She is Made of Truth

Scribe Notes

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:

Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

Queen Aleksandra

The adventure takes place on the Alusia in (at least initially) Glissom.

Summary

Adventure: She is Made of Truth
GM: Jon Mc
Session: Winter 808 wk
Night: Wednesday night only
Level: High

This adventure is a follow on from The Fate of Queen Aleksandra and The Family Jewels.

Other Scribe notes of use

• Spring 797 WK & Spring 798 WK Prince of Darkness I GM: Jon Scribe: Pent

Party

1. Sasha Party employer
2. Braegon Military Scientist and Chief Hairdresser
3. Engalton E1 Party Leader
4. Erzsabet E2 Scribe
5. Serendipity Party Morale officer

Employer

Queen Aleksandra.

Mission

• Find out why the elves wanted to see Queen Aleksandra before she visited The Fates.
• Visit Anguitia to get Amulets that stop magic coming off at death.
• Check out the evil cult in Kirkul
• Get Discordia/Sekhmet off plane

Pay

Gratitude and friendship, loot and one gift out of Sasha's basement

Scribe Notes

The Gathering

On the first day of frost we are summoned before Kali the Nameless for a general pep talk about behaviour on adventure

• In particular Kali notes that killing your family gets you hunted by the Furies
• Savnok has the powers of corruption and powers over tower, we should avoid him if we can
• We are not to bring the guilds name into disrepute
• And there was something about Elfheim ... I can't remember the exact wording but I am sure that Engalton does.

Kali lends me his boat. I am beginning to think this is standard behaviour and it is only the surprise on my fellow adventurers faces that lets me know that this does not happen on every adventure. Anyway it is a good sign that Kali does not warn me about dying. Kali appears today as an imposing middle aged somewhat handsome man. It has been arranged for us to sign our party agreement at the house of the Dean of Air, Etienne, a charming Elf living a mile or so up the Sweetwater.

The Aviary

A Bird

Etienne's house is frequented by a lot of birds and is light and airy, much like the man himself. We have a pleasant cup of tea and note the changes in each other since last we met. Serendipity is unknown to most of us so we are eager to make her acquaintance. Our host lends us 10 invested Vapour Breathing, so we can ease the passing of a revenant who can cast noxious vapours.

Sasha briefly reviews the scribe notes from the Prince of Darkness for us, telling us of a few people we may meet and a little about Glissom. She explains that she needs help as she has been summoned to see the elves in the Siren woods and she would also like to visit with the Naga Goddess near the Lunar empire.

We bind ourselves to Newhaven so we can be banished back there at any time, and portal to Glissom.

Glissom

Arriving at the court of Glissom we find King Doron is standing in the fire place. An attractive and pleasant man, he is pleased to see his wife Sasha and pleased that she has bought adventurers with her. We are introduced and explain that we are here to help Sasha with whatever the Elves need to see her for. Doron calls for Nurrien, an elf who resides at court, and we meet the children, and divinate them.

King Doron and Sasha have 5 children

• The triplets born 803

Allegra - Spring Fire - she is a fire mage. She has some weird powers, she is immune to temporal and chaos abilities. Can't be warped or aged. Time always flows for her, ie time affecting abilities used around her, she gets to use too. She can see what is really there, invisibility and illusion do not work against her. These abilities where gained during the first two years of her life.
Allegra has similar powers to Aim but no links to him. Whatever was done in the first two years of her life have made it so Allegra can never be turned into Aim.
She can remember both the past as it now is, and the past that was before we visited the fates.

Alexander - Spring Water - will be a great military scientist

Adalwolf - Spring Earth - is very Charismatic

• Verina (girl) - Autumn Air born 805 - is going to be a Namer even if never trained, can see the truth of things, she is a bit pre and post cognitive. She can see the threads.

• Yvon (boy) - Life Aspected born Winter 807 - Will be a great healer, can heal with a touch and has a very strong life force.

The Siren Woods

A map

Whilst we are divinating the princes and princesses Nurrien arrives. She goes to get Lyrisal, an elf who can lead people through trees, to take us to the Siren Woods.

Lyrisal arrives and sees us divinating the Children. She tells us; if the darkness gets Ivo then humans will die, and if the darkness gets Allegra then elves will die as well.

Presently we arrive in the Siren Woods, to our surprise we step out of a tree and there are 40 elves on the other side. We are introduced to Misopha, who it seems is the elf that wanted to talk to Sasha.

• Lyrisal tells us that it would be bad if Discordia got loose on plane. Last time she got loose the Gods got together and drugged her to get her off plane. Engalton admits to having summoned her, and recalls that they got the invocation from Anguitia. Lyrisal says something about Discordia will bring about the downfall of a Queen, Engalton thinks that this may have already happened with Rashak.

• Misopha tell us that she had wanted to talk to Sasha to tell her not to go and see the eternals, but she can tell from looking at us that the advice comes too late.

Fae Trouble

Misopha is a well dressed elf pleasing to the eye and dark of hair, upon her head rests a silver crown. She is pleased we have come to the forest as she has a problem with a Trauco. The Trauco is a male fae who hits trees with a hammer and leaves dents in them. The Siren Woods elves are keen for us to deal with this problem and take the Trauco away. We agree to do this and are given the run of the forest for this purpose.

It turns out that the Trauco is very handsome and seduces maidens. Maidens in this case are unmarried women and it is not necessary to have no knowledge of a man to be a maiden. He is a reflection of a God, created when a Queen lies with the God. The way to capture him is to see him before he sees you causing him to become be your slave for a year and a day. The children of a the maidens and the Trauco will be part faye, therefore faire of face, and full of grace. Unfortunately, Maidens who have known the Trauco will find mortal men pale in comparison. It appears we will need to move him far away from humans.

If there is a child from the union of the Queen and the God it is called a Cipitio, these the elves tell us are unhappy creatures. Misshapen.

Information we are told about the Trauco

• Misopha believes that neither she nor Sasha is not the queen involved. - the Queen who is responsible for this will eventually become a Sihuanaba
• The Queen will not become a Sihuanaba if 1) The King does not find out about her adultery with a God, 2) the Cipitio knows she loves it and loves her back.
• The Trauco appeared six months ago, when someone must have invoked the laws of the Gods
• The Trauco is a skilled forest creature and hard to track, he can not become invisible at will like some faye however he probably has some of the powers of his Father (the God).
• Any Maiden that lies with the Trauco, pines for him ever after. No mortal man will satisfy her again.
• Any mortal man that the Trauco sees first drops dead.
• The Trauco can bend the land like Braegon
• Seren is immune to the Trauco's effects as she is also a Faye

Other random information from the Siren Woods Elves

• Adalwolf, Ivo, Allegra, etc are all of the blood (Doran's Royal Line)
• The elves seem pleased with the heirs
• The Sisters (Furies) are after Seren and she is hounded by Demons
• Shader was a demon and has lots of names
• Boroward is still in the area looking after the children - she is a succubus
• Allegra's protections are surprising, her extra abilities are because of the cradle, but her extra fire abilities are because of her bloodline
• fire scrying is a magic that the siren elves can teach all fire mages

Lirisal agrees to take us to the other side of the forest, where the Trauco was last seen

The Trauco

Following Lirisal we step out of a tree some distance away in to the Siren woods. We buff up and Braegon summons an Earth Elemental to help us track the Trauco. The Elemental who arrives to Braegon's summons is called Malachite and is very smart indeed, he locates the Trauco for us and we start preparing an ambush. Seren scouts ahead to give us advanced warning of it's approach. Braegon talks to the trees for an added advantage.

Amadusius foils our plans, he tips off the Trauco to our presence and waylays Seren until after the Trauco is upon us. Luckily the Trauco seems to like us, and we appear to be immune to most of it's abilities. Oddly a curse which has not shown up until this point becomes apparent upon Braegon, his finger nails have started to thicken and the hair upon his hands becomes more wiry. We chat with the Trauco about sending it somewhere else, however it appears it is in it's nature to seduce maidens and kill men so Engalton banishes it to Elysium.

The name of the god that the Trauco was most linked to is Aigisthas (or Goatstrength in common). He has a strong aura of lust about him but nothing was binding him to the forest.

It is decided that we should urgently divinate Braegon. He has a 32 MA curse upon him, which has been done by an adept of the college of Naming Incantations. This curse seems to be another invocation of the Laws, and someone is pointing the finger at him. Braegon is cursed to turn into a beast. We are all concerned about this and divinate the entire party.

Erzsabet and Engalton are cursed with being lost and we cannot find our ways home. Sasha is cursed to fall. All these curses are 32 MA and all are invoked by a Namer, using the Laws.

returning to Misopha's glade we have another brief discussion with the Elves there and ask some questions of our spirit guides of note is that Modesty does not wish to say who the blood cult is trying to have reborn, however when not acting as an oracle suggests it might be Nun, but we shouldn't ask him about it or he will go blind..

• Rubizal or the King of the Mountain is the power than is pointing out our law breaking.
• The best way to deal with the problem is to sway him.
• We can perform some act of good as atonement if necessary
• We can repent and give up something of value to ourselves - however none of us feel particularly guilty so this won't work.

Seren asks some important questions of the oracle about her family Sasha sends Zmeya to get some information to assist with her atonement.

We pop back to the guild briefly, Sasha collects a note from her Mother out of the guild vaults, the guild is worried about this note. Seren has some business with Mortimer.

We then return to Glissom to spend the night

Day 2

We have breakfast and Sasha spends some time with her children. Allegra is sad not to have contact with her grandmother but spends time with Nyssa.

Visiting with Hadron

Hadron is at court today as there is a council meeting. He is keen to talk with Sasha about "Our Grandmother" also known as the Lady of the Serpent or The Silver Rose, and the Lady of the Lake, so we arrange a private meeting.

Hadron is an extremely old man who has been life extended many times. We are concerned for his safety as the last time he touched Sasha he nearly dropped dead. Sasha wishes to show him the note from her mother, it is written on the skin of a dead imp (usually impossible on this plane). We check that we have a number of ways to resurrect him even if the base chance would be extremely low, and decide it is safe to show him the note.

Reminding Hadron that he wanted to talk about "Our Grandmother" he informs us that we need her scabbard or "You need it to protect your blood or you will loose your blood". Deducing that "Our Grandmother" is in fact Anguitia, we ask if we can just get the scabbard from her, to which he replies

• "You need her scabbard but she doesn't have it - the scabbard was lost during a battle
• find out the location of the scabbard in a good library - Sasha tells us that Rockwell has a good library
• Anguitia gave her sword and scabbard to a man that would be a great king, there are many versions of this tale. One of the names for the great king in this tale is "Arter".

Showing Hadron the note and asking about Sasha's mother

• He sees stones falling from the sky - this is the past
• She is driven to bring back the Skeleton Rider - who was once known as Baron Dumar, not the current one.
• She is Dumar's creature
  

Can she be redeemed?? There is always hope

• Her weaknesses are - She cares for her children, and she is under the sway of Chaos

If she can effect Sasha through her blood ties can Sasha also effect her? Sasha can effect her through blood ties

The days of Chaos are coming

• What else will help against the Chaos magics - Make a shield from the Strange Wood - find something to stretch over it. Suspect it will stop most magics, will definitely stop fae magics.
  

the plane of origin for strange wood is Legend (deduced from divinating the cradle)
Sasha says that one of the Verain ships went to legend by getting lost in the fog, and they paid Count Azure a lot of money to get them home

Asking Questions about our curses and Rubizal

• He is the knight of Influence
• He is the knight of Satire
• He takes down those who are in positions of power and don't deserve it.
• He assists people who are being Maltreated by those in power.

At this point Lord Corbin arrives to take Sasha and Hadron to the council meeting.

Into the Library

Sasha returns with Lord Rockwell, a hearty Dwarf with the library devoted to magical weapons. He agrees to help us find out about the scabbard. He seems a nice fellow a bit rough about the edges, Braegon seems very pleased to get away from court and drink his ale. He lives an hours walk out of town, we take a carriage.

On the way Rockwell tells us that the troll king has the scabbard we seek - The scabbard of Excalibur makes you immune to bleeding. I also look at a book on wound healer, Breagon relates a couple more tales of Engalton's daring feats with the sword for Rockwell's book.

Anguitia

Our next stop is to go see Anguitia, and ask about the scabbard. We arrive at her temple near the Lunar Empire; it is full of snakes and she is currently not at home. Asking one of her servants (a snake) we are told to look for her in the lake. Anguitia is easily found at the Lake. She looks like a Naga except that the snake portion is longer than that of any Naga I have met. She is not expecting us and does not have a task which we can perform to gain the amulets that certain of us want. If we want to make the amulets ourselves then it will take a very long time for most of us, less for Seren who has already started to learn alchemy.

She says that doing a small "good" will allow us to be let off our curses. She says that dealing with the Cult at Kirkul will easily be enough, and enough for the amulets as well. She would be happy to have the scabbard back, but only if it isn't needed, and is not concerned.

She can tell by looking at us, that Seren will become a creature of Vengeance or will be torn and dismembered by the Furies unless the curse is lifted off her.

Engalton asks about Discordia and is told that the summoning ritual which allowed Discordia to return to Alusia was not given to him by Anguitia, nor at her knowledge or behest. He is gifted with a vial of poison which can effect Discordia, but she is unlikely to fall for that one again, and we are warned of it's potency. Discordia, it seems, likes to dance in blood while appearing with the head of a lion. Anguitia advises that putting the poison into a vat of blood might work.

Our next plan is to see the Troll King. Arriving at a riverside in Caulder, Braegon announces it is bed time and we must all sleep on the dirt - what is more he won't build us a roof. I am not quite sure how this works because Engalton is party leader but we all camp out rough, something about getting soft and needing to be hard adventurers. Next morning Braegon is in rude health (I know this because I empathied him and sleeping on the wet cold ground doesn't give him colds).

Day Three

The Troll Kingdom is 5 hours flight from our camp, we make it there without incident. We are shown into a waiting room without trouble, as we have the great hero Braegon the Bold with us. Hours pass (probably 2) before a Shaman comes in to talk to us, it appears that the trolls have been trying to DA and Scry us with no success and have now decided to talk. We assure him that everything is okay and we ask for an audience with the Troll King

The Troll King

The Troll King has a very impressive honour guard, and is himself an obese Troll. Things must be going very well indeed for the Trolls. The Troll King offers us refreshments of live chickens, which after a brief conversation become dead charred chicken.

The Trolls did have the scabbard but it was stolen 3 months ago. The rocktrolls who guard the kings treasury feel asleep and the scabbard was stolen. This is odd because Rocktrolls don't sleep, and nothing else was stolen. We are not allowed into the Kings treasury to divinate, so a Rocktroll is bought to us to divinate so we can ascertain the nature of the sleep. Talking to the Rocktroll we discover that the remaining treasure in the treasury was rearranged into the shape of a mountain with little clouds circling it at the time of the theft. Also that this magic was cast by a Namer.

It is clear to us that this is the work of Rubizal... a Namer with a fixation for Mountains, who else can it be?

The trolls offer us an honour guard to help retrieve the scabbard if required, and offer a reward for the return of the scabbard if we find it. The King is not particularly concerned as the scabbard stops bleeding and trolls don't bleed.

Yellow Emperor

From the Troll kingdom Braegon leads us to Glissom. There we purchase Pots and Pans to take as gifts for Yellow Emperor, a wise shaman we have dealt with favourably before. I espy a particularly fine set of Needles which I think he will like.

Heading into the Mongodian swamp, the first thing we notice is that Yellow Emperor's hut has been cut down. The villagers all seem sickly and new barns have been erected. The village is in disorder and the villagers themselves appear to have turned to drink and ruin. A dusky maiden of negotiable virtue displays her assets to the men in our group, however getting no response she introduces us to a bar keeper in one of the new barns. The barkeep tells us that Yellow Emperor has moved up river.

Locating and flying to the Yellow Emperor's new village we are pleased to find he and his people are well. He tells us that some of his villagers preferred to stay in the old village and trade with the Destinians, who have bad teeth and need a lot of teeth medicine.

We learn

• The King of the Mountain is usually helpful
• He can be found on top of Mountains, usually requiring a hard journey. This is particularly true of magical mountains.
  

We can try getting to him by, Climbing the Sacred Mountain
Going to hell and finding him in the mountains there
Go to him through dream questing

• The Blood Cultists will be trying to summon in the outsiders
• It is 10 days walk from the Village to the Sacred Mountain
• If we climb the mountain he is more likely to be there.
• We should cover the strange wood shields with Leviathan skin. Anything to protect the wood will be fine but Leviathan skin works best.

Yellow Emperor makes us each a fetish of protection vs horses, which might help against the Unicorn Duke.

The Sacred Mountain

Rube's Castle

We fly up the mountain to have words with Rube. There is an unnatural storm swirling around the mountain, we fly over it to the mountain peak where we can see an obviously magical castle.

Landing is tricky in heavy turbulence and we are promptly met by Malachite the Earth Elemental. He politely informs us that he has been summoned here to challenge us, we must defeat him and then the ice devils on the walls to enter and see Rube. We discuss details and exchange pleasantries with Malachite while we cast our short-term magics, then promptly cut through his magical defences and banish him.

Meanwhile the Ice Devils have been loading and aiming their siege weaponry our way. Deciding not to run the gauntlet of their weaponry we teleport to the top of the walls and lay into the devils. Within half a minute all 40 are bound or killed and we proceed into the castle without any further hindrance.

Rube thanks us for answering his invitation and dispatches a minion to the Eternals to retract his petition and hence lift our curses.

He tells us about a group who are trying to summon Duke Teer, and The Queen of Chaos (the blood cult of Kirkul) and how it would be beneficial to all mortals and the gods and powers that adhere to the compacts if the chaotic court (of Swords) were prevented from returning to our plane. Duke Teer has a piglike head and is a servant of Mabelode the Faceless, (The King of Swords) and associated with Arioch the insane The Knight of Swords, Urleghn and Xiombiog. Rube tells us that these people are capable of killing the eternals (The Fates, Justice, Death etc).

Rubizal has acquired The Scabbard of Anguita, and some strange-wood shields covered in Leviathan skin that should be of help to us.

He also suggests that the Sword of Solomon (Sham Shir-e Zomorodnegar) would be particularly useful if any of the Court of Swords did make it through as it is capable of killing the nameless. The sword is currently held by Justice the Queen of the Underworld (also known as Truth, Dyke, Ma'at, Mayet). Rube tells us inorder to get into the underworld we will need to identify the goddess's statues at the door. If we stab them all in the foot - Justice will be the one who cuts us down, Discordia will be the one who drinks our blood and the other goddess is deceit. He will not tell us the individual true names of Justice or Discordia.

Rube leaves the room, we trash it, kill some imps, 'steal' the shields and some books from his Library, then leave.

We take books on

• The Netherworld
• Gates
• Caverns
• Earth
• Going forth by day
• Amduat
• 3rd one from the top
• Aphrodite's Girdle
• Flying Through Gandiva

Yellow Emperor again

We land and discuss our next steps, the fly back to Yellow Emperor. Sasha and Yellow Emperor go off into the jungle to perform a blood ritual to find out what has happened to Zmeya. They return and report that he/she has been captured by Apep, Master of Snakes in the lands of the dead, who must be defeated in combat before she can be returned.

Shorapur and Drow Raids

We take the boat to Shorapur and ask the harbour master if he knows the location of Matt's ship. He is not sure as they haven't been in port for over a week.

Flying south-east Sasha is able to locate someone on the ship and we head there. Engalton is mildly concerned that the ship seems to be over the Drow City that Rashak used to be Queen of.

Matt is preparing to raid the Drow and invites us along, we decline but ask if he could help us get to the Temple of Justice, a moment later we are there and Matt is gone again.

Death and Justice

The temple is at the end of a barren valley, several groups are coming and going from worshipping at the temple, a priest surprised at our sudden appearance with a Titan offers us assistance.

We decline, and then approach the three statues at the end of the valley. Ignoring Rube's advice for getting past them and taking the advice of the King of the North we ask them the appropriate indirect double-negative question, identify each of the statues and gain entrance to the lands of the dead.

Walk through darkness. Swim. Desert of snakes. Sea of Fire, battle Apep to pass and free Zmeya. And finally reach the place of Judgement.

We are expected and invited to a side-room to meet with Justice. She approves of our quest and will loan us the Sword of Solomon if we are wise.

We demonstrate our wisdom in how we deal with and answer the riddles and quandaries posed by Justice and are given the sword. It is of note that we are also owed two favours by Justice. Serendipity carries the sword as she is the only one with skill in Scimitar.

Justice teaches us the laws of Magic, as we have some thought that we might use our boons to call down Justice upon Sinners. Also some people might need to be pardoned for their sins
1. Thou shalt not kill by use of Magic
2. Thou shalt not transform others
3. Thou shalt not invade the mind of another
4. thou shalt not enthrall another
5. thou shalt not reach beyond the borders of life
6. thou shalt not swim against the currents of time
7. thou shalt not seek beyond the outer gates.

We are shown the door back to the lands of the living and exit into the mortal Temple of Justice. It is the following day and the priest is surprised to see us in the temple as he didn't see us enter. We avoid the question, leave the temple and banish ourselves back to Carzala.

Day 5 until 12

Shield Training

Sasha and Erzsabet have no skill in shield, so we take a week out, mainly in Newhaven, to train them in the basics.

Erzsabet, Engalton and Sasha use the time to learn some names of Cultists from one of the books we took from Rube. In particular we learn the name Malachite so we can summon the earth elemental

• There are 320 names in the book
• 25 blood mages
• Some names which stand out as more complicated and old

Discussing options

• We want to find the location and number of slaves
• location of the treasuries - Sasha knows this
• Blood cultists location - everywhere
• Ritual location
• Location of the "child" Vessel - and guardian Mind, (which we believe to be an aspect of Nun, Primordial Chaos rather than a created entity as the captured vampire believes)
• which ally have we overlooked
• organise Valkyrie attack
• Hive mind

A number of scrying crystals are borrowed from Nystral, a Dwarf Sasha knows:

• 2 rank 20 crystals of vision
• one greeny yellow mana storing crystal, 10ft, regenerates 1ft per night
• one milky/silvery 24 sided rank 12 crystal of vision, shows what it thinks you should see
• one black with red flecks, stores a blow

We decide to try to acquire the hive mind, mentioned to us by Syrene on behalf of Matt Tumbledown during the previous adventure, to maximise the groups protections when we enter Kirkul. Then we will enter Kirkul by stealth, locate and poison as many of the blood vats as possible, recover two of the leaders we want to try to redeem, and destroy the eye. Once stealth is no longer possible we will call in Sabrina to lead a general assault on Kirkul.

Day 13

Sasha scribes:

The Eye of the Queen

We get lost to the Great Heart to find out about the Hymenoptera from Syrene (who rudely ignores Sasha and Braegon, she gets snootier every time we meet her).

There, we also meet some elves who are watching Seren's father and (at Matt's request) intercepting his land-shipments of slaves to Kirkul. We arrange to meet them outside of Kirkul.

We raid the bugs, killing the queen and some body guards, get the 'eye' (part of her brain) and some carapace. While the colony is in disarray we recover some dwarves and elves who were soon to be food, and leave them (once healed/resurrected) in the care of Syrene's elves.

Back in Seagate we get blessings from the Michaeline Bishop and potions from Shoka.

The other Engalton has arranged for Michaeline troops to take ship to Kirkul and join our assault.

Day 14

We go to visit the muses in Glissom. As we are about to enter the temple of Mimir, esp detects an Ape mind that I don't think should be there.

Some of the party learn from the muses. This involves wearing a cursed helmet and then having a curse removal and takes some time.

During this time we meet the Ape. He is an Avatar, the Blind Ape of Knowledge, also known as Destiny, so one of the Eternals. He says he's glad he followed us here because it was hidden. I think I'm in trouble again. He says he will leave once we have all left, and just sits there looking contemplative.

I look for the treasure that went down the hole last time I was here, but it is gone. I blame Kel, but it was probably the Succubi.

We walk to the village. The villagers appear clumsy and are involved in philosophical conversations. We sleep there.

Day 15

I drink some of the village water, which will last about 24 hours.

We call in Sabrina to share the 'eye' with us, cast assorted self-only magics to affect everyone, then head for the Five Sisters.

On the way to Kirkul we swing by Matt's ship to let him know we are going in. Unsure why, he mentions that the 'Eye of the Queen' he told us of before would be a bad thing in Kirkul as the insects worship Chaos. We call Sabrina back and the Rk 12 Healers cleanse everyone of the 'Eye'.

We meet the elves outside Kirkul.

Engalton ESPs to locate a cat that I earlier precogged in a crystal, and before we can talk to the elves (we must seem very rude), he teleports us over to it, as he has realised that it is Discordia. Engalton engages her in discussion over his duties as her high priest, Braegon offers her cream from the scone picnic, Sasha and Seren spike it with the sleeping draught from Anguita and to our surprise Discordia drinks the cream and falls over asleep. (We will not be able to poison the vats of blood in the city with it.)

Erzsabet removes some of her anti-scrying, picks up Discordia, and calls for Matt. Matt takes us to Anguita, where we hand over the sleeping Discordia. Anguitia takes her and goes somewhere in haste.

Someone tells us that the 24 sided crystal as well as working over any range or time, can be used to open a gate to the outside, so we destroy it, then Matt drops us back to the elves.

They tell us that the protections of the city have increased. From about a mile out, mana is being drawn in. Scrying magic no longer works and casting can probably be detected.

Into Kirkul

Braegon prepares our route to the city overland (the earth elemental begins to flake as we get closer to the city, the mana is starting to be very low), while we wait till sunset, then we cast our buffs at a distance and I dance.

As we approach the city the stars are occluded by flying creatures, but they don't seem to notice us. We tunnel further, intersecting with some sewer outside of the walls. The earth elemental is dismissed in case it comes under control of the Eye.

We Tunnel under the wall and come up in an abandoned building, avoiding the Death Maggot in the cellar.

We sneak above ground towards a temple (Building ?), where the Eye was last seen. Braegon uses tunnelling to remove a wall and accidentally releases 4 bound wights, but they are no match for us. Approaching the building I Wizard's Eye inside. The Eye is not there, but there are four 12 foot tall creatures. My DA is sucked into them when I try it.

Engalton locates one of the Priests while I locate Claw Death. The arrows coincide. We make our way in that direction. No one pays us any attention, they seem to be heading to the south.

We reach building 61(?), where our arrows are pointing. Inside is Claw Death and 3 priests having a conversation. We open the door, and Compel (1) and Stasis (2) the priests. Claw Death ignores the spells. She says that she knows I am there and I should show myself. I ignore her.

Seren attacks her with Solomon's Sword, and she expands to 7 feet tall with tentacles. Seren's first blow cleaves her head in half, but no, the priest next to her is cloven instead. She passes off the next spec grev to one of our elf companions so they hide behind a wall of earth.

Braegon goes to assist Seren as she is being tentacled. A tentacle moves to Braegon, but he succeeds in a knock-out and Claw Death collapses to the ground. Engalton rushes over to the body and applies his soul jar amulet, but it now seems to contain "some chap". That would be Marden, her "ex"-husband.

Suddenly, I notice a tall, naked, bald, dark-skinned, unarmed man beside me. He looks at Seren and says "This will be interesting". I withdraw, while Seren attacks him with Solomon's Sword. We figure that this is the "Eye" in a different form (also known as Crawling Darkness).

He is fatally surprised to discover that she is doing damage to him, and is slashed a number of times, till he disintegrates into a puddle of grey slime on the floor.

Erzsabet and I leave the floor and Braegon leaps onto the ceiling in a very un-Earthmage-like manner. Engalton moves over to pick up the injured priest and I pick up Claw Death. One of the elves is touched by the slime, which oozes into his leg, so it is quickly amputated above the knee.

I land and put Claw Death down on a table.

Braegon, on the ceiling, notices that there is something slimy inside his armour, and drops to the floor. He undoes a couple of straps and Seren deftly pulls out a slimy, grey, slug-like thing.

I notice that my locate on mother now point to the "slug”. I knew it! Told you she wasn't in the body.

The slug begins to insinuate itself into Seren's flesh. The Sword of Solomon just slips over it's surface. When she picks up her strangewood shield to scrape with, it detaches and she drops it. It immediately goes for her again and she catches it and balances it on the shield. Earth magics are used to enclose it it a casing of rock. The body is alive, breathing slowly, but fading.

We notice that the fatigue cost to cast is up to 8x.

Engalton tries ESP to check whether it is safe now that we defeated the "eye”, and is drained 4ft per pulse until he counterspells it. There are a dozen humanoids outside forming up nervously to attack, and 4 points of nothing drawing in magic.

Wizards Eye outside show that they are rabble with no obvious leader, and that there are one of those 12 foot tall creatures at each corner, sparkling blue.

There is smoke visible and noise in two directions. That will be Sabrina and our Michaeline allies.

We tunnel out the wall and attack with Dragon Flames (investeds seem to have a reduced effect but casting seems to work fine) Meanwhile, Seren and Engalton attack the absorbers with Solomon's Sword and a completely mundane weapon. Both pass through the creatures with sparks and seem to have little effect. Then Seren tries her shield and the creature vanishes in a shower of sparks. She moves onto the second creature and uses the shield but it just sparks and doesn't vanish.

A locate on Rufus has the arrow flickering from place to place, either he is teleporting or is in many places.

The fire mage elf casts into his endurance and creates a rank 96, 30 pulse duration, 330 damage column of cold over the whole area which leaves him bleeding out. Engalton goes down for a moment and the rabble freeze and shatter. Bedivere drags Engalton out. The creature and its megahex with Seren are unaffected but Seren can't leave its vicinity without getting frozen.

Rufus seems to be narrowing his arc.

While we consider, Seren fights it, but it starts to grow and become more solid, absorbing the magic and hitting harder so she evades.

Engalton dispels the cold zone but the creature is now 28 feet tall.

Rufus stabilises in one direction.

The party attack the giant creature and I make Claw Death's body invisible. Anyone without a strangewood shield or who passes through it or vice versa must resist or lose magic. The giant dog loses all its buffs, feeding the creature, but Seren's items survive its punch.

We hear whistling, similar to "Meteor Strike” and can see a black cloud moving against the wind overhead, so those outside rush in. It turns out to be "Rain of Millstones”, an angelic magic last seen at Barretskine. We take some collateral damage and hide in a lidded wall of iron till it finishes.

The smaller magic absorbing creatures are destroyed. Rufus goes erratic again.

Emergence

After five minutes, during which we loot the bodies and rebuff where necessary, we emerge from our bunker, to find the building in rubble.

In fact, the whole city in rubble.

We set off on foot across the city toward Rufus' location, which coincides with Engalton's new locate on Bliss. After a while they both disappear from range, and a new locate with 150 mile range fails to pick them up, so they have teleported.

The only leader we can still pick up is Cauldron Mike, who was looking after the "Mind" so we head for him. We find him under the rubble of building 13. The basement is covered with a huge slab of bound iron. We tunnel down through the mess to iron. While standing on it there is no mana and short duration magics fall off. We open the trapdoor. About ten foot in we can once again draw mana (in bound stone), but past the next bend the tunnel is lined in iron. We continue through this obvious trap and enter a room lined in bound iron where none of our magic works.

We see a black sphere (similar but not the same as the "mind") spinning inside some kind of mechanician frame. Hanging on the walls are many sets of iron shackles. It seems that this device has been drawing in teleporters into the shackles.

Cauldron Mike is here in ill-fitting armour and a strange helmet, as are ? two drow and six dangerous looking orcs.

This scares us more than maybe it should have in retrospect, and we negotiate a truce allowing them out with only what they can carry and three days before we will chase them, then we exit. Luckily there is the short space in the tunnel for casting the new tunnelling to get out.

Outside we meet the leader of the Michaeline contingent, who complains about the Heathens and undead we have allied with, and worries about us letting Cauldron Mike go, but we talk him down.

The Michaeline tells us that the enemy sent slabs of chaos stone at them, especially near the docks, which is why the called down the millstones, and they captured some fleeing enemy and secured the treasure they were carrying for the church.

We spend the day looting what is left of the city. We find the body of El Muerte. There are many areas of chaos taint remaining, where weird stuff happens, e.g. thing fall up. We will arrange for mechanicians (maybe Mortimer or MMHS) to bring out the device, which is too big to remove in one piece. There are 24 slaves intercepted by the elves, and we arrange that they will help settle Erszabet's land once it has been cleared.

We retire to the tower that the previous party used, to deal with mother. Divination of the body shows that it does not contain a soul. We open the stone containing the slug and put it in through the mouth. As she begins to regain consciousness Erszabet paralyses her by taking a lot of her magic resistance. Once I tell her to stop resisting, I sleep her, which takes effect with normal duration.

As we have her ITN, Erzsabet is able to do a true form ritual to remove the chaos taint and uses the sword to remove any remaining madness. She is now fine but remembers little of the past fifteen years.

We use our favours from Justice to bring us Rufus and Bliss, and tell us where they were. We apply the same treatment to Rufus as to Claudette, resulting in a four year old mind in a seventeen year old body. We then make our way to an island in the Isles of Adventure where we find the Vessel. It is a magical construct with no soul, so we kill it, burn it, and let the ashes wash away in the tide.

Of the enemy:

• we have slain the Avatar of Chaos
• we have destroyed one of the six Vessels
• we have redeemed Claw Death
• we have redeemed Rufus
• we have captured Bliss (what are we doing with her?)
• Cauldron Mike is on the loose
• El Muerte is dead
• Silver Blade is unaccounted for

Visit Anguitia's Temple. She is not there, but there is an amulet for each of us.

Back to the guild and we sleep.

Nominations and SGT Snippets

Nominations

Best Death

Smartest

Bravest

Hot and Not

Hot

• Silver Braiding

Not

Reference Information

Standard Buffs

"A" = always on, "Y" = Yes please, "-" not required, blank = as required

Magic	Rk	Effects	Br	En	Mod	Cat1	Cat2	Ju	Er	E'Dog	Se	Sa	S'Dog	Zme
Armour of Earth	21	+44% Def -2 Dam 15 Hrs	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	--	Y	Y	Y
Strength of Stone	20	+21 EN 30 Hrs	A	A	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Fire Armour	10	20Hrs 44 Protection	Y	Y	A	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Witchsight	14	12Hrs	Y	--	A	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Strength of Darkness	19	+11 for 290 mins	--	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	--	Y	Y	--
Quickness	10	5 Targets, 20x[d-5] pulses
Trollskin	13	Regen 1 EN/Pulse 95 Sec
Disguise	11		11									21
Mindcloak			Y	A	--	--	--	A	Y	--	Y	A	--	--
Enhance Enchantment	9	+9 Rks
Shadow Wings	10	40mph 11.5Hrs 460 miles							--			--	--	--
Counterspells (Eng)#			Ne Wi	2	2			2	2		2	2		Ne Mi
Counterspells (Erz)#						2	2			2		Na Mi	Ne Mi
Choker		Counterspells	Fi	--	--	--	--	--	NI SM	--	Mi	E&E	--	--
Animal Growth	6					Y	Y			Y			Y

• Most durations are assumed to be enhanced.

Braegon's Anti-Scrying (while on ground)

2 Hex Radius, blocks magical scrying, blocks Locate < 17, appear as native animals to ESP/Telepathy

Mil Sci

Watches

Marching Order

Calendar

	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
Winter: Frost (7)
		Samhain	1	Guild Meeting Seagate Glissom, Siren Woods	2	Glissom Anguita	3	Troll Kingdom Yellow Emperor Rube Justice	4	Justice	5	Newhaven - Shield Training	6
	7		8		9		10		11		12		13	Great Heart Insects
	14	Glissom - Muses	15	Kirkul	16	Kirkul	17		18		19		20

Rewards

• EP: 28500
• SP: 35000

Final experience amounts were so close I have made them all 28500.

Steve has kindly written up the items for me and will organise a split by email shortly. Rolls have been generated by keen hands incase needed: Sasha 27, Erzabet 29, Braegon 37, Engleton 53, Seren 98.