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