Rofling Seals

"And how, my Morgana, do you propose we fool them?" asked Elder, intrigued. She looked around the room desperately, focusing on odds and ends. "Like so!" she said, and rose from the patch of floor where they were huddled. She took down a pair of antlers from the wall and fixed it to Elder's head with a bit of string. She reached into their sack of fine ground wheat and began tossing clumps into their faces so they were as pale as the dead. She grabbed lengths of sack cloths and linens, and they wrapped themselves like the dead were arrayed before a burial. She cut the head from a poor chicken that cowered clucking in the corner, and dabbed their faces with blood.


"Now," she said, "we look like proper spirits." "You're a miracle worker," said Elder, astonished by their transformation. The antlers were heavy and uncomfortable, but he felt this might work. Just then the howling outside stopped. Finart was now chanting, his harsh voice invoking a spell to summon his father. "Well," said Elder. "It's now or naught, I gather." He clapped his hands together. "So-who wants to go first?" His family stared at him in disbelief. "Jes' joking," he said. "Pulling yer legs. Trying to lighten the mood somewhat. Remember you lot, we're either evil spirits or we're dinner for a god and his bastard son." Elder pushed open the door with a creak. The mist surrounded his house, glowing blue beneath the moon that rose over the moor. He started moaning, like he'd seen the spirits of the dead do at many a Samhain, and walked slowly from his house with his family in tow. "Whooooooo," he said. "Arrrrrggghh," groaned his wife. "Moooooooan," moaned his children. "Who goes there?" asked a sharp and rusty voice from the gloom And just then the mist parted enough for the Onghams to see a mighty wight, clad in armour and animal skins. Finart was eyeless and his earthen face creeped with worms and bugs. Behind him they could see two legs, the knees as high as Finart's foul head, the body hidden in the mist. "Just us spirits, roaming the earth on the Festival of Samhain," said Elder, matter-of-factly. "You wish to make something of it sir?" "Peace, spirit," said Finart. "I have come for my sacrifice." "What?" said Elder. "Here? I'm afraid you're a month past it, ghost. You're behind the times. The plague took every last one of the poor bastards." "Plague?" asked Finart suspiciously. "Then why have the people of the town placed the sacrificial post outside? Why can I smell the blood of the living?" "I think there's a few chickens left in there," said Elder helpfully. "Though I know not what the post is for." He lowered his voice. "Though, my lords, I do suspect treachery!" "Treachery!" boomed a voice, and Elder quailed for a moment when he realized that the god had spoken. "Aye, treachery most foul," Elder repeated. "You didn't hear it from me, but I think you should pay a call on the rotten Corans, three houses down. Then the dirty Morannons, who live in that grand stone house at the end of the lane. Just past them in the country, in a fine manor lit up for Samhain, ye'll find the wretched Fensters."