Elvas - To Keep A Promise

Friday
I went to Elvas in the same state of mind as I always did, as I have been since the moots and certainly since the Gathering – somewhere between furious and fething livid. There’s always been people in my life who I’ve been particularly protective of, who I can’t stand for anyone to pick on. Now I knew Golgul had kidnapped and been tormenting Xavin for months and I was finally in a position to batter Golgul for it. Which improved my mood slightly.

We had a difficult task ahead of us. Golgul had captured eight Lions and two Vipers, all of whom we needed to find and rescue. However, we were set and ready for just about everything he could throw at us. I hoped.

All in all, the Lions Expeditionary Force numbered fourteen: myself, Lemming, Sergeant Lochlan Douglas and Lanceman Dalziel Douglas of Tartan Lance, Lanceman Jess Hawkes of Blue Lance, Jutah Fate, Sister Bethanie, Jari Dyzgati, Devlin McEwan, Debreni and Sebastian DuPont, Midir, Cosaint, Vincenzo Sandrago and Peiraios Iltara’nl’Ash. Quite an impressive force, hopefully when combined with the other factions and guilds it would be strong enough to achieve our aims.

When a bunch of us (Lochlan Douglas, Dalziel Douglas, Midir, Devlin and myself) arrived on Elvas we had quite a hike up from the shore to the small base that the Healers had established previously. Most of the rest of the force had arrived about half an hour earlier and had already achieved quite a lot – Corporal Brad Vance of the Wild Geese, one of the men we’d come to rescue, had managed to lead the Archonite prisoners to escape the holding pen Golgul had them in and they had made it as far the hut we were based in. They were all fighting against Beguilements and suffering from loss of blood and were generally quite glad to see Vincenzo, Lemming and I, people they knew from Archon. I got talking to Brad – apparently he’d been trying to get himself demoted for being drunk and disorderly when a stranger had come into the bar and suggested a pub crawl…so his attempt to get himself demoted caused him to lead a team of hostages for days through enemy territory to safety. As a plan to prove himself unworthy of command, it sucked.

Orren was discussing a plan to get them safely to the boats when a load of unliving attacked outside. Brad decided he wanted revenge, and got quite miffed when Orren didn’t entirely trust him with a weapon.
“I’m a Captain and I ought to be fighting!”
“I thought you were a Corporal and you ought to be demoted?” I pointed out helpfully.
“Don’t complicate matters! I want a sword!”

I gave him a mace. Orren gave me a row. I went out with Brad to keep an eye on him – sadly, it was all skeletons so I couldn’t do a great deal. Brad bashed away quite happily though, and promised me a pint when we get home. Orren, I and a large group of helpful people walked the Archonites down to the shore where Aldous was waiting with the Morning Cloud to take them to Ustica and from there, Archon. Some Unicorns also volunteered to take them but apparently their boat was further out and the Archonites knew the Cloud better since I worked on it at Port Struan. So it made sense.

We were being wary as we went through the woods, but after a while we began to wonder why. It seemed Golgul either hadn’t noticed we were there, or wasn’t bothered, since there wasn’t a lot happening. It seemed odd to be spending our time on an unliving infested island playing cards and drinking. Lemming suggested we re-name the offensive as the Elvas Pub Crawl. I couldn’t help wondering what was going on though.

Sister Bethanie figured out where there was a shrine to good, and an area which she didn’t go to but felt really evil to her, so we figured there were two shrines. One swift investigation later and we found a shrine to good which had been desecrated. We tried to de-desecrate it with a little success, but this was to be a running theme of the weekend. We also found out that there was space for seven animal statues around the base, but only two little statues. So we decided to find the others.

Went back and reported this to Carabas – Treacle hadn’t come as she wasn’t that great in a fight and was worried she’d be a target (which is probably true), but Sol and Carabas were getting stuck in with the rest of us. We tried to work out what we could of what was happening and what was worth doing, particularly if Golgul genuinely hadn’t figured out we were here, but no one truly believed he was that stupid.

Unbeknownst to me, Orren was doing something very smart. One of the villagers had found Xavin – he was in the transport circle being sacrificed. Orren told a mob of other people, then told me and Carabas. I ran out, accompanied by the sound of “Robin, stay here! Robin we can’t run off without others! Robin, stop right there!” etc. But since Orren had told other people, by the time Carabas and I had charged up there we caught Jari and the others of the front line we weren’t alone. There was something – I didn’t pay attention to what, it wasn’t important – battering Xavin, so we continued charging and killed whatever it was. Jari and Bethanie helped us get him out of there – they’d broken his arms and legs and goodness knows what they were planning on doing. Bethanie healed him as we helped him back to the hut but it took a while longer before he was able to calm down.

Jess was brilliant, keeping guard over us so nothing could get close to Xavin. Orren gave him a pep talk and a bottle of wine which caused him a bit of confusion – he was kidnapped while drunk, but I think if anyone deserved a drink that night, it was him. Orren also carried enough spare weapons that he could give Xavin a sword and a mace and still have one of each himself, which was pretty impressive. How he carries around so much metal I’ll never know. His belt must weigh a ton. Debreni lent me her necklace so I could check he’d not been Beguiled or anything, which he hadn’t.

It was some time before Xavin and I were able to talk, but I think he needed it. I know I did. I needed to know for myself that he was going to be ok, and I think he is. That undead bastard forced Xavin to perform surgery on Shadran’s body, to prepare it for this ritual he’s planning, and on Elani and Elthorn, just for kicks. I tried as hard as I could to persuade him that they wouldn’t hold a grudge but I think it’ll take Xavin some time to work through it. I must confess to being a bit over-dramatic when he was feeling down as a drag on the Lions.

“Here” I said, passing him a letter “This is what the Lions think of you.” It was a letter from Lady General Tope to Golgul, basically saying that if Xavin wasn’t back on Camelot on Sunday evening, she’d send in four legions of Lions troops to redress this problem. For the first time since he left Archon to sail round the world, I saw Xavin smile. And laugh. And look astounded. It was great.

He said he’d called to mind one of our old conversations, when he’d declared that people like us didn’t live past thirty, and decided there and then to prove himself wrong. I’d always thought that statement was a bit defeatist, and fairly inaccurate too, so I reminded him of a different conversation we’d had, on Tamerus. I’d promised that I’d never give up fighting evil, if he’d never give up on life. We agreed again that we’d still stick to that one.

Though it didn’t really help that about this point, a somewhat inconsiderate death knight started frenzying his way through the room. Xavin didn’t really fancy attacking it so I went up and made sure it was under control. I take it back though, it was a very considerate death knight, as it got past my parries just enough to utterly destroy every piece of armour I was wearing, but not enough to actually hurt me. Which was, overall, a fairly good result. It didn’t take that long to patch my bracers back together, and it hurt a lot less than bane wounds do.

Eventually we were all knackered so Xavin, Lochlan, Devlin, Hope and I went back to the Morning Cloud to sleep. Well, most people slept. Xavin and I had to wake up halfway through the night so we could walk to the Ustica circle and I could transport him home, but it was well worth giving up an hour’s sleep for that. Xavin said it would be the first time in three months he’d have a chance to sleep at all. I didn’t mention it, but me too.

Other Events of Note:
Jess called Cosaint “sir” lots. Jari gave a thesis about some small orangy biscuits Debreni had brought. Someone had brought a card game called Zeus and Hera that a lot of Lions ended up playing. We found one of the statues from the shrine of good in the circle with Xavin. None of the PBs present or Jari had ever met a female Kerrimanian before. Apparently it makes not being able to pull a bit harder.


Saturday
I came up from the boats feeling like I could really have done with a bit longer in bed. Still, as I say, it was so worth it. It really didn’t help that Golgul had done a ritual some time previously, so it was still as dark as night even though I was fairly sure it was daytime. My body clock was protesting loudly and I was inclined to agree with it.

When we arrived at the main base I found I wasn’t the only one – Carabas had resisted the lure of duty and was still in bed. Sol had left us a note to say he was off talking to some life elementals, and Hope was worrying. She felt responsible when they weren’t there and had me list all the stuff we had to do. Apparently Golgul had twelve death knights (twelve!) and six vampires, so I put tick boxes next to those. I was accused of not taking things seriously, but then, what else is new.

Once Carabas woke up myself, Tap and a number of others wandered off with him to find the vault Golgul had been trying to get us to open over the last few months. Carabas asked what we’d done to try and open it and I did what was possibly, in retrospect, a silly thing. “Well, I poked the door a bit, like this, checked what kind of magic it was based on, like this, then put my hand in the hole like this...only it didn’t light up then. Oops.”

Tap put his hand in another hole and it lit up too. We discussed it briefly, decided opening the door would be fething stupid since we didn’t know what was behind it, and decided to wander off and pretend it wasn’t us. No one was fooled.

Some other people quested off and found the shrine of evil, with more of those little statues around it, and a shrine of neutrality, which was a set of scales. Someone had tipped a pipe into the scales so they were slightly off-balance, so the questing party cleared it out. Sadly, this was not enough to restore balance to the island, but it was worth a shot.

Queen Blodwyn, leader of the Bears and one of Lochlan’s ancestors, decided to wear a PBs tabard for the weekend since Lemming was wearing a McYokel one. Which gave Lochlan a bit of trouble until she decided to wear a Knight Captain’s one – I don’t think he liked the idea of outranking his ancestor in any way. Midir also donned the tabard, largely so he was easier to spot in a fight, but I think also because he got on so well with Blodwyn.

Snake, one of the totem ancestors of Mhaedros, turned up – apparently when Lukas did the rite to fix the fire shrine he did it a little too well and even after the festival of fire, it wasn’t calming down enough for winter to take over, so we’d have to do a sort of counter-rite to fix it. Lukas reckoned it was probably best to take the salamanders somewhere else too, which seemed sensible as there’s millions of them and they probably wouldn’t be happy with us doing the rite and either way, they wouldn’t cope with the winter very well.

Since the circle is so heat-overloaded at the moment I wasn’t happy about doing a ritual in it, but Lukas assured us he wasn’t planning a ritual, or even planning to be in the circle. So we transported through to do this rite, which Lukas set up in the circle. I was annoyed. So were the salamanders, and more aggressively so.

We started the rite, they attacked us. We stopped the rite. I sealed the circle against the salamanders, we started the rite. The thing is, there’s only so long you can have a circle sealed in any way, even partially, before void energies start leaking in so after a while I had to drop the seal. I did it silently, but they noticed their weapons were going through so about half a minute later they attacked. The salamanders were way harder than we were and had psionic powers, which is frankly cheating, so we weren’t able to stand against them and eventually Lemming transported us out.
There was a bit of confusion and hopping back and forth, but we all got out though the rite wasn’t completed. We decided to go back, Carabas asked us to leave it till after we’d dealt with Golgul’s ritual so we agreed to go back on Sunday and deal with it then. Lukas and someone else stayed behind on Mhaedros but Carabas said they’d figure out where we were and anyway he wasn’t having more of us wandering off and it’s not like Lukas can’t take care of himself, which was a fairly valid point.

Lunch was being provided, so we all queued up. Someone started a game of tig, which was fairly sedentary since no one wanted to leave the queue, and thus devolved into several games, leading to Lemming being simultaneously tigged, tagged and itted.

I was enjoying a quiet cup of tea with Lochlan and Hope when suddenly, I found myself back in my circle at Mhaedros, in the position I’d been in when we started the rite earlier. My tea was nowhere to be seen. I was less than chuffed, and becoming less chuffed by the second as Snake explained that the Great Spirit (the overlord of the totems) had decided the ritual had to be done now so had summoned us back. I sat down. Although I still intended to come back as planned on Sunday to do the rite, I wasn’t going to do it now. Lemming thought the same, only louder and with a few more questions about if the great spirit was such a powerful being that could drag us back here, block his ritual power (and my link to the circle, both of us had tried to transport us back and failed), why a being so powerful had to bully us into helping him turn down the heating.

Snake explained that we had no other choice, the Great Spirit wouldn’t let us use the circle until we’d done the rite. I explained we could use the boats. Yes, it would take days and be dangerous and we’d miss the chance to kill Golgul, but all my life I’ve fought against bullies and I was damned if I was going to bend the knee to one tyrant so I could have a chance at fighting another. Some people didn’t feel so strongly about it and so Lukas, Hope, Scavenger, Devlin and a few others performed the rite, which was perfectly successful. Which suggests that the Great Spirit didn’t need us after all, a fact Lemming told it loudly and long. So we all vanished and reappeared back in the Elvas circle. My tea was still notable for its absence. Lemming was bleeding copiously from all limbs – a coward’s technique which I’ve always despised, even before Charybdis did it to me.

Based on this, Lemming proposed the theory that all ancestors are dicks. Jari and I agreed, and Don Alexis commented that this was pretty much the reason Esmund had given when he stepped down as high incantor of the Vipers. Jess, a staunch follower of Kerrimar, objected most strongly.
Lemming changed his theory and proposed that all ancestors other than the Palatinate ancestors are dicks.
Acting Knight Captain Queen Blodwyn objected most strongly.
Lemming pointed out that as some of Tartan Lance worship the Queens, they must be Palatinate ancestors.
Acting Knight Captain Queen Blodwyn decided the theory had merit.

While Jari and Lemming considered methods of painting this slogan on Jari’s tabard, some of the local lizardmen came in with some interesting news. They’d found someone green and scaly, with wings, and would lead us to them if we did some wee mission for them. Though they couldn’t describe the person well enough for us to know if it was Elani or Elthorn, there was a general rush to be able to go out and complete this mission and it was done in record time. The lizardmen brought Elthorn back to us – they’d found him dying in the woods where Golgul had left him and rescued him, then recognised the description as being someone we were looking for.
As with Xavin, he was shaken but ok, and soon was having a free and frank exchange of views (as my dad calls it) with some Vipers who felt he shouldn’t be out fighting so soon after all he’d been through. He felt that on the contrary, administering a good kicking to Golgul and his minions was a great idea. It probably didn’t help that there was a fight going on and I didn’t want to go join in until I knew what was happening. In the end Elthorn won and I joined the Vipers in keeping an eye on him.

However, when we got along to the fight I was distracted almost immediately by Bethanie screaming that her husband was dying. So I charged forward and saw that the clanky one was indeed bleeding into the mud. Sword drawn to defend myself, I started slowly (very slowly) dragging him back towards Bethanie. Sadly one of the unliving we faced was smart and cast a sleep spell at me. My hands too full of Jari for me to counter, I succumbed, and both of us had to be rescued by Carabas. Oh well. Some you win, some you lose. The unliving had been in the ritual circle doing a ritual, the culmination of which had been the transport circle, generally twenty feet above the underground ritual circle, coming down to meet them. Using Speak With Dead on the ritualist confirmed that this had been the point of the ritual, to block us access when Golgul tried his ritual to sacrifice Elani later that night. Annoyingly logical, but the Scout’s guild had brought enough ropes that we could get round it. Hurrah!

Myself, Rath, Tap, Hope and Carabas were desperately trying to work out what to do about Golgul’s ritual. It seemed obvious that if he got to the circle and sealed it, Elani was dead, there was nothing we could do. So how to stop that? One suggestion offered, I think it was Tap, was that we open the vault door. This theory was based on the hope that whatever was in there, it was big and gribbly and Golgul couldn’t control it, and so he’d have two objectives to achieve at once, thus spreading himself more thinly. Or that it was small and hideable and we could use it to lure him away, but given that we’d no idea what we behind it, the big and gribbly theory seemed more likely. I was asked to sell the idea to the Lions.
“We’ve had an idea. It’s what you might call the Hatfield Manoeuvre...”
“I hate it.”
“Thank you, Lochlan”
“Is this where we unleash something really horrible in the hopes that it kills the bad guys instead of us?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did Lemming come up with this?”
“No.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Thank you for that contribution, Jari.”

I reported back that the Lions were rather against the idea. So were the Vipers and the Bears, so overall the idea was shelved. The Dwarf ritual team from the Dragons went to try to collapse the tunnels leading to the circle in the hopes that would help, while Lemming organised a ritual team to attempt a summoning ritual to bring Elani back to us. It’s worked before – they did a summoning ritual to bring back Xavin and Stefan one time when they were kidnapped – so we figured it was worth a try.

So we gave it a go. Sadly, Golgul had thought of it – first Elthorn and then Spoon McTaff got possessed by him and started to attack us, then ranted lots when we stopped them from doing so. We did our best anyway but we didn’t have enough power to break through the defences that Golgul had erected. Still, it had been worth a go and we returned to Elvas glad we’d tried it. With luck Elani would have felt the power tug at her and at least been able to know we were trying.

A messenger came rushing up the hill towards us to tell us that one of the vampire lords was probably coming this way. The reason? He was “it”. Someone – it’s been variously reported as being some girl or as Silk – went up to the vampire and tigged it. Possibly not the smartest move ever, but certainly one of the more amusing and I found it hard to stop giggling. Cosaint despaired of me. I still reckon it’d be one of the best ways ever of setting a trap. Sadly, the vampire never turned up, I guess he must have tigged one of his ghoul minions or something. Pity, because if we’d managed to kill it, it would at least have given Golgul trouble with his ritual plans.

We’d tried so many things, but we were really running out of options. At quarter to midnight, we traipsed out to the circle to consider our options. The Dwarves of the Dragons had collapsed most of the tunnels leading into the circle, so there was only one set of tunnels left (I think they’d run out of tunnel-collapsing equipment, whatever that may be). We stood around on the top of the hole, everyone trying to avoid the obvious. We weren’t going to affect anything from up here. It was time to decide how important it was to us to save Elani. Going into the circle was going to be pretty lethal, but not going would kill her. When I put it that way, I persuaded a number of people. Except, frustratingly, a few of the Lions. Jess and Dalziel had decided Lemming wasn’t going and he had agreed. I was stunned. Lemming? The man who’d led me in attacking Arioch when I first met him? One of only two people with the guts to help me attack Mal the Dark One, who’d faced down Maladius, who saw extreme ritualing as a sport and devised and led the Xavinbomb ritual, was chickening out now? I just didn’t know what to say.

Fortunately for my faith in him, Lemming decided to make his own descisions and he joined me in the circle. Jess and Tap were shouting at me to seal the circle, and any other time I would have agreed, but it was just too necromantic and evil. Sealing it would have channelled power, and I didn’t think I could handle that much of that kind of power without a ritual group. Most of the others who had decided to come down into the circle then decided to go exploring along the tunnel, which led to the surface. They decided not to climb back down again. A rope was thrown down and we were encouraged to climb out, since Golgul hadn’t turned up. I just didn’t want to, it would be giving up. Peering into the darkness of the tunnel, I was sure something was going to happen.
“Robin, the rope is free. Get up zere.” Jutah was pushing me and I was trying to find a polite way to refuse, I turned to say so to him but someone else cut across my words.
“By the evil which burrows through the rotten heart of this land I command earth, air, fire and water to SEAL THIS CIRCLE!”
There were about eight of us in the circle. We were committed, and possibly should be.

Elani was shouting hoarsely for us to leave her to die and save ourselves, which got a mixture of encouraging and derisive comments but all with the same point to make – either we were all walking out of here, or none of us were (we suspected the latter). Besides, we were trapped inside a sealed necromantic circle with six elder vampires and an over-enthusiastic lich, there was only so many places we could go and none of them were pleasant.

Golgul looked mildly annoyed.

“Kill them all and let’s get on with it.” he commented. Taking a leaf out of Tremaine’s book, we stood our ground, but it was Lemming that pulled us out of that one. Arguing desperately, he kept shouting that the circle was sealed, a ritual was therefore going on, and if they didn’t do a ritual in it then we’d all die. So we’d stand over here and let them do it but otherwise we’ll all die. One of the vampires trying to kill us thought this was a fair point, and passed it back to Golgul, who also agreed.

They started the ritual. We attacked them. Frankly, if they didn’t see that coming, hell mend them.

At this point it all got a bit hazy. I remember pouring a healing potion down Jess’ throat while parrying off a vampire, Lemming shouting abuse at them all, one vampire going berserk and hacking through anyone and anything he could reach, fighting Golgul and him being surprised that he couldn’t make me scared of him, Jutah dragging me back as my leg splintered beneath me, then Golgul shouting about sacrificing all within the circle and all that could be to save himself and teleporting out.

Then things got dangerous.

One of the vampires started bleeding off the ritual power by using it to blast Magebolt after Magebolt at us. Others attacked madly. In the middle of the fighting Jutah called me over to attend to a body on the floor. I reached down but as I put my hand to his neck, there was no pulse.
“He’s dead, Jutah.”
“Da, I am knowink.” he said impatiently. “Look at him. Xavin was sayink about stitchink?”

I turned the body over and realised what he was trying to show me – the body was that of Shadran, the mad prophet Golgul had been slowly finding and stitching back together. If it hadn’t been for Jutah’s sharp eyes, we’d never have noticed. Despite the fighting, we dragged the corpse back to the edge of the hole and shouted quick explanations to the people at the top. We tied the body to the rope and it got pulled up – so I guess at some point the seal must have dropped, I didn’t notice. Likewise, I’m not sure if we killed the vampires, or if they ran away, or if it was a bit of both. Finally someone transported people out, I think they said Prague, as one of the few remaining bad guys knocked me to the ground. As I woke up everyone was leaving the circle and fighting our way back to the hut.

So I climbed up, grabbed Shadran (who really reeked) and headed off. There was a death knight behind us and ghouls in front, but there were enough people round us that we got there safely. Don’t think I could have fought much with a dead body, I didn’t see it making much of a weapon.
When we got to the hut Bethanie laid the body to rest so even if Golgul managed to get it and Elani back, he couldn’t perform the ritual. The hut was continually attacked for a while, so it seemed to have been a sensible idea.

Elani had been mutilated – they’d cut off her wings and horns, and cut her face. She was tired and drained and very keen to get revenge. She told us all she knew of Golgul’s plans, which wasn’t a lot but culminated in his doing this ritual which would have had him drain Shadran’s blood and thus become uber hard, though he would be temporarily weakened for the next day. Odds of him actually facing us in that weakened state would be slim to none though, so I expect we wouldn’t have seen him again until he was uber hard. Now he was just hacked off, while we were more than a little bit smug.

I thought we’d done pretty well. Amazingly, through some miraculous stroke of luck, we’d all survived and returned safe. At least, I thought that until Lemming belatedly mentioned to me that Dalziel hadn’t returned from the ritual. It was one of those things, everyone thought someone else had told me. Odds are he was either lying dead or dying in the circle, or he had been transported off to Prague when the Vipers in the circle transported. But if he was safe, we couldn’t see why he wouldn’t be here. Which didn’t bode well.

Outside, Lochlan was peering into the darkness, scanning desperately for any sign of his brother. His leg wound (one of his ancestors had got annoyed at him over the actions of one of his lancemen) stopped him from going out but the tension was radiating off him. The woods were pitch dark and unliving infested, and someone was missing in them. So I decided to go back to the circle to look for him. Hope protested that I couldn’t go on my own, so I asked for volunteers to come with me. Finn volunteered, no one else did, Hope said we couldn’t go with just two of us but there really wasn’t any other option, so off we went. I appreciated her concern though.

Luckily, Rath, Dimitri, Elthorn and Elani were in the circle so we didn’t have to transport to Prague to find out, nor did we even had to jump down a twenty foot hole. For which we were grateful (this expedition could possibly have been planned better, or even planned at all). Dalziel had been accidentally transported to Prague, but as the Vipers who transported him weren’t coming directly back to Elvas they asked him where he wanted to go and therefore took him back to Gallathrix. He’d decided to stay there for the night and tell us he was alive in the morning.

Finn and I thanked them and turned to go, almost walking straight into Jutah, who’d followed us out to make sure we didn’t get killed. We reported this news back to Lochlan, who decided that now he knew his brother wasn’t dead, he was going to kill him. Sometimes I wish I’d a brother, then there’s times like that. Losing track of friends is worrying enough.

I cornered Carabas and asked him a favour – as there were so many guild members who weren’t healers or physicians, I had another candidate. Jutah was keen to join (I didn’t explain why), had helped out all weekend, had been the one to find Shadran and had generally pulled his weight and then some. What did he think?
He wondered why I’d told him and not just said Jutah was a physician. The reason was I wanted to be fair and straightforward. Carabas decided that the guild needed a post of Bandage Dispenser, someone who’s job it was to carry a bandage or two in case anyone needed it, and who could be in the guild as long as he was my apprentice. I was to try and teach him to use the bandages he carried and he was to be answerable to me, and he could join. I proposed this to Jutah and he agreed. Then we decided that conversation would be better done on the boats, and went back to keep Aldous abreast of what was happening.

Other Events of Note:
After Golgul’s ritual failed, the hall was swamped with ghosts of the past. Lemming tried a rite to lay them to rest which helped a bit and cut down the number of them, but it didn’t seem to be enough. Vincenzo won the “WHAT?” competition, which I won’t go into here. There was a random magical pulse which destroyed a number of people’s magical items, including Debreni’s necklace. Eve, one of the villagers, gave birth, Queen Blodwyn, Jess and Debreni helped out with it since Misha’s never actually been replaced as head of midwifery.

Sunday
Lochlan asked me if I’d seen his brother yet that morning, which I hadn’t. Apparently as Dalziel’s commanding officer, he’d ordered Dalziel to apologise to me for my having to look for him last night. I didn’t think it was overly necessary since I would have done it for anyone, but I guess I didn’t really have a say in the matter.

Dalziel tried to grab me for just such a thing, but Cosaint had already requested a moment of my time so I said I’d get back to him. Cosaint opened with an explanation that he didn’t want a fight and had long thought of me as a friend, which probably meant an argument was to follow. He wanted to talk about Sheyna. Sadly, he opened on a poor assumption.
“Now, I’ve read that letter you sent Sheyna, and I know you wrote it because you were angry...”
“No, I wrote it because it’s true.” I explained. He sighed, I guess that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. He outlined his theory, that Sheyna isn’t really possessed but this is just her selfish, callous, self-centred side getting free rein (I’m paraphrasing a bit here) and so he wanted to boost her confidence so she could defeat it. Fair enough, I’ve no interest in helping him, but then, I’ve no interest in getting involved. He asked me to stay away from her. I agreed readily, explaining I don’t want to be anywhere near the cow. Cosaint sighed again and stormed off, as if I’d been unreasonable or something. Midir reckons he does that when he can’t think of an answering argument.

Dalziel’s “apology” was a thing of wonder, and probably poorly timed since I was a bit narked at Cosaint now. Dalziel mentioned that he’d heard I went out to try to rescue him last night, but Vincenzo had saved him so I wasn’t to bother next time. Talk about gratitude! Strange to think he’s related to Lochlan. I wonder if he thought at all about how his brother must have felt last night.

We’d heard last night that Golgul had given up trying to open the vault door and had decided to tunnel in from the side, so we pretty much had to open it and get the stuff inside – a book, apparently – out before he did. Rath headed down to show some people where it was, I was wanting to talk to Rath so I tried to catch up, Lemming was wanting to know where the vault was so he followed...end result: practically everyone ended up down at the vault. With a bit of to-ing and fro-ing we managed to open it according to Rath’s research, and lo and behold, we had a great big hole in the hillside leading into blackness. We felt so proud.

Rath jumped in, followed by Tap and I, then someone who’s name I don’t know, Devlin, and then Sol pushed Lukas in for good measure. There must have been some distortion that split us up, because I ended up walking along a long dark tunnel in the void. I’d like to emphasise that it was long. Very long. One might even say overly long. I’d like to emphasise that I had to walk through it six times, which I feel is a bit above and beyond the call of duty. I was shattered by the last time.
Though I’d only jumped in a split second after Tap, when I arrived he and Rath were deep in conversation with two white-faced people. I introduced myself and let Tap get on with things, they seemed to be discussing Golgul. Rath filled me in on what was happening – the white faced people were guardians of the vault and we were trying to persuade them we were nice.

The largest one challenged us to prove we were healers, so Rath stepped forward. Sadly, once they’d cut Rath’s hand, Rath couldn’t heal it because his pattern is strange. Which didn’t help with them trusting us. I volunteered to get cut before he could ask me to heal Rath and thus prove that two of us claiming to be guild members weren’t able to heal Rath. Rath healed my hand, I offered him a bandage and Tap gave him a healing salve. So all was sorted.

Then Devlin appeared and the second guardian disappeared. All was less sorted. We figured out it must be that you can have up to six people in the vault, so Devlin volunteered to leave so Lukas could come in. We were a bit worried about that, unsure if he would make it back to the hillside safely, and even more so when Lukas arrived without having seen Devlin go past. Lukas was persuaded to go and check Devlin was ok, then come back. He wasn’t overly happy about it but was kind enough to do so.

The Guardian showed us a range of magic items and asked us, to prove our good intentions, if we could pick any, which would it be? I saw the dracosian amulet that Catholicon used to wear and said I’d choose that since the dracosian told him it needed to be looked after. The Guardian asked me what I’d give him as proof of my trust, I gave him my true name. He said then he’d hunt down and kill me and my clan if I betrayed the guild, so I guess I’ll have to shelve plans for evil lichdom for the moment. Or at least until I fall out with dad, Lucas and Fizaratan.

He sent me back to get Sol to prove the guild was trustworthy, so I headed back along the long tunnel to do so. It turned out the other guardians (there were three altogether) were defending the entrance to the tunnel, Golgul’s undead were attacking, the healers were stuck in the middle and Lemming had discovered the sport of monster baiting. Anything sentient enough to understand him was, by the time I arrived, targeting Lemming specifically while he gleefully hurled verbal abuse at them, undeterred by such minor things as Magebolts or personal safety.

Sol somehow persuaded the guardians we were trustworthy, then we stole their stuff. I don’t know exactly what happened since I had to volunteer to go back this time as there were too many people in the room, but eventually we got the book Golgul wanted. It had a human face sewn to the front of it and was written on skin – you’d think paper would hold the ink here, but I think Golgul valued style over content – and we can’t currently open it. Which may not be a bad thing.

When we got back to the hut, we discovered the door blocked by three large furry things.
“What are they?” Jess asked, looking hopeful. The answer came back from someone more skilled in the recognising of such things – two werewolves and an unliving werewolf.
“Fan-bloody-tastic!” Jess bounced off to borrow a silver sword, a Kerrimanian in a truly happy place. Sadly, two of them turned out to be displacer beasts but the unliving was indeed a werewolf so Jess was satisfied.

Elani, after quite a while trying to work out maps and stuff, reckoned she knew how to get to where Golgul kept his phylactery, so we headed off along the tunnels to find it. We encountered a great deal of resistance, including more death knights and something called doom guards that I’ve never seen before, and a skeletal lord that got really annoyed because I kept throwing rocks at it till it died. The unliving were trying to knock people down then drag them off to Golgul, who would raise them. They managed to get Cougar and Finn that way,. And Thomas was very close when Carabas managed to save them. I also had to dive in to pull Jutah out of some unliving thing’s grasp.

Golgul’s phylactery repelled anything living from it, which posed a problem until one of the Unicorns controlled a Vengeance Zombie – since they can’t be killed without Dismissing them, Golgul was at one point reduced to physically pushing it away. And while he was busy trying to get it back under his control, someone controlled the guardian of the phylactery and we hacked off with it. Go us.

Golgul again tried to cast Fear at me and again I told him he wasn’t scary. At which point Rath came charging in with a Forbidding and a Sword of Sun’s Dawning, which was handy as that conversation could only really have ended badly for me. As many people as were able to get into the Forbidding fell upon Golgul and he was destroyed. Victory! And vengeance.

It had been a very hard fight. Over the course of the weekend we had lost a great number of people to the fight, including Cougar, Finn and my apprentice from the Dragons. Two Bears had been killed by the displacer beasts and unliving werewolf, and a number of others had also been killed. It had been a very long weekend four years in the making, and at least it was over. We stumbled, exhausted and battered, back to the boats and then home, where Xavin was just about almost waking up from Friday.

Other Events of Note:
Lochlan and Silk were ambushed in the hut by a bunch of unliving. Lochlan blew away seven and Silk beat up three. I believe ten unliving in thirty seconds must be some kind of record. I held Brad to that pint.

 

All Works are © Original Author

(OC Author - Marianne Wells)