The Yule Log RPG

[Undómë]

‘Well now,’ returned Goody, turning just enough to see his profile as the Halfling stared into the fire. The light bathed his face, highlighting the small creases at the corners of his eyes. They would be from laughter, she thought, and not the marks of one who is too serious. Yet here he is, his brow furrowed with worry; his eyes narrowed as he considered the flames.

‘I think you be wanting a simple answer, Master Willem.’ She poked at the Yule log, making the sparks fly up. ‘And I wonder, too, which Green Man you speak of – the one who walks the forest or this Inn which bears his name. Which one, Willem?’

‘I could say “yes”. The Green Man will hold against the shadow.’ She saw the hope flare up in his eyes as she spoke. ‘The Inn will stand and all within will be safe.’

‘But, then I could say “no”. The Green Man waxes and wanes; it is his nature. Light and dark push against one another; death pushes against life; old makes way for new, and in turn new turns old and so it goes.’ She smiled at him, giving his upturned face a long, considering look.

‘You’ll be safe, Willem,’ she said quietly to him, her hand laid reassuringly on his arm. ‘You stay here . . . with Old Goody.’ She nodded at the others in the room. ‘Let them do what they need to be doing and we’ll do ours. The fire must be fed, the log kept burning.’

[piosenniel]

For a while . . . a very short while, to be exact . . . wren sat still as a twig on the tree’s limb. His little black eyes looked all about and up and down, expecting to see his quarry. But all there seemed to be were a few snow flakes swirling lazily down from the skiffs of snow on the branches above him and a shredded old brown leaf blown about on the breeze.

‘Pish-tosh! Stuff and nonsense - this sitting about spying on snowflakes!’ He eyed one closely that had landed near his foot. ‘Not menacing at all,’ he declared. Wren fluffed out his feathers and hopped out to the end of the branch he’d perched on.

A ways away, he could see the forest proper. Tall balsams, dark green with snow hung boughs, sidling up the sides of the foothills. In the distance he heard the harsh kaw! of a raven followed by several excited caws. There, in the forest, under the shadows of the trees, something of interest was going on.

Wren flitted silently from tree to tree, making his way toward where he’d heard the call . . .

[Envinyatar]

Before Stamo could answer Mara, Mori motioned to him from the kitchen’s door. Stamo in turn nodded for his companion to come into the common room, and asked him to share his news.

‘This is a very old, very powerful being and so must be approached in a very cautious manner,’ began Mori. ‘Or so I have heard from someone who knows this creature all too well. He says the creature hates the light of day. That his power wanes with the rising of the sun, his strength and resolve will be at their weakest . . .’

‘His recommendations, then . . .’ prompted Stamo.

‘That somehow his lair need be found, where he settles down to rest as the sun comes up. And if he can be set upon then, then there is a greater chance of besting him.’

‘And that’s all there is to it? That’s his advice?’ Stamo raised his brows a look of disbelief on his face.

‘Well, no,’ admitted Mori. He sat down in a chair, motioning for a mug of something to drink. ‘There was also the instruction to stay hidden, let him get no whiff of your approach. And, oh, yes . . . never look directly upon his shadowy visage or form. It seems that if you do that, then you will rue the day you ever walked upon earth.’

And I am ruing the day we ever did walk in middle-earth . . . Stamo’s eyes flicked quickly to Mori’s face.

Still, we must help as we can. We are obliged to do so. Mori’s gaze was intent on his companion.

In a way . . . but not here. We should not have come. I told you that.

Mori shrugged almost imperceptibly. Still, here we are . . .

Stamo’s brow furrowed. It was an old argument between them. And one that would not be resolved at present. He resigned himself to giving in to what the present moment demanded. The sooner this was resolved the sooner they could move on.

He turned back to Mara. ‘I do not know the answer to your first question, Mistress. It is an evil thing, a creature of shadow, of darkness. I would not begin to think as it does, to ferret out its foul reasoningss. As for your second concern – I’ll say yes, the creature will grow more powerful, more dangerous. I think it would be best if we do not wait for events to give proof to that. Better to kill the snake before it grows another rattle and bites, or so I have always thought.’ He paused for a moment, considering how her last question might be answered. In the end, he chose the simplest answer. ‘And, no, to your third question . . . though it takes a body to sustain it, it is not tied to that form. Its spirit will survive the body’s death and seek out another.’

Stamo sighed and sat down heavily in a chair. He rubbed the back of his neck, finally settling in to rest, chin in his palm as his elbow rested on the table.

Well, that was rather abrupt. True, to be sure . . . but rather precipitate in the telling. Mori shook his head. He knew Stamo would not be prodded any further.

The Inn had grown quiet, as those in the common room listened to what the man had said. Mori stood up and spoke softly to those gathered. ‘All is not lost – as it would seem from what my friend has said.’ He paced a little between the tables. ‘We do not know where the creature is. If you will find it and flush it out. Then we will see it taken care of.’

You hope we see it taken care of! Stamo sighed again. You are such a dreamer sometimes. I know, as well, as do you, that we have no idea what the outcome might actually be.

[littlemanpoet]

Wenda had heard Mori's and Stamo's words, and had overheard those of Goody. It seemed there were more allies than she could have hoped; if only it would make a difference.

Wenda was scratching White Paw's ruff when it happened. Pada and Muna were calling to her, pulling at her. She did not know whether she was safer in this skin or the other. It did not matter, the pull was upon her. Sometimes she did not feel it for months; sometimes the next pull was only hours after the last. Fear added to its urgency. I must get outside. She marked that she was holding onto White Paw's fur, and he was becoming ill at ease and started to back away. She let go and stood abruptly.

Mara looked up, concerned. "Are you well?"

"I must see to the needs of my reindeer," she murmured, and rushed out of the room, trying not to stagger. She went to Pada and Muna. They were pulling her to loose them. She undid their harness with feverish hands.

Mara had followed her; but by the time she had come into the waning sunlight, she saw three reindeer running away from the sledge and out of the grounds of the Green Man.

[piosenniel]

Almost hidden in the shadows of a tall balsam’s boughs perched a single raven. A look out for his companions below as they cawed in excitement and flapped their wings and pecked one another in order to get closer in to their meal. Wren glided in silently to a nearby tree, his eyes searching the small clearing.

The snow was bloodied and thrown up in heaps here and there as if a great struggle had gone on. Now on its dark red little hills and valleys the footprints of predators crossed and recrossed the clearing. All gone now save for the dark dusting of ravens that feasted on the remains.

It was a deer, a large buck to be exact that lay on the icy bed. Wren shuddered wondering what animal had brought it down. The antlered head was torn off, and rested where it was thrown against the base of a thick fir. Eyes open, it stared at its own remains as the birds stripped ribbons of its flesh from the carcass. The great buck’s back was broken, its limbs twisted at odd angles . . . as if something had toyed with the deer. It seemed not a clean kill - not one meant for food. Wren’s mind took in with horror that this might have been the handiwork of the dark creature.

With a loud warning call, the sentinel raven glided across the clearing, calling the others away. They answered his call and took wing, leaving the carcass to its snowy bed. There had been a noise, as of some beasts crashing through the trees a ways away. Wren flitted from tree to tree, keeping in the shadows, as he neared the source.

Three reindeer plunged in under the branches of the outlying trees. What are they doing here, the little bird wondered, cocking his head at them as they passed beneath his perch. Curiosity drove him after them.

[Nerindel]

“Oh Wenda!” Mara sighed shaking her head sympathetically, her brow creased with worried concern as she watched the fleeing forms of the reindeer race from the grounds towards the dark silhouette of the forest against the dying light.

She hesitated then glancing back at the door which she had just come through, where the others sat over supper contemplating and planning how to survive this thing when it came and come it would! Deep down inside she believed this to be inevitable. She knew that she should return and tell the others of Wenda’s flight, but Master Stamo’s words still echoed in her mind… 'I’ll say yes, the creature will grow more powerful, more dangerous. I think it would be best if we do not wait for events to give proof to that. Better to kill the snake before it grows another rattle and bites,' by the time she went back inside relied what she had seen and a search party arranged it might already by to late.

Besides she had promised herself that she would stay close to the young woman, partially out of guilt for having taken the woman’s recount on their first meeting so lightly to heart, but mostly because she had formed a strange affinity with the young changeling, both hunters of sorts and both embodied with gifts that they would probably never fully understand and that would ever be coveted by the greedy and the wicked.


Her mind finally made up she turned from the inn and hurried out in to the fading light, following the deep tracks left by the reindeer in the soft snow. Into the forest she followed, careful to avoid any of the halfling‘s traps. Fresh deer tracks and a broken twig here and some ripped up foliage there marked easily the reindeers passage and if the snow held off she would have no trouble tracking them, it was the catching up to them that was her main concern, although raised by elves she had not their pace and if Wenda and her deer did not rest, there was little hope that she would catch up at all.

Hope is with us!

Again it was Stamo’s words that echoed in her mind and although she could not yet see what hope he spoke off she held to what little she had and hurried on hoping beyond hope that she could find Wenda and convince her to return to the relative safety of the inn.. at least until an adequate plan could be devised to see off this evil.

[piosenniel]

As wren rested for a moment on the tip of a snowy fir, yet a second noise caught his ear, as if something were following behind the reindeer he pursued. The little bird pushed in among the shadows of the needles and stayed very still. ‘What if it’s that creature?’ he thought to himself. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he muttered, shivering a bit. He was alarmed to find that his slight movement had shaken a bit of the snow down from his perch.

He watched with a horrified fascination as the falling flakes trailed down toward the floor of the forest, some of them falling on a cloaked figure below. He held his breath and snapped his eyes shut just in case the fading day’s light would give him away somehow.

Then a certain realization poked at his thoughts and he opened his eyes wide as the figure passed on beneath him. It was a rather smallish figure. Not that the wightish one need be large, but this one seemed fairly unimposing. And it didn’t glide along above the ground as he supposed a wight might do. No . . . there were definitely bootmarks in the snow.

Wren flitted on to another perch in front of the new figure. A low branch, hardly one wing’s span above the pursuer. He peered hard at him . . . No! Her! It was one of the women from the Inn.

His little bird’s brain began to put two and two together . . . or at least one and three. One of those reindeer was Wenda! And this other had gone after her. Now what was that name he’d heard the other two-leggeds call her? ‘Think, you addlepate!’ he chided himself. ‘Mara!’ That was it.

He was now in a quandary. What would a hero do? Should he follow them further to see their destination? What? What? In the end, he decided his little version of hero would need assistance. He knew the general direction the two women and the reindeer were heading. And he would be of no use if they were to be attacked. One cold look from the creature’s eyes, he imagined, and his stiff little body would be found feet up on the snowy ground. In the end he opted to fly back with all the speed he could muster to find Owl.

‘Owl! Owl!’ he cried, a bit surprised to find the old bird nearly to the forest himself. ‘You must turn round and tell the tall men I’ve seen Wenda and two of her deer crashing through the forest and behind them is the other woman following after them it seems . . . Mara.’ He gave Owl a bird’s eye description of where the women were and what direction they were headed. He stomped about on the branch he’d perched on waiting for the other bird to answer, all the while thinking that while Owl sped back with the news, he’d best be back on his way to keep an eye on those females . . .