TRILEMMA GAME

@Drgwen,@Rumo

We begin in a fishing village near the south end of Halfnight Lake (SW corner of map above). We've been traveling through the land called "Once Martol", seeking rumors and lore of the Martoi for our purpose. In the village tavern, we heard it said:
What more urging do we need to explore?

Let's note a few things about Once Martol:
• The entire land is as black (at all times) as Darkvale on a cloudy night; no guides will take travelers into it willingly.
• Animals seem unaffected by the darkness. They are also enormous and territorial (as is common in wild places).
• Lamps and torches seem to shine only feebly here.

Halfnight Lake is on the border of Once Martol, and as the name suggests, the western half the lake is all times black as night while the eastern half experiences night and day. People who live on the shores and fish the waters do so out of desperation; the water and the fish are bad.

Dahlia recalls that the ancient Martoi mined brilliant pigments that stick very well. The pigments were a 🌈 of colors. Some say they could be used in magic to make paintings that summon what is painted.

You gather with locals in the tavern. There's a variety of talk about how bad the fish taste lately, how Erwin wants to move away from here, but Kadya won't let him leave because her mother (whom he hates) is sick. Almost everyone here is sick … something about the water, or the fish. The imported wine soothes their stomachs. It's not clear what they trade for the wine, though someone mentions sending a kid off to a "better life" in the eastern lands.

Then someone lets slip that they're having a hard time getting pigment off their hands! Listening closer, you hear that Birevia pays gold for the tiniest scrap of that pigment, and these hills supposedly have lots. Maybe, the gigantic lynx guards a mother lode. But no-one has the guts to challenge it.

"You'll need torches for the dark place," volunteers one of the locals — a shifty looking young man with a patchy blond beard, whose eyes don't match. "Just one coin." He has a whiny voice.

The young man gets an anxious look on his face and scratches his scraggly beard. "I don't know. People stay out of the dark around here, for the most part. I don't think even anybody has been up the hill to where the lynx was in a while. We're not real adventurers, round here. Just tryna get by, right?"

The village is on the side of the lake that has half-day and night. The sun is on the edge of zenith and about to be eclipsed by the magic of the area.

" you got about another 20 minutes and then it's gonna be dark for 18 hours" answers the boy. " it doesn't rain much here but if it starts you come indoors. The rain raises the curses from the soil and makes your eyes go dark."

Just to illuminate the sitch a little, the bluff where the lynx is rumored is in the dark part of the land. You don't have any choice but to go there in the dark. It's never daylight there.

The people in the tavern look at Dahlia in a puzzled way. Then an old woman scoffs at her. "We all know what poisons the lake. It's the curse on the land, when the rain falls it rises from the soil and flows into the lake. You think you'll solve that by rowing a boat out on the lake?" She laughs bitterly, and turns her attention back to her handleless porcelain mug.

The old woman squints at Dahlia "Since the time of the Martoi and their wars, the land has been dark," she answers. "Some say it's from a foolish effort to conceal the movement of troops in darkness. Anyway, to the west it's always dark; here it just gets dark when it rains. But the runoff makes the fish and water bad." She shakes her head slowly. "People try to move away but no land will accept our refugees. They're worried that the darkness is contagious."

The old woman looks blankly at Myrven. "Maybe … in Once Martol." (You recognize the name: the former capital of the Martoi kingdom, long since fallen to ruins through their ancient internecine strife.) "You think you can reverse the curse?" She scoffs again. "You'd be the first to try. That I know of."

"It's … that way? Time is weird in the darkness. And I don't know anyone who's been there. So I can't really guess how far, how many hours."

Montage

The villagers are hospitable, and let you stay overnight (all 18 hours) in the tavern for free. The fish and the water do taste strange, and make your stomachs hurt.

Morning comes way too long after "sunset" and you already are restlessly awake when the sun rises. Equipped with a single torch, you set your backs to the village and step toward the vertical veil of darkness, beyond which are the bluffs where the lynx is rumored. You've been told it will take 2 torches to get there …

The journey in darkness seems interminable. The gloom, which seems more palpable than ordinary light, strangely attenuates and swallows the light of your torch. You can barely make out a ten foot distance around the path you tread. You light the second torch from the first and plod onward, uphill along the edge of a strange-smelling stream that glimmers in the torchlight with strangely fluorescent pastel colors. There seems a good likelihood that ancient Martoi pigments are indeed in them thar hills, given the rainbow appearance of the stream.

Near the haft of the second torch, you reach the base of a steep incline. Above, you see a glowing opening in the face of the bluff. Firelight flickers there but casts little illumination into the damping darkness all around.

You hear a strange airy howling noise, like wind blowing around a corner. It comes from somewhere nearby — you think.

You then hear a rasping snarl from the same direction. Looking that way, you see two round golden glowing eyes. In the darkness it is hard to tell the size of the creature that has those eyes. But it has a voice: "Welcome to the place of the Ricalu," it says in a meowing tone. "Do you bring gifts?"

What was that noise? A cooing chirp? "I am not Ricalu," the cat-voice answers. "I am not named. But I like to drink wine. Did you bring any?"

Again the cooing chirp. Soft paws pad toward you. The lynx is big — easily half your size — and rainbow-pastel like the stream. It bleps its tongue at the sight of the wine skin. Then it sits, its head a little higher than waist-high, its posture proud. "You may squirt the wine into my mouth," it says, and gapes open fangéd jaws.

After several gulping swallows, the big cat abruptly closes its jaws; a little wine splashes on its snout, which it licks clean with a very long tongue. "Thank you, honored guests," it says. "Come in the house of the Ricalu. This way!"

The lynx turns away from you, and pads into the darkness ­— abruptly out of sight, its eyes not visible.

Do you follow?

You traipse after the lynx, which shadowy moves around a large boulder and squeezes through an opening taller than your heads but so narrow that you must turn sideways. Inside is a cavern that smells very much of cat, a large space beyond your torchlight. The lynx turns around a few times on a large bed of faded grass, then settles down with its head on its crossed front paws. It yawns. "At the back of the cave you can go left, or right," it says. "Either way you'll meet the Ricalu."

Who is carrying the lit torch at this point? Is that Dahlia? If not, does the torchbearer go with Dahlia?

In any case, the torch is flickering low and blue. Another torch need be lit.

Left or right?

The leftward opening leads into a cramped and damp passageway, its stone walls scored by tools. The torchlight shows faint streaks of fluorescent pigments in the rock. It seems this passage might once have been a mine tunnel.

You hear footsteps and then turn a corner in the passage and confront a small wrinkled creature with pale skin as iridescent as an opal. Multicolored and faintly glowing tattoos seem to crawl on that skin.

"What are you doing up out of the works?" the creature demands of you. "Get back down the shaft at once!"

The creature is indeed humanoid. It wears a scanty loincloth and has a generally genderless appearance. You notice that it's not carrying any light source.

"Of course, the pigments! … (idiots) …" the creature makes an impatient gesture at you, over its shoulder in the direction you were headed. "Hurry up!"

The strange wizened character does not follow you as you trod further along the tunnel, which gets small in places (your torch flame battering and sooting the ceiling) but is not impassable.

You hear the sound of metal striking stone, first faintly ahead of you and then you step out of the tunnel onto a ledge that overlooks a dark space. Although the cavern is large and unlit, you can see frequent small showers of sparks as mining tools strike rock; and you hear a continuous quiet chanting and grunting as workers, all in darkness, wield the tools.

There is a set of steps carved into the ledge leading down into the pigment mine, as that is what this seems to be. Do you think it odd that there are no lights?

The workers toil in darkness, chanting, still invisible to you aside from the sparks struck by their tools. You are guessing that they resemble the creature who sent you here, but you don't yet know.

Descending the steps from the ledge, it is a long way down to the mine floor. Dozens of feet down. The torch light does not reach the far wall where sparks fly at various levels.

The mine floor is muddy with a faint pastel fluorescence in the mud. Not visible from the ledge, with your feet squishing in the moist and pigmented clay it is apparent that some treasure remains to be had, here.

Crossing the floor toward the working wall, the torchlight shows you the base of wooden scaffolding with a ladder going up into darkness. There are no workers near the … wait, the torch shows a small person reclined on the lowest wooden plank platform, at about your chest level. They are asleep, clutching their chisel and scoop to their chest.

"Eeep!" says the sleeper as it or he or she awakes. "Hello bright lights hurt eyes please put them out!"

The now-awakened creature wraps its forearm across its eyes to block the light from your torch.

Damn it's dark … as your eyes adjust to the stygian surroundings.

Moments pass, and, strangely, vision gathers. With the torch extinguished, you can distinguish first nearby and then distant features of this mine face. Of most interest is the stranger nearest you, who smiles gratefully at the relief of light.

"I'm Ricalu," s/he says in a mid-register voice. "Nice to meet you, Ricalu. Are you here to help mine pigment?"

"We are Ricalu," says the small person who wears a diaper and nothing else. "We mine pigment. Come put down your burdens and I will bring you to your tools. We have extra!"

Looking around you see the dozens of Ricalu working the face at all levels of the towering scaffold. They are various shapes and sizes, some small and others quite gangly.

"Oh …" a worried face "… Ricalu don't usually do that. Has Nibiru given Ricalu instructions?"

"(sigh)… a rock fell on his head? That happens. We had helmets somewhere but the storekeeper got hit on the head on a rock and forgot where they are. (sigh) … Anyway, Nibiru is the Necromancer who is in charge here. We keep the pigments in the other part of the mine, over that way. We use those carts to haul them pigment ores to the storage part. It's pretty full. Oh, important! Don't lick your fingers or eat without washing your hands, after you've been working the face. And … what's the other … oh, yeah, keep flame away from the pigments. Good thing we don't need torches to see down here, right?"

"Hey, have you heard the fourth chimes? I hope I didn't oversleep my shift … don't want to go back in the Vault!"

"The Old Bones are in there …" (you can hear the Capital Letters on that) "… and they're not friendly. They don't do much to hurt Ricalu but you can feel they don't like visitors. I only spent two shifts there, it was my first time oversleeping. Scary place."

You can move away left or right along the base of the scaffolding, or you could climb up the scaffolding (or back up the steps you came down). Which way?

"I would prefer just picking up a box. Let's go check that out, then".
Rumo begins to make his way in that direction, though he continually looks over his shoulder, anxious to make sure he's not left too far behind.

Leaving sleepyhead behind you, and following the meandering workface and scaffolding to the left (the direction that sleepyhead pointed when mentioning pigment storage), you continue to see clearly without your torch. It's an odd sort of vision. You're very aware that it's dark, no source of light — yet you're also perceiving everything around you.

Ascending a rough set of steps you enter under an archway into a large room. It's stacked half-up to the high ceiling with wooden boxes, nothing to choose between them to your eyes. No other exits than the way you came in. Each box is of a size that one of you could carry it on a shoulder, though you might have to stop every while to rest on the way back to the nameless fishing village.

How many boxes do you take?

Carrying your crates, you head for the exit? Which way is that?

Dahlia keeps her footing in the shallow layer of mud, despite the awkward load on her shoulder. The workers on the face don't notice her progress.

The heavy crates of pigment are too much for Ingvar and Myrven to handle in the treacherous footing. Wipeout!

The workers on the face continue, oblivious. But someone's approaching along the mud floor, pushing a heavy barrow on a wobbly wheel. They're big and round but short. "Hey! What's the noise … and what are you doing with pigment crates?"

"… ok, Ricalu."

The barrow-pusher pushes past. The barrow load is disconcertingly glistening pastel color, mostly what might be a shade of lavender but your color vision is really weird in this no-light world.

Next room?

Now the long steps up …

You get up the stairs and it's a short walk to the lynx's cave.

The lynx's cave is dark. Whatever weird vision you had down below, has left you as you enter the cave.

What do you do?

"Where do you think you're going? With those crates?" purrs a voice that must be the lynx. Its glowing eyes flash briefly in the torchlight.

" You do not smell like Ricalu," growls the lynx. " but I do like wine " it coos.

The lynx gulps the wine that Myrven squirts from the skin. When it's gone: "oh ... Was that all?" the lynx sits down and begins to wash its ear with its front paw.

The lynx really gets its paw into its ear with a slight squelching noise and seems very focused on that exploration. You move on.

Now it's a long trek through darkness with your torch and crates, clumsy to carry but o-so-precious.

What do you do as you traverse the dark and uneven land, your steps lit only by a torch that fails to throw its light more than a few paces into the gloom?

How do you navigate back to the fishing village?

You stumble along the dark path along the side of the glimmering stream. After a while your torchlight touches a structure just to the right side of the path, away from the stream. It looks like a disheveled hovel. Candle light glimmers through the doorway but doesn't show you clearly what's inside.

The dark around is the perma-shadow that squelches your torchlight, which is what's making it so hard to get back to the village (and made it hard to get to the mine, as well). You don't know if it's actually night or day.

You toward the village, pausing frequently to shift your burdens from aching shoulder to shoulder and once to light a new torch.

Eventually you half stumble into the little fishing village. Beyond the comforting presence of the buildings and the sounds of people settling after dinner, you are pleased that you can see stars in half the sky.

What do you do?

The city of Twosisters, on Birevia, is the dominant trading power in the Western region, a city of 8,000 citizens living in tier upon tier of stone manors and homes all up the northeastern slopes of the island. Its wide streets hum with the work-songs of artisans from every culture, producing luxuries for wealthy merchant families.

That is where you can sell the pigments to those who dream of Martoi glories past.

Myrven will look for the tavern too, quickly heading to the barkeep to ask for accommodations or directions to the nearest available.

It is not hard to find a room upstairs of the tavern. Who can afford a silver for the night? How will you buy passage on a boat down the lake to Haver Soont, and then how will you buy passage on a ship to Birevia?

Nothing happens while you continue to discuss your potential wealth.

Myrven finds the crate is lined with canvas, and the candle-light in the room glimmers on pastel rainbow streaks of slightly glowing Martoi pigments. There's about thirty pounds of the stuff in that crate, and it's said to be worth its weight in gold. Indeed, you could retire well on the money from this haul — even if paid in silver.

But this … this is the kind of wealth that people would kill for.

There are no locks here. Apparently whoever built this tavern didn't consider that guests might want to safeguard valuables.

What now?

Ingvar abruptly faints. He will be useless for watch until he has rested for $H hours, recovering that number of Strain.

You're all exhausted. You feel like you could sleep all day … ++

After about ten minutes, Myrven hasn't returned.

@drgwen, @generalet

Do you go looking for Myrven, or just wait?

Evening wears into morning and the wine trickles slower. One of the villagers gestures to the open tavern door: "Let's watch sunrise!"

Dawn at Halfnight Lake is strange; the glowing orb appears over the eastern mountain tops, its light illumining the quiet ripples of the lake in gold and rose … At this time of day, the pall of eternal darkness over the western half the lake is most apparent as a wall of blackness in which the dawn light vanishes.

Drunkenly, the villagers arrange a fishing boat and tattered crew to sail the northward length of Halfnight Lake, out into the open waters of the Haver Soont. "It's a day and a half up the lake," chuckles the gap-toothed captain, "and with good* wine we'll make it sleepless all the way. Then rest at the lake mouth, and then three days across t'Soont to Birevia!" he cackles.

*You've yet to taste "good" wine here.

Provisioned with foul-smelling pickled fish and barely weighted by the three crates of pigment, the gaff-rigged fishing boat wallows at the dock. You board incautiously and set sail.

Day passes to darkness, and it would be easy to be lost on the rippling water, save that the captain tracks slightly to the right of the line where the stars are blank above you.

Dawn again, and hours, and then the lake mouth at slack tide where the breakers from the Haver Soont roll darker grey against the gentle outflow from the lake.

The captain pisses over the side as the boat rocks in the cross-current. Then he steadies the tiller and gestures to his awake mate (the other mate snores) to tighten the sail. A breeze picks up as the boat lurches into the breakers, twists a bit sideways, and steadies on a northerly course.

"Two days," says the captain, "with this wind!" He laughs madly and swigs from another of the pottery bottles of wine that roll in the floor of the boat.

The boat pitches on the waves in an east-of-north direction. The sun rises into the sky, a comforting warmth against the cold salt breeze. To your left, the wall of darkness slowly recedes to the horizon.

What do you talk about?

The sun moves high and west and lowers toward the distant wall of dark.

You sail uneventfully through the night and at dawn of the next day the boat crests and dips across the swells near the southern point of Birevia. At the second sunset the boat rocks into the harbor of Twosister, the major town of the island.

The captain and mates deftly dock. Dwatto, the more muscular mate, steps onto the pier with you and your crates. "I'll help with the luggage," he says boldly, "and make sure you don't get lost." The captain agrees. "We'll sleep on the boat," he says. "Dwatto, mind the passengers and get the cargo safe to sale." It's clear you'll be bird-dogged til you exchange the pigment for coin.

Dwatto stumbles under the crate he's carrying. "I thought you had the contact!" he exclaims. "I've never been here before."

The market is shutting down for the evening, it's around sunset after all. There are a few stalls still open: drink sellers, and a few sketchy-looking vendors wearing fine clothing, whose table displays consist of miscellaneous cheap trinkets. You can guess that what they actually sell is not displayed openly.

The drink sellers are taciturn when it's apparent that Dahlia's not primarily seeking libations. The first trinketeer she approaches has a different demeanor. Obsequious. "May I help you, dear lady?" Is there a hint of mockery in that?

The dapper-dressed man raises an eyebrow deliberately. "Rare pigments? I know a guy. Step into here, let's talk more quiet like."

Inside of the stall, behind the gauzy yet opaque curtains, is lit by a couple of open oil lamps, the wicks give a steady yellowish glow.

The trinket vendor smiles as he sits down on a plain wooden stool about knee-high, and gestures Dahlia toward a matching seat. "Let's talk," he says. "I know a vendor of ancient curios, here in the city. She's always looking for rarities. Can you give me a better idea of what kind of … pigments … you have to sell?"

As Dahlia mentally wrenches open the mask that the vendor keeps with his eyes and face, information rushes into her own mind.

The female collector of trinkets is this vendors artifice. Himself is interested in Martoi curios of any sort. He knows that Eastern wizards particularly value Martoi pigments, both for aesthetic value and as reagents that can be ingested or administered to induce the formation of ... Flowers?

More urgent is the vendors plan to lure Dahlia and her companions into a delivery rendezvous with the non-existent curio collector. At the rendezvous they will bereft of pigments and lives.

How does Dahlia respond?

People look uneasy when Dahlia asks about wizards; the world has a long history of people doing dumb things with powerful forces, and that's what "wizard" brings up for most people. After the destruction of the Martoi wizard wars, it was the Seree wizards who first combed the ashes of Martol and then tried to bind the demigods to their will, which led to the destruction of the Seree empire in its turn. So nowadays when people say "wizard" they get a certain reaction.

Anyway, eventually Dahlia finds a shady-looking sort who grins at her in an unsettling way. "Sure. There's a couple of em folk in town," she says. "Over at the Broken Boat." She swipes the back of her hand across her nostrils, jostling the ring through her septum. "I can brings you there."

The scrawny woman grins. "No worries, honey. You don't look like my kind of people to mess with." She turns and gestures to follow. "This way. Do you tip?"

It's not quite so easy this time, for whatever reason, but again, a stranger's thoughts and knowledge flood Dahlia's mind. She wonders for an instant whether there might be any kind of side effect to such an excess of knowing.

The woman is well-intentioned and helpful, despite her sketchy appearance. Dahlia remembers the woman playing with a puppy by the docks. The puppy peed on her foot and she splashed her feet off the edge of the dock to wash off the urine.

You get to the Broken Boat no problem, and the scrawny lady opens the door for you. It looks pretty battered. So does the building as a whole; chipped pale bricks and a green tile roof with broken tiles. There's a blank boat-shaped space above the door where you might have expected to see a sign.

Going in, you see the place is moderately populated by people drinking and eating. The scrawny woman follows you in and taps Dahlia's arm; then, nods her head toward a group of three people nearby. "Them are eastern wizards, there," she says, and looks expectantly at Dahlia.

The three people look up at Dahlia with expressions of wary interest.

One is a man of about sixty years, balding, impressively mustached in grey. His eyes are a piercing bright blue color.

Another is a woman of equal age, her grey hair is very neatly braided into a coiled bun atop her head. She wears a silver diadem.

The third is a young man, slender and dark in all respects. His eyes are large and round, with green irises, reminding Dahlia of a frog.

"Of course we're interested," the young man lisps. "Sit down with us, and your companions, too. Pull up chairs."

"What makes you sure these are what you say?" asks the woman with the grey braided hair bun. The little pendant on her silver diadem dangles from her forehead as she leans forward, elbows on the table. She rests her round chin on her fist as she studies Dahlia. "What will make us sure that these are what you say?"

Dwatto moves awkwardly among the tables to you, sets the crate down with a thunk onto the eastern wizards' table, lifts the lid. The faint fluoresence of the Martoi pigment lights the wizards' faces.

"Yeah," breathes the young one, "that's the stuff." He looks to the older two wizards. "We need to confer," he says. But then he says nothing else. Instead, he and the other wizards close their eyes. Their faces relax, go blank. It's as if they're in trance.

"That sounds very good," the women with the silver diadem says placidly, her eyes still closed. "Would you prefer to be paid with a letter of favor, coins, or information? Or a combination?"

"Three hundred …" says the older man. "Per crate."

The younger man laughs uneasily. "That's really the best we can do in hard funds," he says. "But maybe some information would sweeten the deal?"

" that's fine" says the older woman. " we'll come with you to get the other two crates and the way there we'll pay you for this first crate. Other coin and information after we have all the crates."

Crates and coins are exchanged. The wizards impart some information, as well:
•

"Some speak of a many-colored lynx that roams the darkness west of Halfnight Lake," murmurs the grey-braided wizard with the silver diadem.

"The Seree Lycaeum was a mighty repository of knowledge, built over a huge cleft into the depths. No-body knows of any route to reach it in the waking world; it has been visited only by traveling magically along ley lines." says the young man.

"I’ve had this ring since I was a child. Whenever I put it on, I feel called to a faraway place—that way. I've never dared venture there. Maybe you're braver." The old man holds out a cheap-looking brass pinkie ring.

All exchanges made, you're free to explore the town of Twosister. Or leave. Up to you!

You each have about four pounds of silver in your pouches now.

If possible, Myrven will seek out a smith to invest in some armour.

Well, it's late in the evening now, so unlikely a smith will be open for business. But certainly there are some in a city the size of Twosisters. Shall we go to rest and resume in the morning?

If rest, what sort of public house will you seek for your repose?

Asking the wizards gets you the name of a tavern: "Captain's Rest". Asking directions in the still-busy streets gets you there. It's a white stone building, three stories tall and with a fairly large footprint. The story you heard on the street was that it used to be the mansion of a famous merchant, and his heirs converted it to a bed and breakfast. The windows on the lower floor flicker with lamplight.

Entering the foyer, you find a chest-high desk behind which stands a swarthy, slender man with close-cropped hair. He smiles at you charmingly. "Ah, good evening," he says. "It is a pleasure to see you. Do you need a room?"

The smile gets bigger. "But of course, ma'mselle." Turning to the side, he calls out, "Mon cherie Denise, the Captain's Suite is open, oui? Prepare it!" Returning his attention to you, he adds, "Here, follow me to the dining lounge. I will instruct the chef. We are always glad to have guests of your quality and hope you will remark of us well in the future."

You rest on comfortable couches at a simple yet elegant, highly-polished wooden table with monochrome paisley engravings under the varnish. For each of you, a fairly attractive waiter brings a series of dishes, hot and cold, each as delicious as the last. The chef has done well. As you lean back, satiated, the slender dark man appears again. "M'lord, m'lady: your suite is prepared. Please, follow me."

As you ascend the spiral staircase at the center of the mansion, the majordomo adds, "Would you like a fresh set of clothing? Our tailor can be sobered."

The majordomo eagerly agrees to get the tailor going early in the morning, and offers the name of a very well-reputed armorer. He looks sad when you ask about spells: "No, I don't know anything about wizards. They don't frequent this house."