Last time, we decided to fight the Dragon-Raven of Sommersbrooke. Yeah, that seemed like a smart idea at the time. Now onto the game.
So Althus is ready to fight this beast, but what approach to take. There’s a certain amount of sense with our skillset to just run in and let fate take the wheel. But where’s going to try the subtle approach first.
Althus is going to try his best catch the bird monster unawares. First we Ask the Oracle if the bird is on watch for people trying to enter the springs (likely). Yes (68), so we’re going to try and quietly sneak close to it. We roll +shadow to Secure an Advantage and surprisingly get a weak hit (5 vs. 6, 2). We could burn our momentum to upgrade it to a strong hit, but I am perfectly fine with this being a short-lived advantage and taking the +1 Momentum (up to +8).
So thanks to the woolen cloak wrapped around Althus’ iron shirt (tied in place with the Ironlander barbed wire) he is able to sneak up right behind the bird. I imagine he’s right up thing’s tail before it even notices something is amiss. Let’s Enter the Fray and see how that turns out.
We roll +shadow (since we as ambushing or otherwise striking without warning) and get a weak hit (8 vs. 1, 10). I think our choice is obvious: take the Initiative, leap up on the beast’s back before it can act, and drive Kiah’s Cleaver into its spine.
We roll +iron to Strike and get a strong hit (7 vs. 4, 1)! Since our preparations have downgraded the guardian to a Dangerous Foe, we are dealing 3 harm (+1 from our strong hit) which is 6 progress on our track to take out the beast (6/10). Seems risky, but let’s try and End the Fight.
We roll the challenge and get so close to a strong hit, but it’s only a weak hit (6 vs. 5, 6). Since we cannot burn Momentum on progress moves, it looks like we’re going to have to choose one of the options from End the Fight.
We decide to Endure Harm. Since the beast is Dangerous, we lose 2 Health and then roll +iron to find out our fate. We get a weak hit (6 vs. 1, 9) and so do not end up any worse, but at least our Ironclad asset nets us +1 Momentum (up to +9). We also mark progress towards our Iron Vow (3/10). I’m also retroactively adding a progress for having dealt with the situation in Blackfall (4/10). Though it wasn’t directly related, it was something that hindered our ability to complete our main quest and so, based on comments from the creator, should count as progress towards it.
Now clear of the springs’ guardian, we can finally confront Brynn. I imagine she is deep into her ritual and so I’m of two minds; on one hand she could have mystical protections in place against interference, but on the other she may have relied on the guardian for protection. I’m going to make both equally likely and Ask the Oracle (phrased as “does Brynn have magical protections in place?”). Apparently not (6).
Let’s wreck up Brynn’s ritual. This is totally outside Althus’ wheelhouse, so let’s just kick over some ritual candles and hopes it does something we want it to. This definitely sounds risky, so we’ll Face Danger and roll +iron since this is an aggressive action. We get a weak hit (9 vs. 9, 6) and so I imagine there’s a bit of a backlash from breaking the ritual. We roll on the Mystic Backlash oracle and get (69) “You are tempted by dark powers.” I now think Brynn is in league with some dark demon, the ancient enemy of the elven Firstborn who is trying to free themselves to act on the Ironlands by siphoning their lost magicks.
So per our weak hit on Face Danger we’ll suffer -1 Momentum from our hesitation and surprise but Althus quickly recovers. We’ll Ask the Oracle whether Brynn is going to try and flee in the confusion (50/50) and the answer is yes (62). Althus is going to try to give chase and feel like this is a good opportunity to do a Scene Challenge (pg. 234).
We make a progress track for “Catch Brynn” (0/10) and a separate countdown track (0/4). We have until the countdown track fills to try to catch Brynn. Per the book’s recommendation, we’ll make this a Dangerous challenge for the purpose of marking progress.
So Brynn is tearing off through the spring trying to make it for the tree line. Althus is going to try and race around the outside of the spring to try and cut her off, so we’ll Face Danger with +edge. We get a complication (5 vs. 10, 10), which I think means the guardian is back up. We mark a countdown box (1/4) and I think everyone is now moving a bit more quickly (I imagine Brynn had to drop her illusion while performing her ritual).
Althus is going to try and book it for the treeline now, get out of the area around the springs and hopefully catch up with Brynn there. Roll +edge again and get another miss (3 vs. 6, 4). This one, however, we can turn into a strong hit by burning our momentum, which I think we definitely should (Momentum now +2). We mark progress (2/10) and Althus had escaped from the guardian’s area of protection. Now to see if we can find Brynn now.
We’ll try and look about the forest, Facing Danger +wits. We get a strong hit (9 vs. 4, 3) so Althus catches sight of Brynn escaping through the forest down an incline. We mark progress (4/10) and I imagine Althus is just going to try and make his way through the forest towards her.
We roll +edge again and get a strong hit (8 vs. 3, 6). We mark progress (6/10) and I feel Althus has caught up to Brynn. Now to see if we can trip her up and capture her. We roll +iron to Face Danger and get the strongest hit possible (10 vs. 8, 6).
We mark progress (8/10) and now I think is good place to try and resolve this Scene Challenge. We roll the Challenge Dice and get a strong hit (8 vs. 6, 5) which means we achieve our goal unconditionally. We’ve captured the warlock Brynn which I believe should count as a milestone on our vow (5/10).
Althus and Brynn return to Sommersbrooke and now is time to figure out what to do with Brynn. First thing first, let’s see if we can find the leader of Sommersbrooke. We roll +wits to Gather Information and get a weak hit (8 vs. 9, 2) which means the information complicates our quest. I think this means the leader of Sommersbrooke was the first person who tried to oppose Brynn and she killed them with her magicks. We Ask the Oracle (likely) but this seems like that is not the case (3). We roll on the Action and Theme tables and get “Weaken/Decay”: Brynn didn’t kill them, just set a deadly curse upon them.
We could try to convince Brynn to remove the curse, but we have very little leverage to do so. We likely could not break the curse without her, so killing her will only go so far. But we do have a healing spring and Althus already defeated its guardian once.
So we attempt to Compel Brynn into releasing the curse on Sibila (she/her | jealous, experienced, ironsworn) the leader of Sommersbrooke. We roll +heart (since we’re more bartering than threatening) and get a complication (6 vs. 9, 9). I don’t think Sommersbrooke (represented by Taylah) cares for us trying to bargain with the warlock and moves to end the threat of the warlock once and for all. We try to intercept (Facing Danger with +edge) but fail to react quickly enough (5 vs. 8, 9).
These last two major failures make me think it’s time for another new feature from Delve, Learning From Your Failure (Delve, pg. 58). We make a new progress track (called “Failures”) and mark a single tick for each failure (0.5/10). Once we’re up 6 progress or greater, we can attempt to Learn from Our Failures. But that’s a ways off.
We still need to Pay the Price for our Face Danger (the Pay the Price for the Compel was the “soft move” of Taylah threatening to kill Brynn then and there) so I think this was quite stressful. Looking at the table of stress levels (pg. 95) I feel this was an upsetting failure, so we suffer -2 spirit (down to +3) and then roll +spirit. We get a strong hit (6 vs. 3, 1), so I think we shake it off, trading -1 Momentum (down to +1) for +1 spirit (back up to +4).
Now to figure out what we’re going to do. The choices are fairly obvious: let Sibila die (not likely a good outcome for Baron Quinn) or face the guardian again to collect some of the restorative waters of the spring. And said like that, there’s hardly any option for us at all.
But we’ll deal with that particular complication next time!