Character Creation: League of Seekers

If I heard this title in a vacuum, I'd think it was a pulpy adventure game in the vein of, well, Adventure! or Temples & Tombs or something. Actually, in a vacuum I wouldn't hear anything at all, but you know what I mean.

The Game: League of Seekers
The Publisher: FeralGamersInc? Broken Rat Games? 
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This game Kickstarted in 2018, it was apparently on DriveThruRPG at one point because it's in my library there, but it's not available for sale anywhere I can see on a cursory glance. And like...yeah, I can kinda see why. 

It reminds me a lot of Dark Aeons, another thoroughly mediocre Lovecraft-inspired game. There are some kernels of interesting stuff, but for the most part it's not doing anything new, and holy hell does this book need an editor. Lots of sentence fragments, misuse of "effect" vs. "affect", and Strong Bad seriously needs to sing the author his Rhythm & Grammar song about "its" vs. "it's." Interestingly, there is no credited editor. 

But never mind that. The game starts out with a timeline that takes us from AD 730 all the way to AD 1765. I think what we're going for here is something like Unhallowed Metropolis where the supernatural has basically taken over, the history talks about "spheres" opening, but it's never quite clear what those mean. Actually if I wasn't as familiar as I am with Lovecraft (and I'm by no means an expert), a lot of that chapter might miss me. 

So we're playing characters who are "Called" or "Awakened" or "Spunky", I forget what the title actually is, and we're working to help protect people from bad shit. And that's not the only way it's like Chill (which is not mentioned in its list of inspirations, and I find that very suspect) - the game system is roll d%, shoot for lower, graduated success based on how much below your stat you roll.

There's some cool-looking artwork in the book, anyway. Cover's pretty dope. Not sure if having "I'll kill you" in funky letters at the bottom of the cover is really in-tone, but whatever. Let's make a character! 

I got all excited because I saw "life paths", but although you could call this chargen system a "life path" system, it's pretty anemic. Better than nothing, though, and it means I don't have to figure out a concept before starting. 

So first we roll to see if we're a peasant, middle class, or noble. Got an 80% chance of peasant, but let's try it...hey, 95! I'm middle class! I could also be a member of the secretive Akhua sect, but it sounds too much like "Hawk Tuah" for me (I'm kidding, I just don't want to bother with the weird shit today). 

I'll note this stuff down later, I know better than to write anything on a character sheet in a lifepath system until things firm up a little. 

My Dark Knowledge starts at 1d6%, whatever that means. Hey, rolled a 6, that's as much I could know!

I get "Logical" as a Trait, and then I can pick Educated, Respected, or Fencer as a Talent. Hell, let's take Fencer. 

Now we roll for a few things:

Birthplace: Town. (As opposed to a city.) I get Commerce 10, Travel 10, Eloquence 1, Fitness 1. 

Education: Church School! That's an interesting combination with Fencer. I get Arcane 1 and Dark Knowledge d6%...hang on, 5, putting me up to 11, meaning I get a point of Insight (again, whatever that means). 

Early Career: Officer. Well, that makes more sense with Fencer. I get Melee, Toughness, and Sneak 10.

Now we do a Tale of Horror! The way this works is that I get a writing prompt, and I take it an run. I can use it to justify a 5% bump to three Skills, but every one after the first also requires a 5% penalty to a Skill (all justified by the Tale). 

Rolling, my prompt is: "As the moon turned red my own men began to change before my eyes...". 

Well, this implies that we were out on campaign or something. Let's say that I was in command of a platoon or whatever, and I'd sent out scouts the day before to find supplies. They found a small lake that contained what seemed to be clean water, so the men camped by it and drank (I and the other officers stuck to our wine, thanks). The lake, it turns out, was connected to...something. The water changed them, they grew...parts that weren't human or even mammalian. The other officers went mad or were swarmed and killed, but I got on my horse and got the hell out. 

So what Skills are implied by this? I think Travel (which covers horse riding), Stealth (because I got away), and Willpower (because I got away and didn't go crazy) all make sense. I need two penalized Skills, though. Let's say Memory (much of his brainspace at any given time is taken up by what he saw) and Diplomacy (talking to people just doesn't come naturally anymore). 

I get a Statement, which just gives me a bonus in a particular situation. Let's say that "I am well-traveled," which gives me a +10% when "recognising other cultures." I don't think "recognize" is the verb you want here, friend. "Oh, look! That culture is German!" Well, whatever, what's next.

Derived traits! Well, guess I should total my Attributes n' shit. Eloquence, Investigate, and Learned start at 4, Fitness, Subterfuge, and Occult at 3, and Conflict and Mind at 2. I get +1 Eloquence and Fitness 'cause I'm from a town, Arcane 1 from my schoolin'. 

Skill Totals: I...huh. I guess how this works is that, for example, for Eloquence, Learned, and Investigate, I get scores of 20, 20, 30, 40, and 50 that I can put into the Skills. There are 5 Skills linked to each Attribute, so presumably I get that spread in each of those categories? This is never explained, and there's no summary or example of chargen. 

Ugh, fine, that means I have to do this for nine different Attributes. Let's start with Conflict (skipping Arcane because evidently I don't get anything in those Skills). I get 5, 5, 10, 20, 30, which is pathetic, but whatevs. I'll put my 30 into Melee, obviously, since I can fence. I'll put the 20 into Ranged, the 10 into Explosives, and 5 into Thrown and Unarmed. I also get a +10 to Melee, so that's 40. 

Eloquence, I get 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, with a -5 in Diplomacy. I'll put my 50 into Etiquette, my 40 into Diplomacy (making it 35), my 30 into Languages, that leaves 20 in Commerce and Deceive. 

Fitness! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, with a +5 in Travel and a +10 in Toughness. I'll put my 40 in Travel (45), my 30 in Toughness (40), my 30 in Resistance, that leaves 20 in Acrobatics and Athletics. 

Investigate! 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, let's put 50 into Notice, 40 into Search, 30 into Research, 20s in Track and Detect (side note: Detect, Notice, and Search are all discrete skills? Just...why?). 

Learned! 20, 20, 30, 40, 50. Well, 50 into History, 40 into Academia, 30 into Theology, 20s in Mythology and Medical. 

Mind! 5, 5, 10, 20, 30, with a -5 to Memory and a +5 to Willpower. 30 into Cunning, 20 into Willpower (25), 10 into Memory (5), leaving 5 in Dream and Logic.

Occult! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, why on Earth is this higher than Mind for a Middle Class person? Was "middle class" even a thing in the 18th century? Anyway, 40 into Demonology, 30 into Folk Tales, 20 into Cults, leaving 10 in Divination and Xenology. 

Subterfuge! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, with a +10 in Sneak and a +5 in Stealth. What on Earth is the difference between Sneak and Stealth? Oh, there isn't actually a Sneak Skill. Probably it was called that at some point and just never changed, must actually mean Stealth, which means I get +15 there. Cool. 40 into Stnealthk (55, making it by far my best Skill), 30 into Tinker, 20 into Forgery, 10s in Disguise and Steal. 

I get a d4 as my experience die and...OK. Every time I get a critical success or failure, I can roll my XP die and bump the Skill by that much. I actually kinda like that. But the die size is based on Mind + Learned. This means that bookworms are better at improving everything, including, say, combat Skills, and who gets a crit isn't meaningfully different, because you get a crit fail by rolling 99 or 00, and a crit success by rolling under the Attribute linked to the Skill you were using (so at best a 5% chance). 

Anyway, my Damage Bonus is also a d4, my Insanity is 12...wait, do you mean Sanity? 'Cause there's no Insanity Trait on the sheet. Whatever. Reason is "the first number of Willpower" JESUS CHRIST DO YOU MEAN THE TENS DIGIT? Ahem. That's 2 for me. Injury is the "first number" of Toughness (4), Wounds are 12 (but that's true for everyone), and Insight is 0 but 1 for me because I have Dark Knowlege (wwooOOOOooooo). 

Now I get a superpower! I'm Awakened, so I get something quasi magical. It's random, so...03 gives me Corpse Tongue, which keys off of Mind. Great, my lowest Attribute. That means I have to roll under 20 to use it. What's it let me do, anyway? Communicate with corpses and ask basic questions. Well, that's not the worst thing I could have rolled; my guy did see a lot of death. 

Oh, Languages. My Learned is 4, so I speak two, obviously English and French (and I probably should read Latin, too, but there's no way to simulate that and I do not care that much). 

OK, so: Jonathan Nelmes attended church school but didn't really have the temperament to be a vicar. He wound up enlisting and becoming an officer through a combination of luck, cleverness, and fencing skill, and when he was finally given his first squad (I'd figure out what war or campaign he was in if I cared, but a) the history of this world is a little screwy because of the monsters and b) I don't) that's when the "everyone's a bug" thing happened. 

Jonathan used to be very put together and clean-cut. He's...rather let himself go. Scraggly hair, uneven beard, dirty hands, he still wears his uniform but it's dirty beyond recognition. Somewhere in here he discovered he can (unreliably) talk to corpses, and that hasn't helped the old mental state any. 

Right, good, done, not a fan of this one. Also there's no reason this sheet couldn't have been a single page.

Character Creation: Midnight of the Century

Cheer up. The world's about to end in ten minutes anyway.

The Game: Midnight of the Century
The Publisher: By Odin's Beard RPG
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Midnight of the Century is a game I wanted to like more than I do. I do like it, mind - it's an investigative horror game that actually does do something different than Chill. It's designed to emulate the dark investigation stories of the 90s, stuff like Millennium, Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, and so on. You're playing Investigators who are tracking down serial killers, but there is also a "you're part of a shadowy conspiracy" and a "by the way, the world is ending" component to the game. Setting-wise, there's almost nothing about it I dislike. 

System...eh. I mean, I think it's probably fine. It's OSR-inspired, but not actually OSR, so it's not like...what the hell was that weird game that the author gave up on? John Silence. Anyway, the stats aren't the standard D&D ones, so the creators obviously put more thought into it than "iunno, rulings not rules". I think I would like it better if it were something like Gumshoe or Forged in the Dark, but that's a personal preference thing. 

The thing that I get hung up on is that the book says it works best with one or two players plus a GM. I...never have only two players. If I do, I cancel the game and do something else. Four is my sweet spot, three is OK with the right game (I ran a whole Slipstream campaign with three players, but it definitely changed the calculus of designing encounters), two or one feels weird to me. And I like this setup of this game so much, I'm sure I could probably figure out making it work with more players.

For now, however, let's make an Investigator, which is like an alligator, only investi. 

I actually do have something of a concept, here; it's a character I've had in my brain for a while but never had the right game for it (and frankly probably isn't a character I'd actually play unless everyone at the table was super cool with it). My idea is someone who was a serial killer, but then had a brain tumor removed from his head and became "cured." It sounds like something that would have happened on Criminal Minds, and in a setting where demons exist, I can also see doing a kind of Malignant thing with it and having the tumor actually be a demon or something. My character doesn't need to know anything about demons, of course, just that he used to have these urges, he acted on them a couple of times, got caught, did time in prison, was diagnosed with brain cancer, and had a lot of sciencey people (from the Ouroboro corporation, in setting) poking at him and theorizing that the tumor fucking up his ability to feel...much of anything, but certainly empathy was responsible. And then he had brain surgery, and wound up being able to remember what he did but to appreciate it like a non-psychopath. 

So after his second suicide attempt, he wound up reading in the papers about an active killer in the Pacific Northwest (where this game is set by default) and contacting someone he'd met from Ouroboro with some insight. Ouroboro pulled some strings and got him released to their custody, but he's basically on permanent house arrest. He's enthusiastic about the work (tracking down killers), partially because he's got skin in the game in a way a lot of other investigators don't, but also because he expects - wants - for one of these bastards to kill him someday. 

There, that's appropriately bleak. There's a table with random names in this book, so let's use it! Rolling a d100 twice, I get...42 and 42. Huh, what are the odds. (1 in a 100, Matt.) Anyway, that gives me "Gregory Howard" as a name, which is fine by me.

My age is 30+4d6...a roll of 15 means I'm 45. Let's say he was in prison for the last 10 years, so he was killing in his early 30s. 

Traits! These are game stats (that's next), these are physical and personality traits. I'll roll them randomly, but I reserve the right countermand anything stupid. 

Physique: Lean. That's fine.

Face: Bony. Aside from rolling two 1s in a row, that's fine too.

Skin: Scarred. Obviously I didn't make it out of prison unscathed, which makes sense.

Eyes: Shining. I...huh? I don't think that tracks. I choose to pretend I roll a 7 instead, giving me "searching" eyes.

Hair: Matted. Sure, that's fine. 

Speech: Blunt. Yeah, that's good. Greg isn't interested in playing around. He knows what other people think of him, they're right, he is a monster, so what if he doesn't have the urge to do monstrous things anymore. 

Virtue/Vice: Cautious/Aggressive. First of all, those don't work for Greg, and second, they're almost antonyms. Let's try again. Ambitious/Cold. I'm OK with "cold," but "ambitious" doesn't work for me. Let's take "upbeat," just because it's such a juxtaposition. Greg is jovial and dry, but that's part defense mechanism for himself and partly for others. If he's never serious, if his humor is kinda gallows, then other people can hate him and that's just easier. 

Clothing/style: We've got an 80% chance of being "corporate" here, and...look at that, I roll within that margin. Eh, Ouroboro probably dresses me anyway. 

Stats! Body, Mind, Will, roll 3d6 in order and then swap any two. This gives me: Body 14, Mind 10, Will 15. Well, I'm gonna swap Body and Mind.

Specialism! Class, more or less. I want Greg to be a Profiler, his insight is valuable because he can think like a killer. That gives me +2 Mind.

Psych profile! More random tables, but I'm probably gonna pick these. But let's see. 

How did you become a profiler? Yeah, "cancer-induced serial killer" isn't on the random table. Why did you leave the agency? Oh, right, this assumes profilers are LEOs. OK, I'm going to skip these questions because they don't apply. 

Bonds! I get three, again rolled randomly, and this time I think it's fine to do so. My Connection Bond is...a lover. Oh, hell. Yeah, I'm OK with that. Her name is Kelly Martel (another random name). Kelly is one of those serial killer groupies who wound up tracking Greg down after his "release" and making contact, and she is literally the one person Greg ever lets his guard down to. My Haven is...a tattoo shop! Yeah, Greg has some prison tats (some of them given against his will) and he's gone into Gone Baby Gone Tattoo (owner's a big Violent Femmes fan) a bunch to get them covered up. And, finally, Vehicle...hatchback. Yeah, that's fine.

Equipment is just common sense plus the stuff my specialism gets me, which is...a picture of Kelly, some painkillers, and some latex gloves. And then I get a pager, a notebook and a pen, and a flashlight. I think I'm also required to check in with Ouroboro every day. 

And that's it! Greg is a white guy in his mid-40s, a bunch of tats on his arms and scars on his face. He's lean because he doesn't eat much, his hair is matted because there's a bunch of scar tissue on his scalp and his hair grows in weird. 

I think, again, that provided the other players are cool with it, Greg would be an interesting character study in silly things like "forgiving yourself" and whether it's possible to atone for doing something terrible. 

Movie #969: Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, in case the clever wordplay goes over your head, is the second (OF THREE) sequels to Alvin & the Chipmunks. Obviously. It stars Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Jason Lee, David Cross, Amy Poehler, Christina Applegate, Anna Faris, Wendie Malick, and Zachary Levi. 

We pick up with the titular Chipmunks, Alvin (Long), Simon (Gubler), and Theodore (McCartney) doing their schtick where they sing pop songs in squeaky voices, when their manager/adopted father falls victim to a cartoonish injury and winds up in traction in France (if this had happened in the US, it wouldn't have worked because the US health care system would have discharged him the same day). Anyway, the Chipmunks are sent to stay with their friendly Aunt Jackie (Kathryn Joosten), but she almost immediately falls victim to a similar accident and this leaves the boys in the care of their slacker cousin Toby (a pre-Shazam Levi). 

Part of Dave's instructions was for them to have a normal childhood, so they're getting sent to school. This turns out to be high school, which was jarring because before this I realized I had no context for how old these mutant rodents were supposed to be. I mean, they're all "sassy" and talk like teenagers, or rather, they talk like how a middle-aged screenwriter thinks a teenager in 2009 might talk ("oh, it's on like Donkey Kong!" "Right back atcha!" "I can't hear you over [whatever]". Stuff like that). Anyway, they go to high school, where they are immediately beset by bullies who try to kill them (what is this, the 80s?) and the principal (Malick), who happens to be a Chipmunks superfan, tells them they have to represent the school in a music festival because if they win, the prize money will pay for the school's flagging music program!

So we've got like six different cartoon plots already, but we're not done! The evil former music exec Ian Hawke (Cross), living like a mad hobo in the basement of the record company building, gets a FedEx package with the Chipettes, the female versions of the Chipmunks. Like, literally, we've got the sassy one, Brittany (Applegate), the one with glasses, Jeanette (Faris), and the fat/loveable one, Eleanor (Poehler). And sure, let's talk about this here.

The Chipettes are literally just girl versions of their respective Chipmunks, just a little less-than. Brittany is a less-assholish Alvin, Jeanette is a less-smart Simon, and Eleanor is...well, Eleanor is about the same as Theodore. Less cowardly, maybe. They get almost no characterization. I'm not saying the Chipmunks are fleshed-out characters, but they at least all have a little personality. I was there in the 80s when the girl-versions of characters appeared, I know this song. 

Anyway, the plot is stitched together from multiple cliches. We've got Alvin joining the jocks and blowing off his family, the Chipettes vs. the Chipmunks as they're manipulated by Hawke, and Toby learning to come out of his shell and talk to his high school crush, Julie (Anjelah Johnson, utterly wasted in this role). If you've been awake for the last 20 years, you know every beat before it happens, and for those of us in Gen X who watched the cartoon, there's a palpable sense of déjà vu. Anyway, it ends up with both groups performing together (obviously) and the Chipettes moving in with the Chipmunks (obviously). 

I just...I think my biggest problem here is that I don't get the appeal. I mean, the Chipmunks have always had the same gimmick (again, pop songs in a squeaky voice) but the 80s cartoon had the benefit of cartoony adventures n' shit. This is that schtick with cliché plots, hackneyed dialog, and some truly mediocre CGI. And there's a cameo from a...sewer gopher? that the movie clearly thought I should recognize. I had to look him up; it's a thing called Digger (Dave Bauza), who was a mascot for NASCAR on Fox until the head of Fox Sports apologized for him. 

People talk about Marvel movies being soulless corporate affairs, but to me, this is the kind of thing that makes me want to make movies made in the 70s. It's real bad...

...but it's somehow better than the first one. I don't mean it's good, I hasten to add. It's like how stubbing your toe is better than getting kicked in the balls. I don't want either one, neither one is fun or good, but if I have to experience one or the other, I'll pick the one that has a timely reference to another, better movie (that'd be Alvin - remember, voiced by Justin Long - reminding us during a dodgeball game of the five Ds of dodgeball). 

Wish I could've dodged this movie! HAHAHAHAHAHAi'mgonnakillyoutoasty

My Grade: D
Rewatch Value: IINSIAIFWT

Next up: John Dies at the End (for reals this time!)

D&D: The Rich Man

Ho, there! Last time, our heroes fought a snakelike monster in the ruins of a mysterious city. This time, no one ran the risk of being swallowed, so that's good.

Our heroes, having retrieved Aisling's harp-lute from the hidey-hole and bade farewell to their erstwhile companion Brébhin, set out north to the city of Cian. They're a few days out when they pick up a strange trail - a caravan, consisting of six wagons pulled by horses, and with a few folks in good-quality shoes walking alongside. This is somewhat perplexing; merchant caravans aren't unknown, but they usually aren't this big or this well-appointed.

They catch up with said caravan a day later, and see that it's entered a valley. As they're about to make themselves known, Dara spots people on the ridge on either side of the valley, clearly a bandit company ready to spring! 

Zook rolls up his sleeves to ready a fireball, but someone points out that if he blows up part of the ridge, it might collapse down on the caravan. And besides, says Fearg, do we really want to kill all these people? Zook opines that it's no different than killing monsters or kobolds, but there's a prevailing feeling of disagreement, and Keenan points out that these bandits haven't actually done anything yet - slaughtering them en masse seems extreme. Zook grudgingly agrees, but does note that his spell repertoire doesn't include a lot of non-lethal options. 

Clara scampers up the left side of the valley, and Dara goes right. Clara sees that these are indeed brigands - they wear a mishmash of armor and carry makeshift weapons, cudgels and shillelagh and the like. She spots one bandit in studded armor giving orders, but then he notices Dara on the other side of the ridge making her way towards the bandits there and signals them. And at that point, the attack begins!

Several of the bandits, including the captain, slide down the hill into the valley, draw weapons, and start attacking the guards walking with the caravan. Clara runs up and downs one of the remaining thugs easily, and on the other side of the valley, Dara conjures a wind wall to block off the valley. A couple of the bandits, already heading for the slope, hit the wall and get blown back. 

Zook and Keenan join Dara. Zook throws a magic missile at some of the dudes, hoping to encourage them to flee. Dara, likewise, clonks one on the head and tells him "I could have hit you much harder." He takes the point and runs. One of them runs up to Dara and swings a cudgel, and Keenan (who's also realizing that many of his spells involve fire and are therefore not great for non-lethal combat) casts reduce on the guy, shrinking him to gnome-size!

Meanwhile, Aisling jogs up the side of the valley and throws a hypnotic pattern across a bunch of the bandits, including the captain. They all collapse, charmed and stupefied. Fearg just walks into the valley and one of the thugs runs up and stabs him with a dagger. He looks down at the scratch and bonks the guy with his hammer, but doesn't fell him (and notes that maybe he's not as effective when he's, like, mentally present for a fight).

Up on the ridge, Dara continues her strategy of clonking bandits with a mace and either knocking them out or sending them fleeing. Clara easily fells another, and then slides down the hill, where two more bandits have a guard pushed up against a wagon! They stab him, but then turn to face Clara - and she promptly knocks them both out. Aisling ties up the bandit captain, Keenan shoots a dude in the leg with a crossbow bolt, and Zook drives the rest away with magic missiles.

The bandits either unconscious or routed, the adventurers approach the caravan. Dara and Aisling cast some healing magic at the wounded guards, and the folks riding in the wagons emerge, applauding them. The caravan numbers about 30, and the leader emerges. He's a handsome man in his 30s. His teeth are beautiful and white ("think those are real?" whispers Clara), his hair has some kind of product in it making it look lustrous, and he's wearing jewels and gold on rings and fine clothes. He thanks the characters profusely and introduces himself as Aindriú. He calls for the last two wagons to be made into transports for the adventurers, for anyone else who's wounded to be given healing potions, and the characters notice that he treats his people kindly and respectfully - but that he clearly employs them.

Aisling wakes up the bandit captain and they briefly parlay, but the bandit doesn't have anything that they want and now that his company is scattered, he pledges to leave the caravan alone and rethink his life choices. They untie him and he and his fellows flee into the hills, and the caravan gets underway again! 

The characters ride in Aindriú's carriage at first; he has one of his people bring tea ("unless you'd like something stronger?" "Yes, please," says Fearg) and some dates that turn out to be covered in sugar ("I love these," he says). The characters chat, and Aindriú is pleasant and forthcoming. He correctly guesses all of their origins, listens sympathetically when they tell him they recently lost one of their company, and once again thanks them for their heroism. 

Aisling asks after his money; for the most part he just says he's "been fortunate." When she presses, he says he was a merchant in Fiadh and that he managed to sell a particular kind of wood that became very profitable for a short time. Aisling asks if he has any, and mentions that where she's from, such fine woods are used to make instruments, and Aindriú neatly changes the subject and gets her talking about her harp-lute. None of the characters see anything wrong with this story - Aindriú is charming and seems trustworthy, but Aisling suspects something. Not that he's lying, but he just seems to be leaving something out.

Aindriú tells them that he had a sister - Ailís - who was an adventurer. She left Fiadh to answer that call, but some years later a messenger from a village in central-western Abaile arrived in Fiadh delivering a box of her personal effects; she'd been slain defending the village. Aindriú neglected to get precise directions on where that village was, and he's been searching for it to find his sister's grave. He shows them a map of Abhaile and the places he's been, and points to the general area the village should be - on the shore of a small river, not so far west that the plains give way to the badlands, but he hasn't been able to find it. He searches for a while, then circumstances tend to draw him east or south, so he travels with his caravan, and eventually heads back to Cian for resupply (which is where he's going now).

The caravan stops for the night, circles their wagons, and hunters return with deer to roast. Aisling calls her companions together and voices her suspicions - where does Aindriú get so much gold? Why is he so free with it? And more importantly, why does he change the subject when asked about it? The others, thinking about it, share the concern, though Fearg gently points out that there are a number of stories in which suspicion is rewarded with tragedy. Aisling counters, though, that it's her being suspicious, and Fearg agrees that that in itself makes this strange.

Aindriú asks Aisling to play, which of course she does, and after a few songs on the harp-lute she switches to the bodhrán. Members of the caravan with instruments join in, people dance, and a good time is had. Dara sneaks off and turns into a squirrel, and listens in to conversations, looking to see how people talk about Aindriú. She doesn't find anything untoward - one person says to another that he's trying to work up the courage to ask Aindriú to help him buy something, evidently a gift for a lady-love, and the feeling is that he'd probably help if asked. 

That night, though, as everyone sleeps, Dara listens at Aindriú's carriage and hears him talking to someone - someone with a deep, echoey voice. She can't make out what this second voice says, but she hears Aindriú's response: "I'll use it when I have something worth using it on." Aindriú leaves his carriage and walks a bit, apparently troubled, and Dara scampers in to have a look. She finds...no one. The only thing different than when she was in here before is a small box, clearly old, encrusted with jewels. 

Next morning, Dara tells the others what she saw. Possessed box? Something in the box? They aren't sure. Aisling says that she wants to stop by the burned manor on the way into Cian (mostly as an excuse to break away from the caravan for a moment), and Fearg and Dara decide to join her. Clara, Keenan, and Zook stay with the caravan as it rolls into Cian. Aindriú, of course, graciously provides breakfast (Clara: "I really hope these people aren't evil, the food is so good"), and then the party splits. 

(They also level up, but that's incidental.)