Murder, Slavery, and Seaturtles

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

Dalish returned to camp. But not our Dalish, our Dalish was still a mummy. This Dalish was alive. And ‘Rictus was prepared,’ is his only explanation. What are we going to do? Living Dalish has to stay, Rictus sent him here. Mummy Dalish could maybe go back with Stephen to learn his necromantic magics? We have to talk to Durance.

The Lt is a bit distressed, but decides to let Mummy Dalish stay, if we continue to take responsability for him. Normally, he’d have just killed him, but we’re a strange group anyway. Mummy Dalish, however, isn’t a citizen, nor a soldier anymore. Just don’t eat people, and we’ll be alright.

We load up camp and march south to meet up with everyone else at New Calay. Along the way, Living Dalish tells us he has a new plan. That Rictus felt his self-harm was bad, and gave him a bunch of books to read to get better. He’s decided that now he plans to kill other people so he can make himself powerful and immortal, and undead. What the heck, Dalish??? Killing people for power??? Don’t we have enough genocide on our hands? He won’t be reasoned with, so we discuss our questions about New Calay.

Once we arrive, we get an understanding of the situation. We have twenty thousand troops surrounding the city, stopping any traffic in or out. They, however, still have naval control of the port, and our ships are out there fighting for it. The walls have some sorching and crumbling, but nothing serious. Everyone on land is currently holding until the naval battle is over.

Durance sends for someone who can un-stone Remy and Stephen. While waiting, we see a few old classmates, but Marybeth can’t find her brother. It takes a few days to find someone, but eventually, Triplehorn shows up in our camp. He’s impressed with our travel, the change in us, and the mystery that is Stephen. We ask him to fix Remy first, and he does, returning him to flesh.

True to form, Remy wakes up swearing, and then starts drinking. Then we talk about Stephen. Nat says he doesn’t like the sun, so we take him into a tent, but that might not be enough, so we ask Triplehorn to come back after dark, if he could. We talk with him a bit about what we’ve been up to, and our suspicions about the worm-tree in the city. He laments that we are too young to have all this on our shoulders. We agree, but we have little choice.

The others spend the day working out what spells they might need to memorize or scribe for city infiltration, but at I have no part in this, I head off to talk to the other mages. They hold regular gatherings to eat and chat. When I ask what’s been going on, they speak of unease among the diviners. Visions of woe in New Caley, firey explosions, a melting city, decaying into dust. I ask if they’ve been up to anything, but they say not until the bay is taken. Nothing? Not even infiltration? They’ve sent some teams in, but they’ve either not come back, or came back before really getting into the city. The diviners can’t pierce into the city, even when linked. Those that tried teleporting in were the ones that never came back. The team that went into the bay was repulsed instantly.

I return to the group and report all of this. We have to have a better plan. Triplehorn also returns, and turns Stephen back to flesh. We explain to him why he’s suddenly outside New Calay and take him to Durance to figure things out and finalize his negotiations.

They hammer out the deal, information for citizenship, and other such things. We help out with all the information we gathered in his house. Then it comes down to the mages who were sent to kill him, that he killed in return, and did necromatic experiments on. Durance wants their bodies returned to their families. Stephen says they are his intellectual property now. Things go downhill pretty quickly, which Remy going off about slavery of the undead being evil and morally corrupt, despiter half of mage society being based on it. I actually get pissed off and shout him down about it not being his choice what other people do, and several of our friends’ livelihoods are based on the same exact thing. Remy says we should destroy them and send their bodies home for burial, but Stephen is very much against this. Dalish offers a compromise, suggesting we give these free-willed, if controlled, undead, like himself, the choice. Stephen agrees to give them this choice, serve or be destroyed so they can be buried at home. Durance agrees to this, and they finish up negotiations. Natty walks Stephen out, giving him the glyph to send him home.

We head back to camp to discuss our infiltration plan. We have to get into the city to see what is going on. The new walls could be enchanted with alarm spels. We’re a small group, and with non-detection, maybe polymorph. Or maybe as diplomatic envoys?

The next morning, we’re called to meet with the Command Staff: The Colonel, the Lt, and a General Waverly. We explain the worm problem to him, and that we think there might be a tree inside. We have dealt with one before, so we ought to go in and see. He put the mage corps’ magic at our disposal, and we ask about previous attempts. The ones that got the closest were the mages who went to the docks, but their soldiers didn’t have protective spells, so they were spotted. Now, with The Machine, limiting spells won’t be a problem. We again, point out that our smaller group might just be able to slip in unnoticed.

We discuss the bulk of us being polymorphed, using Nat’s telepathic bond spell, and having her just be made small to hide with us. Sea turtles seems to be the consensus. General Waverly calls for a mage named Crow. When he arrives and is informed of our needs, he looks Nat up and down. He can do it, but it won’t be pleasant, and it will be permanent until he can undo it himself. He clamps metal bands onto Nat’s wrists and ankles, then uses a torch to melt them closed It takes half an hour of Nat cursing in pain, but when Crow is done, Nat is only two feet tall.

Dalish also has a strange bag that Rictus gave him, that we want to test the limits of. Nat casts her telepathic bond on us, then climbs inside the bag. The bond doesn’t work in there, but sending still does. The air, however, is a bit stale, so we can’t leave her in there a long time. We’ll just have to make her invisible when we all swim in as sea turtles, with non-detection on us all. Mummy Dalish will stay with the mages who polymorph us, so he can tell them when to drop the spell.

We take the day and night to rest and prepare new spells for the attempt in the morning. We head over to an area near the bay, but still outside the city, on a very nice beach. Nat telepathic bonds us, the mages cast non-detection on us, then polymorph all but Nat into sea turtles. One then casts invisibility on Nat, and we head for the water.

The swim in is rather pleasant and calm, nothing bothers us, no explosions from fighting ships. We head into the bay and towards a beach. Nat, invisible still, looks around, and finds us a clear space to land. We ping MD, and he has the mages drop polymorph. We’re just a family out for an early morning stroll on the beach now. Marybeth and Remy change their faces a bit to look more like they’re old enough to be our parents and we head in. There’s a great big square building in the center, with a tower and a magical spotlight swinging around the city. That is probably where we need to go.

Gods and Beholders

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Stephen takes us down into his basement, which looks more lived in than the upstairs, and then jumps down an eerily familiar hole. We all follow suit, finding ourselves floating down to an island in a dry lakebed beneath the mansion. It looks nearly identical to the one we visited below Bangoria. Only, this one is a bit busier in the section between the standing stones and the inner circle. It’s all still crumbling, and the statues to the gods are a bit different. When we step through the circle here, nothing happens, to our great relief.

The thrones here are empty, and Stephen tells us they were that way when he found them. We fill him in that there’s one under his old house, too. Moving towards the throne, we find a pit dug in front of the thrones. Ten feet in diameter, and about five feet deep. It’s about the size of the worm tree holes, when they dug them up! Oh Dawnmother!!! What if they have one, what if New Calay is infected? What if they plan to unleash it on our army or New Gnosis?

Stephen hands over a message he found here. It speaks of our army’s approach, and asks the mages here to relocate the “occulus.” Which doesn’t sound like a tree, but what could it refer to? I can feel the pounding of the earth here, and I jump into the hole as Remy takes a look at the magic around this pit. The beating gets louder and stronger as I sit in the pit, trying to reach for it, understand it.

They chatter above me, about the six god statues here. A tall black marble column covered in script of prayers to the Stoneman. An empty ring with faded, delicate tile work of a dancer with a skull for a head, with swords in one hand and scales in the other. A massive stone-carved brazier with stylized sun which says “drive away the night.” A squared off empty plot of tilled, dry, cracked earth. Benches around a massive cylinder carved with shelves, topped with an onyx brain. A broken shrine, with only feet remaining.

They’re nameing the gods and arguing, but I can only hear the pounding heartbeat get louder and louder. The ground starts trembling, rumbling and a monstrous mass of eyeballs bursts out of the pit beside me!

Scrambling back, I try to thunderstep away, but it doesn’t work, the magic doesn’t work! So, I climb up and out and circle away from the thing while it shoots rays from various eyes. Klyce tries to grapple it, but it’s floating, so it doesn’t do much except allow him to keep punching it. Gerhardt is the first to get a spell off, from outside the circle and to the side. Nat falls under a black ray, and Stephen beside her turns to stone. Rays, spells, bullets, and punches fly. Gerhardt finally manages to banish it, but not before Remy, too, turns to stone.

Stunned in the aftermath of the battle, I rush to Nat, but she’s gone, there’s nothing. I pray to the Dawnmother for help, but she does not hear me. Marybeth sobs beside me. Dalish comes over, puts his hands on Nat’s head, to try and bring her back like he brought Remy just a few days ago. It works, but this time, it was too much, and Dalish falls over dead himself. Marybeth’s sobs increase and I pray all the harder.

Beside me, Nat climbs out from under Dalish to find her brother a statue, and her eyes healed! She can see again, and is terribly disoriented by this fact. She starts praying to the Dancer for help, but he can’t save Dalish either. Nat decides she wants to have some tea and visions, to find out what we can do to fix this. We’re too far from the swamp witch, and Durance isn’t likely to give us leave to go back to her anyway. We insist on binding her hands so she can’t mindpalace us when high again, and she has her tea.

Her trance lasts for four hours. Klyce and I get Stephen and Remy back up through the hole in basement floor. Then we wait. But Nat awakes with no more info, except the usual horrible visions of death and destruction. We have a discussion about what to do and who to talk to. Perhaps Durance or one of the other mages can turn Remy back if we take him outside. Nat wonders if Stephen’s books can help fix Dalish and convinces Cerissa to take her to look through them. There is nothing to help the statues, and only spells to create undead creatures, not return life. I send a message to Durance that we’re staying the night here, and we all take rest.

In the morning, leaving Nat and Gerhardt behind with Stephen, because they won’t let us take him out, we head back to camp. Klyce carries Dalish, and I levitate Remy out. Marybeth explains the trip to the basement and below and the eye monstrosity. She explains that Nat and Gerhardt stayed behind to try and find more research into solutions. Klyce explains that we think they might have had a worm tree in the basement, and so the whole world is at threat again.

Lt Durance summarizes our crazy story back to us, to make sure it got it all. Then he tells us to go round up Nat, Gerhardt, and Stephen so we can head to meet up with the rest of the army and get the statues returned to flesh. We argue a little, but cannot disagree that it’s the only way to fix Stephen. So, leaving Remy behind, but taking Dalish with us, we head back to the house.

Nat pulls us all into a mind palace to talk. First item – Dalish. Do we bring him with us in a deep pocket spell, or do we raise him as a powerful undead thing? Arguement ensues, but due to his necromatic leanings, we all agree to let Nat do it. And most of us agree we do not want that should we fall. Second, Klyce asks Cerissa to let us take Stephen, as it’s the only way to fix him. We all swear to protect him with our own lives. She will give us a glyph we can use to get him to safety in an emergency. Third, what about New Calay, the burning, explosions, and the worm tree? Well, if the worm tree is there, it will be us, firebombing the city and rightly so. Everything settled, we pop back out to do some magic.

Nat wants to bring Dalish back as a mummy and asks Cerissa for help. She suggests linked overcharging, and when we all stare dumbly at her, she explains. After disparaging our education. Gerhardt, Cerissa, and Nat join together, sharing their mana and the burden of the overcharge. They wrap Dalish up in strips of cloth and cast their spell. He awakes, though undead, and says he feels better than he has in a long while. He agrees it was the right decision. We give him some mana, but he can’t use it. Marybeth gives him some of the mana from her weird wineskin, and that he Can use. Interesting.

Levitating Stephen, we head back to camp to explain to Durance what we’ve done this time. He is not terribly excited about it and tells Nat that she is now responsible for him and his behavior. Camp packs up and we march for the rest of the day before setting camp.

In the morning, a perfectly living Dalish walks right up into camp, where we are having breakfast with our mummy Dalish.

Gunshots, Surgery, and Strange Invitations

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We head south, with Durance, his minions, and fifty men in tow. It is fairly easy travel for several days, until we enter the forest. It is dark in there, darker than it should be. Everyone is on high alert, but that doesn’t stop the ambush.

Shots ring out one afternoon that is nearly as dim as night. A fireball from Dalish and some lightning from myself light up the forest, and more fires spring up as the others join the fray. The Lt. is hit right off, and he goes down hard. I have to drag him into the brush and pump all my healing magic into him. He’s alive but he doesn’t wake up. Nat starts shouting that they’re intelligent undead, and points Klyce, who’s turned into an elephant at them. The fight didn’t last long, but the repercussions were huge.

Remy and Gerhardt spend the eight hours doing surgeries on the road side to save the Lt’s life, Remy’s eye, and Klyce’s guts. I pump what little healing I have left into our injured men, and it does them more good than it did the Lt. at least. Remy asks me to keep an eye on Klyce, as he will need my magics, and may not ask. The Lt is in a coma, so we’ll have to wait here for a day at least before we move him.

The next day is a big discussion about what to do. Marybeth wants to send the Lt back to the army. Strang and Providance argue that he will be very upset when he wakes if we try that. Klyce asks for the trees he downed and a few more, so he can make a wagon and a defensible wall here to protect us for one more day of rest. He’s got a new spell that doesn’t require him to move to create things. We dig in for the night, as I pray to the Dawnmother for my injured friends and the Lt.

The next day, the Lt is looking better, so with the help of a waggoneer’s son, we get the wagon rolling. With a spell for a floating platform, and another for ghostly horses, we move on. The forest continues to darken. HeyHey returns that day, though most of us had hardly noticed him gone. He saw loads of dead things around the house ahead of us.

We rest that night and then next morning, the Lt is in and out of consciousness. We move on and late afternoon, Durance wakes up and asks for a report. We fill him in, and he gives us orders to find a secure position in view of the house and then wake him up again.

We get to the mansion, with its wrought iron gates, and look ahead to se the lawn choked with hundreds of zombies. We step back to a good vantage point and let Nat send HeyHey and her invisible eye forward. Through the eye she notes royalist uniforms and notices some of the creatures have red eyes and aren’t behaving like the rest. It also sees the front door open and a zombie come out. When she tries to send her eye through the door it winks out.

The zombie that came out of the house is heading right for our position, so Nat heads out to meet it with Remy insistant on keep guard on her. When they return, Nat tells us a rather disgusting tale of it’s head splitting open and her brother’s voice coming out. We, Nat and her friends, are invited to dinner and parlay. Anyone else or any tricks will result in annihilation.

We wake Durance to fill him in, and he projects outside his body to talk to us. We all defend Stephen, and say we’ll be safe, and he’s killed 200 Royalists, afterall. Durance isn’t keen on giving us into his hands, thinks we’d make good hostages. He asks Nat to see what the fates have to say. It says bad things if she goes with only one escort, but good things if we all go in together.

Durance then gives Major Dalish a list of questions he wants answered: Why is he here? What are his ties to the Royalists? What was here before? What are his intentions toward the magocracy? Will he take citizenship in exchange for leniency? When Klyce quiestions this last, Durance reminds us all that other mages have come here and none have returned, punishment must be had.

We all clean up for dinner. I don’t have any of my fancy dressed, but I do have one that’s not my official uniform at least. We walk slowly through the zombie throng, with none of them moving towards us. A massive ghoul opens the door for us, and a line of undead servants await. Stephen comes down the stairs to grett us, calling the servants prototypes when someone notes the runes on their necks.

He leads us to the dining room where we all sit down for a sumptuous dinner. Klyce asks if his food can be blended, his guts are still a bit tetchy, and it is done. It is a fabulous dinner and Nat talks with him about their family. After dessert drinks, he allows it’s time for business.

Nat tears into him about the last time we met and how could he not tell her. He fires back that he woke up desperately hungry, and nearly killed their mother, so he had to get away from them all. They go back and forth a bit until Nat runs out of steam.

Dalish picks up the conversation and starts asking Durance’s questions. He’s here to get away from his family and the magocracy. This place was interesting and because we were starting to go after the Royalists, most of the folk had already abandoned it. The mages had left the rest of the troops poorly defended, so he was able to easily overtake the place. They had escaped with their research, which he won’t tell us about just yet. Stephen claims no Royalist ties and wishes to just stay free of the magocracy, too. He did kill the other mages who came here, and used them to make his prototype servants.

Then our talk turns to citizenship, punishment, and service. He has no interest in serving as we do, but thinks he might have valuable information instead. We explain a bit about running off to Italy and our service as punishment. Klyce points out that any information Stephen might have about the Royalists in the area could help his case. Marybeth suggests any new arcane research he has done. Remy asks for information on forces in New Calay.

Stephen asks us to send a message out to Durance, because a mind palace just won’t do. He offers information on the magic of this place and Royalist movements in the area. Klyce asks about his necromatic research, and he says it’s negotiable. So, I send out to Strang, since Durance was asleep last time I saw him.

He accepts citizenship, not service. He offers info on Longwood mages studies. Info on Royalist positions. Info on Royalist troop movements. Cessation of magocracy hostilities.

Strang sends back to me: That may be enough. Depending on the nature of the information.

Stephen accepts this and leads us from the hall to see what he offers.

New Spells and Old Dangers

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Once I get everyone feeling a little better, Marybeth and Nat search the house. There are no hiding people left, but three spellbooks are recovered. Dalish raises a zombie to help with watches and for fun, I guess. It’s gross, but he says it’s stronger than a skeleton. Ew!

We decide to sleep, but Dalish on first watch, gets curious and opens one of the spellbooks. It Explodes! Dalish! Be more Careful! He promises not to open anymore, and we all get back to resting, a little more singed than before.

The next morning, with their spells all memorized again, they investigate and dispell the other two books, so they can get at the spells inside. After, Nat and Dalish go looking to see if there might be one more book because one of the spells cast in the fight isn’t in the two we have. Klyce is fuming that it might have been in the exploded spellbook.

They eventually call down to the group that they’ve found a tiny chest. It’s a spelled chest, I guess, with a big chest inside. But nobody knows the spell, and anyway, it has to be the one who cast it who opens it or it’ll go away, too. Dalish hopes he zombified the right corpse and calls it over. It lays a hand on the tiny chest and suddenly there’s a big chest. I guess the zombie’s okay.

There’s a whole bunch of papers and letters and things in this box, as well as this zombie’s spellbook. They make sure to dispell the trap before opening it, and do find the polymorph spell that Klyce has been seeking. Dalish and Remy say the papers will be very important for the Colonel to read.

Nat, Marybeth and I go check the outbuildings, but they’re just supplies and gunpowder for the canons. Marybeth finds tracks of the missing wizard leading out to a teleportation circle in the woods, but we don’t know that spell either to know where he went. Probably the big city we’re headed for though.

Deciding we’ve completed our mission as best we can, we head on to meet up with the army. When we arrive, Lt Durance hasn’t made it back yet, so Marybeth and Dalish report to the Colonel. When they come back, they tell us that the Colonel was very interested in the swamp witch and sends men out to investigate, despite protests it will get them killed.

When the Lt. gets back, he says he wants Nat to go study with her and convince her to be come a citizen, and that he’ll try to stop the Colonel’s men from rash action. He also says our next orders will be to head south when the Lt gets back, and check on another old plantation. Every team sent so far has not returned. So, teamed up with the Lt’s team, we head out.

Nat wants to check on her new mind palace spell. When she tries her brother, nothing happens. So, she sents up a palace between herself, Klyce, and Philomena. When they come out, she says it has a lot of delay and isn’t very good. So, now we know distance plays a part in it.

Nat is curious if her brother is in the place where we are going, and wants to see if she’s collected any of the right mushrooms to dream properly. She casts augury over them, one a day until she finds one that seems better than the rest. Unfortunately, it does not put her to sleep at All. She goes out of her mind, and I have to levitate her to keep her wandering around the camp like this. She wants to explore though, so she pulls us all into a terrible dream of a mind palace where we sink into the floor and have really messed up dreams.

Mine was feeling connected to the entire world, which seems nice, but the world was Hatching! Remy apparently dreamed he was being killed over and over, because, when he woke up, he came storming into the tent, screaming his head off and shoving Nat around. I very nearly attacked Remy myself, but he stopped touching her and just screamed a bit more before leaving.

Nat had a vision of the swamp we’re headed for, filled with blood and other gross things, but also the feeling of her brother definitely being there. So, she and Dalish go see the Lt. He is interested in her brother’s power, and wants to see whether he will join with us in our cause. Or, if he needs to be destroyed.

Oh boy…

Plantation Attack

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Ever paranoid, the boys announce a false plan to the troops, in case the house mages are listening. It involves a suicidal charge up the middle toward the canons, and the soldiers pincering in from the sides. Using fog clouds for cover, at dawn. Once they’re done pontificating for no one’s benefit, we retire for the night and Nat pulls us all into her head.

Klyce wants to go tonight. He wants Dalish, me, and himself to drop down onto the roof for an alpha strike inside the house. The rest should come in through tunnels like our old Sanctum games, and take out the canons and guys with the big guns. Dalish might zombie up some of their soldiers to help. The troops will hang back and do as little as possible from the treeline. Klyce will head inside while Dalish and I help clean up the yard. Then we’ll all meet inside to take down the mage(s)?

We get some rest, though only a couple manage to recover spells by not taking watches. Nat sends in her invisible eye during our watch, but an invisible lady pops out and dispells it. Still before dawn, we start the men marching, and quietly fill them in on their part of staying in the trees as much as possible. We’ll signal if we need them to come in.

Dalish, Klyce, and I part from the group as we get near and fly in an arc way above the house. The diggers get digging and start heading in. Once they are in place, we fly down and then drop onto the roof. Nat says that most of the troops are an illusion, and they set about putting them to sleep. Klyce decides they don’t need our help, and opens a hole in the roof.

We slip inside, and find no one on the top floor. By the time we get downstairs, the others are entering through the front. We start checking the parlor, and a mage pops out of invisibility and paralyzes a bunch of us. Klyce pins him to a wall after getting sliced up pretty badly. Remy shoots him, but he manages to Banish Gerhardt. Then Klyce turns into an octopus, which doesn’t seem to hamper him all that much. This guy starts calling in fireballs and I fall unconscious. By the time I wake up, he’s down.

Nat says she can feel three people within thirty feet of us, and Klyce starts ripping up the floor. Marybeth drops down into the hole, while I look out the door to find two mages in the hallway. I toss a teacup at one of them while shouting for the group, but one sends flying snakes into the room, while the other walls us in with stone. We manage to sleep or kill the snakes, and then I dimension door Dalish and my self into the hallway. Remy had managed to jump through the door before the stone went up, but now he’s lying bleeding on the floor. Klyce opens a hole in the stone and grabs the mage with the gun. The other mage dimension doors himself away. Dalish nearly kills himself transferring life to Remy to bring him back. Marybeth manages to kill the woman under the floor. We take a breath to gather the dead and our men into the courtyard.