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Session Two

After hearing F14's recovered message aboard HEC, Elara and Briar returned to Bellharrow tired, hurt, and carrying more secrets than the town realized.

At the Moth-Hearth Inn, Mira fed the sisters and their cats. Bellharrow was already whispering about the body found near Waxhouse Records: a dead broker, completely decapitated.

The inn was full after Susul's concert and the night's trouble, so the sisters went to F14's cottage to sleep. Old Nettle was just leaving. She did not forbid them from staying there, then flew away on a broom.

F14's Cottage​

Briar tested the Zephyr Humming Feather for the first time, becoming a hummingbird and flying around the cottage. The first patrol was not very useful, but the nectar was apparently excellent.

The sisters rested in F14's cottage. In the morning, Briar found a strange hidden note or technical remnant in the bedding. It seemed connected to old route systems, HEP, and pressure around the 13th Door.

The Moth-Hearth​

Back at the inn, the sisters met Sister Wax.

Sister Wax knew F14 and said F14 had been gone for long stretches before, once as long as forty years. But this absence felt different. F14 had been uneasy before leaving, and people expected her back sooner.

Sister Wax also seemed to know more about the kind of technology or intelligence that could play F14's tape than she wanted to say plainly.

The sisters also met Loom, a ferryman who keeps a station at the inn.

Then the cats clicked fourteen times.

The Bell Well​

The sisters followed the clicks back to the Bell Well and found Tessel hiding nearby.

Tessel showed them her notebook. Briar recognized the writing as Old Lion Road Script, a language F14 had once tried to teach the sisters. Tessel said F14 taught it to her, and that F14 was surprised Tessel could learn it.

Tessel can write the script.

She cannot read it.

The well was dry. Briar used the Zephyr Humming Feather to descend as a hummingbird and found a door at the bottom.

Below The Well​

Below the Bell Well, the sisters found an old listening room full of devices, wires, terminals, and broker-looking people waiting for a dead drop.

The basin below the well tried to take F14's tape. It felt wrong, like something was being taken rather than given. The sisters pulled the tape back.

Then two strange face-reflecting eels attacked. Elara and Briar destroyed them.

When they returned, Tessel gave them two bags F14 had asked her to make for "F14's girls."

The Shrine​

The sisters later visited the Shrine of Returning Light with Sister Wax. The shrine held candles and offerings for people the village wanted to come home.

One blue flame burned for F14.

The sisters found a hidden door beneath the shrine and followed it into deeper machinery: old terminals, root-like wires, a telescope aimed at a strange white sun, unreadable Old Lion Road Script, maps, and a black smoky lens.

When they disturbed the lens, they were thrown through darkness and metal wind into a golden forge chamber.

There they found a massive sleeping forge-being.

HEP.

What Changed​

  • Bellharrow knows about the dead broker, but not the whole truth of what happened.
  • Mira and Sister Wax believe the tape is still missing.
  • Tessel can write Old Lion Road Script.
  • The Bell Well is dry and has a door at the bottom.
  • The well leads to an old listening room connected to F14's tape.
  • The sisters kept the tape from being taken by the dead-drop basin.
  • Tessel gave the sisters two bags of holding made at F14's request.
  • Sister Wax showed the sisters F14's blue return-flame.
  • The sisters found hidden machinery beneath the Shrine of Returning Light.
  • HEP, a sleeping forge-being, has been found.