Online Recap 08.08.2018

Tylendel leaves the House of Martial Holies and rounds the Holy Hill. On the ‘green’, a relatively flat sloping area on the hill’s western side, he sees Syr Benn Bhoris struggle with his patience. The man and his company are seated around on marble benches, while women are busy combing their hair.
“If you could only sit still,” the woman de-lousing Syr Benn says, amusement in her voice. He complains it is taking too long, but she laughs the huge man off: “You’re a big boy. It’s not like I’m torturing you.” At that, Syr Benn grimaces and says, “It’s not far off!” She gives him a pouty smile. “You don’t have to, you know.” The man crosses his arms and says nothing more.

Chuckling, Tylendel continues toward Nemeth Hold, noticing someone in the open stables adjacent to the easternmost of the two sharp-pointed towers of the fortress built into the southern outer wall. He hears a woman speak softly to the horses and realizes it is one of the members of the Company of Hope’s Beacon, Avira. She hears him approach and is silent for a moment before coming over and give him a hug. “Dammit, how you’ve been?” She escorts him up the outer stairs, into a vestibule, into a spacious domed chamber and up wooden stairs to a grand chamber with great windows looking out over the Myrhold woods, the Great River, and the Mokalint marshlands.

And he meets the remaining friends he made back in the city of Sirry in the Silver Meadows. By a priest’s desk by the grand windows sits Florentyn Cavell. By the hearth at a round table, Lovely Rust and Latica are arm-wrestling. Eyes widening, Lovely Rust says, “Well, look what the Goatcups dragged in!”, at which point a clearly frustrated Florentyn yells, “I asked you to keep it down! How am I supposed to get any work done?” Lovely Rust casually slams Latica’s hand onto the table and gets up to give Tylendel a hug. “Good seeing you again.” Steelfingers sits by another table, his left hand still having three sharp, small knife-blades where three of his fingers should be. He too, seems glad to see Tylendel again. Tylendel sees another man at Steelfingers’ table, who was not a companion of Hope’s Beacon, but familiar none the less: Vinal, the burly proprietor of The Footsore Squire in Sirry’s Lakefront District. “Remember me?” Tylendel does; remembering helping Vinal stable wood in the backyard and that he apparently had squired for Syr Hughon of Nedénica. “I’m of better use here, I thought, trained as a knight and all that.”

Tylendel is flooded by questions from the small group. Before launching into his story over the last month, he feels they deserve to first hear what happened to the two companions who had come with him to Black Bormost: Dinja and Hazel Whisper. This puts a damper on the mood in the chamber, but Lovely Rust brings out a few bottles of wine. “Kind of rude that was the first thing you asked for when we came to the gate,” Avira comments. “And now it’s going to do you good, Goatcups.”

Tylendel notes that Florentyn’s desk is littered with parchment, ink bottles, and quills. Florentyn fetches some of it and brings it to the table, to take notes. The companions tell Tylendel what’s been going on in Sirry - not much. Some surviving Red Scarves - member of the bandit Gulsar’s band - were still in the city, and may or may not have had something to do with the disappearance of Jan Dagger. The other companions, including Florek the Finger, died in the darkness and cold. Duke Harmond had become ill on the way to Sirry: “The darkness caught in me while on the Karklin Road,” he had said. They assisted him as best they could; and ended up being asked to deliver his letters to Haralamb and Tylendel. They explained that his brother, Harman, now governed the refugees and that, when they left, he was preparing to move on, further west and then follow the river, as Sirry wasn’t any less deadly than Bormost.
“And then, the light broke through,” Avira says when their story eventually takes them to the Holy Hill.
“A beacon of hope,” Latica adds, uncharacteristically poetical.
“Not much hope for your arm-wrestling skills, though,” Lovely Rust quips, quite characteristically.

Tylendel speaks of his adventures, trying to keep it short, the companions listening attentively. He explains that Hazel Whisper was part of some organization or order, referring to the tattooed chalice on her chin.

Lovely Rust explains that they will likely be merged into the host on the hill. “We’re almost a squad unto ourselves,” Steelfingers adds. He says he’d prefer a fight but will assist if the need for medics is greater. Tylendel tells them he can put in a word for them, if they have any preferences. Lovely Rust mentions they are all by default sworn to House Karklin of the Silver Meadows, so naturally they would belong to any such company. Tylendel mentions that one of the Karkin bannerhouses, the Silverkarklins, have a company led by Sandon Silverkarklin, then remembers Sandon has passed away in the darkness of Parafor. “There are still Meadowfolk around then,” Avira says. Tylendel remembers that he actually met another Meadow-lord just this morning, and tells them Count Ales Malion of Deepford is alive, if not hale. They discuss which companies and captains would suit them, eventually turning back to Dinja and Hazel Whisper.

"It's so sad... I mean, we didn't know where Hazel came from but sweet little Dinja...who came to us barefoot, then told us her father was a cobbler. And I was like, ‘He's not much of a cobbler if he can't give his daughter a pair of shoes,eh,’" Avira says.
Tylendel explains that Hazel’s tomb is ‘deep beneath the hill’, and the companions express they’d like to visit it.

Eventually, Tylendel takes his leave, everyone giving him a hug or a pat on the shoulder. Latica whispers into his ear, ‘Upstairs, whenever you want’. Before leaving Sirry five weeks ago, Tylendel had discovered that Latica’s seemingly constant hunger wasn’t only for food. And she had been both hungry and creative.

Avira follows him out. From the outer stairs, Tylendel sees Eämhyn pull his cart, pushed by soldiers, toward the old sculptor's workshop. Then he decides to walk to Alfons the Reverent's Gate. By the alleyway he sees the White Thorns of the Prophet shoot arrows at trees, a friendly competition but a waste of arrows, thinks Tylendel. He asks two Holy Harvesters guarding the doors if they've seen any people come along with chalices tattooed on their chins. "There's only been the quartermaster and his crew passing through today, sir."

He goes inside the western tower, up the stairs and through the hatch in the roof. Here he meets a Holy Harvester, a Horvath archer, and a Horvath soldier. The archer asks him if they can be of service. He says he just wants to relax and take some time to think, and likes doing it here. "Oh well, don't mind us then, m'lord." While he does this, he overhears the three of them getting to know each other. The harvester asks questions about the Horvaths, and the other two comply, then ask him where he is from. The harvester says he is from Olburia in Erlar. It is a small hamlet in the shadow of a great keep north of the capital.

He walks back down, asks the guards at the door if there's a captain around, they tell him hes's atop the other tower. Climbing up the outer stair, he meets three Holy Harvesters and Syr Horm, one of Horvath's captains. Tylendel instructs him to guide any approaching men with tattooed chalices on their chins inside and escort them to the House of Martial Holies. Syr Horm tells the peasant soldiers that "Here before you stands the true king of this hill," and they become awestruck to be the Greyoak's presence. Then he goes back down and begins walking back, planning to test the mirror again.

On his way, a woman steps out from the shadows of a long fence where hay and grass hangs to dry. "Finally, finally, I get to meet Tylendel Greyoak," she says. "My father has spoken highly of you so often I feared my ears would drop off, your name still ringing in them." Somewhat baffled, Tylendel wonders who she could be and realizes from her accent that she must be a Haliner. He notices a chain around her neck, a tattered dark cloak, riding boots, breeches, blue leather gloves with fur trim, golden rings in her ears, a tunic and vest, and perhaps most worryingly, a rondel dagger in her belt. She knows how to fight, then, Tylendel muses.

He remembers Duke Esmond talking about missing his daughter, who would be older than his heir, Esmond II, and he realizes this must be her; she looks more like her brother than her father, but he sees she has courtly manners - it is Dorotei Sollani, taking an interest in him. "Yes," he says, "Your father and I marched through the Sea of Dust together."
"Oh, believe me," she grins, "I think I know the story of every grain of sand between the Doomed City and the Borderlands. Will you take a walk with me?"
"It would be my pleasure," Tylendel says with great courtesy. She tucks her arm inside his and they walk up the first low rise, past the company being de-loused.

They talk a bit, about the shaft of light so visible to the northeast, of hope and becoming depressed in the dark. At a crossroads Tylendel stops. "A short walk, then," Dorotei says, realizing he's going a different route. "I'm on my way to see to my brother, up there," she says, looking at the looming temple of Tamolyn atop the hill. Apparently it is his nameday today. "Will you take another walk me some other time?" she asks before they depart. Tylendel agrees, thinking - as he once did about Latica - that this woman could be dangerous.

He resumes his walk toward the House of Martial Holies, and the strange mirror of the Crow-king, secured in the vaults below.