Elrick[Ian], Art[Jeff], Baron[Deacon], Roma[Chris], the Deacon[Shane] and Tess left Corke after picking up their shot, ordering their suits of leather armour, and headed for Terryhaven on the dory.
It was an uneventful trip, and they were greeted by Ab Siddy[Darryl] and Thomas[Kevin] when they arrived just before dark.
Thu 22-May
Caoilainn visited during the night. This was the first time that she had met Thomas, and she loved his beautiful voice [gift]. He got out his flageolet and struck up a haunting tune. Caoilainn was entranced; in fact, the whole group was entranced [great skill roll].
They left Terryhaven for the Satyr caves a couple of hours before light, and travelled the whole day, camping in the forest a good two hours from the caves.
Fri 23-May
During Second Watch, two bat-winged creatures arrived, with fangs, puca. They regarded the Deacon, the "Man of God", as the leader of the group so would only speak to him.
Interestingly, the Deacon felt a wave of cold when he was near the puca.
Puca liked the letter P. One was named Peter, the other Petra. They wanted the body of their mate returned. The Deacon did not mention that Roma had staked it through the heart, but he agreed to give it to them (it had been left to rot in the forest under some leaves near the caves). Peter said that the reward would be "our gratitude".
At sunrise, they headed to the tunnels. Different to last time, there were two coils of thorn bushes blocking the entrance. The group hacked the support-ties and dragged out these barricades.
Inside, it had changed again since the last visit four days ago: The Weapons room was empty, the Torture room's gear was dismantled, and lying on pieces on the floor. The cages too. And the mist covering the floor of the Cairn room had a green tinge.
Again, they were not brave enough to enter the mist. But they did have enough rope to reach the height of the five-storey deep shaft. This allowed brave Elrick to climb down, swing into the side passage, and get to the Coin room.It was quite depleted and was a shadow of its former self: all the gold coins, most of the silver and a large amount of the copper were missing. Nevertheless, Elrick took a handful of coins and climbed out. The coins did not vanish, even though it was day. This was different to last time, so, he distributed them to the group, and was about to descend again to fill a backpack, when Roma realized that they coins had vanished. The trick was that the coins vanish when you stopped looking at them.
Predicting that there would be plenty of glaistig left, the group spent the whole day positioning themselves for an ambush as soon as it was sunset. Ab and Baron perched at the top of the shaft. Art with matchlock and his loader Roma, and Elrick with bow and axe down at entrance to the Cairn room. And the Deacon and Tess nearby to provide healing support. Thomas stood by with his knife.
The sun set.
Immediately, all the mist in the Cairn room sucked into the cairn arch. And then two ... leprechauns shot out of the arch. Then another two, then two more. In a twinkling, there were ten in the room. The party, unsure, held their fire. More leprechauns arrived, in twos.
"'Ere?" snapped one, eyeing Art and Elrick. "What you doin' in our caves?"
"We are here to kill the evil glaistig," replied Art.
He laughed.
"The powerful รณ Dochartaigh [O' Doherty] clan vanquished them," he said. "The caves tremble at our might."
The leprechaun assessed the group, and didn't like the look of the smoking matchlocks.
"You can take your fire sticks and begone. From our caves. The caves what are ours."
"We defeated the evil glaistigs four nights ago," said Elrick.
"And we came to get the coins," said Art.
"Well there are none left. We got them all."
"I saw them earlier today," said Elrick.
The leprechauns chatted among themselves in too-loud whispers: "There's old the dirty copper ones left." "They can have that filth." "Copper copper." "Shut up." "Don't you talk to me like that." "I'll give you copper." "I don't wanna be on the end of a fire stick." "Maybe they'll go away if we do."
One came forward.
"Okay," he said. "You can have the copper."
Elrick and Art and Roma didn't need any prompting. They went into the chamber and filled their backpacks with the piles of coins. There were exactly 3940 copper coins, a bunch of silver shillings and no gold. The leprechauns didn't let them take any of the shillings. 3940 worked out to be 16 pounds, 8 shillings, and 4 pence.
The party regrouped outside, none the wiser as to what had happened to the remaining glaistig. The leprechauns claimed they had bested them all, but this was doubtful. It was well known that leprechauns were lying liars who lied.
 |
| Pig Peeker |
Outside, it was now dark. Peter and Petra, the pernicious puca, returned and demanded to see the Deacon. The Deacon arranged for Roma to recover the (rotting and staked) body of the puca's fallen mate.
When this was done, Peter the puca seemed happy. In fact, he presented the Deacon with a portent of the puca's gratitude. It was a Pig Peeker.
This was a strange sidhe item. It was a pig's head, with eyes intact. To use it, you first remove the pig's eyes - they come out easily. You then press the cold clammy things to your own eyes, and they magically "meld" together. From that point on, you would only see through the eye sockets of the pig's head - a remote viewing device. If the head was transported elsewhere, you see what it sees. When you were done, you would attempt the painful process of gouging out the melded eyes ("use your thumbs and push hard"), and you would end up with the pig's eyes intact, and your own eyes restored. The head was fresh, but as the weeks went past, the head would rot, and you'd eventually end up with a slimy fly-blown mess. It would work so long as the pig's eyes stayed intact; but they rotted too. Though, they did not rot when they were in your eye sockets. With this in mind, some fashion icons of the Seelie Court would wear the (decorated) pig's skull as a stylish hat, and would just see through it all of the time. Haute Sidhe at its finest. [In sidhe art, you will see creatures wearing skulls on their heads. Now you know why.]
Caoilainn arrived after the puca left ("horrid things," she exclaimed), and she made a bee-line for Thomas. Thomas whipped out his flageolet and attempted a tune. This time he wasn't so accomplished and it sounded like a cat being strangled, with its own intestines.
Despite this, she still made eyes for him. She gave him the same warning that she gave Baron (when he was hitting on her last time) in that any consummation would be utterly fatal, that a mouth-kiss would make him blind, and that groping would cost him his hands. However, there was a way. But it would involve Thomas "crossing over". That meant to embrace the Sidhe, and go to the other side. Marry her.
Sat 24-May
They started for Terryhaven just after midnight. And after an event-free journey, they arrived in the village by day end.
Thomas was considering Caoilainn's offer.
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