Harts' Meeting, 1110 We gathered at the transport circle in Bristol and were briefed on the mission objectives by Saul D'Arby prior to the two day march to the Penross woods and the village of Penross. The mission had three primary objectives: investigate the loss of contact with the village, locate and defeat one of the Vampires of the Black Flame (who was leading an army of Flesh Golems to the area around Penross, and whose blood and tooth were necessary to create an antidote to a powerful poison that had been used on the Slap N' Tickle in Londinium), and finally to search for signs of the Milford Cathedral Altar stone and any of the Milford gargoyles.

Saul was in overall command of the mission, with Polly Rook in charge of information gathering, Tristis Corvinae in charge of military operations and Master Spooney of the Scouts Guild in charge of reconnaissance. After two days march we arrived in the village and came across a small shrine to one of the Trinity (I believe it was Nethras), which contained the large Altar stone of the Cathedral to the Trinity in Milford, and met a handful of the surviving villagers, who appeared to be acting very strangely. After some discussion, we discovered that the village priest had come across a rite contained in a book in the village library, which was meant to bind the patterns of the villagers into small fetishes of bone, wood and feathers. He decided to perform this rite in order to safeguard the patterns of the villagers who had already been lost, and to protect the villagers who were left. Unfortunately, he made a mistake and the rite backfired, binding extra patterns into the surviving villagers. This had the effect of causing the villagers to periodically switch between dominant patterns, with no memory of what they had done while under the control of the other pattern. During the first night after this rite was performed, the villagers accidentally destroyed the book containing the rite. We promised the villagers that we would look for the fetishes, and try and help them however we could.

During the night we were attacked by groups of cultists (both living and unliving) worshipping an ancestor named Callagar, and also by the elementally infused Black Flame Constructs, in particular the flesh golem variety. The constructs were capable of striking for various different blows depending on their elemental nature, including flaming blows, cold blows, and crushing blows. We managed to capture some of the cultists, and discovered that they were local people who had met with a man named Killian, who was a follower of Callagar, and who had convinced them that they also wished to follow Callagar.

It was decided that a small group would go out early in the morning and attempt to kill or capture Killian before he had a chance to once again talk with the locals and convince them to worship Callagar.

During the night we also discovered the main body of a broken gargoyle statue (which was approximately 1 foot tall, and missing both wings, head and heart), and resolved to try and locate the remaining parts and find someone who could repair the gargoyle such that it could be reactivated and carry the Altar stone back to Bristol and then to Milford for us.

Unfortunately, when morning came and the strike force went out, they discovered they were too late and Killian had already been and gone, and so we would suffer another day of attacks by Callagar's cultists. In the light of day it was possible to identify his cultists by green markings around their eyes, and the mission command group decided that it would be best if, where possible, the cultists were simply subdued such that they could be interrogated, mind healed and returned to their settlements.

In the early afternoon we once again came under attack by Black Flame constructs, including two new types based on plant matter. The first kind were essentially the same as the flesh golems, but made of bark, twigs and leaves, while the second was more dangerous. Constructed mostly of vines, it was capable of blows that would paralyse and disease its foes, and when slain exploded in a cloud of spores that caused the patterns of all nearby to start unravelling.

It was during one of these waves of constructs that Master Spooney, the Arm of the Spiral, and a member of the Urchins of Londinium, was killed. He was on the front line of the fight and was set upon by several constructs, including one of the vine constructs which paralysed him and afflicted him with disease, while its companions struck for mighty blows, shattering Spooney's body beyond all healing. Many of those who attempted to pull the paralysed Spooney back from combat before he was slain were also paralysed by the vine construct. Spooney's body was taken into the shrine, so it would be safe and such that people could pay their respects, while the rest of the force finished off the constructs. Later in the afternoon a team of scouts discovered the entrance to the Black Flame Vampire's laboratory, but they were unable to open the door, as it appeared to be magically locked. A rite team went back with them to attempt to remove the lock, but they were unable to open the seal, and determined that the lock was a ritual level effect that probably required a specific magical key.

During the course of the day we came across a number of the bone fetishes, and met again with the villagers, one of whom told us that she had had a dream where she was holding a fetish that "felt correct" while someone performed a lay to rest rite over her living body, and that this rite caused the additional pattern to leave her body and enter the fetish. We then checked each of the fetishes with the villagers, and Nadia Al'Fayed and I performed the rites to lay their additional patterns to rest. While we were doing this, a group of the Silverlake Nixes arrived, to tell us that one of their number had also been afflicted with an additional pattern. After locating the correct fetish, Nadia performed the lay to rest, and the fae thanked us and departed.

We were also met by an archon of Law working for the Pendragon, who asked those faithful to the Pendragon and to Law in general to perform a rite to dedicate themselves to Law in order to rebalance the land.

Later in the day we were informed of nearby camp inhabited by Black Flame cultists, and a strike team went to deal with them. I believe it was at this point that the key to the ritual seal was discovered, and when night fell, we descended through the doorway down a long staircase into a large cavern. After fighting our way through more constructs, we disabled the vampire, removed a tooth and some blood and dragged him back to camp, where he was beguiled and interrogated by the Urchins and several other Harts. Once he had been fully interrogated, the vampire was slain, and his pattern dedicated to the Spiral by Grandmaster Arber of the Scouts.

By the end of the evening, all sections of the gargoyle were located, but unfortunately the village stonemason had died some days earlier, and so we were unable to repair the statue.

When morning came, we came under frequent attacks by Callagar's cultists, who displayed more frequent examples of grey and dark incantation, and at time were seen using high dark incantation and also high spellcasting. We were able to defeat Killian, but after he fell a greater avatar of Callagar appeared, demanding that we leave his wood, taking the villagers with us and burning the village to the ground. We fell back to the shrine to consider our options, contemplating the amount of power that we had remaining, and eventually decided to attempt to dismiss the avatar and then eliminate his cultists. However, the avatar had pulled back behind his lines, and so we could not reach him with a dismiss wedge and so resolved to hammer through his line and kill him properly.

Once the avatar fell, we were able to safely pull back and begin the two day march back to Bristol.

All Works are © Original Author

(OC Author - J Tansley)