A Night of Whispers – Sorrel, Seraphina, Velania – Narrative

(Note: a co-written account of a narrative DTA encounter, at Fort Ettin, by stephena , lauratolton and Velania Kalugina )


Sorrel wakes, startled, at 3am. There’s noises in the inn. Something she doesn’t trust. And her nightmares… The past few weeks playing on her mind. The only place she’s found comfort have been where the clerics of Selûne were - Seraphina and Velania. She stumbles out of bed, hauls on her armour - never leave the room unprotected - and heads to the Temple to see if either are there for the dawn service. But no. Acolytes shrug. Neither have been seen for days. “Maybe try Fort Ettin,” says one young halfing. “Something’s going on. People are heading there in droves.” And they are gone.

A couple of days earlier, Velania has risen at dawn, haunted by an insistent echo. Her dreams are speaking to her once more. She shakes her head and performs her morning prayers. But the echo doesn’t clear. It whispers. It breathes. “Fort Ettin,” it murmurs to her. The calling weaves itself sinuously about her head. Again and again. “Seek out the elder gnome in the cottage outside the fort.” Velania shivers. That familiar celestial presence haunting her. A request from Selûne? Rarely does she hear such a clear message. Something has to be wrong. Velania brushes down her robes, gathers her possessions together, and sets out for a dawn walk to Fort Ettin.

Seraphina has spent the last few weeks attending at the Temple of Selûne here in Kantas, its presence has been a welcoming embrace but she has one again felt the Lady’s call to somewhere else, and so she sets off for Fort Ettin.
Afterall, this is a bustling place full of news and new faces and she is sure to find word or call to aid within its borders.
She settles in one again to a room on the first floor and sets about finding a spot of tea, tea is, she finds, a cure all for an anxious mind as hers currently.

Sorrel leaves her heavy kit in her room, sets the locks and the traps and heads to the Dawn Market, looking for a nervous merchant keen for protection but short on cash. She is not short of offers. In the end, she hauls herself up next to an unusually soft faced dragon born - something about the merchant’s features seem so accidentally assembled and awkwardly placed that Sorrel is instantly charmed. Here is someone who certainly couldn’t handle themselves. They ride in silence until they reach, according to the merchant, about half way.
“Lot of people on the road,” the dragon born mutters.
“Never been this way,” Sorrel shrugs.
“Ever been in a town when an army is on its way?”
Sorrel shivers. “That, yes. More times that I’d like to remember.”
“The roads out would have looked like this then.”
Sorrel falls into silence and watches the bustle of anxious faces. She feels strangely nervous. There’s adrenaline - but why? What is today?

Velania catches sight of Sorrel, entering Fort Ettin talking warily to a merchant. She immediately recognises the cautious, silent traveller from their recent assignment for Lord Leapington, and approaches. “Well met, Sorrel. It is good to see you again. We didn’t talk much, that other day in Daring Heights. But I’ve seen you at the Temple. You’ve received the Lady’s call too? I have had voices in my dreams for some nights, now. I have come here to seek out an elderly gnomish woman. Have you heard more?”
Velania frowns into the sky, thinking for a moment. “Perhaps there are still others who have heard the call. In the main hall, perhaps…?”

Sorrel grits her teeth and clenches her fist. The Aasimar is as beautiful as she remembers. Please, goddess, spare me from meeting Seraphina as well. Why are your priests causing my heart to rush and my tears to flow? Then, of course, she sees her.

Seraphina carefully pours her tea into the little porcelain cup she keeps with her at all times and drops a sugar cube into it for good measure. She is so lost in her own thoughts she does not see the two enter the large dining hall of Fort Ettin.

“You must be Seraphina, I presume?” Velania proclaims, a little too forcefully. Then she softens her tone. “I’m so glad our paths finally cross. It looks like Our Lady of Silver has work for us. I have received messages - a sense that someone is in need here. There is sadness in the voice, but also great love. I don’t know what it means, but I am certain we can perform some act of service here. My dreams spoke of an elderly gnome, and great guilt within her, a missing relic and a desperate need to atone. There is a small, thatched cottage in a copse of trees not far from the fort. It has a low door and looks to be the place where this elder gnome lives. Perhaps we ought to visit her together?”

Seraphina lifts her head and takes in the person before her, “I am Seraphina, yes.” She tilts her head and listens to the rest of their sentence.
At the mention of a lost relic, Seraphina’s eyes widen a little and her attention becomes more focused. “Well I would be happy to help of course, may I know your name before we leave for such a task?” she says with her distinctive slow cander.

Sorrel stumbles forward awkwardly. The two Aasimar face each other, each with the glory and the grace of their faith and their birth. She feels like a muddy schoolgirl walking into the house of angels. But she knows them both and she knows her manners. She draws herself up as impressively as she can. “Seraphina, I… thank you first, of course, for all your help at the Temple… and the… look, sorry, please meet… this is Velania… also from the temple of Selûne… we did this thing the other day with this hare... but that doesn’t matter. Really, you see, I think you two…. Because you both do all the stuff and it’s... well you know what it is…. Anyway there we are. Velania. Seraphina. Thank you.”
She steps back cursing herself. She might just as well have said she carried a watermelon.

Velania blushes. “Forgive my forthright manners. Thank you, Sorrel. You are right, I should have introduced myself. I am Velania of the temple of Selûne, as Sorrel has kindly said. I have seen you both, in services at the temple in Daring Heights, and I have been remiss in not making both of your acquaintances sooner.” She nods with a modest bow. “I would be honored to assist you both. If we can find a way to help this poor woman.”
Inside, she kicks herself: why must you make everything so awkward, Velania?
She gestures over to the outskirts of the settlement. “It’s a short walk to the cottage. May I show you both the way? Or perhaps you already know, from the insights Selûne has sent you herself?”

A smile creeps across Seraphina’s face as she sees Sorrell again and she chuckles to herself. “Sorrell it is wonderful to see you again, would you care for some tea?” She waves at a barkeep for another cup, pauses and then repeats the motion for the other arrival.
“Velania, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am glad you also walk with the Lady Selûne, although she has not spoken to me as such, I have had a will to return here.”
She gestures around her, “So, it is perhaps you who I have been called to.” she says smiling.

The invisible barkeep approaches the table and sets down two earthenware mugs.

“Tea?” Seraphina lifts the teapot. “It is most fortifying.”

Sorrel feels that if she blushes any deeper her head will explode. She sits, takes the mug gratefully and tries to direct her gaze somewhere - where do normal people look when they’re having a conversation?
Each time her eyes graze the faces of Seraphina and Velania, she feels sure yet another shade of red is added to her cheeks but the alternative - staring into her cup or at the ceiling - seems wildly inappropriate. She settles for a kind of constant motion. Seraphina, Velania, mug, ceiling, Seraphina, Velania, mug, ceiling until she begins to feel quite dizzy. Nonetheless, she feels such peace in their presence that she would not be anywhere else in the world.

Velania holds the earthenware mug, letting the heat radiate into her fingers. It’s soothing. The aroma lifts her spirits. “Thank you, Seraphina. This is just what I needed this morning.
I have been in Kantas for two months, now. I find it a curious place, full of such good people, yet it is also strange and challenging, so I am always grateful to sit with fellow travellers and appreciate life’s smaller pleasures.” Her shoulders relax visibly.

Velania glances about, taking in the comings and goings of the room. The dozens of invisible assistants, their tabards floating about them, continue their silent work, as a handful of other adventurers go about their mornings. The smells of beer and baked bread fill her with nostalgia. She leans back on her bench, tapping her cup nervously. “Tell me, have either of you seen Coll working here today?” Velania purses her lips and looks down at her cup. “No matter if you haven’t. Just wondering.”

“I do not know of this Coll you speak of, but I can ask?” Seraphina says and takes a sip of tea.

As Seraphina sips and Velania’s eyes dart across the room, Sorrel suddenly feels a shadow pass in front of her eyes. The touch of her father’s elven blood sometimes gave him strange visions and premonitions - the shadows, he called them. She has never felt connected to that heritage, despite the day the sage taught her how to slip between the planes and she saw how it could be to move beyond her material world. But something is pulling now, she is certain.
“Did you feel that?” she gasps to the clerics. “That shift?”

Seraphina looks towards Velania and her white eyes flare brighter for a moment before returning to their calm glow, “I feel perhaps we shall be needed after all.”

Velania jumps, her copper skin paling slightly. “You both felt it too? Then it is not just the dreams.” Even as Velania feels relief that the subject has moved on from Coll, she clenches her fists and draws a heavy breath. “Whatever this woman needs us for, I think we must seek her out as soon as we can.”

“Indeed.” Seraphina nods. She turns and reaches into the satchel she carries at her side and roots around for a moment before drawing out something she holds in reverence.
“Sorrell, forgive me but I thought perhaps you might like this. I had the thought to give it to you after you had left the temple.”
Seraphina opens her palm to reveal an amulet on a velvet cord. Three phases of the moon, two crescents joined by a whole in the centre and made of a silver metal.
“May it bring you some comfort as it has for me.”

Sorrel grasps the icon, unable to speak for a second. She raises her eyes and looks into Seraphina’s infinite gaze. “It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” she breathes.
Her eyes take in these two women - strong, pure, with an inner light and the spirit of the goddess welling up from within. She is no acolyte or priest, but she has learned more about service to the goddess in meeting these two than in her 30 years as a worshipper in name alone. Whatever lies ahead, she knows that with these two nearby there is hope.
She kneels before them and genuflects then rises and holds the icon to her heart.

“For the goddess,” she says, and for the first time in her life, she truly believes it.