Part One
To Black Island
Back in Scancole city after our hectic adventures on the road we settle in to reflect on our road adventures and catch up with training and other jobs. Leatony is aware of the request of his lady Rozblack of Belin who told him ‘I have heard of a giant’s grove on Black Isle where golden fruit grows. A good noble knight would get one for his lady and her lady,’ her lady being the queen’s sister. In between his other activities Leatony visits Rozblack when he can and she reminds him of his quest for her, “after all you got an apple for another lady” she says. Leatony is also berated by Sir Morubund over his sons not getting the heroic combat they expected due to the parties actions. “It’s your entire fault, what’s the point of being captured if my boys don’t get to fight for your rescue? I was hoping that this would reduce Lord Lucan’s respect for you but no. You manage to get free along with that stupid bear and all due to that interfering Herald Cam. How will my boys become knights with no opportunities? It’s your entire fault.”
After a week of this and having reflected as much as we needed to we moved on to Floudehoug city. This city is connected to Black Isle by a Wondrous Bridge to Black Castle at the top of the cliffs. The bridge was built long, long ago, possibly by the giants; it is a 2km walk or ride over the sea with carts and horses going by in both directions. We remember that this bridge like any wonder has miraculous abilities. First it would help us recover magical energy if we needed to, second if we spend time on it studying it we can try to learn spells linked to it. In this case Water, Travel, or Stone spell effects; unfortunately we do not have that time at the moment so cross the bridge taking in the views of the sea and the land while avoiding the traffic. Castle Black city is busy as it’s the ducal centre. With many merchants coming and going with many carts, wagons and pack horses. There is a large market at the end of the bridge outside the city selling many common and a few exotic items.
We decide to ask around the market and locals to see what we could find about the Giant Grove and the Golden fruit. We split up and over 2 hours talked to all who we could and judged their answers to our questions. This is what we found out:-
The tree is a wonder and only a few fruit grow each year.
The fruit makes good jam
To find the grove follow the giant steps
The grove is part of a giant village
Everyone knows that there is no Golden fruit it’s all a lie.
Giants live in the village on the cliffs and are dangerous
The grove was abandoned long, long, ago when the giants died out
The giant village can be seen from the sea if you sail round to the south coast it is on top of the cliffs.
The coast near the giant village is rocky and dangerous
The fruit is said to improve looks and life
There are many dangers in the Black Forest
Rather a mix but it does seem that such a place exists, even if whither it has giants there or not seems to be mute. We assume that the improved looks and life are the benefits the ladies are after.
While we were doing that Leatony had the opportunity to increase his fame, a shout alerted him to a runaway horse heading towards a women and children. Without thinking he burst into a sprint and as he approached the horse leapt onto its back raining it in too much applause. He then comforted the women. I found out about this later, over lunch, when he started to complain about people not controlling their horses’ properly. The merchant whose horse it was was pleased to have his horse back but with no contrition about letting it run off. After exchanging information we thought it might be a good idea to see if we could find a guide, however that was a waste of time as no one seemed to either know the way or want to go into such danger anyway. Leatony thinks we should either go by sea or ride around the coast to avoid going into the forest at all. In the end we decide to go back to Floudehoug city across the wonderful bridge. There we hire a merchant ship to sail us around the island to see what is possible. The captain of the Sturdy Fish has seen the giant deer antlers in Castle Black and his price for our journey is a set of such antlers. We set sail sailing East to West North to South then West to East South to North and trying to keep about 1km from the shore. This is as close as we can get the captain to go due to rocks and other risks. When we get to the south of the island we manage to see the village on the cliffs, the buildings must be big to stand out at this distance. We can see smoke coming from the village so someone must live there in the big buildings.
Yogi casts ‘Behold’ on his Red Kite and sends it off in the direction of the village to see what can be seen through its hawk eyes. The village consists of very large buildings many in ruin but a few not so. Out of the building with smoke coming from it a humanoid being of great size came out and started to weld its very big two handed sword in practice moves. In the centre of the village is a green surrounded by a giants stone circle with a solitary tree in the middle with golden leaves, the must be the tree the fruit comes from. The sea approach looks difficult due to rocks which would mean swimming in from quite a distance. The cliff has no obvious way up defiantly not any steps, of course there might have been long time ago, after all giants live a long long time. Yogi soon loses his sight from the Red Kite as his spell runs out but we have seen a fair amount.
On the way back to Floudehoug city, Leatony talks about using magic to control the water over the rocks and sculpting rock to make steps to get up the cliff. Unfortunately these will all require time to learn said magic. But then we are not being pushed to do any of this right now by Rozblack. Once back in the city we head back over the wondrous bridge to see Lord Lucan. There I am asked to tell the story so I start telling the story of Love and Golden fruit. Afterwards we talk to him about how he got the deer antlers and were we might hunt for some. He tells us that when hunting on the edge of the forest one day they saw the giant deer and managed to bring it down before it fled back into the forest. He continues that they never go far into the forest as that is not a good idea. He wishes us well in our love quest but tells us to be careful, it is good for knights to respond to love and show their courage in search of it particularly for their lady loves.
A Christian Warrior 