A Jaunt with the Healers – Torvell

The Healers’ Guild was visited by Yaris, a member of the resistance on

Elvas, who bore a report of Gogul’s activities on the island.

Apparently, six vampires led by a banshee, performed some form of

ceremony involving a demonic looking skull. The point of not was that

they were chanting in the name of Satun. Appendix 1 is a transcription

of the report. This duly worried healers present and there was much

debate over what this could mean. It was decided that a sortie would

attempt to capture the skull in the morning. However, later that

evening Yaris returned from a scouting mission and told us that he had

found the tunnels under Elvas were nearly deserted. Carabas decided

this was the moment to act and promptly ordered that the sortie head

off there and then.

We encountered a small problem, in that most of the sortie didn’t want

to go. Nym, the Scouts Guardian of Ustica, was so against the idea

that he sealed himself in the circle with just one other contributor.

Realising what stupid a thing to do this was, he promptly performed a

seven minute ritual, which naturally he couldn’t control. He and the

contributor were hit with enough power to kill outright anyone less

physically fit than they were. Anyway…

We got to Elvas and found very little resistance. We found the skull

in a lair next to two sleeping vampires. Quietly, Lucas McTaff grabbed

it and we ran for it. The skull made Lucas incredibly difficult to

heal. Even a pattern scan of him would cause the scanning healer to be

decayed. The evening was largely spent fighting off Gogul’s unliving

forces who tried to reclaim the skull.

The Fountain of the Life Masters

Our pre-Elvas discussion on the meaning of the ceremony, was soon

joined in by the memories of past life masters from the fountain. Some

of them had fond memories of Gogul and they revealed that he was once a

Life Keeper of the Guild about 150 years ago. Apparently he was a very

keen researcher, notably in the field of longevity. Which fits I guess.

During the evening we were visited by two life elementals, both called

Life. Life (the taller one) recommended that the skull be placed near

the orb of life. Thinking he probably new best we went with the

suggestion. Unfortunately, bringing the skull to the orb meant

bringing it near the fountain. The memories of the life masters more

than objected and after Treacle and I calmed them down they promptly jumped into Treacle’s’ mind. Life Master Quack had a large argument

with the former life masters. After which, they still stayed in

Treacle’s mind, much to everyone’s chagrin, but they at least let her

have overall control.

Saturday

The Idol of Evil

The Skull we had acquired from the six vampires had some paper in it.

On Saturday morning we began deciphering them. A burnt page from the

ceremony the vampires performed suggested that they call themselves the

rather unimaginative name “The Six”. It also suggested that they are

followers of Satun and that the skull is called “The Idol of Evil”.

Scraps possibly from Gogul’s diary or journal suggested that he has

enlisted their aid to achieve something he couldn’t. The scraps also

alluded to a number of other things. Appendix 2 has a transcript of

all the papers in the Idol of Evil.

At this point, the Idol was put into a box in the Healers’ Guild, with

the Orb of Life sitting on top. As only the life masters could move

the Orb, we felt the Idol would be secure. However, that evening the

Box opened and the Idol of Evil flew out and travelled to the ritual

circle. There within the circle The Six were performing a ritual. The

skull flew into the circle and as we looked inside to our horror we saw

that they had Yaris, the resistance fighter, held captive. They

proceeded to sacrifice him in the ritual circle, while we stood on

helplessly. The circle was being watched by Void itself and he would

not brook any interference. Fortunately, Gwion was able to persuade

Void to allow him to use his power to get a mage bolt through. It

killed Yaris instantly. The Six then toyed with his pattern and then teleported away. Gwion was able to find the pattern and lay it to

rest. The body was left in the bar’s cellar overnight and then moved

to Maedhros.
Misha’s Body

In the morning a runner appeared at the Guild to tell us that someone

had stolen Misha’s body. With the aid of the Archers’ Guild’s trackers

we travelled to Maedhros to work out what had happened. It appeared

that something with claws had dug it’s way out of Misha’s grave and,

displaying some cunning, had sneaked its way to the transport circle

where it had transported out. This surprised as we had thought that

Misha had been laid to rest.

More than just a Gardener”

Confucius’ former gardener, Thereck, sent a message via herald. It

revealed that he was a druid of Maladius and he generally encouraged us

all to enjoy being diseased as much as possible. In order to help us

take our first steps in this pastime, his herald promptly exploded and

infected us all with a powerful unliving disease. All present did not

follow his advice and we healed ourselves instead. His letter can be

read in Appendix 3.

More of his flowers started to appear at this point. The Healers’ Guild enlisted the aid of the other guilds to help us remove a

particularly large patch of them. Later that day we were attacked by

many of his plant creatures and in the evening Thereck himself made an

appearance and was less then warmly received. Sadly he escaped, so we

may have to put up with his poor grammar once again.

A Letter from Gogul

Today it was Gogul’s turn to send a letter. Fortunately it was sans

exploding herald. It basically said that our acquisition of the Idol

of Evil was planned by him. He wanted us to take the Idol to a fully

functioning ritual circle, so that he could empower his own ritual

circle, which had become unstable. We thought about this for a bit and

think he might be lying. After all, why would he set up such a ruse

when he could have far more easily have taken the Idol to another

circle himself? You can read a transcript of the letter in Appendix