The Trilling Shard
over 8 years ago
– Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 10:39:34 PM
We have been loving the whole Ellomyr narrative associated with this Kickstarter. It’s been fun setting up scenarios like the margr attack, the expeditions to the Valley of Sins, and so on and then responding to your input to determine the outcomes. It’s also been inspiring seeing your creations, and getting a glimpse into how many of you have become as invested in the fate of Ellomyr as we are.
Now, we always knew that we were going to create a book about Ellomyr and the Trilling Shard, and that it was going to be exclusive to backers of this Kickstarter. But things are going along so well that we’ve decided to increase our expectations of the product. We’re still not exactly sure how big it will be, but it will be at LEAST a 64-page sourcebook, and it will include a poster map of Ellomyr itself.
What kind of sourcebook will it be? Well, we haven’t written it yet, obviously, as we are all (including you!) still shaping it. But we know it will contain everything you need to put Ellomyr in your campaign. Now, when we started, Ellomyr was just a village. Right now in the narrative, it’s a town. Later, if things go well, it will grow into a city. The Trilling Shard will provide what you need to use Ellomyr in any of these stages, including some fantastic maps. It will also incorporate the characters of anyone backing at the Patron of Ellomyr level. It might even include some short narrative bits written by backers. Plus, like any good Numenera setting sourcebook, The Trilling Shard will include:
- Important locations
- Maps
- NPCs
- Adventure seeds
- New cyphers, artifacts, oddities and other numenera unique to this location
That last point includes, of course, the Trilling Shard itself, some of the secrets of which the ongoing narrative is revealing.
Ellomyr can be the starting point of an entire campaign utilizing Numenera Discovery and Numenera Destiny. The Trilling Shard will be a great addition to your Numenera shelf and your game table, and backing this Kickstarter is the ONLY way you can get it. Those of you opting for PDF products will get The Trilling Shard in PDF, and those getting print products will get it in print.
Remember that this is in addition to the free product we already told you about, Discover Your Destiny.
We can’t wait to get started on this, but first we have to finish the Kickstarter campaign, and see where the narrative takes us! Please help us by sharing this update—remember, if your friends don’t back this campaign, they won’t get The Trilling Shard.
We asked you to share stories, videos, and other creations related to the expedition to the Valley of Sins, and as usual you really delivered! Here are just ten of the many really great items from you, our backers.
Sean Werner’s Rundyn Part 5: the Angry River (featuring Aubrey’s Hiero)
It asks the question: What woes in the world aren’t punch-able? From the Kickstarter comments.
Rundyn Part 5: The Angry River
Although the sphere bobs up and down, it doesn’t yield to the current, it remains in place. The light, bent and broken by the surface of the water, play over and through the nooks left by the hollow spikes covering its surface. It can’t be bigger than a fist. A single red light fades on, tinting the water rushing around it. It blinks three times slowly, three times more quickly, then three times rapidly before remaining solid. A red liquid oozes from the spikes, dancing like dye in the water. Spiraling. Twisting. Eventually dispersing as the current carries it away. The river is angry.
Rundyn is angry.
Painfully close. A word on the tip of the tongue. An idea so near to the surface, but remaining just out of reach. Happiness. Gurner had given her such a brief taste of it. Now he’s gone. She wasn’t even able to go to his service, still being laid up in this wretched hospital. Most of the others were out by now. She was alone. Again. Sure, there was Lorrin, but she’s obligated to be here. There was Ro, who would stop by from time to time, usually with a story or two of injustices she prevented. Its amazing how many injustices can be prevented simply by punching bullies in the face. The girl would usually tell her tales through a mouth full of whatever food Rundyn wasn’t able to finish. Most of it. Rundyn had no appetite lately. And then there was Hiero, he would…
“NOT EVEN LONELINESS CAN ESCAPE MY QUICK FISTS OF JUSTICE!” Said the automaton as he burst through the door, throwing fake punches. Petals peppering the floor, stems bent. The flowers in his hands no match for the modest amount of unreal violence produced by his shadow boxing. Hiero gently places the mangled flowers on the small table beside Rundyn’s bed. “I hope you’re well today ma’am.” He smiles.
Rundyn didn’t feel like smiling, but she did. She couldn’t bring herself to be rude to the man who had saved her from being dismembered by margr. “I’m ok.” She lies.
“Ugh! Really? Again?” Says Lorrin under her breath upon seeing the automaton’s mess. She means to be heard.
“My apologies doctor.” Hiero bows his head towards Lorrin.
Rundyn reaches out for Hiero’s hand. “Can I ask you a favor?”
Hiero turns back and nods. “Of course.”
“If you’re going back to The Valley of Sins, can you look for a few things for me?” She continues. “I need a enough synth to make a fist-sized ball, some hollow steel wire, a coil, and any other small, odd bits of numenera you can find, wires, small batteries, anything like that will help.”
Lorrin looks up from cleaning the petals off the floor. Her brow furrowed. “You didn’t have that dream again did you?”
“Memory.” Rundyn corrects.
“Rundyn.” Lorrin’s voice and eyes soften. “Nobody knows what made the Red River angry, but even if it was a cypher, I don’t think it would be a good idea to recreate something like that. Imagine how much more death and suffering a thing like that could cause.”
Hiero looks back and forth between them. Confused.
“A thing like that, in their water supply, would stop the margr for good!” Rundyn raises her voice trying to push herself into a seated position, but cant. “I would go get the materials myself, but I can’t! I know how to make it, but I can’t!” She holds up her hands, shaking. Frustrated. “They will come again, and they’re going to kill more people!” Her eyes filling with tears. “Maybe next time it’ll be… maybe if they hadn’t come this time…” Her thoughts coming too quickly to get them out. “Maybe Gurner would still be…” Her outburst quieting to a whisper. “Alive.”
Hiero reaches out and takes Rundyn’s hand, the warm metal gently squeezing it, thinking about how close he had come to losing Ro.
Lorrin walks over and sits on the edge of Rundyn’s bed, brushing the wild purple hair out of the old woman’s face. “Sweetie. The margr didn’t kill Gurner, the margr had nothing to do with that. He was just… old. He…” She didn’t know what else to say.
How cruel it is to have such a brief taste of happiness only to have it ripped away without warning. Rundyn knew it wasn’t the margr that killed him. She knew she was just looking for something to blame, something to punish because she was angry. She felt shorted. She wanted to be cruel. She felt guilty. She began to cry.
Clark’s FP-42: the artificially Intelligent glaive who stands like a bastion.
From the Kickstarter comments.
Part 1
In the distance at last a strange bipedal robot can see the town of Ellomyr. He can see the small humans scurrying around hastily trying to get their town built and secured. As he looked down upon the city from his vantage point his sensors could detect where the Magyr had been defeated. FP-42 had wandered the world longer than most could possibly know, and had passed countless human settlements from the largest to the smallest. He had also seen much in the way of humanities destructive capacity it had as well and had experienced it all too often which is why he preferred to travel alone.
Still looking down at the small growing community something felt truly different about this one. Something forward looking and of hope in a world beginning to return to all too familiar paths of behaviour. Perhaps Ellomyr would be the one u like so many other people and places. With that the weird biological inspired robot began the walk down his strange digigrade legs giving him quite the unusual gait. He wondered how they would react to such a strange being. With his tall long neck and lights and sensors on his head he was extremely tall compared to even a tall human. Even other robots found his construction unusual and they had described him as mechanics inspired by biology. Unlike much of his kind there was very little metallic sheen to him so much as a teal like covering of plastics and other strange materials over his mechanical tendons.
Once he got the locals used to him he could get them aquainted and used to his unusual mount he felt would give the wrong initial impression.
Part 2:
With himself introduced and mostly observing the inhabitants as he is won’t to do his precise machine mind makes the suggestion that the towers could be built that allow the defenders to fire their heavy weapons and ranged weapons safely behind the walls if teleport discs could be crafted. These are launched from on high and link to another disc. One simply throws or launches it above the field then opens fire safely in the other side. It also allows for precision strikes if someone daring or sneaky can place it near a target.
At any rate FP-42 needs some rare resources for his own inventions and has been long searching for them. He says that he will accompany them on the way to the valley once more. Now he says is a good time to introduce his mighty steed. He says he will be back soon.
After an hour far in the distance it would be a hard job to miss an immense boxy figure driving up to the town. There are surely those who are familiar and all too terrified when FP-42 drives into the village on a massive smoke belching Xacorocax. There is even fairly fresh blood on the front and the meat hooks it draws prey into its maw. This one appears quite old and battle worn and FP-42 upgraded it to have treads long ago.
This is Rippy my mount. Don’t worry he is completely safe and can be pet. That blood is from a few fleeing Margyr who got in the way. Me and my trusty steed will be protecting you on your expedition.
Joshua Wright’s Stijak
This video depicts a message being sent through the Trilling Shard! Look for the tie-in story “Nir Part 1” in the Kickstarter Comments.
Stijack
The Lost King’s Aethir Scarax: The Workshop
Aethir, a mystical nano who employs magnetism, is working hard on that lightning tower, and more! Tubmlr link.
Aethir walked through the doors into the workshop. It was alive with the noises of machines being constructed and conversations being had over designs for the tech the village has been trying to produce. He saw one working on the wiring of the device for the lightning tower.
“No no no no, no!” yelled Aethir as he walked over and smacked the wright on the head with his staff.
“What was that all abou… oh, hi Aethir.” sighed the wright, named Derek, “What’s the matter this time?”
“We can’t use just any wire to channel the electricity to the barrel!”, shouted Aethir, “You are trying to route lightning bolts through dret wiring!” Aethir knocked Derek on the head again. He ripped the wires from Derek’s hands.
“Well then, what am I supposed to use?”, questioned Derek, rubbing the lumps starting to form on his head. “We have nothing else!”
Aethir considered hitting him a third time. “It is better to leave the machine unfinished than using wires that will overload and blow the machine up!”, Aethir exclaimed, wondering who let this man work on weaponry.
Derek started to open his mouth to replied, but Aethir shushed him and continued, “Conventional wiring with the tools we have right now is not going to work for the lightning tower. All the wires we have will not be able to handle the sheer voltage and amperage that will be channeled through them. There is a rare substance that I’ve found in prior world ruins that has a crystalline structure which will not only channel massive amounts of electricity, but can even amplify it. It’s called Fulgurium”
“Then where is it?”, asked Derek, looking around the workshop.
“We don’t have any. Besides the ioutum is all being used for the force field”, replied Aethir, looking at his glass tablet that displayed a list of what materials were assigned where. “The town democratically decided that the force field was more important than the lightning tower. Luckily, as I went around asking all the adventurers who went into the Valley of Sin, some of them said they had seen a substance that matched my description, but they were unable to attain it. We are planning out another expedition into the valley to gather more parts.”
“Well then, what should I do?” asked Derek, wincing a little as he hoped Aethir wouldn’t deem that a ridiculous question.
“First, I want you to study the book I created about conductors and wiring so I don’t have to punish you for using the wrong wires. Then I want you to study up on iotum and Fulgurium. You might need a bit of training in the regards of what materials to use, but I’ve heard you’re actually somewhat competent at circuitry plans, so I want you to draw a plan for the circuitry. I expect much from you, but try to not let your enthusiasm get ahead of you again.”
Derek smiled when Aethir complimented his circuitry planning skills. “I’ll be sure to do that.”, Derek said, heading off to the library Aethir had helped Jarent build.
Aethir strode over to Jird, the only noise being his staff striking the floor, as he was walking in mid air, using his metal greaves to float. Jird looked over and greeted Aethir.
“Ah, Aethir, and what brings you here today?”
“I wanted to check on the wright’s and their progress in the machines we’ve designed. For the most part, I’m pretty proud how you’ve managed them”
“You must be if you’re saying it out loud.”, Jird laughed.
“Don’t let it get to your head though”, Aethir replied with a stern look. “I just saw Derek trying to use dret wires for the lightning tower. You should be teaching what wires to use when.”
Jird’s expression darkened, “Aethir, I am already in charge of managing all the projects that we are currently building. I can not manage all this and make sure every one of these wrights knows every single skillset. We make sure and check all the machines after someone has worked on them, so no flaws should get through.”
Aethir huffed, looking sternly at Jird. “Knowing the power capacity of different materials is the basics of the basics! If you won’t do it, I’ll construct a lesson plan. All your wrights can stop what they’re doing for a 30-minute session once I get it ready.”, lectured Aethir as he “walked” away.
“Aethir that’s not necce-”, Jird yelled, before realizing it was hopeless. Aethir was a brilliant man, but 10 times too stubborn for his own good.
Troy Pichelman’s Return to the Valley of Sins audio fiction
These recordings are travelogue-style, and cover several days into the expedition. They’re quite creepy, fair warning!
Return to the Valley of Sins
Ryan McRae’s Datasphere Transmission I
A heartfelt and poetic audio message with incredible writing and voice acting!
Datasphere Transmission I
Ethan Zarembski’s Malco Harley Part 11
This vignette gives us a peek into the expedition team and numenera crafters. Tumblr Link.
Malco stared up at the roof of his tent. Watching the shadows dance along the surface from the glow pit outside. He could hear the chatter of the expedition members as they sat next to the glow pit, and smell the meat as it cooked along the surface of the hot glowing stones. The camp his team had made was small, except for the large metal bay sled they had forged from a section of the scrapped thunder tower project.
There were no aneen pulling the bay sled, there didn’t need to be. Malco now had the power to push it by himself. The bay sled fit all 6 members of their expedition team and any potential heaps of iotum they find with hopefully room to spare. The Sled wasn’t as fast as say, Axel’s wing rider, which they used to scout up ahead of the sled, but it didn’t need to be. Malco’s team wasn’t going to go as far into the Valley as many of the others, they were going to go for quantity not quality. It suited the team’s power set better.
Malco was the leader of the group, albeit unwillingly. Nieten and Dora wanted him to have some “Leadership Practice” Since he had been a part of the town guard for so long.
Below him was the team’s iotum expert.
Ofra: A small girl with a knack for the Numenera. She spent most of the day in her personal transfer device she called Avis. A small metal sphere about 8 lengths in diameter that floated around 5 lengths above whatever ground was below it while inactive. There was a hatch for the small Wright to climb inside, and enough room for her and a few possessions, which seemed to mostly be composed of tools she needed to craft, graft, and mine.
Ofra was rare breed among the Wrights, she not only built, but she also harvested most of her own ingredients. Granted this was because Avis gave her an advantage over some of the newer Wright’s, but nearly all of the high level Wright’s had some sort of personal transportation they built themselves.
Avis was made for aerial travel, and could travel considerably fast in a singular direction, provided there was no barrier to stop it. The metal outside was lined with tiny machines of Ofra’s design, most helped her perceive the world from inside the device, but some were made to specifically fill special niche’s during the harvesting process. At one point Ofra decided that Avis needed a consumption deterrent mechanism, so she covered it in tiny lightning emitters that could shock objects on the outside.
Malco found it hard to believe something could swallow Avis in one gulp, he hadn’t seen any beast that was that large. Though the supposed “Consumption Deterrent” worked as a very effective don’t touch me machine.
Ofra had a saying, “If a machine only does one job, then it’s already failing at it!”
It was unclear if this philosophy carried over into her relationships with other people.
Next down the chain of command was Gaven, the “muscle” of the crew. He was by far the best fighter on the team, though never cared to show it off.
Gaven had brought the stones with him. He had found them on a previous journey deep below the drit. In a series of tunnels filled with large red and blue crustaceans that hovered and used weapons forged from the same kind of stones.
Actually a few of the stones in the pit were actually chunks of their blades that he had broken off in some of the many fights he had with them. The long blade he carried was forged from the stones. When he pulled it from it’s sheath it glowed a bright sky blue and distorted the air around it with it’s heat. He called it the stardrit….
Unlike the way of the blade, creativity and subtly were not one of Gaven’s specialties. Though oddly cooking was. As he sat near the edge of pit of blue glowing stones, he tossed bits of meat upon them and watched them sear. If the camp was the expeditions foothold at the edge of the Valley, then the chef’s seat was Gaven’s foothold at the edge of the pit.
He had three floating cabinets lined with vials, each vial containing specific spices. Some of which, he admitted, were poisonous. He had a long metal bar with a fork at the end to flip the meat as it cooked, being careful not to let it burn. He even had a few bottles of choice sauces that he had either purchased or discovered on his journey. Gaven was a true culinary swordsman. The smell of his food alone was enough to eliminate all doubt. The members agreed he was necessary to the team, and possibly all their teams there after.
Then came Darrion. Yes Darrion, the soapbox hero himself was on the team.
Since the Margr strike on Ellomyr, Darrion had given up on trying to convince people to leave. it was even said that he walked up to Dora alone and apologized for his actions up until that point.
Darrion seemed to think he was the one who should have died amongst the war of Margr rather than some of the warriors who gave their all from the start. A feeling Malco found easy to relate to. Having Darrion on the team made Malco feel closer to home, especially with all the wanderers that made up his expedition group.
It was nice to have a childhood friend come along.
Even if said childhood friend used to wake him up in the morning by screaming about the encroaching death of everything they had ever loved….
Darrion had learned to rummage from working under Dora’s dad, much like how Dora’s kids do today. Like Malco he was on the scrawny side, which made it easier for him to climb down into rifts to look for rare iotum, and that wasn’t all he was good for either.
Darrion knew how to track and avoid the local predators.
Darrion’s dad used to be the village huntsman before he died of disease a few years back. He would take Darrion out on excursions for weeks at a time and bring back carts of meat. One of those places, was the Valley of Sin. it was a dangerous place, but since no people went to the edge of the Valley, the game there was plentiful.
The last member was Tactus.
Often referred to as “The Tactus” or “Tactus the Disturbed” it is unknown what Tactus is. The Tactus can’t speak, though it has three mouths, this is because it lacks the parts to form words. It interacts with others only through hand jesters. Often making conversations with new individuals last for long amounts of time as it teaches them how it speaks. Provided they even want to talk to such a creature in the first place.
The top half of Tactus is shaped like a bald, blue skinned, human male, except for the mouth region which sports many plated mandibles, and the hands which have extra mouths in their palms. The lower half of the Tactus, is long like a Queb. Though instead of a soft furry body, the Tactus’es body is covered in shiny purple plates that brake it into many different segments, each lined with many pointed legs. These segments lead to a large stinger in the back of the Tactus which it uses to defend itself if things get dire.
For every once of horror the Tactus brought to the party, it paid back in full with how useful it was. Tactus had shown up in Ellomyr with Ofra, she had apparently found “him” rummaging through the badlands that surrounded a set of liquid metal geysers.
The metal produced by these geyser’s was so toxic, a normal person had to wear a special air tight suit in order to get close, but Tactus was apparently fine. It even waded through the metal to grab objects to sell back at the nearby village.
Apprently the village was taking adtantage of its powers and giving it very low amounts of money for the iotum it came back with. So Ofra took it along, and they have been paired ever since.
The Tactus’es long body, is useful for it can climb up cliffs, and across ravines with ease, allowing other people to walk across it’s back. It seems to be immune to all forms of poison, since it has shown no signs of damage from any organic, or man made substance that it has come in contact with. The final thing it can do is that it can apparently quell the Numenera in a short area around its body, making devices easier to use.
———————————————————————————————————–
Orfa, suspects that there used to be a ton of Tactus everywhere. That they may have been creatures made to work on some sort of ancient machine, and this one happened to be lost, or maybe it was an experiment gone horribly wrong and wound up in a super being. Either way it is currently on the team, which seems like a blessing for the time being.
~Malco Harley
———————————————————————————————————–
Malco continued to wait inside his tent, going over the plan for the next morning.
The camp they had made was approximately 3 hours away from the Valley of Sin. Malco decided to rest near the edge tonight and leave early in the morning to maximize scavenging time. He had heard allot about the Valley of Sin from the previous expositions a year before. He hadn’t gone himself because he was resting at the time, but this time he was forced to go by his superiors.
There were many other groups that went out into the Valley, Hiero and his warriors, Aethir and the Wrights, Arkwiss and his crawler, but Malco’s had a less grand objective. It was a test to see how far he’d grown since the year before.
Malco took a deep breath, concerned about what lied ahead, and reached his mind out towards the set of metal balls that rested in his pocket and began to move them.
Using his powers still made him feel uneasy, they didn’t bring back fond memories. Just the feelings of his own inadequacy when compared with his masters. The balls trembled in the air, a slight nervous stutter was deeply embedded in their movement. There was a time when Malco thought he should have just ended it all, but ever since the time when Hiero pulled him from his house like a scavenger crab from it’s shell, Malco had been improving.
He still felt the voices in his head. He felt them when he sat alone in the darkness while working on the tower. He would often have outbursts which would cause him to temporarily lose control of his power. He caught himself often enough, but still decided to wear safety ropes whenever possible.
He tried to stabilize the orbs. He had nothing to fear yet. The trip was already turning out to be a success! While traveling over here they found a few things to bring back to the village.
Large serrated mesh glass blades, capable of cutting through most materials, and far more durable than most metals, the blades would make fine weapons if forged correctly. A few small pale orbs that when vibrated caused them to move high above the ground as if they were weightless.
They even found the parts to an old forgotten merchant’s crawler, nothing like what the nano Arkwiss had, but maybe with some time the parts could be recycled to forge a grand vehicle for the town.
The sound of a high pitched musical note rang from outside the tent.
“Dinner’s done! Anyone who doesn’t want burned meat, better get over to the pit in the next minute or so or no promises!” Gaven called out to the group from his seat, adding the finishing touches to his plate of food.
It only took 15 secounds to gather everyone around the glow pit. Dinner was fantastic that night, everyone told stories and laughed the night away. They got every once of merriment they could get out of the moment.
because tomorrow they have to enter the Valley of Sin.
Garth/Crixler’s Damos Avephen, a Mad Nano who Fuses Mind and Machine
Ellomyr is turning into a proper center of learning with all these numenera experts flocking to the community! Tumblr link.
It has been a long time now since the Margr attacked.
Ellomyr has grown quite a bit since then.
And I am still not allowed to leave! It is getting far too crowded here for my tastes. I tried leaving. I tried walking away, but I was barely 15 feet outside the village walls before my legs gave out.
*Veska*.
Crail, but who even is Veska? What even is Veska? The Trilling Shard? Is she the Shard? Is she *in* the shard? What does any of this mean, and why in all the hells is she even important?
I’ve been studying the shard in my time here. I don’t have a choice.
It… It is fascinating. Not so much so that I would *choose* to stick around. But fascinating nonetheless…
I’m not the only one who has been studying it. We recently lost someone who was working on trying to make it into some sort of communicator… Perhaps this is how I will find Veska? I’m not convinced…
“I must tell the wrights!” An excited voice from someone else studying the Shard.
Hmm? What’s this?
Ed Eschler’s “Ellomyr Grows”
From the Kickstarter comments. What will all these machines and new numenera do to Ellomyr’s existing economy and farmers?
Ellomyr Grows
Kayne sat at the table in his special stool, the one that was a few inches taller and had a padded footrest so his feet didn't dangle, chewing a cigar and doing sums using the artifact monocle. Danaan could tell from the scratchings of his quill he wasn't happy about the numbers he was seeing.
"They'll ruin me!" Kayne had a habit of shouting out these things, begging silently for someone to ask for details, but his other toadies were out working the markets or collecting debts from reticent farmers. But only Danaan was there, and he was chewing sweetleaf to keep his headache at bay. It had been 3 weeks since he'd been in a fight, 3 weeks since he'd needed the berserker's draught, and he was sure that if Kayne didn't get himself in trouble soon, he'd might have to start some of his own.
"I said they'll ruin me!" Kayne had turned on his chair now and was staring: Danaan vacillated, trying to decide if the enjoyment of spoiling Kayne's ego was worth the shouting. Before he could decide, Kayne went on anyway, as if Danaan had responded. "There's talk of building a synthesizer, some sort of device that can pull food from thin air! I've spent the last 7 months buying half of this town's gallen, and the bastards are going to start producing free food!"
"There's always wool. Maybe get into textiles." Danaan shrugged, trying not to smile at the purple hue Kayne's face had taken at those words.
"Textiles? TEXTILES? People don't sell their houses for a shirt or a bedsheet! I've never seen a man sell his son for curtains!" Kayne hopped down from his stool and began to pace, and Danaan closed his eyes. "So close! I can already sell most of the herd at twice the price I bought them at. A little more time and the price would triple! Yes, a little more time. Not that much, really . . ."
At the silence Danaan opened his eyes. Kayne had an odd expression, a devil's face, serious and ill-boding, but with a smile split across it.
"Danaan, what would it take for a horrible beasty, a real nasty piece of work, to get into the town? For a horrible accident to occur, a tragedy really; for some lumbering, vile brute to find his way stealthily into town and smash up, say, a food synthesizer?"
The implication shook something in Danaan. He'd never been one for valuing human life, but this seemed too far. Of course, he'd seen things in the Valley of Sins that could do some damage, but didn't seem too much for the town watch to handle . . . No. This was too much. But then his head began to ache, and he thought of the berserker's draught, and there was talk of another expedition . . .
"What would it take? For you twice my yearly salary, up front. For me? A good crew who doesn't ask questions."
Mark Parish’s Glittermist Expedition
Journal entries from folks under siege in a nearby city, Underhaven, which is inhabited by strange varjellen. Help can flow between the two cities, if they can get appropriate vehicles to transport people and supplies and numenera. Entries are being added in the Glittermist Expedition Google Doc.
Glittermist Expedition, Entry 11, Day 7:
We lost Harval today.
We have been under siege for more than two days. Some of the townsfolk were trapped in a nearby building. The spiders were swarming the house, finding weak points in the roof. We could not sit by and wait for them to be slaughtered.
The bulk of the varjellen moved to the back of our building and started making noise, distracting the spiders. When they went to investigate, a group of six of us (Puck, Harval, and I, along with three varjellen equipped with some of our extra weapons) made a dash for the house to rescue the trapped townsfolk.
We reached the house with no incident. We were almost back to the Town Hall when some of the spiders returned. We found ourselves facing dozens of the beasts. Far too many, even with their weakness to steel. There was no way we could make it to the door, and it was too far to turn back to any other building.
Harval charged into them, screaming back at us, “Get inside!”
I shot arrows as we ran, trying desperately to keep the spiders off him. But there were just too many. Harval dropped three of them in quick succession, then they were on him. He cried out in defiance, knowing he was lost, but also knowing he needed to buy us a precious few more seconds to get the townsfolk to safety.
We reached the fortified building, the varjellen running headlong to its protection. Both Puck and I stood at the door, staring at Harval, desperately wanting to help but knowing it was already far too late. Puck shook with the effort not to run into the fray, not able to let a friend die without helping, but knowing full well there was nothing she could do. All she would accomplish was sacrificing herself at his side. In only the second show of emotion I have ever seen from her, she wept in helpless frustration as we watched our friend dying.
With one final cry of rage, Harval shoved a spider aside, just enough to free his arm. He knew he couldn’t survive, knew we couldn’t help him. And knew that down here, steel is the most precious resource we have. With his last few seconds of life, he threw his spear to us so it would not be lost, leaving himself weaponless against the overwhelming tide of spiders.
Without his spear, the spiders killed him quickly and turned to advance on us. Puck and I dashed inside and barred the door, giving Harval’s spear to one of the varjellen defenders. We sat together for a long time, simply looking at each other, silently sharing our grief.
As we sit in silence, I came to realize just how much we have been through together, Puck and I, between this expedition and the one to the Valley of Sins. In the short time we have travelled together, I have come to deeply value her company and greatly respect her abilities. Whatever my next job is (if we survive this siege and there IS a next job), I can’t imagine doing it without her.
I don’t know how long we sat together. But eventually (and very reluctantly) I knew I had to leave her and come write a journal entry. Those of you back in Ellomyr needed to know what is happening in Underhaven.
I am now, finally, thankful for this tablet that lets me talk to you. At first it was a burden, feeling that you only gave it to us because you didn’t believe we would return. Now it is the only way to tell you the simple truth: Underhaven has what we need and we have what they need.
Underhaven has numenera weapons and defenses, but faces an enemy that is immune to the elemental forces they wield. What they need is cold, hard steel, but they do not have access to it down here.
We, on the other hand, have steel aplenty, but need Underhaven’s numenera in case the margr horde returns.
Build another vertical flyer. If you use a wider, shallower boat design you should be able to take the river all the way to Underhaven, greatly reducing travel time. Send another expedition stocked with steel weapons. And do this soon, before we run out of food and water.
Perhaps, with luck, our two towns will be able to save each other.
I know it is what Byr and Harval would have wanted. It is what they gave their lives for.
Our lights are beginning to falter, sooner than we expected. Soon Puck and I will be in the dark, as useless to the defense of Underhaven as infants. There is no way we can make it to the surface.
But perhaps in the darkness I will find the courage to tell Puck how I feel about her.
