Messily. Chaotically. Discordantly.

One moment, Tristan is hoisting the unconscious halfling on his back - fortunately she is not very big - the next moment trees, rocks and great wads of earth are flying every which way, landing like a witch's fortune-telling bones in scattered heaps, blocking paths and creating walls like a labyrinth.

And at the center of this havoc is the beast, a creature itself of chaos and confusion, haphazardly put together by a mad creator from different parts, as if unable to decide what it should be.

It slavers and barks rabidly and turns around itself in circles and figure eights like a band of dogs all chasing each others' tails as it homes in on the scent and sight of prey.

To Nin, this is Hell. There can be no more fitting word for where she finds herself, thrown into the midst of chaos and confusion where nothing follows straight lines or ordered plans.

For a moment, the shock leaves her stunned. She'll come to ... hopefully.

"Ah," said Robena. Again she's caught by how much Constance has grown, how professional and how proud. Her burden must be weighty indeed for her to have developed such gravitas. She seems so far from the wonderful, horrid child she'd known all those years ago, as far as the caterpillar is from the butterfly.

It is not as though Robena considers herself childlike or naive. She has seen more of the world than the vast majority of Albion's people. She no longer chatters, no longer flinches with fear, and can broodfully stare a rooster into quiescence. But Constance has the manner of one who deals with the divine, and that is the one wisdom her pilgrimage did not give her.

"As you say, lady," she said, bowing her head slightly. "Do you wish to ride?" she asked, gesturing at her horse - an offer that prompted a protesting snort from Apricot at not having been consulted.

Tristan

A massive beast bursts forth from the forest and the world explodes around you. The sky is raining corrupt soil, rocks and trees burst from the ground like fast-growing mushrooms and everything is chaos. You selected an ideal time to give up all hope of sense and sanity. The way to escape is forward and upward. You have to bring Nin and cause the beast to falter if you hope to wake her, for all the symbolism of this mad landscape is Nin's nightmare channeled through the beast and so you know in your heart that she is trapped here wit the beast.

Here are some things for your consideration (these are your follow ups, but you may ask another if they are inadequate)



If you can wake Nin, there may be help for you. The Questing Beast is Hunted by King Pellinore, and she cannot be far behind it if only such forces could pass into this chaotic space.

Nin

You are in a smoky place, dark and full of clouds. This is the source of the corruption of this forest, a spiritual reflection of the Questing Beast's internal world. Despite the power that you felt as you rode the beast to crash into the clearing, you feel here an overwhelming sense of fear. The beast is constantly Hunted and that is its overriding emotional existence. Perhaps it could be something different, or perhaps this is all it was ever made to be in its twisted existence. Still, would you seek to commune with it? It's right here with you, perhaps you can bring some calm to this chaos from within, especially with Tristan's help. Tell us what you do here.

Constance and Robena

Apricot snorts and turns her head and you are left in an awkward silence with Robena's question hanging in the air. Constance, do you intend to exercise your right and claim the horse for your travels?

***

As for the evening, Constance you take a great switch and let its supple strength guide you as you trace the routes of Britain into the dirt. You toss your stones and they are pulled directly towards Robena, who stands west and north outside your circles. A coincidence, for certain, the directions are clear, Northwest into Powys and Escavolon, though not too close to Camelot which you will pass above. You don't recall what might be there, the land has many ruins and is full of hill tribes. Your stones glow as they scatter though. Reflected starlight? No, this is more true, more real. The one nearest to where Robena is standing. Is she to be your guide? Or is there an old ruined castle just on towards Estragales where you are called? Perhaps that is where Merlin is hiding?

Robena, it cannot escape your notice that where you stand is the center of things. There is something of the scrying, the starlight, the madness of the moon that compels you in this moment to speak your mind. Tell the Lady Constance what you are thinking.

Talk ... Yes. Yes, that's what she'll do. Gently calm the beast, assuage its fears, bring calm and rationality back to it.

And she knows just what to say, because this is a fear she understands, in a way. How many times has she been trying to avoid, to escape, to hide from someone out to get her? Not in the exact same way, because she's no beast being hunted by a determined killer, but certainly she has evaded many a determined prankster in her life. This is what she is good at: keeping herself - and others, if she chooses - safe from pursuit, from mischief and harm.

And this beast, blind in its panic, is not doing very well as far as she's concerned. The only reason it hasn't been caught yet, it would seem, is because it's faster than its hunter. But with all the chaos it's creating in its wake, it isn't very hard to follow. What if it could lose its hunter and stop running, at least for a time?

This is the offer she lets seep into her voice as she recovers from the shock of the chaos and turns her attention to the frightened beast and the hope of calming it. "I can keep you safe," she whispers in a soothing voice. "As is my right, and would be my privilege, I will help you escape your hunter, if you will let me."

Win Someone Over: 2+2+1 = 5, well damn it. I guess my offer has been made, and I'll ask my question as I prepare for the worst: what is the crux of its reluctance or resistance (to my offer, is how I interpret this question)?

[Actually, should running away while carrying Nin be "Undertake great labour?": Roll 2d6 - 1, 4 + 1 = 6
Whatever it is, I fail at it.]

Tristan is doing his absolute best to keep away from the questing beast while keeping Nin stable. Even unencumbered, the Beast could likely outpace him, and he's encumbered on top of that. It's hard to work out the 'upwards' if he can't manage the 'forwards' right now.

This is all about to end in tears.

Oh, Constance, you couldn't refuse, could you? Not when the thought of riding and resting your feet tempted you so sweetly. You are mortal as are the rest of us, after all. So you let the knight swing you up onto her horse, both legs swung to one side, so that you could ride side-saddle as the knight led the horse out, and weren't you supposed to be going home now? If only, if only. Fate makes fools of us all as the wheel turns.

So here you are, underneath the stars and the expanse of heaven's road, and when you look up into the face of that oak-strong knight, your face is painted in moonlight and limned with the gleam of stone. And you almost don't recognize your own voice: "I am listening, Robena," you say, and your words are thin as gossamer. "Speak. Please."

"This is a land without mountains," she said in a voice a poet might use to discuss their dreams. Oh, isn't the sound of that voice so sweet, so melodic? How did that come to pass? Did the water from the Temple Mountain cleanse her throat of all imperfection? Is it the lingering gift of a djinn's kiss? Was she just a once in a generation prodigy, gifted by nature?

"There are hills here, even tall ones, but mountains? The Greeks have them, as do the Germans. They break the boundaries between earth and sky, towering so high their peaks pass above the clouds. Nor do they stand alone; they gather in their hundreds, thousands, like forests of oak. To walk through the mountains is to walk as the fox wanders the wood, low to the ground and unable to perceive the whole. Each gap between the peaks blooms with the lights of civilization - valley castles watching the little towns that nestle on green hills in the narrow band between icy rivers and eternal snow. All of England could fit within that range of mountains, hidden in the twists and vales between them..."

Her feet were steady in time with the horse's hooves, her voice steady in time with each. There was no falling or rising of breath. Such was her gift that she could talk like this over endless miles and still have it seem that she was both quiet and reserved.

"... And then you come to Constantinople. An entire mountain was felled for its stone, and that stone made a city. If England could be hidden within the mountains of Anatolia, England again could be condensed, squeezed, crushed and corralled into that single city. You see more people in an hour in Constantinople than people here see in their entire lifetimes. Such marvels they build and all you could imagine and more are for sale. One man offered to sell me a cat the size of a small horse, with fangs that could crush a man's skull, and scar-like patterns upon its fur that jagged from the black of charcoal to the orange of autumn leaves. Another man played music that could coax snakes and mice to dance for him. I saw a mystic walk over glowing coals fresh from the forge without losing his smile and without marks upon his feet, before retiring to a bed of nails where he slept away the afternoon. The Imperial Palace alone was the size of Camelot, rivaled only by a church that could fit the cathedral of Salisbury entirely within its great hall..."

She had seemed so calm, so patient - how could she not be? With tales like this how could the bragaddo of English knights touch her? With dreams of magical cities and eyes that had seen the clouds from above, how could the magic of this green and pleasant land surprise her? The hooves of this mighty beast that carried you in steady, rocking motion had pounded so many miles into dust, so many foreign kingdoms into memory. From this saddle, from this height, this knight had seen the whole world, or so it seemed.

On and on went that nightingale voice, bringing the wonders of the Holy Land back to you in soft spoken poetry.

Nin

Your offer is perfect. You are presenting the Questing Beast with exactly what it craves. The crux of its resistance is distrust. It knows the shape of temptation, and that shape is the shape of a trap. It roars and charges, sending you hurtling backwards in the dark spaces of its mind. Your soul crashes into an invisible wall and it feels for an instant as though all the world is shattering.

[The Questing Beast is ejecting your from your spirit journey, and further, it is Denying your Right to step out of your earthly life again until you have time to rest properly and recover.]

You awaken with a shock to the uncomfortable sights of Tristan's lower back as you're slung over his shoulder. The ground is unsteady and...we'll let him tell it from here, but you are free to act or to assist going forward.

Tristan

Something is wrong. Before the beast was in panicked flight, yes, but it had a certain control of the environment around it. Chaos, but chaos at its command. Now though, it rears and roars and there is madness in its snakelike eyes and more than small sound of pain. Nin seems to stir, but before you can do anything, the creature thrashes and the whole earth thrashes with it. You are flung unceremoniously into a rock, though this is a good measure better than if the thing had hit you itself with those venomous fangs or those massive claws it has.

[Take one harm]

In the distance, you can hear the faint sound of hunting horns braying, but the questing beast is too lost in its current madness to notice. What do you do?

Constance and Robena

Apricot snorts at the indignity of bearing a new rider, and one less familiar than the horse would prefer. But there is no interruption on the lonely British roads with the low grey clouds in the sky that threaten a summer storm. At least not yet. Over a low rise in the road, there is a distant jingling of little horse bells, but it is faint and you have time yet to speak.

It shouldn’t hurt. It really shouldn’t. You imagine these things so bright, so vivid, and even though you are wrong in so many particulars, you find delight in those dreams despite. But there is a bitterness to the taste, and as that gentle voice runs like a river to the sea, and beyond to France, and beyond to cities vaster than any that have ever been in this land, you feel... wrong.

“If that’s true,” you say, forcing yourself to laugh at the description of a fire-dancer, “why ever would you come back?” Ah. How dangerous. The words have already left your lips. “Why didn’t you stay...?”

Because now the mountains feel small, and the rivers mere rivulets. Because the marvels of Britain are small and grow smaller; because you are a daughter of giants, and you are small, and you are plain compared to dancing-girls and striped cats and cities the size of England...

"Well, why did I leave in the first place...?"

She rolls the question in her mouth. Not uncertainly, not like she's considering it for the first time. This is a question that has driven her, animated her, pulled her across the world. It dragged her from the mist and green and took her to where the sun reigns and the rivers bow and the glass shimmers in all the colours of the rainbow. Her hesitance is not because she hasn't answered it, but because she's never had to convey an answer to anyone other than herself.

"Why does anyone go to fairyland?" she murmurs as she looks out across the barrows.

"You go because you're bored. You go because you're impatient. You go because stories get their hooks in you. But most of all, you go because a pretty dragon with ruby scales grins and promises you wonders. You don't go because you've thought about it. You go because your cheeks are burning and your heart is pounding and you can hear music in the distance. There's no reason, there's just want and those too brave to not want dangerous things."

She let her gaze rise above the tombs of ancient kings to watch the golden moon, swathed in her cloudy gown and shining as brightly as a borrowed sun.

"But the thing about fairyland is that for all the wonders, there must be blood," she said. "You leave a little of yourself behind with each step you take. You leave safety behind. You leave happiness behind. You leave childhood behind. You leave innocence behind. You leave ideals behind..." her hand brushed the hilt of her axe gently. "I have done many things unbecoming of a knight. I have seen... others... do worse. And with blood, this axe went from being a tool for providing light and warmth to an instrument of death. I was on a path where I might have been convinced to do the same. And that's a different matter when your cheeks aren't burning and your heart isn't pounding and you've had your fill of music. So you turn back."

She stopped in uncanny time with Apricot, and turned to look up at Constance. Her smile, though shadowed in pain and weariness, was illuminated by eyes bright with moonlight.

"But the strangest thing of all is that you start to find some of those things that you left behind as you return. You remember what it is to fight for something greater. You remember what it was like to eat a meal without fearing a dagger or poison. You see again a friend from childhood days and it's like a piece of your lost soul slots back into place. Patchwork changeling though you may be, you know that no faerie promise or dragon smile will ever part you from your home again."

Tristan gives a silent prayer of gratitude that he at least afforded Nin a softer landing, a second that he's still alive.

Still, it's panicked. There are two main options: running towards the horns, and climbing.

He's just tried and failed at running, and Nin's conscious now. Let's try to put a tree between ourselves and the Beast and climb as fast as we can.

[4,2 +1 = 7]

"Run toward the horns if you can't climb," he shouts, "I'll shoot it if it tries to follow you, keep its attention on me."

Tristan is assuming he is still the one the Beast has its attention on. He's no way to know what just happened within the Beast's mind, and if that's made Nin the primary target now. But as soon as he gets some height, he's willing to shoot as many arrows as it takes to make it change its mind.

Accursed traps! Even when there are none, the mere specter of one still ruins everything.

"Nay! Don't shoot!" Nin shouts as she stumbles back on her feet and faces the beast. She turns, eyes locked on the beast, and with barely a moment to think she charges straight at it.

"You deny me, beast?" Swift as a hare, she leaps at the beast and seizes it by its neck. Arms and legs wrapped tightly around its neck, she holds on for dear life. "You'll not throw me off so easily! I'll prove my sincerity, and I shan't rest till I do! Now run, dammit! Don't you hear the hunters?"

Leap into Action: 3+5+0 = 8. Nin easily covers the distance and takes hold of the questing beast's neck.

“That is old magic,” you murmur, half to yourself and half to her. “I have not done it. The journey among the dead. The old heroes would do it to bring things back; their beloved, or wonderful things, or bounty, or... well, what did you bring back? Knowledge, I think. And now you’ll have to share it, even the bitter knowledge.”

Then your head lifts, and you notice, as if waking from an afternoon slumber or if suddenly startled from reverie, the shaking of bells. It does not do to speak of such things where anyone can hear, after all.

Robena and Constance

As you crest a slight rise in the road, you see a youngish man, perhaps in his early twenties, walking along the road. He's got thick tawny hair worn loose so that it peaks out every which way from his straw traveling hat, and he's otherwise wearing an unremarkable off-white tunic turned tan with the dust of the road and plain brownish pants and boots. He is leading a gray pack mule, which has bells on its saddle. Leading is perhaps too strong of a word. The actual mule leader is clearly the apple strung out on a rod just far enough ahead of the mule's mouth that it can catch a stray nibble but not quite seize the whole thing. The man is merely along for the walk wherever the apple may direct the pair.

When he sees you, he tips his hat up and gives a friendly wave with one hand, while trying to yank the mule backwards with the other. He quite nearly overbalances in the process, but manages to reach the rod and pull it up faster than the mule can get the apple, bringing the pair to a sudden stop. "My master here" gestures at the mule "could use a break. What news from...hmm, Lostwithiel, if I've got your bearing right?"

Nin

You're up and off like a shot, faster than Tristan or the Questing Beast or the earth itself can react and all of a sudden you're grasping that snake's neck and digging your feet for purchase into the fur at the shoulders and the thing can't manage to get you off. It rears and shakes, but does not run off, instead thrashing in its anger. It may or may not have heard you, but whatever happened to send it into a frenzy has not worn off yet and so it has not been inspired to follow your directions.

After a moment of wild throwing in which all you can do is close your eyes and hold on for dear life, you hear the swift "thfft" of an arrow shaft lodge itself into the Questing Beast. Did Tristan shoot despite your command? The fool will only drive the beast to anger!

Still, it is beginning to stop thrashing, at least enough for you to do something while holding onto it. What do you do?

Tristan

You did not shoot despite Nin's command. At least not yet, though she can easily be forgiven for not grasping the full situation given her current precarious purchase. Her nobility and kind soul are in full evidence here, though stupidity might also be on the list of ways to describe what just happened. Regardless, you manage to scramble your way up the tree despite nearly being crushed by more flying boulders and the tree itself being halfway uprooted, so you're holding on with one hand to avoid sliding off due to the tree now being at close to a 45 degree angle to the ground.

What you can see from your (oddly diagonal) vantage that Nin cannot is the train of hunters and baying hounds approaching through the forest paths. Their heraldry is a field of azure crosses on a background of or. You'd recognize it as the sign of King Pellinore. And indeed, there she rides at the head of her train atop a swift black stallion. She wears her mail coat polished so it shines and in front is her tabard of that same heraldry apparently untouched by the dirt and damp of the woods. On her head, an open helmet that covers her dark hair down to her neck but leaves her tall, lean face exposed. Her expression is intent, and her hunting bow is strung already for a second shot from horseback as she rides fearlessly through the forest at the head of her party. She is not close enough to see past the chaos and is instead firing arcing shots by the sound of the beast's cries, her first having landed near its rear haunch but barely sunk past the skin, a mosquito bite for the thing at best. She has no way of knowing that Nin is on the creature as she prepares her second shot.

What do you do?

"Nothing burns," said Robena habitually. A Roman saying, all's well.

But then she glances aside at Constance. Ah, well then. Already the habitual taciturn silence had crept back into her, letting herself fall into a guarded silence not seconds after she was invoked to share her knowledge. It seemed religion dictated that she spit out a few more words even against her nature.

"A cursed knight fought at the tournament, though, and was defeated," she added, using the most passive voice she could in a vain attempt at modesty. "I was curious as to what would inflict such a beguilement."

[I invoke my right to be known by reputation, and hit a 9. They know to be impressed by me, though I have no control over the specifics.]

Lostwithiel. A sudden foreboding strikes you then, doesn't it, Constance? That somehow, this humble and good man (or so you must assume) will be drawn into the coming disaster if he goes there with his master of a mule. Nonsense, surely! You don't even know if he is headed for Lostwithiel, much less if he intends to stay there long. Yet it is impossible, once you take up that thought, to put it down again. So you look at him, intent eyes like still forest pools, your inner turmoil carefully hidden beneath your noble mien.

"The prayers are said, the fair complete, and we'll see what this year brings," you say, carefully. "And as for yourself, good man, how turns the Wheel of the seasons?"

It is your right to be recognized as a keeper of the Old Faith, after all, daughter of giants; and who would fail to recognize you? Who would fail to offer an account of their days, or then surrender some small thing or prayer or question that troubles them, some small and wonderful matter between the two of you, a burden to be lifted from them. So let us wait for an answer, and do your best not to get distracted by that mule still reaching for the carrot. (Will he get it? He must-- certainly he will-- won't he?)

To calm a beast you must stay calm yourself - Nin knows this well from her experience with goats - and you can't reason with someone who's gripped by a panic, you just have to wait it out.

So Nin stays as calm as she can while holding on, making soothing whispers and waiting for the beast to calm down enough for a chance at rational thought to break through.

Meanwhile, she tries to do what the beast cannot in its current thrashing: take careful stock of the situation and their surroundings.

Take Stock: 4+6+2 = 12

* What is my best way out of here?
* How may I best preserve my strength?
* Which of my enemies is the biggest threat to me?

Tristan is completely paralyzed by indecision. There are three actors here, with three motivations that are inscrutable to him, two of whom he needs as allies, and no way he can see acting on behalf of one that doesn't act against the other. He's going to stay up his tree until the situation becomes less complicated.

"Nin! The hunters are firing blind!"

Robena and Constance
"Nothing burns aye?" the man looks at you with an appraising eye, Robena. Much more carefully than before. "I suppose you've been to places where that's not so and come through the other side of it then."

The man puts one hand on his chin to think, his stance so thoughtful that you both nearly miss him flipping the carrot with the other hand so that it lands right in Constance's lap. The mule, held less firmly than may have first appeared, makes a beeline for it and, heedless of any sense of decency, goes straight for the carrot, nuzzling Constance's thighs in the process.

[Constance, your right to be acknowledged by the traveler is denied. The mule, however, has definitely acknowledge you.]

The man, attention on Robena, finishes his thinking. "Perhaps you could help a traveler with something, you seem noble of bearing and strong of arm enough for it. There's a ruined castle a little ways down the road from here, less than half a day's ride. I thought I'd spend the evening there, but it was haunted by..." he shrugs, not offering the words for what it might have been haunted by and runs a hand sheepishly through his thick hair. "Well, I got so scared that I ran out and left something there, two something's actually. An old lockbox, no bigger than two handspans and my cat, you see. If you could find it in your heart to bring them back to me, I'd be grateful."

Nin

The beast begins to calm and starts sniffing it's surroundings, it's snake tongue lashing outward. It picks something up in the direction of Pellinore and lunges to the side as another shot lands where it had been.

Your best way out of here is to ride the Questing Beast. It is not clear if you could bring Tristan, but you've managed to hang on long enough for it to accept your position and if it leaves with all its strength, it's doubtful anyone could keep up.

There are two ways to preserve your strength, I think, but that's a harder question to answer. One is to hold on and get the Questing Beast to run, there will be no other threats to you unless or until you enrage the beast. On the other hand, if it stays and you can dismount before King Pellinore enrages it and seek shelter with the hunting party, that too would preserve your strength.

As to the biggest threat. Difficult to say, everyone present is quite dangerous. As you stand now, at this exact moment, King Pellinore and her party are your biggest threat. There is a high chance that they interpret you as either protecting the beast or trying to assault it when it is Pellinore's quest to hunt it. Either may lead them to turn hostile to you and collectively they are as strong or stronger than the beast.

King Pellinore is approaching, though you won't be able to see them because of the slight rise in the ground created by the Questing Beast. Tristan obviously can though, and they'll be upon you in a few moments.

What do you do?

Tristan

Two things happen to change the situation. One, the approaching hunters hear you shouting and two the Questing Beast stops shouting and moves from where the arrows were raining. King Pellinore hesitates and relaxes the next arrow on her bowstring, guiding her horse instead towards the upturned tree scanning for you.

Her party is still riding in haste with Pellinore and at least ten knights plus at least as many hunting hounds coming through the trees. They are making for you as fast as they safely can and will be upon you in a moment. King Pellinore appears indeed to have already spotted you from your perch and is waving an arm to hail you to come down and speak. Because of the earthen barriers, they have not yet seen Nin an the beast, but they will as soon as they crest the little rise where your broken tree hangs on precariously.

What do you do?

The laughter bubbles out of you like water from a spring. You are, after all, a keeper and companion of cats; you are well acquainted with hungry and insistent animals climbing into your lap. At least donkeys don't have claws!

"Stop that," you say, grinning, lifting the donkey's head so that he doesn't eat your dress. But that keeps him away from his beloved carrot, and so he shoves his head further and further forward, complaining that you are heartless, that you are starving him, that you are wasting him away to skin and bones and that he will drop dead this very moment if he is not given his rightful carrot.

"Robena," you say, still laughing, "come and feed this poor dear his carrot before he eats me all up, too?"