# SoloFane 005: What the Skald Sang *Created:* 2026-10-27, *Modified:* 2026-10-27 ![[What the Skald Sang (cover).png]] *Fireplace icon © Delapouite / game-icons.net (CC BY 3.0)* ## The Skald's Telling ```fountain >FADE IN: INT. MEAD-HALL - NIGHT A long fire down the center of a timber hall. Smoke curls into the rafters. The reek of wet wool and spilled ale. Benches are crowded with herders, farmers, and a few hard-eyed folk who do not say what they do. Cups pass. A dog works the floor for scraps. At the far end, a lean old man stands before the fire. This is THE SKALD. His cloak is smoke-stained. His beard is braided with iron. His voice is not loud, but the hall quiets to hear it. THE SKALD Hearken, and I shall tell you of Stagkirk, a village in the Shadowfane Hills, where the grass grows thick, the cattle grow fat, and the men grow slow. A cup slams down. Someone laughs. The Skald does not smile. THE SKALD A river runs through it. A herd grazes. A headman sits in his hall and cares for nothing. And goblins come in the daylight. No hero came to Stagkirk. He lets the hall wait. THE SKALD It had Brynn. A liar by trade, a free warden by cloak, and a man with one hunger: to work the greatest deception the world had ever seen. The world had taken his measure, and found him light. The fire pops. The Skald lifts his horn, drinks, and sets it down. THE SKALD Some days before the worst of it, he came over the hill with the sun behind him and a lie already whetted on his tongue. He turns his hand. The firelight stretches. The hall goes dark at the edges. EXT. SOUTH ROAD, STAGKIRK - DAY A rangy man in a travel-stained cloak comes over the hill with the easy gait of someone who has never once been in a hurry to arrive. An iron-shod staff rides across his back. He is smiling at something you cannot quite make out, and it could just be you. Then the cattle come through. Hobgoblins and goblin scuts drive a stolen herd across the road in a churn of hooves and dust. Ranchers shout and wave their arms. BRYNN does what any sensible man would do: he keeps walking and pretends he has seen nothing. It works for about four seconds. The herd breaks around him. A hobgoblin warrior swings a club on the way past and catches him across the jaw. Brynn spins into the dirt. The goblins run on, laughing. MASIAS That was quite the fall you took, man. You took it well, though. Masias. Masias offers a hand. Brynn takes it, checks his staff, and smiles through the blood. BRYNN Brynn. I was just travelling. Hobgoblin cattle rustlers are something you don't see every day. MASIAS Well met, Brynn. Not many travelling out this way. Not that we mind that overmuch; there could be fewer. THE SKALD (V.O.) That is Masias. Mark him well. The saga shall have need of him. INT. BREWESS'S HOUSE - AFTERNOON Afternoon light lies in bars across the floor. A front room with a bare minimum of chickens, a swarm of children, and straw tracked in from the road. Masias works through his second ale. DELKASH nurses his. AIDA "SHIVERS" watches Brynn like he might bite. BRYNN Surely there was someone in the village who would want to know the truth of the attack. Someone in charge? MASIAS Adda Jardi cares little about such petty things as we. 'Tis his inaction that has brought us so low that even the green firstborn can brazenly steal our cows in the daytime. DELKASH I'll hear no more of that, Masias. He's got time for this. And our visitor, I guess. Brynn sets down his ale and stands. He has the look of a man about to do something ill-advised and enjoy it. BRYNN I'm a free warden from the west, but moreover I think I can help you gentlemen. Have you ever met a sorcerer before? Shivers jumps back as if he has seen a snake. MASIAS Can't say as I have. But I've met a few men such as I believe has laid a few others low in my day. I reckon you look like one of them. Don't hold it against you none; we all done rough work when we need to. THE SKALD (V.O.) He named himself a sorcerer. The hall named him a killer. The hall's name would prove the truer. INT. STONE HALL - DAY THE SKALD (V.O.) The headman's hall was old when the village was young. Its stones remembered older gods. Daylight falls through a skylight roof. A hall half-sunk in the earth. A broad ramp, retaining walls, a squared stone arch hung with furs. Inside, ADDA JARDI sits on a carved stone seat, old and solemn and tired down to the bone. Brynn bows with a flourish. The iron-shod staff rings once on the stone floor. BRYNN Brynn, free warden and sorcerer. JARDI Maybe not so good a sorcerer, then. Or not one at all? I see those hands, warden. Oh, yes, I believe you're a free warden, and an ironsworn besides. But sorcerer? Pfeh. He spits on the floor. JARDI If you work magic, it's in the middle of the night with your blade. Brynn opens his mouth. Closes it. Shrugs. BRYNN Perhaps my small blade has seen some nightly action. And my staff. Laughter. Jardi cuts it off with an annoyed gesture. JARDI I'll give you a chance to show how penetrating you can be, then. Go get our cattle back and deal with our little goblin problem. Take one of these useless idiots with you. Try not to get them killed, but not too hard. BRYNN Would you mind if we set out in the morning? I'd like to start on a fresh belly. JARDI I'm sure that'll make your sorcery easier to work. Go. There's an inn a little further on. I'll make sure it's seen to if you bring our cows back. If not, you'll be thralled until the harvest's in for payment and my time. Brynn sighs, swings the staff around, and plants it. The cold ring of iron on stone. BRYNN In the name of iron and my own, I so swear I shall deal with the hobgoblins such that they will not bother you again for a year and a day. THE SKALD (V.O.) An iron vow, sworn on a staff and a lie. The Norns heard it. They do not forget. On his way out, Brynn passes the heavy stone doors flanking the arch. Long, sinuous shapes are carved across them, ending in reptilian heads. Dragons. He notices. He does not say anything. THE SKALD (V.O.) He saw the dragons on the doors and said nothing. It was the first wise thing he had done since he came over the hill. EXT. RIVERBANK - DAY THE SKALD (V.O.) They went up the river to clear a nuisance. They found a serpent in the shallows, making its nest. The river did not object. The river kept its counsel. The afternoon sun is sliding toward the hills. Brynn and Masias work their way upstream, clearing brush. The river is wide and quick and full of noises that do not belong to any animal either of them can name. Something long and luminous passes under the water. Masias backs away from the bank. MASIAS Not a fish, nor thing of this world, warden. Further on, a magnificent elk grazes on the far shore and pays them no heed at all. The reeds part. A red cave worm wallows in the mud, red flaking skin, multi-segmented body, a scorpion barb at the end of its tail. It is easily the size of a man, and it has decided the shallows belong to it. Masias draws two sickles. BRYNN You look like this isn't entirely unfamiliar a pose for you, my friend. Maybe you know more than a thing or two about raiding yourself. MASIAS Sometimes there are hard winters. I'll go around. Masias slips around the clearing. Brynn mutters something under his breath, and the fading sunlight goes thin and cold. His shape smears at the edges, hazy, indistinct. MASIAS (under his breath) He is a sorcerer. He spits, despite the need for silence. The worm turns. Brynn strikes first, the staff cracking into its skull. White ooze. A squeal like a swarm of piglets. The tail whips around. Both men fall back. Masias lands badly, his knee giving out under him. MASIAS M'leg! The worm rolls. Masias leaps in anyway, sinks both sickles into its hide, and is thrown across the clearing with a sickening crunch. Brynn drags him out of the reeds. The screaming stops before they reach cover. THE SKALD (V.O.) When iron meets iron, the reckoning is swift. One man rises. One man falls. I do not choose. I only remember. Brynn goes back in. The worm is thrashing, blind with pain. He catches it with the staff, once, twice, and then the iron-shod point goes deep into the meat of its head. Silence. Then the frogs start again. Brynn stands there a moment, bleeding, listening to them. THE SKALD (V.O.) The worm died. So did Masias. The frogs sang over them both. EXT. ROAD TO STAGKIRK - DUSK THE SKALD (V.O.) A man may bear his friend a mile. He may not bear him home. The last light is going out of the sky. Brynn drags Masias's body along the rutted road. His shoulder is still bleeding. The village lights are a smudge in the distance. He stops. Looks back at the body. Looks at the lights. BRYNN Sorry, friend. I'm sure your family'll be along shortly. You know, you could have been more help there. At least fatter so you rolled better. THE SKALD (V.O.) It was not a kind word to speak over a corpse. But Brynn had not sworn to be kind. He lets go of the jerkin and walks on alone. EXT. STAGKIRK - NIGHT The night is cold and clear. Brynn limps into the village. His cloak is torn. His staff is in his hand. The brewess's windows are lit. Somewhere a dog barks and then thinks better of it. He stops at the edge of the square and stands there, swaying slightly, looking at the lights. THE SKALD (V.O.) The cattle were still gone. The goblins were still abroad. And the goblins—hear me now—were never the wound. They were the first frost before the long winter. A beat. THE SKALD (V.O.) The man who swore to deal with them stood at the edge of town with a dead man's blood on his hands and an oath about his neck like a thrall's collar. A longer beat. THE SKALD (V.O.) And yet, by the reckoning of the hall, he was a sorcerer still. Brynn smiles at something you cannot quite make out. THE SKALD (V.O.) Draw nearer to the fire. The saga is not ended. INT. MEAD-HALL - NIGHT The fire has burned low. The hall is quiet. The Skald stands where he was, one hand on the table, the other around his horn. A YOUNG LISTENER leans forward. YOUNG LISTENER Did he bring the cattle home? The Skald looks at the child for a long moment. THE SKALD Fill the horn, and I shall tell you. He sits. The hall breaks into noise. Someone calls for more mead. Someone else calls for the rest of the tale. The Skald drinks. >FADE OUT. ``` ## Exeunt > [!info] Commentary > I'm finally picking this thing up off the floor after nearly a solid year of not updating it or playing it. Yes, yes I am. But there are going to be some changes. > > For one, we're going to a screenplay format because I feel like it, and such things amuse me. I thought it was probably a good idea to stumble back in and have a session that's purely a catch-up moment, not just for you, but for me. > > I need to get my feet back under me, my brain back into the place where all this information lives, remember who the characters are and what's happened, etc. Of course, over the last year I've done a lot of development work. We now have some automated systems that will help us run mechanics and handle tables. > > We'll have better-formatted mechanical inserts, and play will go a whole lot faster on my side, which leads to wanting to do more of it. > > I hope that you are still interested in what we're about to do. I'm more than a little bit excited. I'm sure that you're going to hear more from the Skald in the next year. > > Well, assuming that everyone doesn't die in the next session, which, knowing my dice rolls, certainly could happen. > > Buckle in. It's probably going to get ugly before it gets pretty. ## Dramatis Personae - **[[Brynn the Con]]**: The con man and would-be sorcerer. Wounded, back in Stagkirk, with a dead man's blood on his hands and a vow still open. - **[[Masias]]**: The Stagkirk rancher who took Brynn in. Killed by the red cave worm on the riverbank. - **[[Adda Jardi]]**: The old headman of Stagkirk. Gave Brynn the task and the oath, and promised him a thrall's collar if he fails. - **[[Delkash]]**: A wounded Stagkirk villager. Wary of Jardi's inaction, and not convinced by Brynn's sorcery. - **[[Aida Shivers|Aida "Shivers"]]**: The young villager with blood in his eye. Suspicious, ambitious, and wounded. - **[[The Skald]]**: The unnamed voice at the fire. Not a player in the tale; he only tells it.