kumir_k9 | Madrigal recap (Reply)

I'm clearly going to be doing this whole update thing in pieces, so I'll start with the short timeline version, maybe include some highlights.

Friday:

The White Court followers were called to the Naveril temple to speak with Saint Norelle and learn about the summoning of the Angels and fixing the Fountain of Ice.

One of the side discussions was Ariana of the Order of the Star talking about her ordination task. She was planning on having some entertainment presented at the temple of Naveril on Saturday afternoon. I figured this would be a good time to do my ordination task, which was to write a song about Naveril and perform it. The song, ***“What Naveril Means”, is about what Naveril means, based on common belief, based on what he means to the church and then finally what he means to me. I planned on attending Ariana’s performances and joining in with the song there. It seemed fitting to perform my ordination song in the temple of Naveril.

I waited until the saint was free and clear of all the questions and then pulled her aside to ask for some advice on a moral dilemma. We walked across town all the way to the other tavern talking about the issue with the (more than) occasional interruption.

We stopped for a time at the Little Trechele tea room so she could talk to the ladies there. That was a nice little interlude, most welcome because I so rarely get to see them anymore. We also got a saint's perspective on an aspect of Aradach and a look into what missions we'd have to accomplish the next day to get closer to our gods in preparation for calling the angels.

We finished up our tour of Shadowfane back where we started. We finished the intended conversation. This was a very fun discussion about weighing importance of various factors and clearing up a little mild misinformation I had. It made some pieces fit together nicely in a later conversation in the weekend with <player to be named in the PEL but not here>.

The preparation for the Lord of Pyre fights was a good chunk of roleplay complete with its own moral dilemma. I'm not quite sure who started the rumor that the Inquisition would severely punish any priests of the White Court who took a boon from Alejandro, seeing as he's a Corrupter. However, most of the priests didn't want the boon because of that and if no boon was taken, you could essentially not go because the Lord of Pyres could take you over. In the end, well, actually, more like in the middle, Zephyr decided that his family was not going to go without him and that protecting them was more important to him than the church.

There were some pretty cool discussions about this whole dilemma with Joy, who is guiding him in his ordination, Sarrciano and Solomon. The discussion with Sarrciano led to one of the best lessons with an NPC later in the weekend. Valentine also mentioned to me in here that she and Petros both had information for me about our "friend" Robert Melles. i was dying to hear that, but obviously it had to wait.

The annoying part of all that is that a non-Corrupter boon was made available *after* some of us had made the painful decision and received Alejandro's boon. So the moral of that story is if you don't like the requirements for a big battle, just wait and a more palatable option will come along. I really hope that wasn't the moral of that story.

The fight itself had one little twist that made it tough. We had to avoid trees, even if they were on the ground or else we took damage. Then we went into the woods... to avoid trees... in the dark... even if they were on the ground... while fighting. The fighting itself was very clean, but people were ducking low to avoid branches and watching out for trees, but not for other players. I got stepped on and stepped on others a couple of times myself. The only problem I had with that fight was that.

And then I found out that Rowan had died. I ran back toward town, or more accurately jogged as quickly as I had energy left for, with Klee and Ragnar in tow for protection. I of course am never out there and was facing in the wrong direction and so we were quite late getting back to town. We were however there in time to join in the dirge for death. We were not up to our usual standards on this particular performance and I thought sure the Reaper was going to be upset, but Rowan came out unscathed. We'll be practicing this piece (and hopefully some new ones) such that it will work regardless of who is there. Rowan and I talked about that a bit before I headed off to bed for the night.

Saturday:

I got a little bit of time with Grum and Locke. It was like the good old days when the three of us would be the only ones up, before we knew each other well, back when the three of us were a lot more innocent. It was very cool in a nostalgic sort of way.

Continuing the feel of nostalgia, I went down to the deck overlooking the lake at the back of Wayfare Hall and pulled out my flute and played. Lona was there with me for a little while. Martin joined me and asked if I had any duets. As it turned out, my relatively easy duet book had multiplied, so I went and got the pair of them from the cabin and gave him one as a present. We sat for a while and sight read a bunch of them together. Well, ok, he sight read them. I had pretty much played all of them before, though never on the recorder, so it was still something of a challenge. It was a fun way to pass the early morning time, sitting on the deck, looking at the scenery and enjoying the sound of the music drifting out over the lake on a gorgeous, crisp, fall, sunny morning. I had not done this in far too long. It's one of my favorite LARP activities.

Nur came along as I was putting away my music and instruments and we traveled to the merchants' dining hall for breakfast. She had information for me regarding Souldrinker. While the information was very good, she told me that she’d need to dig deeper for more. I told her to go ahead. I must remember to submit the appropriate info skill.

Talk with Nur is always entertaining and this time was no exception. Due to Sasha not coming until late Saturday, I decided to take my meals at the dining hall. It also gave me a chance to point Terra out to Nur as a favor to Rowan. I also ran into my pal from the very first event, the camp director's daughter who remembered my windy countenance. :-)

I ran into Petros who had information for me about my "friend" Robert Melles, the man who munches on Troubadours. It was fascinating information that I happily shared with Nur, who I had promised I would have at his death if possible. At least now I knew more about him and where to find him. Unfortunately, he is no longer seeing people at his estate. On the way out from breakfast, I ran into Valentine who had an additional letter of info on Lord Robert Melles. It spoke of his background some and painted a less than pretty picture of the man. Clearly this was going to take some doing. More on this later (as in late Saturday night). Oh, this reminds me that I owe both of them money for looking into it for me. ***NOTE TO SELF, FIX THAT!

Before leaving the hall, Tashka came out and an opportunity presented itself for me to give a task to one of my apprentices. I was feeling guilty for ignoring the two of them for so long. Some mentor I am. So anyway, we were talking about her meeting Nur and I instructed her to handle Nur the same way I would handle someone I was meeting for the first time, but who I knew of, go right in and start talking to her as if she already knew Nur. Not to worry, I did give her real mentoring later.

I came back into town just in time to find out that Grum was gathering the company together to go see the citizens of Grumstar, the new settlement of refugees that we helped fund. While waiting for this to get off the ground, I found myself with a bunch of people and ended up swapping hats with Tashka for a while. It wasn’t game impacting, but it was pretty funny. It was also at this point that we realized we had most of the Troubadours there, so we decided to pull together a rehearsal.

I went down to the cabin to gather up flute and music and also found Vanora down at the temple of Naveril. The Troubadours plus a few cool extra people were gathered in front of the old temple. We rehearsed a new round that Rowan taught us which was pretty cool. When we pulled it together, it caused Nur’s memories to open somehow and we were all pulled into them. It was an awesome look into things that occurred 10 years ago on the other side of the gate. This is the time that both of my pens decided to fail to write. Fortunately there were a couple of other note takers on hand. The scene was pretty intense and extremely well acted. The discussion that followed was also pretty intense and the speculation flew. I’m sure we amused JJ with it.

We came out of the memories only to see that Grum’s Company had gone off without me. I’m sorry I missed that. It sounded like a fun little jaunt fighting off bandits.

As might be expected, the White Court meeting was focused on the Fountain of Ice and the tasks surrounding it. It was truly amazing the amount of organization going into this. After the meeting Mother Joy carried out a new ordination. Looking forward to my own ordination task, this was quite meaningful. It was really putting me into the right mindset for doing my own task that afternoon.

Najat approached me after the meeting to attend a gathering the Anaketh were doing. She was a bit cryptic about the reason, but it’s always a pleasure to spend time with Najat, make our bond stronger and learn more about Anaketh customs without offending, something I’m really good at. Curiosity can be a really bad thing.

Our discussion was interrupted by Inquisitor Liranon, who had been told that I wanted to see her. Knowing that my ordination was not yet complete and that our conversation might be premature, I tried to delay it, but she wanted to talk about it anyway. This was an awesome discussion that really made me feel good in a lot of ways. I’m really looking forward to the test she comes up with and pursuing this course.

Before Najat and I could get our discussion restarted, she turned to a spirit and left. At about the same time, Locke gathered as many of Grum’s Company together as possible to go with him. Without going into detail, this was the most tense and intense encounter of the weekend. Trey and Tim were both amazing at stirring emotions. When they started calling out exposes to gods I almost panicked. Kudos to both of them for this encounter.

We got back just in time for me to turn around and go out with the other priests and followers of Naveril on our mission for the evening’s angel summoning. I was in a very foul mood from the previous encounter and wanting badly to blow up something Murthean, so this was a great release valve for me. We essentially had to get through a horde of undead so that we could get at a caster to destroy an artifact. The fight was well balanced for the group we had. There was only one part that had me a little nervous and that’s where the poor undead facing me caught the brunt of my anger. I was watching a side all by myself and this one really nasty looking undead charged at me, looking for the easy kill. Unfortunately for him, this weaponless mage was willing to wait for him to get in point blank range before slamming him with all the force of the wind I could muster and then blasting him with a barrage of lightning. I tend to fight very conservatively and rarely play the hero, so that felt really good.

After running ahead at Saint Norelle’s request to get the Aradachians moving, I sat with Grum for a bit to try and cheer him up. Apparently a couple members of Grum’s Company were still not back yet. More on that later, but probably only in my real PEL.

I met with High Patriarch Percival. I explained to him what happened the previous night and what led to accepting a boon from a corrupter and leaving it to him to judge me for my choice. He did an inspection and found me to be clean of anything except a faint trace of chimeric energy, which he wasn’t concerned with. We had a marvelous discussion about differences in ways that different Inquisitors had of judging situations. We talked a bit about Inquisitor Liranon. We talked about the differences between turning oneself in for judgment and seeking counseling. I’m still convinced that seeking counseling might occasionally come with some purging by holy fire, but his points were very persuasive and I could easily see myself working with him more. I absolutely loved the portrayal of the character.

Still struggling with an earlier moral dilemma, I decided to seek the opinion of the one person I knew who could understand what I was going through, give me sound advice and keep quiet about it. This in turn led me to speaking to the person in question and finding out more about the background that I was lacking to make a decision. More about this in the real PEL too, especially since I didn’t get to speak to Valeska about it later either.

I finally got a chance to do some proper musical traning with Tashka. She asked me to help her learn the song the Troubadours use for death, “Flow My Tears”. Vanora came along and leant her voice to the cause and the three of us were able to get it pulled together pretty well.

I found the Eurvein gathered with Nya in front of the gate, discussing the beginnings of a deal to learn elemental mastery. This whole discussion was a definite highlight of the weekend. Nya was definitely a much changed person, much more concerned with her newly named friends’ abilities to handle aspects of the deal. It was fantastic roleplay. I especially liked the way she walked us through a real exercise in learning how to focus ourselves to begin learning. So much of this was easy to imagine with the dreams Lona had provided for Zephyr in the past. I very much hope that even if I have to deal for it, that I get to meet the Air Djinn she talked about.

Our time with Nya, while pretty much done, was broken up by the imminent arrival of the Malekyrg. My understanding, given the really quick briefing I got, was that they had a green spirit that we needed to get to the White Spring. I’m still not sure why they had it or how they had it under their control, but sometimes, mine is not to question why… wait, did I just say that about Zephyr? Yeah, strike that. At some point, it will become a matter of curiosity when I actually have time enough to question it again with the right people present.

I did however find myself with Najat and Aja at the end of it, who were equally perplexed as to what was going on. Since I missed their earlier ceremony, this was a great time to ask all the questions to Aja that I had earlier about it. Given that there was a long story involved, the three of us retired to the Anaketh cabin where Aja relayed a very long, very intriguing story. It was so well told that I managed to hold my tongue through the whole story, partly because I was afraid I’d offend Aja by interrupting her story and asking questions before she was done telling it. Zephyr has been burned by not being careful how he handles the Anaketh and thus tends to be very careful. This was an absolutely delightful time of sharing, especially the things I’d learned of the other side of the gate from Nur’s memories that morning and the following discussions.

This led me to running into Petros gathering the Eurvein at Deepsong’s request. It seems that through the runes that are still active in the Roots, he was able to see that Wickford was holding and torturing a female Eurvein in the Eurvein cells. He was deeply offended by this and could not allow it to continue and so was going to send a group in to try and rescue her. Oh boy, back underground. I was definitely not keen on this, but couldn’t allow this to happen. I focused myself on the task at hand and at the earliest possible time got to the woman, a Water Eurvein, to make sure she was ok, while Petros worked on the runes that were keeping her held. She seemed well enough and we pushed to get her out of there. All things considered, this fight was not nearly as bad as we feared.

However, when we got outside, I began talking to the woman that had been held. In typical Zephyr fashion, I introduced myself to her. As soon as she heard my name, she said, “*You”re* Zephyr?”. I of course confirmed this for her and déjà vu, she started yelling at me for deserting them. This is becoming a recurring nightmare for Zephyr, who never deserted anyone. At this point he's paranoid that there will be someone else yelling at him in front of large groups of his friends at every gather for desertion.

As it turns out, she’s my daughter, Brook. The short story, once I got her calmed down, is that she’d been captured and tortured right about the time I last saw her mother, probably right before that, if the timeline I can piece together is correct. She says that she and Tandra (her mother) had been fleeing Wickford’s minions and that she was taken after they were separated. This would explain Tandra’s reluctance to leave the Roots last time, claiming that she wouldn’t leave until she knew that a certain woman who she wouldn’t name was ok. It also meant that Brook had been held and tortured for about a year, Wickford assuming that she was part of the resistance.

I took her down to Grum’s Company’s cabin for food and drink as she had been starved. <It was also approaching dinner time and I was trying to figure out the best way to handle the NPC in terms of whether I should drag her off to the dining hall to eat and RP the part, hold onto her as mine (Mine! Mine!) for hours or get her to play the part in a timely fashion and let her go so she could get back to monster camp.> While she ate, members of GC spoke to her encouragingly and told marvelous stories about me and why Brook was lucky to have me as a father. Locke was amazing. He practically had me in tears. I had no idea he cared that much, though I’m sure the similarities of my situation to his touched him in all the right places. Brook and I talked about a lot of things, caught up on what had happened to each other, speculated about the things neither of us exactly knew from the time I first left the Roots, etc. It was a wonderful encounter and probably the biggest highlight of my weekend. Thank you Beth, uh, Beth Fallon, uh, both Beth Fallons, the planner and the executer. ;-)

I’m sure stuff happened between here and the angel fight. I know I went to dinner. Damned if I remember any of it. I think it was mostly stuffed with rp with other players about Brook, who btw wanted to go to the resistance to continue the fight against Wickford. Taking her there seemed like as good a way as any to excuse myself for leaving the event early.

Oh yeah, I remember a big one. It concerned a long, interesting talk with a member of Grum’s Company that was kind of shocking and that I can’t really discuss here. Oh my goodness.

The fight for restoring the Fountain of Ice was a very cool, very enjoyable fight. It was fantastic to stand and fight with my team, my family. We were in the corner by the temple and thus got to see most of the angels come through. The first real sign of how tough it was going to be was when Adeon attacked the angel by will. The angel’s tirade about, “Will? You would attack me by will? Death by gesture” was truly awe inspiring. Of course, I got to burn 4 fire to cure that too. And that was early in the fight.

When it came time to summon the angel of Naveril, I used the opportunity to get the most I could out of it. I had missed the earlier opportunity to perform my ordination song (see above) and so, instead of speaking what Naveril means to me, I sang the appropriate verse of my ordination song ***”What Naveril Means” at the summoning, the verse that is specifically geared toward what Naveril means to Zephyr. I didn't write it with this occasion in mind, but it was so perfect I had to do it. Singing is just more meaning to Zephyr than speaking and because I’m a Troubadour and all the other Naverilians applauded when I was done, I was able to call out a BMV healing while there was a battle going on.

The angel of Naveril was just the coolest thing. Our angel brought us a glowing goblet of ale or mead or something. I don’t know what it was. It was just the whole presentation and so fitting for the God of Bounty. She blessed our weapons and when she got to me, she hesitated, clearly looked for the non-existent weapon and then blessed me with a packet delivered inflict to Azerial. Talk about cool. And to top it all off, Saint Norelle gave me a final blessing, an ability to heal again once more without having to sing the song. Win!

And then after the fight to be there for the final blessing of the Fountain of Ice was awesome, especially with all the good things it could do. It was epic.

I was finally able to find Ragnar after that for a heart-to-heart that we’d been trying for most of the day. He and I have been very close in the past but mostly unable to get together recently. This was a fascinating discussion and shows a great deal of growing on both character’s parts, as I found myself giving him advice that I couldn’t believe I heard coming out of Zephyr’s mouth. The things our characters do sometimes that amaze us.

I chased Joy down in her cabin so that I could fill her in on how I had completed my ordination task, since she wasn’t there for it. I even performed the song in its entirety for a cabin full of people. I am not a solo vocal performer and for some reason, this scared me a lot more than actually performing it in the middle of a ritual with a bunch of Naverilians during a fight. I will get my ordainment after the next WC meeting.

I went down to Wayfare Hall and found Grum’s Company sitting around eating and telling stories. This was the first time I’d had to relax with the whole company all weekend. It was a nice interlude before I was asked to go outside to see a “gentleman” that was asking for me. It was Lord Robert Melles. Yeah, *that* Lord Robert Melles. I immediately looked around to see who was there as I had not a packet to my name if this went bad. Adeon and Valentine were sitting at the picnic table. She had clearly heard who he was and looked like she was ready to unload on him.

He had come to ask friends of Nur to pass on his apology for his attack on her. He was quite well mannered and well spoken and it was really hard to keep that little voice in my head quiet, the one that was screaming, “Kill the bastard! Kill him!”. We discussed his absence as of late, while he did some soul searching about his actions, his assault on Lady Xerit’s property (What?!? Her property? Nur?), and how he had given up his taste for entertainers. He was no longer having parties at his estate. I talked to him about how his parties had a reputation and I was hoping that perhaps he might reconsider and open his estate to them again so that I might experience one of them. All in all, the experience went fairly well and I let him stop talking about 3 minutes too soon. <kudos to the NPC btw, this was a very well handled scene in which he clearly knew everything he was supposed to deal with me effectively>

No sooner was Melles out of sight than I was approached by the Order of the Star and a vampire slayer looking for Melles. I still can’t believe he moved that fast. I tried to find him and lead them to him, but he was gone. We went clear across town but there was no sign of him. I promised that I would get word to them with the location of his estate and let them know anything else I could find out about him. You can bet I’ll be chasing him down. I promised Nur that if I could arrange it, she would be there when he was destroyed. Time to start writing letters and planning that now.

I spent a bit of time talking to various people and wound up with Valentine and Driftrunner. We were approached by one of the Lochsmoorians, looking for people to go to Lochsmoor to clear passes and get supplies into a Lochsmoor city. The theory was that if we could clear the passes then an ancestor spirit could guard it from that point forward. The fights were fun, our guns unloaded (Galan, Trelaine, Valentine), the opposition was hysterically funny, all in all, just a very good time. It was my last hurrah for the weekend and I packed up and headed out after that, after saying my goodbyes.

*** Just in case anyone cares, here are the words to “What Naveril Means”

What Naveril Means
1. A god of bounteous whole
Who feeds the body and the soul,
Rewards hard work and so it seems
Is what’s believed what Naveril means.
The patron lord of song and art,
For inspiration of the heart.
He brings bright visions, music themes;
This too is said what Naveril means.

The patron lord for those of wealth
For merchants, lovers, artists, he brings health.
To scoundrels, beggars, kings and queens,
To all these too what Naveril means.
He gives his voice to those who fight,
Lends aid to those who lead the way to right.
And too for justice, truth and dreams,
All to the church what Naveril means.

2. I’ve traveled near and far,
Seen many sights by sun and star.
I’ve felt the call of wind and skies,
And seen the world through Naveril’s eyes.
I’ve healed the sick and helped the poor,
Gave all I had and then gave more.
I’ve seen them through so many harms,
I’ve brought the strength of Naveril’s arms.

I’ve played my flute. I’ve sung my songs.
Ive raised the spirits of those who came along.
I raised up hopes, I gave a choice,
And I sang out with Naveril’s voice.
And through my crafts I have reached out
To those who’d hear the message I sing about.
I share my god now through my art,
I have reached out with Naveril’s heart.

I feel his guiding touch in every wind, in every breeze.
And so with him I live my life.
All this to me, what Naveril means.

And the sheet music

.