“Stop him!” barked Grimmelshausen. The Necromancer, rope in hand and God knew what in mind, was stumbling off in an apparently random direction, advertising his intention to rescue his ‘Beloved’.
The Captain could have saved his breath: Muller and van Rijn were already moving to intercept. Muller neatly kicked his legs from under him. The Dutchman, with typical economy of effort, promptly sat on his head.
“It would be Luckenträger”, muttered Grimmelshausen to himself. The woman was a walking disaster. He thought of the number of times he’d run her out of town in the old days — and why. It wasn’t that she was up to anything the rest of them, including Stark, weren’t. She just had this talent for being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whenever a scapegoat was required, there was Luckenträger drawing attention to herself in some hapless manner or other. Hapless — that was the word. Hapless. Well, it looked like she’d been run out of town again.
Thinking jaundiced thoughts, the Captain scanned the bushes whence the tittering had come. He suppressed the temptation to fire a couple of exploratory pistol balls into them. Whatever The Titterer was, it was the first denizen of Faerie they’d encountered. Even if it had no news of Luckenträger, it might have other tales to tell. Better to speak it fair.
Clutching his Halberd in what he fondly imagined to be an alert but un-aggressive fashion, Grimmelshausen drew himself up to his full (if less than imposing) height and took a short pace towards the most likely bush.
“Ho there! If ye be friend show yourself. To skulk thus in the bushes is to invite a poor opinion from us. If it be that ye are afeared, take heart for we mean none ill, less they mean it to us. If ye be not an enemy perhaps we can take mutual profit from plain discourse.”
No, he’d picked the wrong place, for a low snigger could be heard from the thin stand of trees off to the side of the bushes. He stepped a couple of paces in that direction and called again...
..ooOOoo..
Dethorm and Pieter, restrained the fallen preacher and listened to Malachi’s summary of events long before:
“Underneath the Hobgoblin Ridge where Elijah suggested we head for was the dark well of souls , a physical hole in the ground in a chamber deep under the ground, that led to some other place. Imogen Luckenträger fell into it during a fight, and was dragged out by Johan Marck Gregor who played his harp (the silent one) at the hole. When she came out she described falling for a protracted period towards a huge eye in the darkness — the sort of size of eye that fills the horizon when you’re a long way off from it. As I remember it was definitely Gregor’s powers which yanked her out, not the necromancer. I suppose she must have been praying like mad, which may have some effect. Maybe.”
..ooOOoo..
This position is damnably uncomfortable, mused Van Rijn, distractedly. I don’t suppose the Necromancer is enjoying it either much, but it was for his own good. Shame about his wife though. I wonder what became of her portable luncheon?
And there’s this titter as well. From his position he could just make out the erratic bobbing of the halberd-head as it disappeared into the bushes, along with unwontedly friendly overtures from Grimmelshausen himself. If someone doesn’t keep an eye on the Serg... Captain we’ll lose him too, he thought, and sprang to his feet from Elijah’s head, from which muffled noises had been emerging for a while, possibly in confirmation of Stark’s story, and strolled towards the packs.
..ooOOoo..
Malachi and Dethorm let Elijah get to his feet as his struggles had ceased. He confirmed something of the story of the eye. Perhaps he could call Imogen back while his companions sought the sprite in the bushes, he suggested, but the others disagreed in part.
“I’m sure the Captain and the Captain know what they are doing.” replied Stark “But I think it would be better if we keep an eye on you. For you own safety you know.” He glanced meaningfully at Müller. He was busily checking the priming and twin locks of his musket. He looked up and smiled “Sounds like some sort of giant down that well, eh? Big eye, means a big head, and a big head means a big body. If it’s that big bastard I’ll learn him not to put honest Christian folk in trees”.
..ooOOoo..
Grabbing his pack by the strap the Dutchman ran to catch the Captain before he was lost from sight in the mists. Ahead of them something moved, just out of sight, rustling the bushes. “Perhaps it is some variety of Brownie,” he whispered “let me call.”
“I say! Yes, you Sir, in the bushes! Why not come and tell me what you find so plaguey amusing? Why, damme, I might even feel like sharing this Genever with you if you know any more jokes like that. Don’t worry about my over-wrought colleague back there by the way — he just has an unsoldierly attitude towards wives. The poor fellow, I suppose that was probably the only one he had! Dare say he might pay well for her though. He’s a useful fellow to be owed a favour by.”
He reached for his gin — tucked into a holster for rapid access in emergencies — and casually noted the position of his horse pistol. Finally he seated himself on a convenient boulder, bottle at his feet. Clasping a sausage under his stump, he began to carve slices with his dagger. The thing in the bushes stopped, or at least the noise in the bushes did. The Dutchman smiled to himself, thinking his stratagem to be paying off. But as his attention lapsed the knife slipped, scoring his gauntlet as he dropped the sausage in the dirt. Laughter mocked his infirmity from the bushes. Face purpling he dropped the damnable dagger and reached for his pistol.
As the Van Rijn conversed with The Titterer, Grimmelshausen took stock and glanced back to see what occurred at the rest of the party. At Pieter’s curse, he spun putting his hand out to restrain the enraged Dutchman. “Take a grip of yourself man, it seeks to provoke you. It is luring us away from our friends to some devilish fate no doubt, see!” He pointed back whence they’d come, where only distant misty outlines could be seen, the rhythmic chanting of the Preacher’s calling heard.
“Perhaps I can finesse his game for him. Brace me!” He leaned on the rock, jamming the halberd into the spongy turf as he stripped off his gauntlets and stuffed them into his belt. White-lipped but obedient Pieter stood, casually putting his arm across his friend’s shoulders as he whispered fiercely “Christ’s Bowels man! What are you thinking to—” But Praise relaxed suddenly, his eyes blank, and something whipped away into the mist behind them.
“All right, you sniggering bastard,” called Pieter, pay attention to me and well see how you like another kind of spirit if you won’t take a civilised swig of genever with a man, “we’re giving you one last chance before we come in and teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head. On a count of five, come out or else. One!”
As he flitted into the mist Praise-the-Lord wondered whether this was an entirely wise manoeuvre. A breath of the wind could be embarrassing. The mist was undisturbed though, slowly swirling and flowing languidly around the scattered rocks and bushes. He could hear the Dutchman’s bellows, and somewhere in these trees, the Titterer. Cautiously inward, out of habit taking care not to snag the halberd on rock or bush or the webs of mist that tangle them. A figure bobbed into view ahead, as if judging the effect of its latest sally of sniggers on van Rijn. As if preparing to withdraw to another advantageous position, it crept slowly backward until it bumped into the ghostly halberd spike. The thing spun round, eyes wide, and made to flee, but winced back again from the Captain’s weapon. It backed slowly out of the bushes before his relentless advance.
“Urk! Um, Master! I did not seek to trouble one as powerful as you! Had I known they were under your protection, had we but known, I’m sure my Lord, Duke Alfric would invite you to guest with him. If I might just bring him word,” it glanced backwards at the scowling van Rijn and the carefully propped fleshly envelope of Praise-the-Lord, swallowed hard and whimpered to itself “ A master of displacement! Unless you are already there to inform him yourself that is.”
It seems but a few steps to rejoin the rest of the party — the mist seems clearer, distances the less now — the Titterer apologising the while and dropping the name of this Duke Alfric, and keeping a wary eye on the halberd. But only two figures stand there. “Ahem. Err. We seem to have lost the Preacher.” muttered an embarrassed Stark. “Yes, well. He was here a minute ago,” confirmed Dethorm “we only glanced away when we heard you coming back with — whatever it is. And he wasn’t there.
“I think he found something.”
A GM note to Praise-the-Lord
The Titterer is an odd looking beast to the human eye, and even odder to the ghostly. The real eye sees it as a grey, rounded thing with little in the way of features, a rag doll of roughly human proportions. It bobs as it moves or speaks, seeming to float a little off the ground. The other view shows it to be nothing human or even humanoid. It is an irregular floating ball, with a suggestion of an eye, and with a fringe of threads and tendrils that divides and divides and links off into the distance, snagging here and there on bushes, trees and swirls in the mist. Some of these tendrils have that effect about them, best likened to what mortal eyes would see as a glow, such as you’ve seen before, more intensely when serious active magic is about. Those tendrils seem quiescent though.