SESSION 37 RECAP

Cuinn, Mara, and Aerona all return home for the winter. Not long after, to their shock, Adair returns from the forest, ravaged, haggard and wounded, but bearing a trophy-- the head of the Grey Wolf's animal companion. After taking a day to rest and recover, he explains that he was not able to slay the Grey Wolf, but managed to kill his animal companion, and the grief caused the enemy ranger to simply give up. He adds he was able to give Syggi a proper burial. Cuinn thanks him for his bravery and service.

Mara catches a glimpse of a golden moth, and realizes that the caermebhaigl, which she'd thought destroyed, must be replenishing itself. Despite Cuinn's reluctance to return to the Aelvinnwode where twenty Wilders met their end at the hands of the Bladesingers, Mara convinces her to join her in seeking out the source of the caermebhaigl, promising it will make her a match for the Dragon. 

Mara, Cuinn, and Aerona leave for the Aelvinnwode. The trip is mercifully uneventful, though Cuinn is deeply shaken as they pass by the site of both Cathal and Mara's battle against the Bladesingers, and her own. 

Eventually they locate the source of Wilder's Gorge, deep in the ancient and twisted Aelvinnwode-- a beautiful, unearthly golden lake, warm and surrounded by blooming flowers despite winter's onset. A strange, humanlike apparition rises from its waters and addresses Mara by name, thanking her for freeing it from service to man and elf. It is the caermebhaigl somehow made incarnate. Mara entreats it for its aid, stating that she needs its assistance in the wars that will tear the realm asunder. It replies it cares nothing for the petty struggles of human and elfkind. Reluctantly she moves forward to claim it, not wishing their dangerous journey to have been in vain. It accuses her of being the same as all her Fulcarni ancestors, those that hunted and enslaved it for thousands of years, and it attacks them. Mara and Aerona's spells are of limited effectiveness, ricocheting off the apparition and striking Cuinn instead, but luck favours Cuinn-- several unusually lucky arrows strike the being, and it dissipates into the lake. Mara collects some of its vanishing golden essence, knowing it will bolster her magical powers. They glimpse a Bladesinger at the far end of the lake, looking forlorn as the golden moths dissipate, but it soon vanishes.

They ride home. At the Keep, heralds announce the arrival of Count Tychon and Count Ukko for the first meeting of the coalition of an independent Taeghas, and the Fulcairns ride out to greet them.