Summer 1234:
Galera the Redcap has arrived demanding to know where Rufus (the normal redcap) is. The Magi do not know (Most have just been away, Martin is Guarding the Eggs, and Valeri is Valeri. Karl is out wandering Iceland and not contactable.
Pumilius, again thinking with his stomach, thinks of asking the chef. He remembers entertaining Rufus well, and recalls that he left, but under something of a cloud.
It turns out that Galera is Rufus’s fiancée (although they have never met. Their house has deemed them a good match, she gets frosty when this comes up in conversation), and has been trying to work backwards along his route. After Aiode, he should have visited Insula Canaria in the Great Glen, but they had not seen him in a year. She now proposes to search in more detail the route from Iceland to Loch Ness, to see if ahe can find him, and (almost respectfully) demands help in her quest.
Karl is found in Rekjavik, and agrees along with Orlaith and Gunther to see what they can do. He definitely sailed from Rekjavik, and the captain has since returned; Rufus disembarked at Inverness hale and Hearty.
At Inverness they wander round the pubs and discover a barman who will tell them to whom Rufus had been speaking, hoever there was the little matter of Rufus’s tab…
After paying off the tab, it emerges that there was no information to be had, Rufus always paid his tab every Autumn, the bar an just wanted to get the money earlier and took a chance.
The then proceed to travel to Loch Ness, and after passing through Craig Dunin, Wepwawet picks u a trail which leads them –after a long hike - to a crofters hut, with a man sleeping next to a pole-ax.
After a confusing battle in which Gunter is Heavily Wounded (he cast bind wounds, and Cr Me to dull the pain after the battle, but is suffering from a -5 to everything from now on.), they kill one of them and dominate another. Under interrogation, they admit that they were hired by a cloaked man to kidnap rich people, deliver them to the ruined fort to the north, and get paid for it. The money was left at the fort, and they presumed that they were part of a ransoming con.
The group took them back to the village, and was met by many shamefaced villagers. They had not warned the travellers about the risk of ambush, because they feared reprisal from the kidnappers if the travellers had not vanquished the ruffians. Now that they had, captured some of them, a rider was sent to Inverness to fetch the Judex so they can have a trial. Karl gave a swaron affidavit to the effect that they had defended themselves against the villens (leaving out all of the supernatural stuff…) and made quite an impression.
They decide to swiftly proceed to the fort to see if they can rescue Rufus. Wepwawet tracks, but is it soon noticed that the countryside is denuded of all animal life, and they begin to get wary.
This wariness is exacerbated when the forest through which they have to pass, starts to have a bit too many cobwebs, and they are definitely on their guard when the massive spider attacks.
Mainly due to a number of deadly arrows shot by Galera, the spider is dispatched, and she then urges them on to the Fort itself, and leads the way.
In the fort they discover a mass of webbing, and down a little tunnel they find what is clearly a larder. There are six blobs roughly identifiable as corpses, one of which is wearing a red cap. Wepwawet tries to cast Whispers through the black gate but gets nothing. After a few minutes of them talking however a ghost of Rufus appears and greets them. His mind is broken, and he is in considerable pain. He wants to leave this place and begs the magi to get his corpse out of here.
The remove all six corpses from the Larder, and in the sunlight Rufus seems slightly more lucid (although much more insubstantial) He tells of a tormentor repeatedly asking for a Family Heirloom. The description of the torturer is either that of a hooded man (matching the description of the man who hired the ruffians) or of a sandy haired man about a foot shorter. Rufus confuses the two from sentence to sentence, but Karl sees that there were two.
Before he left Aoide, Rufus had a vision that if he took his heirloom with him, great disaster would befall the Order, but if he left it, great disaster would befall him. His loyalty was strong and he hid it in the guest quarters in the covenant. He clearly did not want to relate this while in the place of his torture.
It was decided that Galera would escort Gunther to Insula Canaria so he could use their Aura to allow him to Leap back home. This Galera agreed to with bad grace, insisting that it was necessary to get back to Aoide as quickly as possible. The rest took the bodies to Craig Dunnin, and provided testimony for the trial of the surving ruffians.
Gunther managed to get back home without botching, and Orlaith wepwawet and Karl were surprized to arrive at Inverness to see that Galera had sailed without them. On reflection Kaarl remembered that an old name for Spider was Damha-Allaidh. Orlaith decided to waft back home via Ireland warning all the covents she could find that this was a significant development. Most of them received this Criamon Maga with the respect that was her due, and politely waived her off.
There was more, but we finished mid-scene and the rest will be written up in the next entry.