Our Mythic Bastionland, Session 20

Here’s the play report for our twentieth session of Mythic Bastionland, which we played this past weekend. If you’re just joining us, I’d recommend starting at the first session and reading forward from there. It’s all organized in a series, so it should be easy to find the posts that follow the first.

I am writing this a a number of days after the session, due to being busy this past week. Hopefully I can dredge up the gist of what happened from my fading memories. 

When we left off, the Knights had each spoken to one or two members of the new family of the giant Enkel:

They had mostly come to the conclusion that the best solution to their problem was for Marren:

… to eat some bread made of an acorn from the Tree, and then accompany him to elsewhere—possibly following the old, lost road that once linked Mavrydd’s Temple to the fae fortress to the southeast, possibly traveling into the fae realm.

The fate of the kids was less certain. Sir Leif:

… spoke a little more with Marren’s son Ogban:

… but found himself unable to convince the child of the idea that being separated from his mother and his new “papa” Enkel were for the best. The child was insistent on remaining with them, and eventually (somehow) becoming a giant himself. Ogban didn’t know that this was possible, mind you, it was just an expectation born of Enkel’s confused explanation of what would happen now that the boy had a giant for a papa. 

Sir Leif:

went to Marren and convinced her that while her daughter was old enough to make her way in the world without her mother, Ogban was too young, and not ready to be separated from her. Marren was reluctant, but took the advice on board. 

Meanwhile, Sir Tyack:

once again attempted to reason with Karola:

…who was upset and quite insulting, accusing the Knights of cowardice in their refusal to kill Enkel. She was upset at the news that Enkel demanded one of the Knights marry her, and when Sir Yorick:

… gave her the choice of which Knight she would marry, she stormed away in a huff. 

Before night fell, the Knights grew concerned about leaving Davith and the steeds out in the woods, and they asked Enkel to make a bridge across the moat out of a fallen tree, so that they could bring them inside. Enkel shrugged and went and lifted the horses, carrying them across the moat, but Sir Yorick, frustrated, explained that now the horses were trapped within the temple area, and he wanted it to be easier for them to leave if necessary. Enkel, baffled, complied good-naturedly, smashing down a tree and splitting it with a great sharp stone, before placing the split trees across the moat.  

Night fell, and the Knights and Marren cooked the venison that Enkel had caught, along with a loaf of bread made from one of the Tree’s acorns. The Knights paused, considering the possibility that they, too, could eat acorn bread, but then backed away from the idea. Marren consumed the entire loaf herself, and the Knights warned her that she might want to sleep outside of the Temple of Mavrydd, and to disrobe, in order to avoid getting hurt by her impending transformation. She and Enkel went out into the night. 

A little while later, it began to rain lightly, and the Knights knew that it was time for a wedding. Sir Yorick Childermass stepped outside and, off to the side of the Temple, he saw Enkel crouched over Marren, shielding her from the rain. He went over to them and explained that, since it was raining, the time had come for Karola to be wed, and that they might wish to be present for the ceremony. With them watching, Sir Yorick married the resentful Karola by the giant’s rite of marriage: he first spoke her name, and then she asked his name and spoke it. With that, they were married… by giants’ law, for whatever that’s worth—but it was enough to convince Enkel to allow Karola to go away with the Knights when he, Marren, and Ogban took their leave of the Temple. Sir Yorick told Karola not to worry, for he would teach her how to kill a man. This did not particularly reassure her. 

The Knights set a watch, but the night passed uneventfully. 

In the morning, they found Marren transformed, although not so much so that her size matched her thirty-foot-tall husband Enkel. Rather, she had become a small giantess of twelve feet tall, and she said something about perhaps needing to eat more acorns in order to match her husband’s size. The Knights bid the little family farewell, and Enkel, with his hand in Marren’s and with little Ogban riding on his shoulder, left along the remnants of the road. 

Sir Yorick passed Karola a dagger, and promised again that he would teach her how to use it. She took the dagger, but didn’t seem excited by the prospect.  

The Knights decided to ride for Castle Blackwort, the Seat of Power, but barely had traveled a few hours when they happened upon another thick slime trail, descending down into a tunnel dug through the earth. Inspecting it, they realized that whatever had dug it must have dug into it at this spot, not out of the earth, from the way the tunnel was shaped. They also glimpsed glowing, apparently-magical runes upon the walls of the tunnel. Sir Yorick was very reluctant to engage with the tunnel, but Sirs Leif and Tyack were very curious. Sir Leif read the runes, which proved to be old style writing from his own time, and told the others that they stated, in repetitive fashion, variations on the theme of “travel quickly wherever you wish.” 

Against Sir Yorick’s misgivings, Sirs Tyack and Leif made the argument that traveling into the tunnel constituted the following on their Knightly vow to Seek the Myths. Ultimately, the group traveled with Davith and Karola and their horses into the big tunnel, which proved to stretch far underground. The tunnel was only dimly lit by the runes, so the Knights lit and burned through one torch, and then another, along the way. Finally, they glimpsed daylight and the end of the tunnel, and soon emerged into a farmer’s barley field beyond which, in the near distance, stood a castle.

Closer by, they noticed a farmer’s cart, apparently abandoned while still full of vegetables, left by the side of the road that looked to lead to the castle. The Knights looked in the barley and found the slime trail continued out of the tunnel, only to fork into many smaller slime trails. Around them, the barley rustled forebodingly, until suddenly five horrific-looking bundles of worms:

sprang up from the barley, and began to advance on the group…

And that cliffhanger was where we left off, because there wasn’t enough time to complete the combat before session’s end. We’ll pick up with that next time, and see what happens next…