contents for damage. The company sees the aforementioned books, as well as numerous instruments of brass and glass.

Albrecht continues to berate Sabina for her clumsiness. She replies with some hostile words of her own and departs. Garnier follows her.

Albrecht von Juntz, a Student of Altdorf

Pitchforks and Torches

A small group of villagers, led by a man in the habiliments of a servant of the Lady, arrive on the beach. They carry torches and lanterns, and Garnier assumes they are what passes for a mob in Annecy. He and Sabina join the group, and Sabina notes that Allison le Bois is standing well to the back of the group, looking nervous. Sabina moves closer to her.

The religious figure is a man named Absalom who, unfortunately possesses a voice most nasal. He calls up to Albrecht, upbraiding him for causing all manner of mischief in the village. He also points out Albrecht’s floating light, and says that he now has proof that Albrecht is a foul sorcerer.

Albrecht descends to argue with Absalom, and most of the company go with him. Only Maurice stays behind, and only so that he can root around in the crates for valuables. He finds a long, yellow-colored gemstone, which he pockets.

Albrecht is quite hostile and indignant, until Garnier actively incites the mob against him. This causes Albrecht to fall back in terror, and to quickly admit that he only knows petty magic. He insists that his research will only benefit Annecy, and will likely bring more people out to see the miracle of the shrine. He promises that any villagers who wish may come up to the worksite in the morning and look at his instruments, if that will calm them.

It seems not to, but Allison steps forward and prevails upon Absalom to not press the matter further. Absalom places his hands rather possessively on Allison’s shoulders and relents.

The villagers and their priest return to town, as do Jurgen and Magnus. Albrecht retreats up the hill to his worksite. The rest of the company, noticing that the tide is out and seems to be staying out, decide to investigate the cave in the sea cliffs that they spied earlier.

Realizing that they have no light of their own, Squire Henri chases off after the villagers and hastily arranges to pay one of them two shillings for the rental of her lantern.

Absalom, Priest of the Lady

Pierre and Magnus

Still in the le Bois residence, Pierre helps himself to some food before leaving. He runs across Magnus in the village square, and the two men exchange words. Magnus, sick of the whole business, plans to go to The Whelm to drink and unwind. Pierre shows Magnus the parchment he discovered and—when Magnus reminds Pierre that he cannot read—reads it for him.

Magnus confesses that he could not care less if he tried and goes to make sure that Bartholomule has not suddenly died of old age in the last couple of hours. Pierre, meanwhile, seeks out the rest of the company and hopes that they will find his discovery a bit more interesting.

The Whelm

Upon entering the inn, Magnus is invited by both Henri the Innkeeper and the Whelm’s proprietor to play cribbage.

The game is interrupted a short time later when a distraught Allison comes in and hurries to hide next to the Whelm’s large fireplace. The priest, Absalom, enters shortly thereafter, stalks after Allsion, and begins wheedling at her. He tells her that he was right, that something was, indeed, wrong with Albrecht, and that on no account should she have anything further to do with him. He then tells Allison that she should be with him. Allison vehemently denies his advances—something which Magnus suspects she has had to do many times before.

Magnus turns to the Whelm’s innkeeper and asks the man to hand over one shilling. The innkeeper, bemused, does so. Magnus takes the coin, rises, marches over to Absalom and, with great force, hoists the priest’s smallclothes into his privates. While Absalom sputters and whimpers, Magnus tosses him out of the inn. Absalom promises revenge, but is too overcome with pain to be much of a threat to Magnus, a hardened mercenary. Magnus watches with satisfaction as Absalom scurries back to the shrine of the Lady.

A grateful Allison thanks Magnus and departs for home shortly thereafter.

The Cave

The Howling Caverns

Pierre catches up with the rest of the company as they approach the cave. He finds that they are, indeed, more interested in his discovery than Magnus. Sabina says that the words on the parchment simply confirmed her suspicions.

Worried that the tide will rise unnaturally fast and trap them in the cave, the company splits into two groups. Garnier, Pierre, Sabina, and Frieda will keep a watch outside the cave, while Sir Jean-Marc, Squire Henri, Renee, and Maurice venture inside.

The explorers do not have to travel very deeply before they find an old and derelict ship, its mainsail furled, resting on the sandy floor of the cave. Peering through the gaps in the hull, the explorers see that it is empty apart from scattered oars and a wash of sand. Henri and Jean-Marc smash at the hull, attempting to make a large enough hole to gain access. Despite its great age and rotten state, the ship’s wood resists their efforts.

Sir Jean-Marc soon finds a long rope hanging down from the top of the ship’s mast, and uses that to hoist himself onto the deck. He is soon joined by Squire Henri. Renee and Maurice circumnavigate the ship and find a relatively new-looking length of rope that has been secured to the handrail of the ship’s main deck. They use this to reach the deck and, while doing so, notice that something has scuffed the ship’s hull in places.

On the ship, the explorers see numerous footprints—not their own—that have been left in the sand on the deck. They also note that the handrail has been inset with blue and sickly green cabochon gems. Maurice takes a closer look and discovers evidence that several of these gems have been pried out recently. Using the point of his dagger, he wiggles free one blue and one oddly slimy green gem and adds them to his spoils.

The explorers descend into the oddly empty hold. Sir Jean-Marc discovers strange symbols carved into the hull of the ship—all of them the same—and that they seem to form a ring which encircles the ship. The explorers lack the means of reproducing the symbol, until Squire Henri daubs one of them with silty mud and presses his tabard against it to make a rather crude woodcut print.

The explorers consider what to do next when they hear an ear-piercing shriek from the direction of the beach.

The Symbol Carved on the Ship

The Coming of Morrslieb

The watchers remain on the beach near the cave, occasionally checking the tide while chatting and playing cards. In the midst of a rather intense game of Go Fish, Frieda happens to look up at the sky. What she sees causes her blood to run cold. She points in terror at the heavens above her, collapses into a ball, and screams.

The rest of the watchers look up to see that Morrslieb—the Chaos Moon—hovers over the shoreline, full and eerily close. Garnier and Pierre panic at the sight of the moon and flee into the cave. Sabina, meanwhile, helps Frieda pull herself together.

Sabina looks over at the Shrine of the Miracle of the Howling Cliffs. When Sabina sees that Albrecht’s worksite is now a small building that seems to be lit from within with horrible, greenish light, she sets off for it at a dead run, pulling Frieda along after her.

Back in Annecy, the villagers flee from the Chaos Moon, barricading themselves indoors. Magnus, hearing the commotion, blocks the doors into the Whelm with a table and other furniture. Once this barrier is in place, Magnus happens to hear Allison outside, calling for her father.

Against his better judgment, Magnus unblocks the door just enough to get out and—after telling the inhabitants of the Whelm to seal the door after he leaves, goes to confront Allison. She is panicked and inconsolable—apparently, her father, Jean, saw the Chaos Moon and ran off to the beach to finish his boat. Magnus promises Allison that he will bring her father back and orders to get inside the Whelm. 

She does.

At the Beach

Magnus finds Jean le Bois hard at work on his ship, which is somehow almost complete. The carpenter refuses to come back to the village, and tells Magnus that he needs to finish his ship so that he can “save all Annecy when the storm comes.” Magnus, realizing that the carpenter will not leave, offers to help him complete the boat. Jean accepts.

Sabina and Frieda arrive, and Sabina and Magnus quickly catch one another up on what’s going on. Sabina tells Frieda to go back to the cave and inform the rest of the company about what’s happening. She then races back to Annecy to warn the villagers.

In the Cave

Garnier and Pierre catch up with the explorers and tell them that the Chaos Moon has come. The explorers decide that it would be much safer to remain in the cave than dare the baleful eye of Morrslieb. As they make their way off of the derelict ship and deeper into the cavern, Frieda eventually joins them and tells them what she and Sabina saw on the beach.

The explorers push onward, through a tunnel, and into a second chamber, which seems to be covered by splintered wood, rusted bits of metal, torn cloth, and rotten rope. They hear the sound of water lapping on rocks and follow it, pressing onward into a third, half-flooded cave that seems to have an outlet to the ocean.

The explorers look over the detritus that litters this cavern as well before several keen-eyed members notice a hole in the ceiling that leads to an uneven shaft. Dangling down from the hole—low enough to see, but not low enough for one person to easily reach—is the bottom of a knotted rope.

As the explorers decide how and whether they should make their ascent, they hear the roar of surf echoing throughout the cavern. Looking at the subterranean beach, they see that the waters are rapidly rising…