M.I.S.T. Campaign: Session 16

I’ve charged into battle against elite soldiers, trolls, wendigo, giants, werewolves, and svartalfar without flinching.  I’ve faced down a dragon, defied a being on the cusp of divinity knowing that he would react in murderous frenzy, and thrown the gifts of a murderous god back into his face; all without an instant’s hesitation.

By all rights what I’ve done should have seen me slain at least twice over.  Not once has it given me pause.

Yet a few simple words, “before we can take any steps forward, if we can,” are simply terrifying.  They came from Ken’s lips, of course.

As I said before, she was not happy with my actions during those last frantic minutes in Thuringia; and she tracked me down along the seaside cliffs to speak to me about them.  But with how I was letting the incessant torments of Altair affect me I was hardly in a reasonable state of mind. Looking back, it was not surprising that nothing productive came of those talks.  They’d barely begun before she left out of frustration.

A call to my Mother granted a measure of perspective, made me realize that I was allowing what Altair had levied upon me to get to me more than it should.  And I was able to pull myself together, to a degree, after that.  Though I was hardly in a more talkative mood, and continued to spend the next three days in isolation amongst the seaside cliffs instead of at Manannan Mac Lir’s ranch.

Then Odin arrived, desiring to speak with us after the disaster at Thuringia.  Or more accurately, it seemed, to hear how we viewed those events.  We spoke with him on the porch, talking amongst ourselves whilst he and Manannan Mac Lir each tried to out-Gandalf the other with their pipes.  Much of the dialogue, at first, was between Claire and myself.  That some manner of conspiracy was behind things was agreed upon quickly, even if the exact details were not.

Then Ken demanded to know why I would discuss such matters with Claire but not her.  The resulting argument was, in a word, ugly.  Everyone else, even the gods, retreated into the house to grant the two of us a measure of privacy. Even so, I did not seem to be able to grasp the point she was trying to make and she was unable to express it more clearly.  In the end she stormed off again, and here I sit with those words ringing ominously in my head.

It was both my date with her and my discussion with my Mother that helped me find myself after Whittier.  The prospect of…

It’s astounding how quickly things can go downhill.

Gods damn it all.