Run by David & Grover on 4th December 2010

Orlando Christifori (Vicky), Sir Falcon Bravo (Joe), Prof. James Warver (Dave), Sereth (Dave), Nathniel De Almedia (James), Prof. Sra'em Yar (Trevor)

As The Year draws on, a cloud of shooting stars passes over The White City, prompting a full week of wistful lovers and laughing children leaning out of windows and wishing on the falling lights. That is until the Harlequin treads alignment with the South Star, and a single, brighter star travels faster than any other before, lighter and more burning than any previously seen… and spirals burning into the West…

Hours have passed. High Guard clamour to keep the uprising rabble. Astrologists shout portents, Soothsayers lay rumour. And Taverns across the White City are visited by a rosy-cheeked, bedraggled, out-of-breath youth, asking that anyone interested in the scientific, heroic, political or monetary values of securing a Fallen Star might want to venture to the College of One Thousand & Twenty Seven Arts. Now.

Three Nobles, Two Professors and an intrigued Weaver are sent by The College to retrieve The Star, believed to be a source of strange Star Metal. However, they are to be careful, as three wanted criminals are loose in the Forest - a nefarious Mors Noble Poisonner, a charming ex-Cloistered Brother, and a deranged Glass Arsonist. On top of this, strange things have been happening: Ogre sitings, missing children, and worst of all, the sudden stopping of The Western Wind.

With all this in mind, the party leaves The (Recently Rebuilt) Cartography Tower in an experimental Baby-Drake-Powered Hot Air Balloon…

After a gentle ride in their Drake-powered balloon, the party approach the Great Forest, able to pinpoint from above not only what appears to be a gentle, optimistic light, but also a large area utterly covered by what appears to be cobwebs, amidst the dense, titanic forest. Suddenly, a crimson, screaming wind erupts from the cobwebbed-forest, tearing their balloon a new one. Either through flying (Sereth, Orlando, Falcon), kite (Sra) or falling (Nathaniel & Warver), the party find tehmselves ina clearing, their balloon ruined, their Drake missing.

On their quest towards the Cobwebs, the adventurers have several encounters…

A tree-trunk graveyard, inhabited by Giant Weasels, and a single, colossal white Blood Stoat (Like a Blood Wolf… only a stoat).

“Slender Nige's Roadside Menagerie of Beautiful Things”, a small gathering of Ogres, led by the surprisingly intelligent Slender Nige'. Nige's “wife” Giggling Nancy had apparently had her memories stolen by an accomplice of “Chenner”. Warver deduces this is certainly a Rosemary Maid.

The remains of a shattered Glass Tower. As they venture through it, the Glass springs to life, suddenly barring their path. Cutting through it with Falcon's Ashen touch, the party reach the makeshift home of wanted Glass Arsonist, Regardo Felis. Summoning Splinter-Men from the remains, Felis is no match for the adventurers, and instead calls upon the vitrified remains of his dead accomplice, Creaking Shank. The Wrath of The Faceless Lord takes Shank's form… but is immediately destroyed by a storm of Lightning Bolts and Falcon's Grey Talon. Felis is restrained, and taken away by a High Guard runner. Orlando steals a set of notes from Felis' pocket, marking the location of his stash…

A pair of Hakardi mercenaries on the road. They claim to be overseeing the extraction of The Star, but something is wrong. Warver theorizes on the Old Tongue meaning of their name, “Warrior People Who Garden”…

Orlando notices a bear. Staring at him. He is slightly alarmed.

An encampment of High Guard, Low Guard and Shining Order Knights. The Guards seemed to be dazed and unaware of the past two hours. The Shining order Master, Wilheim The Pure Corona, returns with “Pennington Roth” and “Lady Starshine”. A brief interrogation from Warver reveals this is actually Holm Chenner, the wanted Chain Mage, and his Rosemary Maiden Assistant. One fight with Wilheim and his guard later, Chenner is bound, captured, and the Rosemary maiden killed, dissected, and her heart stuffed in a jar by a content Warver. Wilheim is so happy he blesses Orlando with Sight Beyond Sight for 24-hours.

A squabble of Trolls, led by the semi literate and incredibly vast and hungry Kroll. Butchered.

A swathe of demolished trees. They summarize that the “Scream” they “saw” before must have done it. They see the spiraling path leading towards the cobwebbed trees. Orlando spies the bear again.

The College Camp. Warver discusses Maps and Giant Spiders with the students, theorizing that there are some near-Spider-Queen level Giant Spiders gathering power nearby. Orlando and Sereth find out about the recently appeared Star from a crackpot Astrologer. Sra earns the combined wrath and affections of Head Porter and Half-Troll Gretchen Vault, after a VineChild (ElkWater, a Druidess of The Verdant Lord) she has captured is mysteriously set loose (by everyone else).

Upon entering the cobwebbed woods, the party find Vladimir Mors, the last criminal, and his Weaver house-staff. Fleeing from them, and chasing him, the party discovers his plan and things fall into place - followinga sudden stroke of luck, Mors has captured The Rose Princess Of The West, and is attempting to feed her to The Triune In Silk - three near-Blood-Power Spiders. After felling The Mother, The Maiden, The Crone, their Giant spider childer & Mors captured, Nathaniel releases The Princess (before more unsavoury sorts can kill her prone body). She is so enamoured by her release that she promises to protect the De Almedia trade route, offers an introduction on Warver's behalf to The Princess Of Stories, and “blesses” Orlando with new hair roses.

After, she picks them up in a strong wind and deposits them outside The College camp. Amongst hijinks from Slender “Jeff” and a pair of Colossal Weasels, Falcon talks with an exhausted Dream-Walking Samuel Of The Mountains, The NDL's Spiritual Leader. He discovers that The Star is in fact a newborn Dream Power, a child of Night & Hope, knocked out of the sky attempting to emulate The Light and transcend mortal souls. Falcon promises to samuel that he will return the “Starchild” to Dream.

Sra, trying very hard to avoid her, finally accepts a duel from Gretchen, but throws it, losing. She refuses to give up, determined to earn his love.

Locating the Starchild's crater, the party make their way there, encountering several dilemmas…

Soon, they find the Baby drake. Using rations, they lure it back to The College camp and trap it there in a cage.

Emerging from the thick treeline, spear-wielding Vine Children escort the party into a single-entranced clearing, a spiky Throne at it's centre, a huge heart-like beating jewel upon it - The Seat Of Thorns. Upon it sits the incredibly miffed Verdant Lord, blaming The Adventurers for the commotion inside his domain. After Falcon argues their part, The Verdant lord accepts their word after Bravo defeats him in single combat. While distracted, Orlando & Nathaniel bag the huge jewel - The Verdant Lord knows they did it, but is unable to prove it, instead cursing them to Silence if they prosper from it's sale.

Distracted by the duel, no-one else notices Sereth run away, far enough that a small tempest goes unnoticed. Amidst the storm, The rattle Prince unfurls from inside a pitch lightning bolt, sickly and obviously wounded. He accepts Sereth's offer of a Power's Mortality, and promises him great power if he can achieve it.

Leaving through a specially-made path by The Verdant Lord, the adventurers find the furrow made by the “Meteorite”, lined with strange, unnatural flora. Amidst the plants, they find the dead, unwounded bodies of Shining Order Knights and Children. Soon, the question of why they are dead is soon answered, as the Spirits of Children, Shining Order Knights & a single, boastful Bodach haunt the furrow.

During the commotion, Orlando passes out from Cracked Eyes Syndrome, but Falcon seemingly dismisses any beliefs of Glass Magic by blaming Dead Child Glass Mages. While unconscious, Orlando seems to have nightmarish visions from within the Jeweled Heart of The Verdant Lord, witnessing possibly pre-Naming-War savage humans, the possible creation of The Vine Children by The Lady Of Blood & Wine, and The Verdant Lord fighting He Who Walks Wilderness.

Suddenly, he sees a Bear staring at him. And wakes screaming.

Eventually, they find the Starchild's crater, filled with Star Metal footprints, unnatural flora, and playing children. With observation from Samuel, Falcon convinces The Starchild that they are not here to hurt it, and promises to look after it if it returns to Dream. The Dream Power gone, the children flee, the plants die, and strange Old Tongue Runes can be seen recently scrawled into the trees.

No need to restrain himself, The Verdant Lord starts sealing the Forest, plantlife churning and growing forming a thick, moving wall of trees and thorns. Suddenly, the rune-inscribed trees burst into Black Flame, spitting out creatures of Black Flame. Caught between a churning Verdant Wall and a Flamey place, the party charges out towards the edge of the Forest, destroying Black flame Creatures in their way.

Reaching the edge of the Forest, The Verdant Wall ceases, no longer forcing them out, but now sealing off The Western Forest from everywhere but The De Almedia Trade Route & The City Of Silk. For now. Ahead of them, the adventurers see The Hakardi camp, and a huge wall of Black Flame.

Unavoidably, the party meet with The Hakardi, demanding the Star. Unimpressed by the party's lack of co-operation, they attack, but despite their superior numbers and expert fighters, the Adventurers, aided by The West Winds, are able to kill their would be murderers. Unmasking one, Warver discovers The Hakardi's identities… Bodach?

The Hakardi - revealed to be weird, physically imposing Bodach - are defeated, their bodies suddenly burning away to little more than Black Flame and some glowing, purple words that swiftly fade away. The Black Flame Wall around the Forest dies down, and The High Guard and Shining Order come to help clean-up, ferrying off the runaway children. going through the Hakardi camp, many papers and books are discovered, seemingly blank. Falcon destroys the lock to a strange metal case, exposing an unconscious and bound Bodach prisoner.

The Bodach, once awakened, reveals it's name to be Shada, a scholar of The Garden Lands. Shada explains how The Hakardi only appeared three months back, around the same time mass-disent over The White City grew in The Garden Lands, now known as The Garden States - the entire lands have become a Police State, enforced by the strange Hakardi and governed by a mysterious “Prince”. Shada investigated (after curfew hours), following mass diappearances, discovering a strange connection between The Hakardi and The Black Flame (Apparently The Hakardi have strange Memories, unable to recollect entire swathes of their history). Captured and considred a liability, Shada was given to The Hakardi expedition to The Western Forest as fodder. their plan was supposedly to either obtain or destroy The Starchild (knowing full well exactly what it was, and possibly causing it's “fall”), sparking a war between The White City & The North, keeping eyes off The South. Shada declares him or herself (Shada's gender is neither obvious or apparent) a Prisoner Of war, and is happily habilitated in The White City by The De Courcis in a town-house.

Days pass, and the Guard, College and Adventurers return to The White City, Falcon personally ensuring all the runaway children are returned to their villages along the way. Back at The College, the scholars are disheartened by the lack of a meteorite, but happy new research has been made, Star Metal samples were received, and even their Baby Drake was returned. Taking the Star Metal samples, the Department of Radical Artisanship (a De Courci-sponsored equal-oppurtunities proffession-oriented division, and bane of The Bursar's existence) are able to produce a Star Metal Rapier, and a Star Metal Hatchet. The rest of the Star Metal is kept by The College, with a large sample delivered to the Department of Alchemy.

The Guard are happy Mors, Ragardo and Chenner have all been captured, and pay the 300Hx reward. Winks and secret handshakes are shared between Orlando and Nathaniel, and even The Shining Order are singing the praises of everyone involved, even Sereth! Orlando and Nathaniel pawn off the Heart Of The Verdant Lord, after downing Anti-Blood potions, and each get 100Hx - however, they are still partially struck by The Lord's Vengeance, finding themselves, unable to speak at bizarre, infrequent times.

Days later, everyone involved receives a small present from The College - a note of thanks for returning the Baby Drake (wrapped around a single Hexa piece), and A Guide To The Flora & Fauna of The Western Forest by S. D'Rowley & C. Hefton-Clemser-Ramber-Ramber-Quaff.

Orlando, following notes on Felis' person, finds 100Hx worth of stolen mirrors hoarded in an oubliette underneath a well-worn area of cobblestones infront of the political guillotine. Amongst them, a De Courci family mirror. Who'd've thought it. Rumours of Orlando's trustability go around the Low-Guard, anonymously tipped-off, but are mostly ignored. Some minor officers spy him suspiciously, but beliefs are waylaid by high-ups. Dreams of Staring Bears come and go.

Nathaniel receives congratulatory letters from his family and associates on the sudden success of The Western De Almedia trade-routes - the transport is swift, and muggers and bandits are waylaid by sudden, strong, pungent winds.

Falcon receives letters of thanks from Samuel Of The Mountains, and is invited North to meet The Starchild again, who has taken a childish shine to him. Hope and Night are pleased with both Falcon & Samuel, and the nights are kinder to him the further North he goes.

Sereth dreams uneasily. The Rattle Prince, pale, inhuman, and wounded, slips out of his tear in reality and collpases at Sereth's feet. Laughing and refusing to show weakness, he will ahve none of sereth's apologies, but will chastise him neither - as far as he's concerned, Sereth's promise still stands, and he awaits the mortality of a Power to be sent to him… He also dreams of Black Flame. Hakardi. Purple words he cannot read. And a young, familiar man, watching bored from somewhere else, toying with The South as if it was a game…

Warver studies his Star Metal intensely, believing it can be used to construct some sort of artefact. His constitution feels better too, following kicking his Alchemy addictions. The stars move overhead. Something is approaching on The Wind…

Sra is content with his collection of Herbs. Gretchen continues with her advances, attempting to attach herself to any of his expeditions, making unsubtle innuendo and continuously challenging him to fights. She seems to have taken his challenge of abstinance to heart, and instead drinks a ginger-smelling beverage from a clay flask. Other faculty members slap him on teh back on his apparent engagement, and mention how much of a lucky dog he must be, with Gretchen technically being a child of The College itself, and thus witha great deal of hexa behind her. Even the Bursar no longer frowns at Sra. He doesn't smile. Oh god no. But he doesn't spit at his face either.