Ten Days to the end of the world

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Day - Thursday


Diary

Session One

We were approached by the Secretary of the Subcommittee liaising with the main committee dealing with the end of the calender in ten days. It looks like another potential Nightfall scenario, or maybe just that the calender is passing from one epoch to another. Evidently the committee isn't taking any chances, just in case there is some cataclysmic event coming up.

When we got to the meeting room, Guild Security brought in, in this order: our employer, a cloth covered cage, and a tray with ice on it with half buried potion bottles. Inside the cage was a parrot who Guild Security said used to be a Greater Summoner, We were told, by our employer, that he had the Astrorophium Codex and that the vials contained a potion that would protect us from the necrogony effects caused by even discussing the contents of the Codex, that would turn us into undead, So, after some convincing, we drank the chilled potions.

The Codex was written by the Black One - Astaroth, and was written in a form of ancient elvish. Even with my knowledge of Eladrin and Elvish, I was having difficulty puzzling it out, especially as it was written in a series of spirals. It did seem to be counting down to something though. According to our employer, it was some sort of harvesting ritual which would take souls from everyone within the radius of the ritual. The ritual was being performed in a temple somewhere on the isthmus between the two Terra Novan continents. The ritual had something to do with the Battle Tiger Dynasty, an ancient drow family, and had been going on for thousands of years. The temple is known as the Blazing Pyramids lit with the Flames of a Hundred Souls and, as far as we could tell, the range of the ritual was limited to a few thousand miles. Part of the ritual involved the Summoning of Heroes for a sacrifice to bring the ritual to a climax, and the heroes were us. The 'parrot' was really interested in joining our mission to witness what was going to happen. It also had something to do with the Second Ascension Crisis or the Great Blooming, which occurred 15 years ago and since then, the elves had considered the situation more urgent.

After taking the antidote to the potion, which had caused some sort of 'time stasis', we discussed what we should do. Sister Clench, aka Nikola, reassured us that Michael didn't intend Nightfall to occur for a while yet, but other observations led us to the conclusion that Michael was actually a committee of Michaels with differing opinions on the subject. Sometime in the past, this ritual had caused the disappearance of an ancient reptilian civilsation in the area which had spanned the entire continent south of the isthmus. We could evacuate the entire area so that not enough souls could be gathered causing the ritual to fizzle out, or redirect the area of effect to somewhere uninhabited - like the moon.

That was when Kilroy mentioned that the Beltan Elves had a time travelling ship. He then reached under the table and found a note addressed to him which said "Don't do it - Kilroy". Still, given that time travel was a possibility, we could use that to beat the deadline. It also caused me to ponder things such as 'fixed points in time', 'cause and effect' and 'temporal paradoxes'.

I also had a visitor at the Guild Gates. This turned out to be a sister from the Reformed Spiteful Sisters of Perpetual Dissonance, who had a gift for me. I thought that was rather odd, especially when I discovered it was a small cloth bag containing something rather heavy. I had a quick peek inside and all I saw was darkness. I immediately suspected Liessa's involvement but I thanked the sister and headed back inside to consult with the rest of the party. Several DAs and a divination later, we discovered that the bag had containment magic on it, it was made from all four elements and contained anything put in it. What it contained was a rather small nascent Dark-sphere which had been in there for the last six months.

That was when Kilroy smacked himself in the face and realised we hadn't discussed what we were going to be paid, especially since we're saving the world again. Kilroy said we had to remember to leave a note later - it's a causality thing.

That evening, a ship that looked like a butterfly arrived. This was the Beltan's time-ship and I was really interested in how it worked, especially the science behind it. There was a crystal rod that slowly rotated that ran the length of the keel that provided lift, something that would be useful for the star-faring vessel and telescope platform I wanted to build, especially since there were a lot of objects in this solar system I wanted to visit - Merlyn for example. There was also a rather complicated clockwork timepiece which I presumed was the time controller. Definitely would like to discuss the science, maths, and engineering behind that too. They also were sure that time paradoxes were resolved by the timeline being rewritten, not by the alternate planar theory. I also figured I'd have to do a lot of astronomical calculations to work out planetary and stellar positions for time jumps. I'd even have to allow for precession. The room containing the clockwork was also warded to prevent entry by short entities. It seems that, earlier, a hobbit sized person had tried to steal the time controller.

While I was doing that, Kilroy suggested we visit the Oracle. He could be found on top of a mountain and was usually reached by climbing up an extremely long staircase that wound several times around the mountain. However, since we weren't actually seeking enlightenment, we flew straight to the mountain and landed. We were actually here to see the other 'person' there, a man shaped entity, named Xelnor, that was the embodiment of a Dark-sphere. 'He' had also swallowed Seir's All Seeing Eye. He turned out to be a six ft tall black cloak and hooded entity that 'floated' across the ground.

He immediately told us that the answer was 'Galthous', before we even asked the first question. It turned out that Galthous was an entity we had to slay to stop the ritual, being him who set it off in the past in the first place. However, we had already done that in the past. So we were either dealing with a fixed point in time that had to happen or an event that had yet to be properly determined. I tried to describe Galthous as a chronotomic state that was either 'alive' or 'dead' at the same time until the actual event is observed by us. Galthous was a drow who had obtained the knowledge of doing the ritual and had started it 20,000 years ago, a bit after the War of Tears itself. Obviously we couldn't kill him before that as it was possible someone else would have taken his place in history. We then showed him the bag containing the Darksphere and he said 'Yes' He then explained we had to 'take the child out and feed it to Galthous'. That Darksphere was revealed to be a relation to Xelnor, and once eating Galthous, it would grow and then go home.

We also had to obtain a shield that Raphael had dropped in the Black Desert near the Whistling Mesa and, on the way there, we would be attacked by the prophets.

Session Two

I decided to check my pockets to see if I had left myself a note about when the prophets would attack. Yes, I did find a note but it said "Bad idea. Don't mess with causality" I guess I'll have to go back at some point and put the note in my pocket - which leads to the question, if the note keeps going around inside a closed loop in time, who wrote it? That thought kept me occupied as we traveled to the University of All Knowledge in Alfheim.

The plan was to get a map that would show us where the Mesa was in the Black Desert. Seemed straight forward enough although the first elf we met seemed to have not seen a female elf before and didn't believe that humans existed. While Rowan arranged for a copy of the required maps, I went looking for old star charts. The astronomy room was having the roof redone to reflect the current state of the heavens, heavens I had been busy remapping because the stars had been rearranged since the sun went out. One of these days, I'm going to find a way to fly to the stars and find out exactly what they are. I was also interested in information about Merlyn and any expeditions to that planet.

I have to admit, I could happily get lost in that library, researching stuff, but Rowan soon turned up to retrieve 'her human'. The others had discovered that the Black Desert was part of the Obsidian Consortium whose patron was the Marquis of Corruption

Once back aboard the ship, the co-ordinates were set, and we found ourselves flying through a featureless grey void. I was keeping watch to see if anything else was in the Void when the ship shuddered. One end of what looked like a long, sticky ribbon had stuck itself to the side of the ship and pulling us off course. We made several attempts to get it off but it soon became apparent we were being drawn into a massive grey blob with a cave, from which the ribbon was protruding. Wait a moment, that's no cave ... it's a mouth and the ribbon is a tongue. We discovered that the grey blob was long lived sentient with the GTN of Garthak.

We did manage to detach the tongue, but not before it had drawn us into the mouth and started chewing. Our efforts turned into getting the creature to spit us back out as being not good to eat. Sister Clench hacked into the tissue surrounding us while Dr Jericho tried to create Toothache with Hellfire. Flamis and I was trying to irritate the back of the throat. Didn't help much as the ship was breaking up, the crew were being killed by acid and we were swallowed. Our magical protections were protecting us so far but we were taking a beating. Rowan managed to put Install Flight on the pieces of the wreckage we were clinging to as we suddenly dropped through a dimensional portal.

The ship and bodies crashed on a surface packed full of globby balls. For a while I thought this creature's last meal was tapioca pudding but, when they started hatching, we realised they were thousands and thousands of eggs. The creatures that came out were easy to kill but there were quite a lot of them. Fortunately they didn't like the Light I dropped around us and the Cyroflames that Flamis dropped put them into hibernation.

Just then we noticed six humanoid creatures with wings flying in. My first thought was succubi but it turned out to be other survivors of other crashes most of which had come from places that none of us had heard of. They were initially friendly, telling us that there was a town nearby, and that the 'Spawn of Garthak' was edible. One of them even said he knew 17 different recipes to make them really delicious. However, they got rather suspicious when they realized we knew a lot about demons. I claimed it was part of the job but they left claiming we were Greater Summoners.

Anyway we resurrected those of the crew we could then searched to see what of the ship we could recover. However, we couldn't find the clockwork, not even a piece of it. One of the crew was rather concerned by this, saying that the clock was now 'unattenuated'. Did that mean it was now 'unstuck in time'? This was rather disturbing as it may mean we were stuck here. Plus the keel cylinder was cracked and bent, most likely rendering it inoperative, just like the spiral crystal booster I had encountered before. The only other way out, apart from the portal we had fallen though, was the Pit that we were told about. They also told us that no one who went down there had come back out, and there was another dimensional portal. Maybe it was one way, but we didn't want to risk it until we knew more.

Session Three

Kilroy managed to locate a piece of the clock about 20 miles away. Meanwhile I fired up my planetarium and discovered that all it projected was grey. We then heard a small faint voice repeating "Help! I can't reach my staff." Kilroy went to investigate and tentacles shot out from inside the egg mass and grabbed him. The creature they were connected to, then tried to eat him but he teleported free. Flamis wanted to go digging for the staff but we decided that might not be such a good idea. Instead, we flew off in the direction of the clock piece.

A short while later we could see a huge pyramid ahead that had a pentagonal base. Scattered around was the wreckage of other ships, including a Calamar nautiloid. There was also a black spiked tower beyond. Our course took us to the pyramid where we landed, and spoke to the guards at the front entrance. They told us that we should speak to Tagrin, who lived in the third level, near the top of the pyramid, who knows stuff. The black spiky tower was the residence of Kong the Sorcerer. Grif Marka was the Calimar who came in the nautiloid. Issual is another sorcerer who lived somewhere out there and had fire giants for minions. He's also a vampire. And yes, this was the city that the others had come from.

We went into the pyramid. The walls detected as illusionary and, for some reason, Flamis decided to disbelieve everything and literally dropped through the floor. Fortunately she came to her 'senses' and managed to return to us from where ever she went. We came out into a large market type area and there was a rather frantic auction going on for an Alusian cupcake. I guess a lot of people here were getting tired of eating those egg things outside. One of the bidders was a succubis with a soul jar.

Trying to make a discrete passage through this lot, we noticed we were being followed by two entities being a naked male elf and some sort of shadow creature. Fortunately we made our way to Tagrin's residence without incident, discovering it was a rather fleshy house with a living aura - GTN Troll. The goblin butler/servant let us in and we discovered it was rather humid inside. Tagrin turned out to be an elf with drowish features and, he told us that the clock piece he had, had arrived long before we did. So it was either a duplicate, or this piece had travelled back in time before crashing - which could mean that the entire clock has been smeared across the timeline. Tagrin had come from Alusia just before the War of Tears, during the Ascension, and he remembered Belial and Asmodeus. He also warned up not to bother the Contemplator who built this place. Grif Marka keeps raving about leaving but those who could banish themselves don't stay long. He also thinks we were deliberately targetted by Galthous. Another person that could be useful to talk to was Illimar, a succubis with s discrete establishment who was good at tempting with ideas.

Maybe we were now outside Fate, maybe we were no longer a prisoner of Destiny, and that we now had the freedom of Free Will where, before, it was just an illusion. Also my bag containing the Dark Sphere was twitching.

So we went to see the Calimar. He had been sent here to study this unusual place. He also concluded that, to get out of here, we needed the Eye of a Fire Giant. Fortunately for us, the vampire had three of them. I ended up discussing higher mathematics with the Calimar in order to get better techniques for calculating stellar positions in space/time.

Our next stop was an attempt to see Eric, otherwise known as the Eternal Champion. At his door, we were stopped by a Naga who told us that Eric did not wish to see us. Flamis reckoned that he was hiding from her, as she was the Eternal Consort, and something catastrophic would happen if the two should meet. She told us that the best way out of here was to use the back passage but we would need to exert a lot of will to reach our destination. Had Nyx caused us to be here? Apparently we're dripping with Fate - and I'm soaked to the core with it because of predestination. We actually had a choice now of going back to our predestined lives or staying here to be our own entities. It was sort of tempting. Apparently I'm being pushed along a certain path, at least according to her. I should be my own person, rebel against that.

While I was mulling over that, it was suggested that since Galthous is a servant of Astaroth, maybe we can stop the ritual by converting him to something else.

Session Four

Maybe Asteroth was trying to steal our Fate. Some of us were under the influence of younger gods.

It was suggested to us that we should go and observe two events in elvish history. The first was the Third Elven Expedition to the Old Lands which occurred roughly around 7000 BP. Ishural the Sorcerer was in Terranova at that time and the expedition was led by Queen Glorianna. The second was the Great Battle of Battle Bay (now Confederation Bay) which marked the start of the rise of Humanity. There, we could ask dwarves to help and the Naga mentioned she had a sister there as well.

So it was down the hole and, with an expression of Will, we ended up flying over a jungle area near the ocean. There was a city located nearby where we landed and discovered it was full of elves. The city was called Amber and was the jewel of Terranova. The main religion here was Shantaya, otherwise known and the Goddess, and seemed to be very similar to Chantris. They told us about the Lost Ones to the East and it was 51 Great Years since the Great Calamity (1 GY = 1000 years). I was able to confirm the date by studying the stars and was able to verify we were where we wanted to be.

Just then sails were spotted and, using my spyglass, we were able to ascertain they had Queen Glorianna's heraldry on them as well as that of Alfheim. The ships were giant catamarans with castles on it and I was sure I recognised one as being the one that would be the Sea Goddess Haven in their future. We managed to convince the inhabitants of the city to evacuate the city, even though they were convinced this armada came in friendship and they were planning to send a delegation to the beach to meet them.

They came in with one ship in the lead and the other two trailing to the right and left respectively. Both of those trailing ships launched fireballs at the city. Flamis was able to put one out in midair but the other impacted and she was kept busy for a while putting out the resulting fires before they did significant damage. Meanwhile the lead ship ran up the beach and some elves disembarked. A large argument evolved with the incoming elves believing all the local elves were 'demon worshippers' while Kilroy and the others argued that they were peaceful people and this lot had landed in the wrong place. Finally we were allowed on board and spoke to the Queen who agreed to hold off the attack here pending further investigation.

Now that had been sorted out - and I was wondering if we were causing ripples in the space/time continuum - we went inland to find the Sorcerer who no one dared to approach. We found the tower inland and dared to approach and enter.

We met the Sorcerer and DAs told us that his Theme of Magic was Contracts and his GTN is Drow. According to the Doctor, his Journey of the Soul upon Death was to be fought over by at least fifty demons. He thinks Garioth is a looney and he wants his left eyeball. An interesting conversation was had including mention of the Beast of the Mesa, a meany headed monster that arose to guard an artifact. It's only weakness was that the soles of it's feet were unarmoured. He also knew a lot about chronomancy which I was interested in, especially in its applications for deep space travel. He also wanted to find a way to transform blood into molten lead which I was quite sure was not possible according to several laws of magic and energy.

When we finally left, we pondered whether or not to divert the incoming elves to disrupt the ongoing ritual.

Session Five

While travelling with the elves up the coast, we discovered we were in the 85th year of Queen Glorianna's reign. The trip took a week and I spent most of it in the library.

Upon arrival at the closest point near the pyramid where Garioth's ritual was taking place, we flew inland. Below us, we could see cultivated land and lots of movement. The people turned out, not to be drow, but hobbits. We could also see blue motes rising to the sky then speeding off further inland. Getting closer we could see they were coming from small alters with poles mounted on them that groups of hobbits were dancing around. Occasionally an older hobbit would step up to the altar, touch it, then drop down dead. Simultaneously another blue mote sped off to where they were going. We later discovered all those sacrificing themselves had reached the 'Age of Ascension'.

I did a quick calculation to figure out where the motes were going, using triangulation, and Flamis used a Crystal of Vision to scry the location. She saw a hug e square based stepped pyramid with large statues at each corner, in the middle of a giant city. Above the pyramid, a large eye appeared and looked at her ... and her skeleton attempted to leave her body by some sort of necromantic spell. Fortunately it didn't go vary far and I was able to put it back.

The motes turned out to be souls and all the hobbits were worshippers of Asteroth. Their souls were destined for the Seventh Plane of Hell. They also spoke drow and we discovered that the Age of Ascension was 60. The current date was four days before White Lotus, and this year was going to be a special one.

Continued flying inland and, three hours later, we arrived at the golden city and could see it was inhabited by drow and some hobbits. There were a lot more of those pole shrine things about and we could see the motes disappearing into the top of the pyramid. Six people were also on top doing something and occasionally the eye would appear again.

After landing, we snuck into the pyramid at night, under the light of a full moon in a clear sky. and passed some drow engaged in drunken revelry. A bridge separated us from an entrance way into the base of the pyramid and there was a drow guard there - as well as a ward containing a necromantic spell called 'Draw into the Grave'. Both guard and ward were swiftly and efficiently dealt to.

Unfortunately for us, somethings was shooting at us with darts so we ran inside. In there was a bowl of glowy blue stuff, that DAed as living - Soul Energy perhaps? Also there was a statue of Asteroth which quite a few of us decided to deface. There was also a ritual preparation room and a summoning room. All the walls etc was Bound Earth, the statue had an Avatar aura and the markings for the summoning cirle were comprised of a mixture of gold and soul energy. So we tried to Banish the avatar and the statue animated. Outside, darts were still being fired at us, and those corner statues must have animated too as there was a giant foot trying to squash us. It also reflected spells. I lost both my ablative shield and my fire armour while Flamis took the full effect of her own spell. I also dropped a Rank 20 light block in the entrance so that the dart throwers couldn't see us to target - not that it stopped them from shooting though - and then there was this really icky necrosis flow that got in.

Finally the statue was Banished, the guards were prevented from shooting more darts so we made a dash for the outside, dodging both the hand nd foot of the statue. Our objective was to get to the top and deal to those up there so we ran up the stairs. Air elementals would have been really useful at this point as the six demons on top started coming down to meet us ... at least four of them did. So Flamis fire arced us up while I used Light blocks for cover. There was also an altar on top with an eviserated drow on it, a multi-armed thing, the eye, and a maw on the ceiling, of the covering gazebo, with six rows of of teeth.

Session Six

It was basically all on at this point. The mouth on the underside of the gazebo tried to eat Sister Clench. At the same time a portal opened in mid air, right next to Kilroy and basically took his arm off before a mantis demon came out and attacked. I tossed Sunrays at the original four demons while the giant cephalopod that was attached to the floating eye emerged from it's extra-dimensional pocket. I was trying to make sense of exactly what it was, and trying to figure out the ever-changing angles, that sometimes seemed to be impossible. This may have been a mistake as part of my mind decided to shut down because of the sheer incomprehensibility. Besides, I was supposed to be helping to kill it, not classify it. I did manage to count ten tentacles though.

Rowan dropped a smoking magma under those four demons - and they started using the magma pool as a hot tub. Meanwhile I decided to go 'Shoemaker-Levy' on the Creature from the Dark Tapestry and smacked it with a comet. There was a bit of collateral damage unfortunately. 

  "I guess they could claim the damage on insurance" - Sister Clench while using her Aspect of Raphael.
  "I do not think it will cover Acts of God .... assuming Raphael counts" - Phaeton

Part of the gazebo collapsed and we could see more of the creature hidden behind the mosaic of the gazebo ceiling. It's flesh was coloured a putid shade of purple. I got grabbed by it's tentacles then streams of corruptions from the bathing demons washed over us. Of course we were giving as good as we got as the insectoid demon literally exploded. Plus Nikola was whacking the tentacles that held me and succeeded in annihilating the creature as it tried to withdraw into the gazebo. Meanwhile, the second comet, severed a tentacle off the decapod. It's eye tried to summon our skeletons out of our bodies and I went unconscious.

I was revived by the Doctor's companion. Meanwhile the flesh had dissolved off the purple creature and it's eyeball dropped onto the ground. 

  "Hey Rowan. Put that on the top of your staff" - Phaeton
  "No thanks. I've had enough of eyeballs" - Rowan

A hideous Word of Power was spoken by the cephalopod, in an attempt to get us to devote ourselves to Asteroth. I replied with the universal gesture of defiance.

Kilroy used an item to trigger a Rank 20 Solar Flare, and the cephalopod vanished, sidestepping into an alternate dimension. At the same time, there were mighty crashes as the giant golems, who had been trying to sweep us off the ziggurat, stopped moving and fell to the ground.

I tried to determine where the cephalopod went, but the destination was nothing I recognised, a plane called Camphor. The demons had also been destroyed so we attempted to follow. However the rift it left behind was rather small so, while the others tried to figure out a way to follow, Flamis did a Ritual of Contacting Her Other Selves. Unfortunately Garioth got away but his ritual did not go off properly - he's been delayed."

We later discovered that there were lots of bodies in the city drained of life - around ten thousand of them.

Finally we found a way through the rift and discovered a large hall full of elves, all engaged in frantic activity as they prepared for battle. We had reached the Hall of King Elreriah.

Session Seven

We discovered that the creature had come through here and flew off. So we obtained some Wings and headed off after it. It was on Locate for a while but then it suddenly popped off. What we soon discovered was a devastated village and a fading portal, which implied it had used Soul Magic to make another dimension jump. Astrology readings told us that it's ultimate destination was to Ingra - the Water Duke in the Plane of Water. The best time to intercept the the creature was a week before now at the Great Gates of Salamay. To get there, we'd need to speak to the Sorcerer of the Delta. His weakness was Overwhelming Hubris. What we needed was the Aegis of the Defender aka Raphael's Shield.

So, after reassuring the elves that the creature was gone, we went back through the portal. That was when we discovered the dead bodies. Many more bodies were discovered at the hobbit settlement when we got back to the elves. The elves were very agitated when they discovered the loss of so many sentient lives.

After obtaining Wings, we flew off to the mesa. When we found it, we saw a shape moving around it. It turned out to be a giant humanoid, 200 feet tall, with five heads, massive shoulders, nine arms and three legs. It threw a rock at us as we approached so we retreated to a safe visit so that Kilroy and Jericho would use a Rune of Visitation.

They discovered that the giant was piling up rocks in order to try and muffle a sound that had been annoying him, thus forming the mesa. He spoke of a fight between a bright drow and a three headed dragon creature that basically 'beat the crap' out of each other. During the fight, the drow dropped the shield before driving off the dragon and leaving. So, Kilroy managed to sneak the rest of us into a gap in the mesa before binding and shaping the earth to form a tunnel towards the source of the sound. Finally we found the Shield and teleported out with it. Divinations told us that the Nature of Magic on it was Protections, it was part of the raiment of a divine being and it seemed to be slightly out of time. It looked more like a modern day kite shield rather than the more typical round shield of the day. It, combined with Gabriel's Harp, cures all our afflictions. I was expressing an interest in musical harmonies and Jericho suggested I should take up campanology i.e. bell ringing as bells produce purer notes.

Nikola summoned Raphael and he gave us three Words of Power that we could use to heal everyone in range even though channeling that much life energy could overwhelm and cause us to explode. We would know when to use them as we would be there. He advised us to go back to our time and await the summoning.

However, before doing that, we decided to visit the second point of history we were advised to. The ritual was done and we turned up on a cliff overlooking the sea. We could see triangular sails on the horizon. Suddenly a twenty foot tall dwarf ran up in our direction and tried to shoo us away.

Session Eight

Yes it was definitely a dwarf. Even the DA confirmed it. Not Dwarf/Giant, nor Dwarf/Titan, but dwarf. We later discovered that the dwarf, and his four friends had been severely buffed up by Namer Magic. They, with the help of the Eastern Elves, were going to beat off the oncoming Western Elves. So we headed up to a nearby hilltop to watch - a hilltop that would, in the future, have the main Guild buildings on it. What we saw was the showing up of mobile floating islands, similar to the one that turned up off the coast of Flugeheim a while back. I noted the positions of the ships that were sunk for later salvage, although Jericho pointed out that most, if not all, had already been found.

After the battle, we were told that the dwarves came from the Copper Hills, in the south. We decided we wanted to speak to their wizards to see what we could learn, so we were carried down to their homes in the Copper Hills and the wizards returned the dwarves to their usual height.

We spent a few weeks learning from them. I spent the time picking up Namer magics such as Divination and Banishment, as well as studying the nature of magic itself. Partway through, I had an epiphany. It was all based on Names. Not only there were Names for creatures, as we knew by Generic True Names, there were also Names for other things, such as objects, and even concepts such as 'up' 'green' and 'time'. That meant that spells were basically a string of Names and symbols that represented Names. I was trying to pick up enough information in order to break down old spells to their basic elements and use them to build new spells. It was really interesting stuff and a copy of those notes has been added to the Guild Library.

After that, we went to see the Beltaine Elves who told us that they believed they could Banish up to our correct point in time and space. With my new knowledge, I could actually figure out how they could do that. Jericho insists that no Namer Demon has his Name but, frankly, I'm not so sure. Anyway, the elves did their Banishment and we reappeared a day later from when we left - well within the limits of Uncertainty I had already calculated.

All we could do now was to wait and keep our buffs up. We also stayed together, just in case. Fifteen days later, at midnight, we were suddenly whisked off and appeared in separate summoning triangles, surrounded by protective circles in an amphitheatre along with six summoners and their monions. They were obviously expecting us to be off guard and surprised, not all prepped up, as it didn't take us long to annihilate them. To add insult to injury I had selected the cutest shade of pink I could imagine for my rainbow spray spell - a colour I referred to as 'Cutie Pink'.

Once that was done we dashed into the main arena where the drow were cheering and preparing for the Ascension. It looked like we were in the same city we were in although I suspected that the 'Kilroy Woz Here' grafitti we had left behind had been wiped off during the intervening millennia.

We found ourselves a vantage point as a mighty Dark Angel appeared at the top of the pyramid. That was when all the drow dropped dead so Jericho and myself started saying the Three Words of Power, using all our strength to stay conscious. I felt like I was going to explode with all that healing energy I was trying to channel but, by some miracle, I was able to stay conscious long enough to utter all three although I was sure I wasn't going to survive this. Somehow I did, and all the drow were restored although in agony as they were all Death Aspected and suffering the effects of an intense Life Event. We also had to move our position between the second and third Word as something cast a necromantic 'Death of Sound' on the areas we were in as well as the others fighting off the demonic centipede that was trying to stop us.

After the third Word was uttered, the rather angry Dark Angel exploded and we were attacked by a swarm of drow sized Dark Angels. I soon discovered that my Sunray as having little or no effect on them, as they DAed as Greater Power. So I switched back to Rainbow Spray (yes - Cutie Pink) while the others took out much of the swarm with other spells and weapons.

Finally it was all over. We liberated the items from the dead Summoners then made our way back to the Guild. It was on the way back I realised I still had that Dark Sphere in a bag on me .... I had completely forgotten about it. Oh well ... maybe the next time a malevolent demon decides to take over, I'll remember to use it then.

Mil Sci

Daily Pattern

  • Sleep/Camp 10 Hours
  • Travel 10 Hours
  • Meals 2 Hours / 2 Hot meals + 1 tea
  • Rituals 2 Hours

Sleep gives 3/hr 6 hours sleep = 18ft

Travel Magics

Instilling Flight {modified} 48mph for 7.5 hrs (<360 miles)
Up to 5 objects each with its own pilot can lift up to 850lbs each.
Flys only for that pilot, No concentration, landed contact can be broken without ending the spell.
Cast by Rowan.

Star Wings Rank 12
42 mph for 390 min
Cast by Phaeton.

Wildfires Rank 12
44 mph for 260 min
Cast by Flamis.

Watch Order

Marching Order

Main body front:
Main body rear:
Tail Guard:

Formations
Single file:
Open area:

Buffs

Buffs listed in the table don't need to be detailed, other buffs not on the table must be mentioned at the time they are cast.
Y means always on, N/- means never on, 'Sit.' means when the party has time for buffs before a fight.
Weapon Spells which weapon/s it is going on normally should be noted also.

General notes.
The Circle Magic Ritual to put buffs on all at once.


Long Duration Buffs

Magic Rk Effects Dur Ft / cast Dr J Row Ph Fl Ki SC Golems
Runeshield 20 +25 Defence/+5 AP/Absorb 2 Spec Grevs 20 hrs 2 Ft Y
Smite 20 On Strike - D+21dmg/Stunned/Prone, resist for none 21 hrs 1 Ft Y Y Y (4) Y (4) Y
Greater Heart Rune 8 Cures 7 EN when EN damage is taken 9 days 5 Ft
Willow Healing 12 Cures 3 EN / Pulse for 14 Pulses when triggered 24 hrs 2 Ft Y
Armour of Ithan 11 120 pts Damage ablative, before MR or Amour 12 hrs 2 Ft
Fire Armour 16 64 pts Damage ablative versus Fire 16 hrs Touch
Coruscade 12 26 range/melee defense - 13 in close 390 mins 27 Ft Y Y Y Y Y Y
Name ## Does stuff ?? hrs ?? Ft Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

Short Duration Buffs

Magic Rk Effects Dur Ft / Cast Dr J Row Ph Fl Ki SC Golems
Mind Speech ? Comunication for ?ft ? 2 Ft Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit
Blessing 10 +10 Strike Chance, +10 vs Fear 1 hr 50 mins 2 Ft Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit
Resistance to light 7 +16 MR vs light attacks 80 mins 1 Ft Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit
Resistance to Light 20 +42 MR vs light attacks - see in R20 Light 210 mins 1 Ft Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit
Strength of Light 6 +7 Physical Strength 70 mins 1 Ft Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit Sit

Calendar

Autumn: Fruit (4)

 MoondayDuesdayW'ansdayTh'rsdayFrysdayReapsdaySunday
  1 Guild Meeting 2  3  4  5  6 
7  8  9  10  11  12  13 
14  15  16  17  18  19  20 
21  22  23  24  25  26  27 
28  29  30  
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