Nightingale has magic.
Sort of.
This is not the sort of magic where an elderly man in robes waves a stick, shouts something in questionable Latin and turns an inconvenient goblin into a small decorative shrub. There are no magic missiles, lightning bolts, fireballs or opportunities for Dave to acquire a pointy hat and announce that everyone else has misunderstood the lore.
Nightingale deals in low magic: charms, infusions and enchantments. Subtle little supernatural improvements that allow a Realmwalker to take an otherwise perfectly ordinary pair of trousers and imbue them with the mystical power of being slightly better trousers.
Weapons can be enchanted. Clothes can be infused. Bullets can be crafted with elemental damage.
And given CCF's longstanding combat philosophy of “if we're still alive then clearly the difficulty setting is too low,” we need every buff we can get.
But we digress.
Four hours earlier...
A New Wardrobe for Everyone, and an OCD Trigger for Dave
Myles and Dave logged on first.
There is always a dangerous period before Craig and Zaph arrive when the game briefly resembles a functioning cooperative survival experience. Things get organised. Resources are put away. Necessary jobs are identified. Nobody has yet built an experimental staircase into the ceiling or attracted several bears to the front door.
Myles and Dave therefore decided to use this brief outbreak of civilisation to make some new Dunnage with a higher gear level.
Nightingale, being committed to the Victorian aesthetic, naturally refuses to use sensible terms such as clothing. Instead, Myles got busy making everyone a Cant of Togs, a Kecks, a Billy, and a Bend.
In ordinary English, this largely translates to: CCF has gone shopping, except Myles has to manufacture the entire shop first.
This represented a significant expansion of Myles's responsibilities. Having already become base quartermaster, cook, medic, administrator, architectural complaints department and the person most likely to ask, “Where did you put that?”, he was now also CCF's resident tailor.
Somewhere, a career guidance counsellor was weeping.
While this industrial-scale haberdashery was underway, eight new storage chests were installed in the chapel.
None of them aligns with the walls.
Not one.
Eight separate opportunities existed to place a rectangular chest parallel to another rectangular object, and somehow the resulting arrangement looks as though the furniture shifted slightly during an earthquake and nobody bothered moving it back.
This is only a problem for Dave's OCD.
Which means it is an enormous problem.
The rest of us see storage.
Dave sees eight separate crimes against Euclidean geometry.
Craig and Zaph eventually joined, whereupon Myles went back to the sewing machine and manufactured new crabshells, gloves and hats for everyone as well.
CCF was now better dressed, better protected and surrounded by crooked furniture.
Adventure awaited.
We Fixed the Corruption — Or Not
Properly attired, we took our newly manufactured purity potions and headed back to the corrupted chapel.
We had been here before. We knew there was corruption. We had potions specifically associated with purity. This seemed, by CCF standards, to constitute an almost offensively straightforward plan.
We made our way back down to the bottom floor, found the root of the corruption problem and stood there with our purity potions.
Nothing happened.
We tried the conceptual equivalent of holding the potion nearer to the corruption.
Still nothing.
This was disappointing because our complete strategic model up until this point had essentially been:
Problem: Corruption.
Solution: Purity potion.
Expected result: Less corruption.
Apparently Nightingale expected slightly more intellectual rigour.
This was unreasonable.
Since no single potion appeared capable of solving the entire corruption problem, we returned to the druid's notes and did something CCF traditionally reserves for moments of absolute desperation.
We read them.
The notes mentioned that the potion was good for corrupted mushrooms.
There had, in fact, been one corrupted mushroom.
It was in the cave.
So off we went.
Back through the cave.
Back through the peculiar writhing tentacles.
Back to the mushroom.
And there, after transporting our entire pharmaceutical supply to the underground fungal emergency ward, we used all our purity potions to save it from corruption.
Somewhere above us, the corrupted chapel remained cheerfully corrupted.
Still, the mushroom was feeling much better.
Progress.
Sometimes You Need a Different Lay
Back at base, CCF convened one of its strategic planning sessions.
These usually consist of Myles reading the quest notes while everyone else simultaneously opens their inventory.
The notes mentioned finding an experienced Realmwalker.
Excellent.
Surely such a person would be marked on the map.
We pulled it out and looked for the traditional large red X labelled:
COMPETENT PERSON — ASK HERE
There wasn't one.
There were, in fact, no X's at all.
The notes did, however, mention a nearby camp that needed help.
This raised an uncomfortable possibility.
We Decide to Be Helpful
Against decades of accumulated evidence, CCF decided to help someone.
When we reached the camp, the occupants needed assistance crafting Debs, a large tent and some furniture.
This was less epic quest to save the realms and more Victorian Airtasker, but we built everything they wanted and collected our reward.
While there, we spoke with Anna K, a woman whom the local Druids believe to be a witch.
Naturally, we gave her the Spanish Inquisition.
She acknowledged that she was, indeed, a witch.
This was slightly inconvenient because it removed approximately three quarters of our interrogation material.
She nevertheless denied knowing how the corruption had come about.
Apparently admitting to witchcraft is one thing; accepting responsibility for every supernatural environmental disaster in the district is quite another.
Anna did at least suggest that we speak to two people at the temple.
A lead!
Possibly.
Maybe.
At this stage we would have accepted “ask a bloke near the tree” as investigative progress.
Puck Favours Dave
Then Puck appeared.
To Dave.
Only Dave.
Puck asked us to destroy a glyph at a Fae ruin, but refused to speak to the rest of the party.
This is becoming suspicious.
The mysterious Fae entity who drifts in and out of reality, manipulates mortals for purposes beyond their understanding and speaks in cryptic riddles has apparently looked at the four members of CCF and decided:
Dave. Dave is my guy.
There are several possible explanations for this.
None are reassuring.
While Dave conducted whatever secret Fae performance review was taking place, the rest of us presumably stood nearby like spouses who hadn't been invited into the meeting.
Puck delivered his instructions.
Dave listened.
Puck vanished.
No transcript was supplied.
We are monitoring the situation.
Charity Work Continues, Alarmingly
Still hunting for an experienced Realmwalker, we aided two more camps.
More tents were constructed.
More beds were supplied.
Campfires were built.
Crafting benches were assembled.
At this point CCF had stopped being wandering adventurers and become a travelling Victorian branch of IKEA, except customers had to gather their own sticks before we arrived.
Despite all this civic-minded construction, nobody knew where to find an experienced Realmwalker.
There was, apparently, only some inept group hanging around the local Druid village.
We decided not to investigate them too closely in case somebody recognised us.
And Then There Were Guns
Having failed to find wisdom, experience or anyone noticeably more competent than ourselves, we returned to base.
Zaph made himself a barker.
A gun.
This was important.
Up until now, Zaph had approached combat with his traditional emphasis on distance, accuracy and the reduction of hostile life expectancy.
Now he had Victorian firearms.
He also made 200 bullets.
Two hundred.
Apparently there is a point somewhere between prepared and planning a small colonial war, and Zaph had crossed it without slowing down.
The rest of us looked at the ammunition stockpile.
Zaph looked at the ammunition stockpile.
Zaph probably thought we needed more ammunition.
Spelunking Gets Interesting
With no obvious progress available on the corruption problem, we went looking for something else to do.
This is how many CCF incidents begin.
We gave some boundless a Dewskitch, explored three caves, Craig and Dave mined every rock we could find, and Zaph shot a lot of bears.
Everyone had found their natural calling.
Dave and Craig saw geology and thought, resources.
Zaph saw wildlife and thought, target acquisition.
Myles saw three increasingly complicated cave systems and presumably wondered whether anyone else had considered remembering the way out.
One of the caves contained a portal.
There are groups who might encounter an unknown magical portal deep underground and ask sensible questions.
Where does it go?
Is it safe?
Can we come back?
Should we prepare?
CCF has a simpler protocol.
Portal exists. Therefore enter portal.
So, of course, we went through.
On the other side was a small realm containing two Might Bastilles and a temporary camp.
We solved the puzzles.
We killed some boundless.
Things were going suspiciously well.
So naturally we dialled the difficulty up to Balanced.
There.
Much better.
Competence narrowly avoided.
It was around this point that Myles noticed something about Zaph's follower.
Specifically, his clothes.
Or absence thereof.
Zaph had stripped his follower and was making him run around in his long johns.
There was no tactical justification immediately apparent.
Apparently simply having an NPC follower wasn't enough.
The man also had to be humiliated for not working hard enough.
Presumably this is Zaph's management philosophy.
Somewhere in that tiny realm, a nearly naked Victorian man followed us obediently through caves, Bastilles, supernatural portals and combat while quietly reconsidering every career choice that had led him there.
The Corruption Grows
Eventually we emerged from the cave.
Waiting outside was another Fae ruin.
And at that ruin was yet another corrupted creature requiring our assistance.
Excellent.
The corruption problem which we had earlier failed to cure was apparently expanding its customer base.
We returned to base to unload the truly heroic quantity of rocks and miscellaneous stuff Craig and Dave had collected, and to manufacture more potions.
Because the previous batch had all been used on a mushroom.
Craig and Zaph then logged for the night.
This should normally have marked the end of proceedings.
Instead, it removed the two people most likely to distract Dave and Myles from discovering another entire subsystem.
Which brings us back to where this story began.
Magic Awaits
Myles and Dave decided to investigate Nightingale's magic system.
Or magick-ish system.
We built the enchantment workstation in the chapel and began learning how charms and enchantments worked.
This was where things became interesting.
All our freshly tailored equipment could be improved again.
So we upgraded our gear, infusing clothes with extra stamina and improving stamina regeneration and health regeneration.
The tailoring department had expanded into occult textile engineering.
Myles was no longer merely sewing trousers.
Myles was sewing trousers that made you recover from being mauled by a bear faster.
Victorian Marks & Spencer never offered that.
Then we turned our attention to the weapons.
We applied a fire infusion to our melee weapons.
Now we could set enemies on fire.
Dave, who had spent much of the evening collecting rocks, investigating corruption and receiving private messages from an immortal Fae being, could now also walk around with a flaming sword.
This development will undoubtedly have no consequences whatsoever.
Finally, we attached charms to our rain nappers to reduce stamina drain while flying.
Because apparently even the umbrella can now be enchanted.
Nightingale may insist this isn't high magic, but when four middle-aged men can launch themselves through the sky beneath occult umbrellas while carrying flaming swords and elemental ammunition, the distinction is becoming somewhat academic.
Tonight's Campfire Song — A Chaunting Lay by Dave
With magical weaponry secured, enchanted trousers fitted and Puck presumably watching from another dimension, Dave composed the evening's traditional lay:
One blue glim points somewhere ahead,
One flaming sword leaves Bound slightly dead,
Puck whispers secrets exclusively to Dave,
Which feels completely normal, honest and brave.
You'd better believe CCF has magick,
Applied at a bench with tools and glue,
You'd better believe CCF has magick,
Though nobody's certain what half the charms do.
Our barker is loaded, our rain nappers fly,
Our Kecks regenerate while bears wonder why,
If mystical power is measured in gear,
Then CCF is practically wizard-adjacent here.
A stirring anthem.
Possibly less stirring for the bears.
Did We Learn or Achieve Anything This Week?
Against all reasonable expectations, yes.
We learnt
One size purity potion doesn't cure all corruption. Sometimes it cures precisely one mushroom and leaves the enormous corrupted supernatural structure completely untouched.
Dave and Puck have some secret stuff going on. We don't know what. Puck isn't saying. Dave isn't saying. This is exactly how cults start.
Myles is expanding his repertoire and is now the official tailor to CCF. Medic, quartermaster, administrator and now supernatural couturier. There will be no refunds.
Enchanting your gear raises its gear level. Which means the road to power apparently passes through better trousers.
Victorian era revolvers are slow to reload. This is presumably why Zaph made 200 bullets: not because he can fire them quickly, but because optimism is important.
Disclaimer
Dave and Myles did NOT use all the special ingredients buffing their own gear.
Any apparent statistical superiority in their equipment is purely coincidental and should not be investigated.
At this time, there is still no official explanation for the empty chest.
This statement has been reviewed by CCF Legal and should in no way be interpreted as an accusation against Craig.
Although obviously it was Craig.
Probably.
We Learnt
Dave achieved – It Burns (Set your sword on fire)
The inevitable conclusion to giving Dave access to magical crafting.
Myles achieved – Tailor made (Craft clothes for the group)
Thirty years of gaming have finally culminated in Myles making everyone a nice pair of Kecks.
Craig achieved – Something (There is no official record of him doing anything)
Craig was definitely present.
There are witnesses.
Further details remain unavailable.
Zaph achieved – I hate unicorns (Kill the harmless rainbow deer)
Somewhere in the Realm, a beautiful magical creature bounded peacefully through an enchanted forest.
Zaph had 200 bullets.
These two facts were never going to coexist for long.
And so another evening of Realmwalking drew to a close.
We had outfitted the entire party, constructed eight geometrically offensive storage chests, failed to purify a chapel, successfully purified a mushroom, interrogated a witch, performed community construction work, failed to locate an experienced Realmwalker, received suspiciously Dave-specific instructions from Puck, manufactured a small armoury's worth of ammunition, shot bears, mined caves, jumped through an unidentified portal, increased the world's difficulty, publicly humiliated an NPC, discovered still more corruption, enchanted our underwear-adjacent garments, set our swords on fire and improved the aerodynamic efficiency of our umbrellas.
In other words, a productive night.
Tune in next week to see if we can prank Craig.
For once, we actually have a plan.
