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== Summary ==
'''Adventure''': Immortals<br/>
'''GM''': [[Jim Arona]]<br>
'''Night''': Wednesday<br>
'''Level''': Medium<br>
; Party
* [[Bower]], the Knave of Shadows - Ed Douglas
* [[Bishop]], Hand of the Fallen - Jason Stevens


== Scribe Notes ==
A man can draw purpose from a death, but not usually his own.<br/>
<br/>

'''Introduction'''<br/>
Name's Bishop, I'm a drifter of a sorts, haunted by those who have fallen I help them find peace.  I've partnered with Bower, the Knave of Shadows, who's handy at an inn when you're short of coin.  He's a likeable fellow.  In fact he has a roguish charm that I'm sure is weaponised.  But he's someone you can ride the river with, and that's okay by me.

Our story starts in Berchtesgaden on Reich, a holiday town not far from the Black Forrest and where the infamous Eagle's Nest is perched.  As budding young adventurers, we hear it's a place to see the elephant.

We arrive late evening, a small holiday town on a lake-side in the Bavarian Alps.<br/>
<br/>

[[File:EaglesNest.png|right]]
'''The Eagle's Nest'''<br/>
The Eagles Nest is a manor house on the side of a cliff.  There's a dirigible parked at a tower, various gun emplacements and fortifications.

We soak up the beer and scenery for a few days and notice a lady as fine as cream gravy.  We ask around and find out she's one of those high-tones who holiday up in these parts.  Stays at the manor house they say.  Goes by the name of Eva Braun.  Has a prick of a husband.

We stay at a two-bit inn, beneath the gaze of the high-nosed, and spend a few days looking the place over.<br/>
The dirigible, while sometimes there and sometimes not, we never see it leave or arrive back.<br/>
On the far side of the north-east ridge line is an artificial forest which people avoid.<br/>


'''Spirited Research'''<br/>
Bower's a bit of librarian so we explore the aisles of the local library.  Bower cut's swells with the head librarian and before long they disappear into a room to do some research.

I wander around a bit on my own.  It's an old World War 2 bunker and I soon find that there's unquiet dead in here playing havoc with the lights.  I explain to them it's not a disco and as one they crowd me, reaching and wailing.  I see many young eyes looking at me from among the dead, these brief candles crying for someone to avenge them.  "My children," I say to them, "what happened to you?".  They tell me of a bad man who did bad things, the graaf around here apparently, and I assure them I'll look into it.

Bower emerges from his vigorous reading and would like to continue his research the next day.  He ends up spending a few weeks.  During this time I find that the graaf's line survives and operate Tawn & Tux, a merchant house that sell secure mail services.  Their manor is north-east of here over the ridge.

Exhausted from his research, Bower finally emerges with surprisingly little information for his efforts, and a book about daisies, due back in a week.

[[File:Balrog.png|right]]
'''Trial at the Flesh Forest'''<br/>
We make tramping preparations and head out into the northern woods.  We decide that to have a quick look at the western forest.  If folk avoid it in general, then we should unavoid it.  We head over to the ridge which is fenced but not particularly trapped as far as Bower can tell.  We climb over and head towards the artificial forest.

There are soldiers on patrol at the bottom, and skirting the wood is a small rail car that seems to be used for delivering supplies.  The rail goes into a tunnel at the north.  We sneak into the forrest and find that the rows of trees have sample parchment in a glass case beneath them.  The trees have branches growing only in cardinal directions and the wood itself seems to be flesh-like, at least in part.  As though vellum could be made or parchment that would count as being made from flesh.

We sneak up to a radio hut and beyond to the roof of a larger military complex built into the hill-side.  We see various gun implacements but one in particular is odd.  It's has a crytal-like barrel with a glow at the base.  It's pointing south with no apparent turret or ability to aim.  We sneak up to it and determine the glowing thing is the eye of a balrog.  We decide that we just happen to need a balrog eye, so we dismantle the barrel and Bower carefully decouples the eye from the base.  In doing so, he cuts through what now seems, judging by the rumbling coming from below, the balrog's optic nerve.

We were sprinting back towards the forrest when a few folk ran onto the roof.  Then came a hard smack in my back.  At first blush it felt like an iron-core, jacketed 9mm with modified ogive - presumably from their puny lurger.  The indignity.  I turned to compare pistol sizes and saw an enormouse, firey hand erupt from the steel roof.  A shoulder not far behind.

We managed to get over the ridge and off north at a good pace with Bower's spell.  But then we saw a derigible heading towards us.  Looking back we saw the belrog tracking us, inquiring about an eye-patch.

We're all out of eye-patches and the morters being launched from the derigible look like they could hurt, so we bug out back to Bower's house in Italy.


'''Return to Tawn & Tusk'''<br/>
We head back to Berchtesgaden quetly and find the manner of the graaf and his house, Tawn & Tux.  It's a large building, unfortified, but has packs of cybernetic dogs that patrol (in that way dogs don't) with pnumatic necks - once they bite down on you, they shake like a paint-mixer.  We sneak past them and on to the roof, where we see magic emenating in spirit sight, apparently from the top level which is heavily curtainted.

Bower checks one of the outer windows for traps and wards and since it opens from the inside, I drift through the glass.  I go to open the window and has one of those damn casement stays that you have to lift and push through.  I make a meal of it.

''She was getting impatient with him.  Yes he was an accomplished summoner but the medeanite sorcerer grew tired of the pedantic routine he had.  A bang came from behind the curtain on the far side of the devil they were negotiating with.  "What was that?" she asked. "What was what?" replied the graaf was concentrating on the devil. "Go over and have a look," she said.  "I am not leaving the ward!" exclaimed the graaf.''

''She started casting as a man in a leather duster walked out from behind the curtain, pistols blazing.  Not far behind flickered a dark figure who skirted the devil for a better angle.''

''"Here are two souls as payment for your boon!" cries the graff hopefully.  This irritates the sorceress as she sees the roguish fellow say a few words to the devil and it nods.''

''A round of fire and fury later and the sorceress was feeling better.  The western-looking fellow was looking poorly and they in return they didn't manage to get through their ward or free the devil.  The graff released a torrent of souls and it was looking like just another day at the summoning circle.''

''Then a harmless enough looking bottle came hurling in and shattered harmlessly off the ward onto the ground.  It had dark liquid inside which was spreading.  She hardly gave it a second thought until she saw it was eating through the floor and the ward - an expanding void that seemed to draw in the very fabric of space.  The ward failed and the darkness was upon them.  They passed out of existence.''

The devil was also freed from its circle by the spread of the nothingness.  Bower distracted it with options while I threw an amorphous water balloon at it.  The devil was destroyed but the sudden change in temperature threw us in peril.  Devil shratnel around the place but we survived.  Bower managed to capture the remaining substance without form in a shadow before it ate anymore reality.


'''Death is a Doorway'''<br/>
A torrent of souls erupted from below flowing into the room.  They were the dead from a concentration camp, bound by the graaf and their numbers beyond either of us.

As they swarmed us and Bower looked at me as though this is my cue.  I can't do anything I though, I have no spells or items to deal with this.  As doubt was upon me I stepped forward and said, "My children! Let me guide you from the darkness!"  They all swarmed into me where I died, but was able to guide them into the afterlife to rest.

My miracle pool triggered my extra life and I was reborn as an undying questor, accepting the mantle of a psychopomp.  Not yet an Immortal but one step closer.