Twelve-sided stories is for mature audiences and often deals with topics that may be difficult for some listeners.
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Come, brave the dark woods of folk horror with us in this vason actual play, The Hidden North.
Remember, 12-sided stories are always story-heavy, rules light, and full of fright.
Hello and welcome to The Hidden North, episode number 17.
My name is Wes Otis. I am here with some amazing players. I'm going to start with Michelle.
Hey, I'm Michelle and I'm an amazing player. And I will be playing Greta, your local academic.
Hi there. I'm Piper. I use they, them pronouns and I'm also an amazing player.
I am playing Elizabeth Purse who uses she, they pronouns and is the writer of the group.
Hello, it's me, a magnificent player, Candice. You can find me here as Heldegard Brodson, the doctor.
Both of us use they, she pronouns.
Hello, I'm Saint or Saint Spider and I have been playing Sieve who is our occultist and also our changeling.
And Saint, are you an amazing player?
Oh, yes. Yes. I'll take that.
Hell yeah.
All right. Quick recap though. We went through so much in the last episode.
To catch you all up, the mountain outside of Obsulla is starting to stand up because it is a giant.
Of course, we learned that in a past episode.
The people who were at Castle Gilencroix were killed by the fairy.
The fae seem to be making a move.
You found out that the young man, Eric, is actually the son of the fairy king
and has been sent to the world to bring on the destruction of the humans who have been slowly stamping out Vason through horrible means started by Sister Ifca or Mother Superior, as we know her.
There was a large conversation. It's all way too much to recap because there was a lot of stuff.
So if you're listening, this is your first episode. You want to go back to episode one.
Listen all the way through and this next part is going to make a lot more sense.
You all are standing in the kitchen.
There has been a battle there between the fairies with the hummingbird beaks and Ralkyn the brownie and Alcott the butler and Hildegard was able to bring a stop to it.
Eric showed up. You all had a very long conversation about Vason, about his father, about how his father lost his violin, about how angry his father is at the human world and wanted to replace them all.
He tried to do it with music. It wasn't going fast enough.
He could separate himself into several versions of himself and still he couldn't get rid of enough humans.
And Eric has said that both him and Mother Superior need to be dealt with.
And that's where we're picking it up right after Greta had mentioned that she has the violin of the Fairy King.
So Eric looks at you for a second, Greta, says, what? How did you come across it?
Well, a long time ago, I ran into a Vason who I didn't know who he was, obviously, and he had asked me to recruit people for him and I refused.
And he paid a visit to my home.
And after surviving that visit and getting him out of my home, his violin was left on my bed.
I didn't know what to do with it.
So I've kept it.
Well, that changes some things.
A personal item of that nature might be able to, at the very least, push him out of this realm.
It might also be able to help us.
We need to go to the library and try to find some kind of ritual to put a stop to all this before the mountain steps on this city.
Elizabeth steps forward, rifling through her bag and pulls out her notebook, the various leaflets of paper, flitting about as she opens it, and pulls out a partially filled sheet of music.
If we need something to play, I know two of the parts, but the third is not with me currently.
I don't know if playing something like this might help.
Sieve stares at the paper from where she's standing in the group and just kind of weakly gestures toward Elizabeth.
Can I look at that? Can I see that?
Elizabeth doesn't let it go, but will turn it to you.
Sieve is looking at the notes and something is prickling in the back of her head.
She ruffles through her own vast pockets that really should not be holding anything that is not very sturdy.
And there's this really crumpled, folded square paper.
And as she unwraps it, she's just very deliberately undoing each fold and displays another piece of sheet music.
But the title is that of my mother.
When I look at Elizabeth's paper and compare mine, that I recognize or can remember from my own experience.
Well, the thing that you notice right off the bat is the songs are very, very similar.
There's only a few variations between the two.
Can you give me a learning role?
Actually, if anybody wants to give me a learning role, they can.
So learning and logic.
Nothing for Elizabeth.
Success. Success.
OK, success. OK.
When you really look at these things, they're spells.
They're more ritual than they are music.
There are some strange notations that humans just don't use that are part of the song.
Basically, to use more modern terms, the DNA of the person trapped in the song is in the notation.
And so the spell is turning them into a different energy that gets placed on the paper.
If you take the same instrument and play the song, you might be able to release that energy and reincorporate that person.
But you have to have the full song.
So you have the full song. Now you have the violin.
You could probably bring your mother back.
For Elizabeth's partner, Cassandra, they would have to find the rest of that song.
OK, I'll impart that as well as I can to Elizabeth and Hildegard.
I look toward Eric and just kind of shake my hand and say, OK, we have some something, some music, some instrument.
But what what type of music would we need to stop this?
Well, we would need a ritual and maybe a new song, something that has to do with time,
something to undo everything that's happened.
We need to call the two of them, both Mother Superior and my father, to a place.
Obviously, Kessel-Gilling-Kreutz is a focal point for both of them.
And if we're going to save all of you, we have to save all of you.
If you die during it, it might free Mother Superior.
And that would be just as bad as what my father is doing.
Who knows how twisted her mind is at this point.
But we have to do the ritual, call my father, come up with a new song that we think we can use.
We might be able to find something in the library.
We might be able to talk to Sister Lucy.
We might be able to talk to the church and see if we can come to an understanding or an agreement so that the fighting can stop.
The church isn't going anywhere.
And if we're not going anywhere, we have to make peace, I guess.
My money's on the library.
I bet you there's a book in there.
I was going to ask, would it be fair to say that in bringing our luggage that Elizabeth also brought their violin with them?
Because your father gave it to you? Absolutely. Yeah.
Awesome.
I think we could find something in the library.
I think if it's time magic, if we want to play a song or write a song with time magic, we could do something maybe in around the two of us play.
Yes.
Suddenly right there is the neck that you've all met before.
Fairies are flying around his head.
He is right behind his son and he goes, this is going nowhere.
This city is going to stop.
It's going to end.
Told you I cursed you.
Told you you'd lead me to them.
Looking at Greta, I told you now you have and now I'm going to kill you all.
You son of a bitch.
And he snaps Eric's neck right in front of you.
Everybody do a fear check.
Oh, this neck is going down.
Bastard.
I have two successes.
Oh, great. That's awesome.
And Hildegard sees this and kind of backs up in the opposite direction of the kind of impending fairy king that's walking in and tries to back up next to a window and pulls out their sunstone and speaks into it.
You said if I ever needed you that you would be here now would be a very good time.
Please.
All right. So you speak the name and the sun has been blocked out by the giant that has stood and started to slowly walk across the darkened forest towards the city.
And there's a new ray of sunlight that beams down in a different area than the sun would be and kind of parts the clouds and for the first time since fall the ground in some areas starts to be seen as snow melts away.
Alswin appears in the room with looks at you for a moment and looks at the king for a moment and says I've been listening. King I think that we need to talk about this before it goes too far.
And the fairy king says I don't care what spirits have to say in this matter.
I've made my decision and our people are acting and Alswin goes your people will not honor you once you are gone for doing this and you know it.
And he says I'm fighting for the people who aren't here anymore and lunges towards her.
She says to you as she starts to fight him get out. You won't win this fight.
What do you all do?
Elizabeth is going to make a break for it as lunging happens.
Elizabeth is going to kind of dart out of the kitchen and is sprinting skirt hiked up all the way up to her room to grab the violin.
Okay.
Sieve what are you going to do?
Sieve will also be making a break for it and will be going straight to the library and just hoping that that door is unlocked.
Okay. I'm going to say that the door is unlocked and probably just wide open because it's been kind of chaos.
That's how Ralkon got out.
So yeah the doors open.
Greta what are you doing?
I also am running to my room to grab his violin and a box of matches.
Okay. And Hildegard you are right next to them all.
What do you want to do?
You also notice that Alcott is in shock and Ralkon is getting back up on the sparrow and flying back towards the library as well.
What do you want to do?
Hildegard kind of fireman carries Alcott but on her way out she breaks the glass vial that has her smelling salts in it and casts it like over it or like the back of the fairy king to hopefully weaken him.
Okay. Cool. Yeah.
As I know fairies are like she understands the fairies are not great with salt.
So she tries to kind of give that edge to Alswin.
What's a funny side note Greta used salt in her episode to keep him at bay and an iron poker.
So that's a good callback.
Hell yeah.
You all break see you run into the library and you start to use your occult knowledge to look up music and occult and how it all kind of mixes together.
Raleigh is helping you.
He's like a librarian anyway.
He's kind of like here's this section with this kind of stuff.
This is over here.
You start looking through that.
Can you give me a learning role and I'm going to give you an extra three dice because you have a background on this and Raleigh is helping you.
All right.
Here we go.
Yes.
Okay.
I was sorry.
The pause.
The pause was because I was scared.
But yes we have one success.
Excellent.
All right.
So you find a piece of music.
There is no composer on it but it has the same notations your music does.
What's strange is you can tell it wasn't written by a basin just in the way that it's been presented.
You start to scour it.
Let me jump over to Piper.
Elizabeth you fly up the stairs and Lucy is right on your heels.
And she's all like what's what can we do?
What else?
What can we do?
I don't.
How do I make this situation work?
What do I know?
I know this is it's quite a lot.
It's also quite a lot for me to run and talk and try to figure out exactly what you can do to help.
You're good at cleaning and such.
Why can't you do the opposite and make things just very messy?
Maybe in that room?
You can touch things right?
Yeah I can touch things.
Okay.
Oh oh.
Use.
So to get downstairs really fast you know how you know to go through the various tunnels right?
Well yeah but now that I know that I can touch things and go through walls I can just do that.
Okay true.
Just there's a ghost I believe it's called like a poltergeist.
Just start throwing things.
Okay my mother wouldn't like that but she's long dead so let's do it.
Jesus will forgive you it's fine.
She runs into a room and starts to grab up stuff to throw.
Alright so you get into your Jesus will forgive you.
I'm leaving that in.
Good.
You get in your room and you grab your violin.
Greta where are you running or where were you going to go with the violins?
To the library that's where I was going to go.
I think Elizabeth was just going to go back to the kitchen but seeing Greta turn and start heading to the library kind of turn some looks at her.
Where are you going?
Library.
Why?
To see if we can get a spell.
Okay I thought I was just going to try and improvise alright we are always better okay.
Yeah we can't we can't physically beat this guy.
No we can't.
Alright you lead on.
Hildegard you were heading towards the library.
Yeah that's where she immediately thinks to take Algot so he can kind of get a breather in and hopefully figure out what our next steps are now that there's a distraction.
So if you are now in the library you're all around this table and there's this piece of music that Siva's found.
In order to do this we need to do a role for it.
So I want to give you a couple of different options because I know you all have strengths and weaknesses in different things.
You can make an investigation role, a learning role, or an observation role, or even inspiration.
So learning, investigation, inspiration, or observation.
You can do any of those and you're going to get plus three bonus because you're all working together to figure out this piece of music in this ritual.
The more successes you get the better.
I think Elizabeth is just so angry at the fact that it was the very thing who took away her beloved.
That she can't focus on the music and is just constantly looking to the door and just wants to leave.
I got no successes.
I got three successes.
Okay.
I got two successes.
Excellent. So that's five altogether. Hildegard.
Oh no.
One success.
Still that's better.
That's something. That's six successes.
I'm very proud.
That's pretty good.
I'm very very proud.
Yes.
And I will roll for Ralkin who is helping you out. See if he gets any success.
Thank you, Ralkin.
Oh.
What?
All sixes.
I rolled four sixes.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Out of six dice.
That's where all my sixes went, Wes. Those are all my sixes that I sent to you.
Yeah.
From the past.
I just literally rolled four sixes. It's ridiculous.
So where does that put us?
That's ten.
Ten all to get ten successes. Okay. Cool.
Siv, you see that Elizabeth is upset, but you've figured out what you need to do and you can tell them their part.
Okay. Well, you see these markings here.
It's just like when Siv pulls out her sheet music, starts making some connections like this symbol matches that one.
I think this would mean that you'd play this note this way, at least on the violin.
And if you and I, and she looks at Elizabeth, can focus and do this, I think this is the best way.
Okay. After this, we're going to get the ones we love back.
Yeah. Maybe a good drink.
Hey, that will be nice.
What are you going to kill this fairy king?
You all start playing this and I'm not going to make you roll because we have ten successes, but it's not going to be that easy.
So don't smile yet.
The music starts to permeate throughout the castle.
There is this vibration that is happening even between the bricks and the mortar of the castle itself.
And you suddenly hear the fairy king running towards the library door and Ralkin goes to Greta and Hildegard.
Get the door. Quick. Shut it.
Hildegard immediately moves.
Yeah, me too.
The fairy king is at the door banging on it, trying to get through before the piece ends.
I need you to make a force roll.
Oh, God.
I've been waiting for this moment all my life.
Hildegard's helping.
Okay. I got one success.
Good.
And then, sorry, I'm trying to count on my dice. I get a bunch.
Nice.
I thought you'd like this.
Yeah.
Go big lady.
Oh, one of them just like got stacked on top of the other.
Oh, boy. I got three successes.
Yeah.
Hot dog.
Hildegard in the house.
So you all are holding the door and he's just slamming his body against it as he's trying to enter the room.
But you can tell that the magic from the song is starting to weaken him in a way that he wasn't counting on.
And then you hear the sound of Alska outside as well slamming into him and then fighting again.
And then suddenly the song ends and there's just silence.
And then a few seconds after that silence, you hear the mountain giant walking.
Running to the, there's a window running to it.
Yeah, that's what I would do.
Yeah.
Look out the windows of the library.
Immediately.
You watch as the mountain giant goes back to its spot and goes to sleep.
Ralkyn, I know you have a little like way to get outside the library and peek through your little hole in the wall.
Any chance you could just give us a look-see?
You want me to go see if they're still fighting outside?
Yeah.
Okay.
Safely.
Safely. Just peek and run back.
I am not a coward.
He gets up and he goes through his little door.
Aye, he's dead. She's not doing too well herself.
Okay, so I guess we open the door.
Okay.
Yeah. As cautiously as possible.
The fairy king is laid out and not moving or breathing.
He's deceased. The spell did some massive damage to him.
Elswyn is lying next to him.
Her body is quickly turning into oak and her eyes are barely open.
Hildegard, what do you want to do?
I think I run to her side if I can.
And I think like I put the Sun Stone, like I take the Sun Stone off and I press it to the tree.
Obviously my one, you know, favor is gone.
And while I want to keep it as a memory of what happened and who I am, if taking this into herself can help in some way, that's what I'd want to give back.
And I think Hildegard just sort of like stands with her as she's going through this process.
Asks once if there's anything she can do to help.
And if there's nothing, she just kind of waits with her so she's not alone.
She says, sometimes you can't save everyone.
You know that. The amount of magic that I lost was too much.
But I give you this last gift and know that you are always loved by us.
Then she turns completely into wood and the Sun Stone absorbs into your hand.
And when you look at the palm of your hand and the back of your hand, there is the shape of the Sun Stone there all the way through.
Every time you look at it, it reminds you of your childhood and the past and where you've been and how far you've come.
But she is no longer with you. She's moved on.
I think Hildegard sits under the tree and like hearing like the kind of innate silence around from all of the destruction kind of falling into this this kind of holding pattern, I think speaks out loud once again, like she did as a child.
If any of you are listening, there is a new tree for you to take refuge in.
It has been a long time since you have been able to feel safe, but I will be here to make sure that you are for as long as I can.
Okay, there's no response at that moment, but you do feel like you've done something now that the tree is in the middle of this huge hallway.
But most of the Gilling Kreutz has been taken down.
So it's just a ruin at this point. And Sister Lucy comes up behind you all and goes, we need to clean this up, but we need to do it with everybody, not just us. I need sleep.
Lucy goes over and puts her hand out as if to pat Lucy on the shoulder, you know, supportively and kind of glances back to the rest of the party and just says, I think you've earned that rest.
We can take over from here.
The first thing that you all do is you take Lucy back to the church where Mother Superior has found where the graveyard is. And due to the melting from the sunstone, the church is able to do the properites.
And they have a service for her and you see her fade away. She says thank you to all of you.
You get a sense that Mother Superior is gone and the clocks have stopped. There is no more clock. Everything in the future is the future. Everything in the past is the past. There's no more loop. It's been broken.
You know that there's still fairies out there. You know that there'll be a new king or queen. Maybe there'll be a council. Who knows? A president of some sort.
Because the fairies have to move forward as well as the humans in some way.
But the idea of making Gillingcroix a center of learning for the supernatural comes into focus.
And you are able to sway the townspeople and even some of the nuns to understand that the balance in the area has to be kept in order to maintain peace so that masses of people and fairies aren't killed.
At some point, Sieve and Elizabeth will be able to play their songs and figure out how to bring back their mother and their partner and are made whole by that.
I'd imagine that Greta as an academic would be a teacher. At Gillingcroix would be my guess.
And I bet Hildegard would continue on as a doctor who happens to own the first pub in Upsala and uses it as a way to talk to people who don't have the site.
Because the unfortunate part is a spell to make everybody have the site is going to take many years to figure out.
And so that's kind of the overall goal of Castle Gillingcroix in the society. How's that sound to everybody?
Sounds good. Of course, massive redesign of the castle, making the tree a center of a courtyard.
Elizabeth writing an iron door on the library.
And we're raising chickens. So many chickens.
The chickens are not for chicks. Exactly. Not the babies. Not the baby chickens.
Well, I think that that's a great place to end it. I think it was a good story.
I think that it came together really well and great ending for a pretty cool tale.
So thank you all so much for being a part of it. OK, so let's find out where all of you are at.
Let's start with Piper. Hello, everyone. I've been Piper playing Elizabeth Perce, the writer.
You can find me over on Twitter at Madi Matihe. That's M-A-T-T-Y-M-A-T-E-E-H-E-E or over on Twitch at Matihe.
Any other games that I play, anything like that, you can either find me on Twitter or in the 12 Sided Story Discord.
Thank you for having me and have a lovely rest of your night or day, whatever time you listen to this.
Hello, everyone. My name is Candice Magnificent. You can find me at the Candice Marie on Twitter and Blue Sky or at Candice Magnificent everywhere else.
You can see more of my work in Bloom and Blight, a podcast, as well as frequencies and in the upcoming video game Monaco 2. Thank you.
Hello, I'm St. Spider and I have been playing Sieve. Thank you very much for listening to our lovely story.
And if you're curious or want to interact, you can find me on the 12 Sided Discord under the same name and in the lovely and vast back catalog as well.
Hey, you can find me on the socials at Mishulu. That's M-I-C-H-U-L-H-U.
You can find my music and Wes's amazing sound effects if you go to DriveThruRPG and look for Plate Mail Games.
And you can find me at Plate Mail Games on all the different socials.
You can find our show on all the different platforms, all the different socials as 12 Sided Stories, the number 12 and then Sided Stories.
You can also find us on our website, which is all spelled out, all one word, 12SidedStories.com.
This is going to be the last brand new episode we're going to have for a while. We are winding things down at 12 Sided.
We will still be putting out some Patreon exclusive stuff on the main feed to create an archive.
And every once in a while we may come back and actually do a brand new show.
So you'll see new things pop up from the Patreon for the next literally couple of years.
Thank you so much for listening, whether you've just started with this or you started with us six years ago.
We appreciate you being here. And we have a new show called Almanac of Ancient Evil.
It is a cosmic horror actual play podcast. So yeah, definitely check that out.
And like I said, thank you so much for listening, whether this is your first time or if you've been with us the whole time, we really appreciate it.
And we'll hope to tell you more stories in the future. Bye, everybody.
Music.