The Gathering 1102
The Gathering 1102 By Dargon, Catholicon and Lavernius for Hawk and Hernshaw
It began on Friday, I was late for a change, after swearing a lot at my blacksmith for failing to fashion a scabbard for my new sword in time for the gathering I arrived in Tuetonia. The weather seemed nice and the people all friendly, this caught me off guard, I strode in the direction of the harts camp to find we had agreed to share a camp with the lions, for mutual protection, perhaps this is the first step in the mending of old grudges.
The market area was situated by an old drow castle with the ritual circle in the rear of it.
The mages guild had apparently been under attack already by the scarecrow minions of Desire, a bad sign to be sure. These were apparently much stronger than the previous ones with a permanent aura of retribution, they could only be destroyed by the use of a shatter spell.
I helped with the setting up of the guild and began the arduous task of introducing new members. This quickly got worse when rituals began. The use of incantation ritual magic was allowed this with the effects of the mordred device caused numerous members of the elder races to fall over with their head and chest bleeding, this caused me to pop in and out repeatedly via ritual circle to prevent myself suffering the effects as often otherwise possible. Some ritualists had the decency to warn, others did not.
The harts began the day with a ritual to summon the mordred device so that it could be destroyed, this was successful and the device was taken to the armourers’ guild for destruction. Unfortunately they didn’t know how to destroy it and it was taken up to the wolves camp for artefact tests and safety, however it was teleported away by the macbeths.
Later that night the mages guild organised a ritual to talk to Father Time the embodiment of Time and to find out what deal he had struck with mordred. This was successful and upon pointing out to father time that mordred had broken this deal many years ago his aid was removed and the device became inactive. I heard that some of the key components were taken away to be kept safe by Discord. And all the elder races cheered. It is now apparently being used as a coffee table by the dragons.
The healers guild on arrival found two of their workers dead (patterns had been removed no physical damage) on inspection it was found that one of the many fountains decorating the healers area, sense as Chaotic and Necromantic and this was believed to be the cause of the deaths. It cast random spells on people and paralysed anybody who touched it.
With the removal of the aging effects from the Mordred device, a group of trigger happy incanters where invited into the healers guild where they formed a wedge and dismissed the Necromantic effects from the fountain. The Chaotic effects continued.
The Bards Guild had nothing to report at this juncture, other than the fact that it seemed rather more quite in terms of visitors to us than usual. Though I have to admit that I was not present during the hours of darkness as I had a pressing engagement elsewhere
Saturday
Another crazy ritual was performed by the late parmenian of the lions unfortunately an error was made by the ritualist, the ritual intended to release Mordred the pattern of chaos from with in the tome of air, however, the ritualist asked for what is bound within to be set free, and out came the very strands of the element of air. Parmenaian apologised for this and resigned his rank within the guild but this didn’t stop someone from slaying him later in the day. Mordred had a fight with Golgamoth, won, and now walks the world in the body of Terrential Downpour.
A championship contest was held amongst the harts to find a champion to fight the champion of the story fae as a prelude to the battle for Winchester, in the absence of Lady Aisla, Kabal won the position of champion, and in turn won the dual with the story fae. I’m not sure how please Aisla is going to be when she finds out that not only has she lost her position as champion but also she missed the chance to fight for Winchester.
After the Dual 60 warriors of Albion faced 60 story fae warriors, apparently the story fae’s numbers were slightly low and so a few of our side joined theirs to even up the fight.
All fought honourably and the Harts were easily victorious
The Harts by winning have secured the total withdrawal of all Story Fae from Winchester; the terms for this withdrawal will be discussed with Story Fae later in the autumn. If the Harts had lost the Story Fae would still have left but returned for three days every year to tell Stories. Some in the Harts are considering the possibility of holding a story telling festival every year in Winchester anyway
As the mages guild items arrived the lich Samara Dreamweaver’s minions attacked and in the ensuing fight an unknown orc transported off with the paralysed form of Lt. Shal Minheim, the only reason speculated for this was a pointless attempt to make off with holocaust. Later a trip to the great library confirmed that Lt Shal had passed away, as his death date appeared in the book of infinite derivatives.
The Macbeths got a little beaten up. Scafloc died through the heroic efforts of Fairfax whom also perished. The fight apparently lasted almost two hours with a large number of casualties on all sides, the loss of trooper of the company is one of those closest to home, this appears to have caused some problems within the company of the black boar, the details of which I am unclear. I am assured that although apparently Lament survived most of the Macbeths are dead and the threat of them is sufficiently weakened. Rumour reaches me that many of the MacBeths of demonic origin have subsequently left Erdreja, though as we know a vacuum always cries out to be filled with something
A ritual was performed to map and void rifts and gates and a map in the form of a globe is now available in the mages guild for any who can study maps to read it will let them know the location and size of mana flows and void rifts.
During this muster a contingent of “Sea Elves” from off the coast of York arrived to talk with our High ambassador, they appeared friendly enough but their ways are very different to mine, I am suspicious of so many choosing to take the surface.
Grandmaster Floris returned in the form of Floris Cullen (formally Cullen Lochlan of the dragons) having lost the body of Brand in combat with the void entity that is attacking Albion and the underdark.
The healers carried out a ritual which resulted in the creation of a teleporting trap door, later that day the guild then bought another ritual slot for 70 gold.
Strange occurrences within the Bards Guild Tent, from no apparent source people were taking decay effects and suffering from Terror. There was also the matter of the spiders that leapt out of the nooks and crannies, biting and poisoning people. The spiders turned into twigs when killed. Debrini received love letters signed with just an S. An ear and a finger, both with accompanying notes were delivered to Varg, it appeared that they had kidnapped a female member of the Bards Guild and would kill her. They are the ‘Rainbow Brotherhood’ and this was their ‘last attempt’ to kill Varg. Upon Varg using the Cerridwens Mirror, it appeared that the individual they had kidnapped was Angharad. The scrying left Varg, blind, luckily this effect lasted only for about 5 hours.
A set of Tarot cards, from Prince Cadarns personal effects were delivered to the Camp, the Queen decreed that the rite should be performed to glimpse some of Albion’s future. 12 cards were drawn and 12 people were required to each symbolise a card. I was one of them and agreed to this. The rite was due to happen of the Sunday night and the Seer, Cornelius would come then.
Sunday
I heard that lady nemesis was killed she had been a great pain in the side of the archers guild.
A team was led by captain Dogran to skyrie’s tower in a demiplane of air and despite meeting formidable resistance in the form of a ancestral like being, most of the team that left managed to return, three offered to stay behind to serve this being and the rest of us were allowed to leave with some of the things we went for. A further mission is being planned to rescue those trapped by the being referred to as master, from all description it was more powerful than skyrie herself, this may have been related to the state of the pattern of air at the time, we can but hope.
The lions volunteered a ritual slot for the repairing of the tome and the harts contributed a ritualist and contributors Donna Serifia wrote the script to repair the tome of air and it was performed with but a slight alteration. The ritual worked almost flawlessly and the tome once again binds the pattern of air.
The healers carried out a ritual which resulted in the creation of two sashes of immune to normal sharp.
The Emperor Joshiam the second with Scullion after coming out of the void gate just before a ritual started, went around and pestered the Factions he had his wife with him and a body guard of around 20 people doing living bain and scared all incanters with his necromantic power.
When the emperor left Scullion claimed to have been under mind effecting spells and that he did not want to talk about anything The Emperor was apparently a good emperor who died when a ritual circle blew up killing him and his entire family along with half the empire, apparently the ritual being done was one to make him a living ancestor, I have no proof of this. From my records this ritual was being performed to break a drought that had lasted rather too long, it was interrupted, and went horribly wrong causing the last Cataclysm. I have a suspicion that they may be trying to raise a ritual circle to finish the ritual, this Circle would probably be the one at Malkarn, the capitol of the Old Empire, now rumoured to be buried under the sea. Oh and the Emperor said he is here to reclaim the Empire.
A final note arrived at the Bards Guild, it basically said that Varg had 15 minutes to bring up to 12 people to rescue his guild member. They left, returned with a prisoner, and also a woman called Helga (not Angharad) who they had dressed to look like her, thereby fooling the scrying attempt. Separately Varg stepped down as Penderwydd (leader) of the Bards Guild. Structure is now, Falcon, Cajun, v’Ar and Eikara. ‘S’ turned out to be a Sebastian, who wanted to meet with Debrini, she went and was watched from a safe distance. He wanted to kill her and then himself, a battle happened and to cut a long story short, he eventually disintegrated into a pile of ancient twigs form a variety of trees. Debrini heard a voice in her head which said something like ‘I like the taste of your fear’
Monday
Pre the final battle
I managed to acquire myself a new apprentice in the form of Chi’Nyan Spawn of light. My other apprentice being Dougal McBain, of the Bears.
The final battle
There is little to be said than 10 vs -18 in favor of the light alliance, a sound victory we stood our ground and the fight was very easy. A complaint from the hart high healer was that he was bored as he hardly got to use any healing