A Night With No Stars, by Ryx

Story name: A Night With No Stars
Author: Ryx

Date: June 14, 706 CR
Location: the Giantdowns

Overview

On the night of A Rainy Day, Muri and Llyn have dinner and talk briefly about her capture, and about religion.

+ Story info (Spoilers!)

Summary

Murikeer wakes up from his trance hungry and exhausted, so Llyn quickly catches two rabbits for them to eat. Muri tells Llyn how he came to find her, and the likely reason she was being taken into the Murk, to be sacrificed to Lilith. As Muri describes their practices, it is clear Llyn knows little, so Muri asks about her faith. Llyn is a proud Follower, but Muri has had bad experiences with them in the south. Muri does his best to hide and justify his offense, and Llyn keeps her tone neutral as well. Both are skeptical of the basic tenets of the others' faith. Llyn is sad that such a good-looking person should be doomed to hell.

Muri offers to take the first watch, and so Llyn falls asleep. Muri dispels the fire and places wards as far out as he can to alert him. He sinks back into trance and the natural magic around them.

Characters

Main characters:

• Murikeer Khannas: A hermit mage and skunk morph.
  • His freshly magically-healed side is still sore, and will take days to fully recover.
  • Muri no longer smells like a human, which is both a boon and drawback, as animals and Lutins are not alerted to the smell.
  • As a Lothanasi from Sathmore, Muri distrusts Followers. He believes that no god is powerful enough to control everything.
    • Muri believes that his father was killed as part of a larger conspiracy, that of the Inquisitors' revenge against the local barony after their failed attempt to completely convert it to the Way.
• Llyn: A Long Scout, and mink morph.
  • She is a Follower, and when she is not on patrol, she wears a symbol of her faith around her neck.
    • She does not believe the Lightbringer rumors that the Ecclesians burn heathens. She believes the Lothanasi have much worse practices, such as blood sacrifice and the use of magic.
    • She idealizes the Way as being a religion of faith and civilization, and the Lothanasi as overly spiritual and old-fashioned, doomed to fade away into history.
  • She lived on the southern coasts near Prydain until she was 10, when she and her family fled north due to disease and famine.
  • 11 years ago, circa 695 CR, her mother died at Metamor Keep from the plague, leaving Llyn as the last of her family.

Important mention:

• Jylian: A Long Scout initiate, a bat morph. She was told to fly home as fast as she could. Llyn still wonders how one of her arrowheads ended up on the wagon trail into the Murk.
• Lilith: The daedra god of predatory nature. Priests to her make sacrifices, either to gain the service of her evil creatures, or to be left alone by them.
  • Her alters tend to be stone circles.

Referenced:

• Garnid: A Long Scout, a boar morph. He was Llyn's patrol leader, and was killed by Lutins.

Locations

• Deep inside the Murk is a henge to Lilith, upon which innocents are sacrificed. Muri supposes that they were built for gods even older and more powerful than Lilith and the daedra.
• In the southern kingdoms, especially Prydain, Followers of the Way called Inquisitioners would preach the Way and burn those not devout enough.

Story Connections

• Llyn's backstory here will be contradicted by later stories (i.e., Coming Home and Seeking Mithril), in which she has lived her whole life at Metamor.

Points of Interest

• The 2 arrows Llyn used were Muri's rune-tipped arrows, very difficult to replace.

The Watchwoods Cycle
Stories	Warding the Watchwoods · Entertaining Guests · Speaking With Stones · Ancestral Aid · Leavetaking · A Rainy Day · A Night With No Stars · Punching the Line · Fleeing the Hound · Heavy Traffic · Casting the Circle · The Pebble and the King · Banishing a Friend · Stacking the Odds and Unstacking the Stones · General Problems · Coming Home
Major Characters	Murikeer · Llyn · Keletikt