The Fist of the First Men
The Assembly maintains their distance from the spectral beings looking over the edge of the Fist of the First Men. Their spectral thick fur coats unmoving in the wind. Beside one towards the middle a spectral dire wolf stands with its head between the stones looking down and growling, away from the Assembly.
The dire wolf quickly turns around and looks at the Assembly. It quickly takes a defensive stance and growls menacingly.
The ghost next to it glances around behind him and does a double-take. He turns towards the party fully without fully raising his weapon. It’s at this moment that the Assembly realizes these are not the typical ethereal ghosts. These are something closer to revenants, a type of being chained to the earth to finish a goal.
These things have an evil thirst for vengeance. They’d experienced one of these in the old mansion in the Forest of Regret. It was one of the four ghosts associated with the old wizard walled into the hidden room.
The revenant taps the next one over with the back of his hand to get his attention. They both look at the party with unease. The one closest to the dire wolf touches its head and it immediately sits. Neither of the revenants raise their weapons, but they look ready to do so at any moment.
The rest of these watchers turn to face the Assembly. It is clear they do not know how they want to handle this.
The one closest to the dire wolf speaks.
REVENANT: You are in danger here. Leave at once.
Although its mouth moves, the voice does not seem to come from its mouth.
QARZ: We come from south of the Wall. We are here to help set things right. To correct the imbalance of Air.
REVENANT: Those south of the Wall cannot know the dangers of the north.
QARZ: We are here to confront those dangers.
REVENANT: Only men of the Watch should be here.
ARAN: We control Greyguard.
QHOR: It is true. We have not taken the black, but we are with the Watch.
The lead revenant drops his guard and walks towards the group. He is making every effort to show he is no threat.
The Assembly watch him cautiously as he approaches with the spectral dire wolf at his side. The revenant stops halfway to them, turns towards the northwest, and points towards the horizon. The dire wolf sits.
The Assembly approach the revenant slowly, also trying to not appear as a threat. They walk in the direction being pointed to get a better look.
As Aran passes the dire wolf, he takes the chance to put the ghostly beast on the head. It looks up at Aran as he approaches, and instinctively tries to smell Aran’s hand. Aran’s hand passes through the dire wolf’s head, but the creature seems to be put at ease by the gesture.
The Assembly reaches the ledge where the other revenants are standing and see a front of snow and ice moving in from the north. This would not have been so strange except that it seemed to be rolling in along the ground. Based on its distance and speed, it will arrive at the Fist in 5 minutes.
The lead revenant stops alongside Qarzdaq.
REVENANT: We’ve seen this before. This is the safest place to be. Not that it means we are safe.
Qarzdaq pulls out the scope previously known as the Teletherscope. Peering through, he sees that within the mix of ice and snow, corporeal wights are racing ahead with various giants, mammoths, and other atrocities interspersed in the large swath of creatures. Ahead of the front, skeletons wearing armor, some with weapons, are popping up from the ground.
Qarzdaq tells his crew that this is an undead army approaching numbering in the hundreds.
QARZ: Spirit, will they attack us up here on the Fist?
REVENANT: Yes.
Aran arms himself with his dragonglass great axe.
FARR: Why are we staying here??
Qarzdaq quickly picks up a rock amidst the icy ground so they can get back here when needed.
ARAN: We have to stop them before they reach those wildling camps. Plus, I just really like killing undead.
The revenant sputters something like a cough to draw attention to himself.
ARAN: Present company excluded of course.
They notice that the area to the north and to the west are arctic desert with mountains in the distance. To the east and south is the Haunted Forest. Within the forest’s sea of green, there are small red islands.
Aran realizes immediately that these are weirwoods. He jogs to the other side of the Fist to see if any are closer to the base and, sure enough, there is a red patch of leaves not more than a hundred feet from the base.
Children… Why is it Always Children…
Aran stows his axe and rushes down the slope towards the Weirwood. He’s able to get down there in about a minute. As soon as he gets there, he touches the tree and says, “ashvez voo beshwah dade.”
This time, only one Child of the Forest appears. But Aran knows this one! It’s Balishna!
When he appears, he smiles at you, but there is deep sadness is in his eyes.
ARAN: Balishna! I wish I were approaching with better news, but we’re about to be attacked by the white walkers. There’s an army of them driving south. I think this is an attempt to overrun the Wall and take Westeros.
Balishna becomes nervous. He nods vigorously and disappears.
Aran hopes that means they are doing something, but he can’t stick around to find out. He rushes back up the slope.
When he gets to the top, the rest of the Assembly is standing nearby.
ARAN: Well, Balishna showed up. I think out Children to the north might be gone…
QARZ: Hmmm… Worst case, we could always teleport back tot Greyguard and make our stand there.
They agree their best bet is to take out as many as possible here, then teleport to Greyguard to rally the troops there if needed.
They speak with the lead revenant to find out if they’d fought these things before.
REVENANT: That is how I died.
ARAN: So I guess it didn’t go well.
QHOR: Can we free you somehow?
REVENANT: Vengeance.
QHOR: Let’s see if we can’t make that happen.
Everyone gathers near the northwest ledge to await the undead arrival.
Army of Undead
When the army of the undead are within a hundred feet, several balls of energy explode into fireballs within their ranks. They seem to be balls of energy being thrown from the forest’s edge!
All of them, except a smaller group of about 50, redirect towards the trees. Many of them run beyond the tree line, immediately breaking apart into a spray of bones as they pass some invisible barrier.
The smaller group continues toward the Fist and begin to climb.
The Assembly and the party of revenants watch as they await their opportunity to strike.
Farron readies his Crown of Stars just as all 3 of the artifacts light up. Aran, Qarzdaq, and Qhortho immediately get some distance between them as to not cross the streams.
The corporeal wights, climb just as quickly as they run. Every second, they close the distance by more than 6 feet! Aran and Qhortho focus on readying their melee weapons; Qarzdaq and Farron begin their ranged defense.
Farron uses his stored Fireball to blast twelve of the wights clear off the steep slope.
Qarzdaq sweeps a Wall of Fire across the steep slope just in front of the closest corporeal wights. It easily stretches 60 feet across with its heat facing the enemies. Ten are burned up immediately; four are able to jump away and evade their demise… so far.
The yetis, ogres, and frost salamanders make their way around to the southern slope while the corporeal wights climb the steepest areas just as easily as they run on flat land.
The revenants all train their bows on different targets and most hit their marks. Not enough to destroy any of them, but every bit helps.
Meanwhile, more explosions erupt in the middle of the undead army still at ground level.
Qarzdaq takes flight and hovers 20 feet off the ledge of the Fist. He moves his Wall of Fire to the most occupied area where the corporeal wights are climbing. Sixteen more corporeal wights are vanquished immediately, their bones falling over a hundred feet to the ground.
The lead revenant looks to Qarzdaq, who is hovering by the beats of his dragon-like wings.
REVENANT: I have finally completed my mission.
The revenant’s form dissolves in the air right before their eyes.
The undead continue their climb, and Farron uses the power of mass Suggestion to make several of them decide that climbing back to the ground is actually their best option.
Aran realizes the larger enemies are approaching the southern side. He runs to the other side to prevent being flanked. The dire wolf follows Aran.
Farron sees Aran just a moment too late, so he turns to Qhortho.
FARR: Well Qhortho, looks like you’re the one who gets Haste!
QHOR: Fuck yeah!
Farron casts Haste on Qhortho.
As the party destroys more of the corporeal wights, more of the revenants disappear. The undead army near the forest’s edge pulls back in unison, as if they are being remotely controlled by some force.
Farron realizes Aran may run into trouble and runs to be by his side.
Qhortho grins as the undead crest the top of the Fist. He bashes several of them into shards of undead ice. The last remaining revenants vanish with thankful parting words. As the last one is flaking into spectral bits, he gives a warning.
REVENANT: We have won the day thanks to you. There will be more. There are always more. Your work has just begun, but today, your work is done.
Qhortho and Qarzdaq watch from several hundred feet away as the undead army pull back far enough from the treeline as to be out of range of the explosive energy balls. Some of the Children rush out of the tree line to attack the undead head on. Though many of them are immediately slaughtered, they don’t seem to be losing outright.
Aran engages with some of the large undead coming of the southern slope, destroying almost all of them, except one.
Farron shoots off a ball from his crown killing the last of the large creatures.
Aran and Farron look at each other, then to the spectral dire wolf.
It looks at Farron then Aran. It cocks its head and vocalizes a sound as if to say, “Well? What’s next?”
Qarzdaq looks back to the battlefield. Loads of burning corpses scatter the snow and ice. Some of them are Children of the Forest. Many are still alive, but quite a few are wounded. The battle really was over. They notice Qarzdaq looking down at them and they simply shake their heads, then fey step into the forest and out of sight.
Spiritual, Yet Functional
The party reconvenes in the center of the Fist with their new spectral wolf friend. Their artifacts fade out and everyone now feels exhausted. Qhortho and Qarzdaq doubly so, as they started the day tired.
As they talk about how crazy the situation was and walk the plateau, they realize there are half-buried stone containers scattered about the area. They approach one of the containers and wipe the snow off the top to find an ancient symbol engraved.
It’s at this moment that this place really hits them.
The spiritual and functional purposes of this location.
This was where the First Men must have taken refuge to battle the undead when they were first encountered.
This goes back more than 7 thousand years… The importance of this location cannot be overstated.
After some investigation, they realize the top is actually a heavy stone slab. They slide the heavy stone to the side. Inside, they find an ice-crusted black cloak wrapped around something. They pull it out of the container and rest it on the ground, breaking the ice as they unroll it. Once open, they find many dragonglass weapons! Daggers, spear heads, and arrowheads.
ARAN: That’s what I’m fucking talking about. Let’s get the rest of these open.
In all, they find eight of these containers and find a total of 110 dragonglass daggers, 106 dragonglass spear heads, and 138 dragonglass arrowheads. However, there is a little surprise in one of the cloaks. A hidden pouch had been sewn into one of the packages. When ripped open, they a marbled pink and green spherical stone.
QARZ: Shit yeah! An Ioun stone! The Children of the Forest were really trying to help out the Night’s Watch!
ARAN: Speaking of the Children of the Forest, we should probably check in with them before we leave for Greyguard.
They all agree and head down the slope into the Haunted Forest
The Un-settled
They see a bunch of the Children in the distance amongst the trees, treating their wounds.
As the Assembly starts towards them, Balishna suddenly appears before them and stops them in their path.
BALISHNA: Ah. Friends. You’ve survived. I’m glad to see you.
QHOR: As did you.
QARZ: Looks like you kicked some ass out there.
ARAN: Thanks for your assistance. This is a terrible threat.
BALISHNA: As much as I’d doubted her, along with many others, this is what Faryn told us about. I didn’t believe her until the end.
He seems more downtrodden than normal. The Assembly hadn’t ever seen him quite so thoroughly depressed.
ARAN: There are sacrifices all around, but we’re going to win in the end. This is a step in that direction.
BALISHNA: Yeah. It is.
ARAN: We just found a cache of dragonglass weapons at the Fist.
QARZ: It looks like the Watch hasn’t been out here in some time.
BALISHNA: Yeah… Hey… guys… you seem… well… it seems like you may not be aware of some current events…
QHOR: What’s that supposed to mean?
BALISHNA: When was the last time you were at the God’s Eye?
QARZ: Not sure. Maybe three months?
NARRATOR: In actuality, it had been more than eight months.
Balishna looks down and to one side, then back to the Assembly.
BALISHNA: It’s been destroyed.
QARZ: What?!
QHOR: By who??
BALISHNA: Men. Who else. It’s always Men. The island was torched. You’ll understand now why I am the only one to show up for you here. I know you are not like most of your kind. I know the loss of my home is not your fault. I know we share the same goals.
QHOR: And we haven’t told anyone about you.
NARRATOR: In actuality, they had mentioned the God’s Eye to the Drow Inquisitor in the footprint of the disappeared castle. Whether that mattered, who knows…
ARAN: This has to be the Eyrie.
BALISHNA: It could be anyone south of the Wall.
QHOR: I am sorry to hear this.
ARAN: What happened to the other Children of the Forest in the north? They just wouldn’t come?
BALISHNA: They certainly won’t answer to Men.
QARZ: That’s fair.
ARAN: Well, all I know is this threat is coming for us all.
BALISHNA: Exactly. They did come to fight off the threat, but they also see you as a potential threat. They think I’m crazy for meeting with you. Regardless, I will act as the conduit because I know you are not like the others of your kind. I will be here by your side. Hell, I’ve known you long enough to understand that there are probably many others that share your sentiment. I can’t say the same for those in power though… Hopefully, this incident helps to enlighten my kind that you are to be trusted, but there is no more trust for Men more broadly.
ARAN: Those fucking guys…
QARZ: Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done except keep heading north. If the Others make their way south, none of us will be safe.
BALISHNA: Agreed. As soon as Aran brought me here, I recruited as many as possible, as quickly as possible. But we’ve lost numbers here today. There aren’t many of us left.
QHOR: Your sacrifices will not be forgotten. And let me reforge the bonded alliance that we have made. We recommit ourselves to you and your cause.
ARAN: Yeah, and if you need us, you should reach out and we will do all we can.
QHOR: Especially if you find out who was responsible for destroying the God’s Eye. They will pay.
BALISHNA: I appreciate that. I don’t know that we’ll ever know who did this.
QHOR: Did you see any banners or anything distinguishing about who was there?
BALISHNA: No.
ARAN: Well, we’ve been given control of Greyguard, one of the castles on the Wall. We’re not always there, but we will instruct the Watch stationed there to take messages from you if you ever need to use that to get information to us.
BALISHNA: You’ll forgive me if I am uncomfortable with that. And speaking of uncomfortable… I don’t know who you are.
Balishna points to Farron.
BALISHNA: If you are with this group, I’m sure you have been vetted. What happened to Rolan?
ARAN: This is Farron. He met up with us in Winterfell and helped us get some critical information through his druids. Rolan left the group around the same time as Farron joined us, so he could go back to the Iron Islands. He was always on his own personal journey to “find the Kraken” or something like that.
QHOR: Farron, step forward and meet one of the finest warriors you’ll ever set eyes on. Farron? Balishna. Balishna? Farron.
BALISHNA: If you are a friend of them, you’re a friend of mine. We’ve lost a lot today, but I’m glad you and the rest of your group were here to prevent the losses from being greater.
QHOR: Yeah, it could have been worse. That was a big push they were making. This is why we need to continue north, to stop this at its source.
BALISHNA: So you are continuing with your journey?
ARAN: Absolutely.
Everyone says their goodbyes, and Balishna fey steps into the forest. Before they go back to Greyguard, Farron removes half of the exhaustion felt by Qarzdaq and Qhortho. Because of this, they expect they’ll only need one day’s rest in Greyguard to be at full strength.
To Greyguard!
The Assembly, with their new spectral good boy, teleports back to the main square in Greyguard as the sun sits low in the sky. Glancing around for Myke, they see Jaery crossing nearby.
ARAN: Jaery!
Jaery jogs over to them.
JAERY: Sers.
ARAN: How’ve you been? Seen anything crazy?
JAERY: Nothing too crazy yet, but man, I love being out there.
ARAN: Yeah! That’s great to hear.
Jaery sees the ghost dire wolf behind them and jumps back, pulling out his dagger.
JAERY: BEHIND YOU!
He draws the attention of everyone in the castle as the spectral dire wolf steps forward between Aran and Jaery, growling.
ARAN: It’s all ok. This is a friend. Both of you are our friends. Jaesry, this is, uh, Lord Pepperworth.
Jaery slowly lowers his dagger and Lord Pepperworth sits.
ARAN: I know. It’s crazy out there.
JAERY: Well, I have some…. uh… things to do before… I mean… prepare… tomorrow… is someone calling me?
Jaery steps backwards as he’s saying this then turns away and scurries off. He calls out, “I’m coming! Sers, sorry to leave, I’ll catch up with you all later!”
The Assembly has a snicker at the thought of such a huge guy being so skittish around their new good boy.
They find Myke helping to teach several stewards and find that things have been relatively quiet these past six days. He separated all of the men that were put into the stocks to work on separate building projects.
MYKE: Oh and hey, I hope you don’t mind, but I reprioritized some of the buildings.
ARAN: Yeah? How so?
MYKE: I put a focus on getting the stables and brewery built first. The stables mean we have rested animals to help with building. This will help us get things done more quickly. The brewery is to get our first brew going as soon as possible as a morale booster. The stables are complete as of right now. Just finished as a matter of fact. But we have some more work to do on the brewery.
ARAN: Excellent!
QARZ: Did we get a response from the raven we sent to the Nigthfort?
MYKE: Yes, actually we got word today. We don’t have our own ravens homed to Greyguard yet, so we can’t receive ravens, but a messenger came by today.
Myke hands the sealed note to Qarzdaq. He opens it and reads:
The Assembly speak privately about the situation.
ARAN: We need to go to the Nightfort in person and tell the Lord Commander how good of a job Myke is doing.
QARZ: The guy may not have solid experience doing the job, but I agree. He’s doing well so far, has a couple of his own guys here he trusts, and he respects our wishes because of our time at Winterfell.
They send another raven to the Nightfort with their recommendation that Myke formally take the commander role.
That night, they sleep in the barracks with the other guys.
After their morning rituals, they open a portal to the Ioun Cavern to prepare for their next encounter.
We end this session on Day 862 in the Ioun Cavern with Lord Pepperworth, preparing to insert their marbled pink and green sphere into its pillar. Each member of the Assembly has gained 3.5 kXP this session and a load of dragonglass weapons. Knowing now that the central Children of the Forest force has been decimated, the consequences are ratcheting up quickly. If the Children are to have any chance of survival, the Assembly will need to ensure their safety in the far north.