Bonds Unspoken

Tarhos, Knight of Sidhe.

## Plot:

The Episode opens on Emelya and Lucius kneeling beside Saoirse’s body as the first drops of a rainstorm fall to the bloodstained dirt around them.  Doc watches solemnly from the ramparts above.  Lucius clenches his fist, his eyes staring down at her as he is lost in a 10,000 yard stare.

Emelya, disheveled, grabs Saoirse’s hand and looks at Lucius.  All semblance of warmth or humanity has left her features.  She clutches her dagger in a hand that suddenly seems to be clawed, her shoulders hunched.  She stares out into the too-quiet woods, and then lumbers painfully to her feet and shambles to the unconscious body of the cursed hunter that the Entity had previously knocked out and savagely begins to ram her dagger repeatedly into her chest, Lucius and Doc watch in horror as Emelya rips the now-dead woman’s heart out.  A guard stops beside Doc and at first also looks disgusted, but then looks around at the casualties and nods solemnly, a look of justification crossing his face.

The Heart wobbles faintly in Emelya’s hands, and then she bites down on it, a gush of blood smearing across her face and chest as she bites down.  Within moments she has swallowed the entire heart.  Lucius watches with shock as Emelya then collapses to the ground and begins to spasm and shake.  She even floats off the mud for a few brief seconds before collapsing and curling into a ball.

Lucius and Doc rush to her aid, Lucuis leaving Saoirse’s body on the ground as he rushes to Emelya’s side and finds Emelya to be unconscious, but breathing.  Doc notices that Saoirse’s mouth is glowing faintly, and with a grotesque twist one of her teeth pops out of her mouth and rapidly decays into dust, and somehow her body looks even more dead than before.

Lucius looks down at Saoirse and Emelya and says that they need to get the two inside.  Doc retorts that he is going to get Gwendolyn and the Entity back.  He looks down at his empowered arm and says that he is the best to drag them back.

Lucius gives him a parting gift of a Longstrider casting, and then Doc tears off into the woods following his compatriot’s footprints.

Meanwhile

Gwendolyn and the Entity charge deeper into the forest and engage with Hunter Beta, who pelts the Entity with repeated Crossbow strikes before they get into range.  The Entity overrides its safety protocols and stokes its mana core to engage Advanced Combat Mode once again.  Gwendolyn’s magic loses its normal luster and cheerfulness, and with her darker magic manages to tear the Hunter apart.

In the brief moments between Gwendolyn knocking off Hunter Beta’s helmet and then smashing his head with an Eldritch Blast, the Entity recognizes his face as one of the people abducted from the camp the day prior.

The Entity repairs itself and salvages Hunter Beta’s weapons, and then informs Gwendolyn of what it discovered, but she seems unmoved.  Doc manages to catch up around this time, and tells Gwendolyn that she could have died.  Gwendolyn retorts with a snide comment about how beautiful her corpse would have been, and then stalks off back towards the fort.

The Entity looks at Doc, and informs him that it failed and the true murderers are still out there.  It then says “Next time, maybe you could help.”  Doc retorts by saying “Next time, maybe you should make a wiser choice.”  The two then walk back to the fort in tense silence.

Back at the Fort

Emelya begins to stir, having been brought back to the tents by Lucius.  Beside her is Saoirse’s body, covered by a white sheet.  She and Lucius converse briefly about what caused her strange episode, and she relays that some sort of compulsive rage had come over her.  The two then part ways.

Lucius carries Saoirse’s body out into the woods, and spends some time looking for the perfect spot to bury her, with a massive old tree as a headstone, and then begins to dig by himself.

Emelya helps Mance and Warbler bandage and prepare Captain Tyr’s body, and eventually goes to join Lucius, finding that Gwendolyn and the Entity have arrived to help.  Gwendolyn mends Saoirse’s dress and cleans her hair while the Entity begins to help Lucius dig the grave.  Emelya presses her forehead against Saoirse and then begins to read alchemical notes from Saoirse’s notebook as a sort of eulogy for her.  The Dreamers watch in silence, and then each person in turn drops a handful of earth on Saoirse’s body before Lucius and the Entity bury her.

Meanwhile, Doc has been spending his time with Captain Norburn and helping him with his administrative duties in the camp, supporting the man where he needs it.  Eventually the two sit down outside Norburn’s tent and Doc attempts to convince him to take time for himself and rest, but Norburn maintains that he cannot rest while his men are still working, and gets up to continue on his rounds.

After finishing Saoirse’s burial the Dreamers withdraw to deal with the loss.  John confronts them and tosses them a pouch of coins, expressing regret for Saoirse’s passing and telling them that their services will no longer be required.  He then marches off to meet with Mance and Warbler.  The party is mostly at a loss for words, but the Entity, misreading the situation, states its intent to track down Saoirse’s killer before leaving.  No one replies.

The party goes their separate ways to prepare for rest, Gwendolyn notices John of Glostehn gathering a group of men and equipment, but doesn’t confront him on it, and doesn’t share the information with the rest of the group.

At Saoirse’s graveside, Doc has come to pay his respects in the darkening evening.  He speaks to her as though she were there, as though she could hear him.  And then the earth over her grave begins to stir.  Doc recoils in shock as a hand bursts from the soil, and then in a mad scramble Saoirse’s head and shoulders emerge from the earth, coughing up dirt.  After a few moments of shock, Doc rushes over and helps to pull her out of the ground.

Saoirse, alive again somehow, gasps and writhes in the dirt, and needs Doc’s help to carry her back to camp, where she is laid out for Emelya and Gwendolyn to examine.  Her chest seems to have caved in significantly, and the hole from Ellák’s blade is patched over with strange, greyish flesh, and Saoirse finds that it is leaking a strange pus.  The Dreamers tearfully reconnect, and the Entity runs to go let John know the good news, but finds that he, Mance, and Warbler have stuffed their sleeping bags and snuck away into the night.

Realizing that John and the other soldiers are off to claim vengeance, Gwendolyn uses her Sending Stone to try to dissuade them, but fails to do so.  Without taking their rest, and with Saoirse still weak from her mysterious revival, the group lets Sirs Gavron and Hebron know what is going on, and then sets out to track John and the crew, with Sir Hebron in tow.

The Entity’s sensors detect depressions in the ground, and it points Lucius in the right direction so he can begin tracking the vengeance party.  After a trek through the woods, the party comes across the site of an ambush.  Two of the soldiers John took with him are dead, and a third is dying on the ground but saved by the quick intervention of the Dreamer’s healers.  He communicates that John, Mance, Warbler, and two other soldiers have been captured.  Lucius and the Entity fail to pick up the trail, and it seems as though their friends are lost to them… but Gwendolyn reaches out with her Bloodline abilities and briefly detects flickers of awnsheglien power deeper in the woods.  Taking that as their only recourse, the Dreamers set out once more, hoping to save John’s company before it is too late for them.

Coming across a gigantic depression in the ground, the party gingerly begins making their way down the slope, but Saoirse and Emelya trip from behind, rolling into Gwendolyn and then the Entity, dragging all four tumbling down the slope in a heap.  The Entity manages to dig its fist into the soft earth to arrest its fall, and it fires its Grappling hook out for Gwendolyn to grab, stopping her before she tumbles all the way to the bottom like Saoirse and Emelya.

Winded and dazed, the Dreamers pick themselves up and slowly advance forward, finding a massive pit with a central pillar and several bridges, one of stone and the rest of rickety wood, connecting it to the edges of the pit.  On the center Ellák stands squaring off with John, taunting him and explaining his terms.  It sounds like Warbler, Mance, and the other soldier’s freedom are on the line.  If John falls, they will go with the Sidhe knights as new recruits, if he beats Ellák they all go free.  The party decides that they cannot let the fight start, and Lucius strides forward to distract Ellák while everyone else tries to get into position to flank the group.  Lucius’s mind begins to be read by Ellák, and in order to shut the conversation down Emelya breaks cover early and shoots at Ellák.

On that note, the party still out of position, Mance and Warbler tied up, and a crossbow bolt sticking into Ellák’s armor, the session closes with a…

To be Continued.