Session 4

Elle
We did not encounter any immediate pursuit after leaving town. While travelling towards the capital we discovered some overgrown arches/bridges that had intricate runes on them, similar to our town’s runes. We followed the arches up a dried-up river and found a strange destroyed city, as we arrived at night we decided to sleep and explore during the day. Osmund snuck out though and looked around by himself. On my watch I heard singing and woke Travis and he made a half-hearted attempt to wake the others, but I was still mad at both of them so we travelled alone towards the sound and discovered a ghost city floating on the lake.

We swam out, climbed up and began exploring, the whole place was covered in complicated and beautiful runes, some of them lit the way for us as we quietly travelled toward the singing. Osmund scared whoever the singers were off when he started yelling for us but after we quietly sat in the courtyard and began singing/whistling, we saw a large otter peering around a corner and it began to add to the song.

Osmund and Holt had followed us and came into the courtyard just as an owl swopped down and stood protectively in front of the otter, then a very large eagle landed in front of us and turned into a human. Well almost a human, he was a little tall and his eyes were silted like an animal. He asked us what our purpose here was. We told him we simply sought out the voices and the runes. He told us the city here was a memory, left here to remind them not to trust. He had a sword at his side and looked prepared to use it but the owl changed into a woman and rested her hand on his shoulder, singing something to him. He relented and told us that we needed to be gone by morning, then the small family all turned into birds and left.

Their communication seemed to be based on song, which may be the key to understanding the runes. We explored until morning, discovering the city had no metal in it, a palace and library. A library, not like Ardit’s collection of books, there were more books than all the people I have ever seen in my life. The owl made an appearance and gave me a book, she said it was what I was looking for so I think it’s about magic. She also said that Fristad means Refuge and that we must be descendants of the people, but we must have a strangely strong blood to have the city react to us the way it did. I really hope she is right and that we are part other and not just boring humans.

I wonder if that is why Osmund is so upset about killing someone, from the tapestries we found it seemed the supernatural others were peacful, civilisedand and raised humans up by teaching them. Then humans began fighting amongst themselves and some of the others were killed. The others included lots of races including dragons and other mystical creatures but there was some kind of split between them, some retreated from the world, some created or became dark monsters to kill the humans and others fought with the humans, taught them how to fight or just wanted them to leave? There were some similarities between the creation myth and the story. Osmund was the one that read the most out of the tapestries. Osmund took three more books, so I’m not so mad at him anymore. We left before daybreak and the city dissolved in the morning light, leaving only the ruins on dry land.

From Osmund's Journal
I have to stop and wonder if i'm dead sometimes. Maybe I didn't kill Francis and instead he rode me down. Perhaps this is punishment for playing too many jokes or bragging about being the best archer in Fristad - a belief which I maintain to be true, even in potential death.

I have nightmares though, which surely wouldn't happen if I was dead... Perhaps I need to kill somebody else to see if things change... And then if my spear goes right through them, then i'll know for sure that i'm dead and that everyone else is just some sort of spirit toying with me for amusement. If this isn't the case perhaps I should take up poetry or some sort of wordsmithery. Nobody ever heard of a poet killing people.

I will recount my misadventures regardless. Elle, Holt, Travis and I marched on and on. We were expecting a pod of horsemen to ride down out of the trees and cut us all down for a long while. But nothing of the such came. Maybe they've forgotten about us!

We found some sort of rune bridge and decided, against Holt's better judgement that we should follow the river that it forded. There was some ruined old city and a dam type structure that was keeping the once flowing stream relatively dry. We shacked up in one of the buildings and I fell asleep to visions of Francis clawing at me... I woke up to Holt telling me that Travis and Elle had gone. Ghosts must have got them, I thought.

Turns out I was sort of right. There was some ghostly town on the lake. It's occupants these shapeshifting folk that were a lot older than I think we could fathom. I took some books for Elle (I think she was getting sick of my complaining) and had a look at some of the tapestries around the ghostly keep. It told the story of how humans found this old race and were welcomed in... until they began killing one another. Then half of the old races tried to protect the humans and the other tried to kill them. There were dragons and shapeshifters and shadow beasts.

We left and with the morning light, the town vanished and we fell asleep in the sun. I felt a bit better. Perhaps things will get easier from here.