# The Vale (Song of Ice and Fire)



## Dexerion (Feb 21, 2012)

9 people game weekly using A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying.  There are two alternating narrators, two sets of characters, and a lot of roleplaying.   

This is one of the two party's log from the first two week of game play.  We will be posting character descriptions, stats, images and maps on the Vale of Smyrna | Obsidian Portal  This DM used the Melford Murder PDF for starting source material.

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Marieka, Melford’s constable, rides into the Khernal castle seeking the audience of Lord Mel. Lord Mel summons Caquellous (Caq, Singer), Halthros(Master of Hunt), Yurt(Master at Arms), and his son Luise Vincent (Heir) to the great hall to witness the audience.

Marieka explains to Lord Mel that she was sent by her sworn Lord’s castellon to seek his assistance. She claims that there was a brutal murder of one of the owners of an Inn in the village last night. Her Lord has been locked up in the village holdfast since the end of the war, in mourning for his dead children. Without him, the village has nobody to pass judgement, nor the resources to determine who the killer may be. The castellon gave her 30 gold dragons to offer Lord Mel in exchange for his assistance.

Caq quickly chimes up that he is more than able to deal with such a request on the Lord’s behalf. Yurt offers to escort Caq with six of his men from the castle garrison. Caq ask Luise Vincent and Halthros to come along. Yurt assures Luise they will be safe with his men as escort. Once Luise agrees, Yurt ask for Lord Mel’s approval that they resolve this matter for him. He nods and mutters, then falls back asleep in his throne.

The village Melford is a half-days ride north-west. The party arrives in the village with Marieka after nightfall, and they immediately ride to the Kings Head Inn and its stables to investigate the crime scene. Marieka shows where the corpse was found in the stables.

There was a lot of dried blood in the mud, but the body had been carried away to a silent sister for burial preparations. Marieka noticed Halthros looking over the tracks, and explained that half the village had come and gone since the body was found. However, when she first came to the scene, there were two distinct sets of footprints leading into the Stables, and only one leading out. Both sets of footprints were large, and most likely belonged to men. Marieka then began telling the group about the people that were inside the Inn around the time that Garrett was believed to have been killed.

The group decides to start inside the Inn, where they can speak with Garrett’s sister, Lena. Together, they owned and manage the Inn. She was in the Inn at the time of the murder. The group enters the Inn to find Lena leaned up against her Bar speaking with the only patron. Marieka introduces them both before taking her leave to return to her own home as it is late and she hasn’t slept for nearly 2 full days.

Lena fetches a flagon of Wine and serves the new guest. The patron’s name is Brad Jennings, and he was also inside the Inn at the time of the murder. The party questions both Lena and Brad. They handle Lena somewhat rough considering her recent loss, and she has a fit of anger that soothed when Caq steps between her and the noble Luise Vincent. He calms them and pays Lena for their Wine. She claims to have been in the cellar having a heated argument with Magdalene, the village bee-keeper, about payment on honey Mead around the time the murder happened.

Brad claimed to be “as drunk as a lord, oh, begging your pardons melord” last night. He said he was out at the privvy when he thought he heard a scream come from the stables. He said his breeches were around his ankles, or he would have ran to help. Brad did see Reiner, the village’s animal breeder, waiting outside the Inn before he went into the Privvy.

The group decides to leave the Inn and question some of the commonfolk about the murder that night, before word gets out that they were in the village asking about the murder. They decide to go to Tom and Felona’s jewelry shop first, as Marieka had told them earlier that both of them were at the Inn last night.

The shop is completely dark when Yurt pounds on the door. “Open up! In the name of the Queek!” Tom Verdane came to the door, visibly frustrated to be bothered so late. Felona’s shrill voice can be heard yelling from up the stairs, inside. “TOM! Tom, who in the god’s name is it? Tom!? TOM!? Are you dead?!?” Tom mutters, “damn woman…” He verbally accost the group for waking him and his wife up at the late hour. When Luise Vincent states his position and purpose, Tom cooperates, though somewhat grudgingly. He seems a sour man, but due to the incessant screaming coming from upstairs, the party sympathizes with his demeanor.

Tom says that he was also very drunk last night, but he can remember the loud argument between Lena and Magdalene. Being that they were in the cellar and he was upstairs, he didn’t know what it was about, but could tell that they were not in agreement on some matter.

Felona makes a very noisy appearance at the front door, still screaming at Tom to respond to her. When she gets a good look at Yurt and Caq, however, she stops, “Tom! Will you answer m- Oh my. Oh, hello, and who might these strapping fellows be?” Tom is immediately furious, and his face begins to turn a dark shade of red as Felona begins to flirt with Yurt and Caq, and especially when Caq begins to flirt back. Tom and Felona begin yelling a screaming at each other. Tom accusing Felona of being a cheap two-faced whore and Felona accusing him of being half a man unable to please a woman. The party is able to hold them apart and return some sensibility to the conversation.

Felona claims to have also been outside at the privvy when the murder must have took place, and also says that she saw Reiner outside at the time. Caq ask Felona if she also heard the scream, and she seemingly has no idea what he is talking about. Tom the begins to talk over her and says that he believes Brad to be the murder, for a number of reasons, and points out that Brad was outside when the murder took place. Felona starts barking at him that he only says that because he is jealous because Brad is a good man.

The party decides to send Yurt and Halthros to fetch Brad from the Inn and bring him to Tom and Felona’s shop. They find most of their men inside the Inn having Wine with Lena and Brad. They wrestle Brad out of the Inn and escort him to Tom and Felona’s. They arrive to find Felona very quiet and somewhat pale, but Tom still in an uproar. Brad almost immediately breaks down and begins apologizing to Tom profusely. He claims that he wasn’t actually at the privvy, and was rather outside trying to fight off Felona’s attempts to seduce him. He originally lied to save Tom the embarrassment. Felona tries to deny the accusation, but her demeanor tells of her guilt. The party decides that this is a dead end, and move on to question Irena, the village’s Blacksmith, also present at the time of the murder. Before leaving, Caq makes a point telling Felona that she is very lucky that he and the noble Luise Vincent are not detaining her for interfering in their investigation by lying. She is bawling by the time they leave.

Irena has a nice forge and workshop where she produces arms and armor, as well as small goods and repairs for the commonfolk. She offers very little to the investigation, as she is only able to collaborate that Brad and Felona were outside when the murder happened. The party heads to Deborah’s clothing shop.

Unlike the other shops/houses, Deborah’s still has lanterns glowing from inside on the first floor. Luise Vincent is impressed by the elegant wears that Deborah offers, and Caq is impressed with Deborah herself. Deborah, thought at least 5 and 30, is very refined and physically attractive. She is very out of place for a small village. Her wears look more fit for court than for commoners. Pleased with Caq and Luise’s impression, Deborah explains that she imports a lot of her materials and exports nearly all of her wears via their castle port. She has business in Gulltown, White Harbor, Kings Landing, even as far away as Braavos and Old Town. She offers little in the way of new leads for the murder investigation, however. She claims she rarely visits the tavern, as she is not one to drink into the evening with the hoi polloi. Her only memories of last night were of the argument between Lena and Magdalene; and of her suspicions that Felona was committing adultery.

Magdalene is able to offer much and more to the investigation though. The party is surprised, yet somewhat relived, to find her sitting at Deborah’s table, sipping on hot herb water. Deborah introduces them to her guest, and offers to fetch the party some of the “tea” that they are drinking. When the party questions Magdalene about the murder, Caq and Luise Vincent become suspicious that she is lying. Luise Vincent’s patience had run thin with liars for the evening, and he immediately put his voice to his thoughts. He reproaches Magdalene and accuses her of lying to him, then reminds the entire room that he is the noble first-born heir of Lord Mel the Queek. The unspoken threat of unlawfulness did not go unnoticed, and Magdalene pales and begins to cough out an apology. Caq cautions her to choose her words well. She then takes a knee and explains that she was only covering for Lena because she is scared of her. She says that the argument in the cellar between them was over the murder. Magdalene was trying to talk Lena out of it, explaining that it was unnecessary. Magdalene begs for mercy. The party doesn’t offer her a straight forward answer, but they leave her behind all the same as they make haste for the Inn.

When they arrive they discover their six men inside the Inn drinking, but Lena is nowhere to be found. They say she stepped out to the privvy, but she is not there either. One of their coursers is also missing from the stables.

Halthros searches the ground immediately outside of the stables. Assisted by a recent light rain, he is quickly able to make out the tracks of the courser leading west into the hills. Halthros shows the tracks to the rest of the group as he makes ready with a torch. It is only partially cloudy, and bye the moon, Halthros judges that half of night has gone by. Not wanting to waste any time, the group the group mounts, leaving one guard from the garrison at the Inn. They form up just out of the torchlight behind Halthros, and follow him at a brisk pace along the trail. Though the ground is only lit by the flicker of Haltrhos’ torch, and faint moon light, they are able to make good time.

Lena, however, fairs much better alone, and is able to continue putting ground between her and the party far behind her. She keeps her head down close to the horses neck to avoid low branches, and urges the well trained horse to keep up a near gallop all night long.

It is close to first light when they hear the hooves of the approaching horse from below, in the valley along the stream bed. They were 6, men of the Painted Dog, a warrior tribe that makes its home in the Mountains of the Moon and surrounding high valleys. They are Muurt son of Guurt, armed with a long axe, Beebur with a spear, Shag armed with a hunting bow, and 3 other warriors armed with battle axes. They spot the rider, a single common Andal woman, riding alone at night. Her clothes were in a tatters from the branches and bushes she rode under. She was covered in small scrapes and cuts. She didn’t see the clansmen until they were yanking the horse to a stop, and her from atop it. She struggled, but they were too many. “Got’cha gurl.” One muttered to the other. The tore at her damaged clothes, and soon she was down to her small clothes. When they saw her scars, they all stopped, stood back in a brief pause of silence. “that it then?” “Aye! Gift of Stone!” They were talking about the scars she bore from a childhood disease. It left the skin on most of her back dry, cracked, hard to the touch, and gray. Hence it’s name, Grayscale. She lived in shame because of it, and always kept if covered. But these men were seemingly in awe over it, and it may have just saved her life.

They had little more time to think, as they heard the hooves of several horses approaching from down the valley. They saw only a single torch, and quickly setup to ambush. Two of the bearded men grabbed Lena and wrestled her into the underbrush. One held his rough hand over her mouth, and the other struggled to cover them with leaves from the tree above. The others spread out, ducking behind trees. One hid the horse up the hill.

It was all for nearly naught, as when the party approached, Haltrhos’ torch glinted light off Muurt son of Guurt’s longaxe leaning out from behind his tree, and Beebur started hacking up a huge glub of film caught in his throat, leaning his spear out from behind his tree.

Luise Vincent calls the party to halt, and points out the two men. Those who hadn’t already been riding with their steel in hand, drew it. Caqurellos calls out, “You there, show yourselves, in the name of Lord Mel of House Khernal.” Beebur responds, “’Lo der.” Caq ask “What is your purpose?” Muurt says “We just standin in tha woods, drinking ale.” Lena can hear everything, and does not try to struggle. They sound close. Vincent ask, “Did you see a girl come through here.” To which Beebur announces, “Gurl? You mean the one we just took, and hid in the woods?” Caq suggest to Luise that the party attack. Yurt concurs, “They are on our land, melord.” Muurt puts up a hand, “Wait! wait wait wait, we on our mountains. We see gurl, we take gurl to our king, and he eat her! Gift of Stone!” Beebur and the previously unseen Shag join in, “Gift of Stone!” Caquellos passively bluffs “Give us the girl, and we will let you go.” Beebur shouts, “Finders Queekers!” Yurt shouts back, “This is the Queek’s Land! None of you should be left alive!” Muurt yells back, “We live on this mountain for years! Out ancestors, 1000s of years! Gift of Stone!” You come to our ceremony! You watch our King eat her! Justice for our King, justice for your King!" Yurt had had enough, and calls out the order to attack.

Muurt pants his feet, ready to dodge anything that comes his way.

Shag looses and arrow at Yurt, who made for a big target, mounted or not. The arrow skipped off Yurts shoulder plate, and splashed into the creek behind him harmlessly. It was a solid shot, but the massive man is nearly impenetrable in his full plate mail.

Phillip, Luise Vincent’s personal bodyguard, kicks his horse into a full charge, and puts a full swing into a well timed blow at Muurt, but ready for the charge, Murrt spins aside, and avoids the sword entirely as Phillip rides past him.

Halthros rides further up the stream bed and turns in his saddle, with his bow drawn. Once in a better position, he quickly looses two arrows at Muurt. One glances and the other strikes but does not penetrate Muurts hide armor, and it bounces to the ground.

Luise Vincent rides forward into the fray, but rather than swing at an opponent, he stops short of Muurt, near the brush where Lena is hidden, and calls out, “In the name of the Queek, lay down your arms!”

Yurt does not wait for a response. He kicks his courser into a full gallop. He swings his large flail above his head several times as he charges Muurt. He lands a downswing of the spiked ball square in Muurts chest, and the bearded warrior nearly leaps off the ground in recoil as Yurt shouts, “Take That! Knave!”

Beebur shouts, “Kill the noble-one! That one!” As he lunges his body weight behind a throw that sends his spear through the noble’s Vestiments, but there is seemingly no blood pouring from the gash it left behind.

Beebur shouts again, “Grab the Gurl and run! Run!” Yurt shouts to his men, “Leave none alive!”

The bearded man holding Lena in the underbrush turns her over his back as he lunges free of the leaves in a Run. His burst forth from a cloudy explosions of wet leaves in a full run for the creek bed, Lena nosily beating her free fist into his back.

A Painted Dog comes running down the hill from behind Shag, and lands a strong two-handed axe swing in the side of Yurt’s Courser.

Another burst from the leave cloud, his axe in a two-handed overhead swing aimed at Luise Vincent.

The five mounted guards from the castle garrison charge. Two charge the running man with the girl, two charge Shag as he readies another arrow, and one charges toward Yurt’s attacker.

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We start session 3 in the middle of combat on 2/22/12.


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