Gunshots, Surgery, and Strange Invitations

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

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.

Warnings, Witches, and Warriors

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The voice in the mist says we must pay the price to pass through her swamp. We must Find Her.

I rush to Marybeth , and pull her body back to our camp. Major Dalish decides we’re going to finish our rest before heading out. I barely rest, lying beside my lifeless friend. Surely this witch, Mistress of the Undead, can do something.

In the morning, I send to the Lt. to tell him we were attacked by an arcanist in the swamp, and we’re going to take care of her on our way to the plantation. He simply replies Okay, but in a way that makes me think he’s confused, or busy. The group sits to confer on where to go next. I simply stare at Marybeth, as they argue about heading to the plantation, as our only landmark in this awful place.

Nat leads us forward, but after a very short time, says that we are lost. Remy looks around at the magic of the swamp and sees all schools. We spend the entire day walking in circles because Major Dalish won’t admit we need a different plan than heading for the plantation. Remy spends most of the day arguing with him. That evening, the guys go to take care of the soldiers, but I can’t leave Marybeth. Klyce has carried her with us all day, and I spend the evening before sleeping praying to the Dawnmother that there is a way to bring her back.

We gather up to plan for the next day. Should we try to use Natty’s divination gifts to set us on the right path? At the very least Augury our plan before setting out the next morning? Do anything but keep heading for the plantation? Mid-discussion, shouting breaks out among the soldiers. Giant toads are attacking and eating our men. We burst into action, and it’s a bit of a mess, but between Klyce, Remy, and Dalish, we manage to organize the terrified soldiers enough to help. Unfortunately, we do lose two in the battle, unable to save them from being eaten before we dissected the toads.

I go through the wounded and gather the most greviously injured together. First I tell them about the Dawnmother, and how her light shines upon us, even in this dark swamp. Then I invite them to pray with me and her light heals their deepest wounds. I tell them where the church is in New Gnosis, should they ever wish to worship once the war is over. Then I return to Marybeth and the discussion of plans. Dalish thinks to mark the direction the toads came from, for tomorrow’s march.

I take second watch with Nat, who says there are zombies all around us in the water. But they aren’t moving. This is super creepy, but not unexpected. Somehow, I manage to sleep through til morning. Nat Auguries our path and gets a yes and no, so seems better than just plain no. We go with it. After I report in to the Lt. about our losses and new plan. Klyce takes Marybeth again, and has the soldiers form litters for their fallen, as well.

We find a banyan tree which seems to have eaten an old plantation mansion at the edge of a pond. There is movement in the water as we go around to reach the door. Once on the stoop, the voice bids us enter, but just us, our troops must stay outside. Remy takes them to a dry patch nearby to set up camp. We note dangling mage corpses near the door as we enter.

Zombie servants greet us silently in a row, and a young woman in fancy dress with wild hair descends the stairs. She stops short when she sees us.

You’re just kids!

She apparently can’t see through her undead and did not realize she was attacking children. She is horrified to have done so, and especially to have killed Marybeth. We all agree that our government is terrible for sending us to war, as children. She is at a loss, clearly, but insists that we must still pay the price to cross her lands. Sure, of course, we’ve made enough deals at this point. What does she want? Power, bodies, spells… Klyce immediately offers up three spellbooks for her to choose from. Everyone has copied down all the spells they wanted out of them, we have no use for them anymore. She chooses one and we discuss how different we are and how most mages wouldn’t be so generous.

What about Marybeth? She takes her, and Nat away into a back room. Remy goes out to check on the troops, figuring we’ll be a while. And we are. It is quite some time before she comes back in and escorts us outside, to a brackish pool behind her home.

She pushes Marybeth’s body out into the water and begins chanting. Storms and mists roll in and build. Her chant rises to a crescendo with a clap of thunder and she collapses. The mists part and Marybeth is standing in the water before us. Next to her corpse. The corpse stands up, a glistening, rubbery, black body with fangs, horns, and glowing red eyes. It looks at us, then at Marybeth and smiles. Nat rushes betwen them, but Marybeth walks right past her, towards it. It walks away from the both, casts a spell, mutters something to Marybeth and then disappears. We can hear it running away through the water, but we stand helpless, too far away to stop it.

Our stunned silence is broken by the witch waking up. She stares at Marybeth, terrified. What’s wrong with you girl?! Get out of my Swamp! Now! All of you!

We hustle away as Remy appears around the corner, drawn by the clap of thunder just moments before. We turn him around after he hugs a very confused Marybeth, to get the troops moving. Nat drops back to talk to the witch woman for a moment, but we hustle out as quickly as we can.

Two hours later, we hit the edge of the swamp and the beginning of fields. Marybeth fills us in on what the thing said to her. She believes it was her grandfather, back from the dead, and that he is going to kill her. Nat tries looking into her head, and gets a vision of a hazy conversation with an old man, but not much detail. It doesn’t seem to be like the others. We camp on dry land and send Heyhey out to scout the path ahead. He finds skeleton and zombie scarecrows in every field.

The night is peaceful, and then next day, as we march. The boys entertain themselves by tying up any zombie or skeleton that takes an interest in our troop. Afraid that killing them will alert their creator. Heyhey is able to scout all the way ahead to the mansion that night. A big old Grecian thing surrounded by woods to mark it off from the fields. There are loads of soldiers with big guns and they are fortified for a fight. We push the men forward to within a quarter mile of the place and dig in for the night.

Dalish casts Invisibility on Remy and Nat, who sneak closer for a better look at their defenses. It is some time before they come back, without Heyhey, and with bad news. They know we’re coming. The mage is looking forward to it. Klyce tries to sign at Nat to make a mind palace, but she can’t see without her Heyhey. So, I tap it out in her hand for her. We have to plan in secret.

Military Service: Genocide or Treason

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We sink into the mire of military service. Ten hours of marching a day, under spells that make us go further than we should and longer than we ought. We are instructed to use as much mana as possible to stress test the device. Our first goal is Gainswood, and then on to the south. Dalish takes a turn on the machine, while Remy heads off to find Aranea.

When Remy gets back, he gathers us all up to talk. We have to destroy the machine, he insists. We have to do it in a way that doesn’t seem like sabotage, so they think the design is faulty. We discuss various transmutation options with Klyce. Using various spells to mask what he’s doing, so he can weaken the machine and then we can quickly destroy it. We decide to start in the morning.

Nat looks into our futures the next morning, just to see. She stop the plan in its tracks. Our plan is a Bad Idea. Simply blowing it up with fireballs, as suspected, is also a Bad Idea. Remy decides to try and have a chat with Lt. Colonel Durance. I really don’t understand why he thinks this will work, but it’s Remy. He goes to try.

He returns and gives the expected answer — do your job, and also, Durance has been spying on us, and heard the entire conversation last night. We’ll have to be more careful. Then it devolves into a political discussion about systems of oppression, and one being just like the others. Someone suggests turning everyone into mages, for equality and Dalish pipes up. He says he’s been feeding bits of flesh that used to be Garion to people and it gives them magic for a short while. What the hell, Dalish??? I don’t want to hear any more about this, and engage Nat in conversation about where her Grandmother’s caravan travels, and if Canada is nice this time of year. She brings up the darkness and the six stars, and we try to remember the names of all six gods from the cave so many months ago.

Nat decides to scry on her brother, but similar to my messaging, nothing goes through. She tries her parents, but quickly drops the spell, and doesn’t try anymore for a while. Then she tries a new spell, pulling us all inside her head for a chat. It’s super strange. Remy and Klyce do not have good time, but it could be useful later. Nat and Marybeth decide to dream together, so I sit up and keep watch for them. Marybeth does not seem to be having good dreams, but at least no one goes wandering off, and they both wake up in the morning.

Once we’ve been traveling for a while. Durance lets us know that the Mage Corp will be splitting off from the main force, and splitting up. He and the other three will be going after one target while the rest of us go aver Gainswood Plantation. Our orders are to assess their strength and determine if there are any mages. If there are, execute them. If there aren’t, just leave the troops and civilians alone. We are mage hunting, nothing more. In two weeks, we will meet up on the other side. The Majors will be in charge, and are expected to handle any disputes like well-reasoned adults. The mana tanker will be traveling with the main force while we’re on assignment. We will have forty soldiers in our detachment. We are to keep them safe.

We gather up and head out. Sargeant Clem is in charge of our soliders, and he seems reasonable enough. We march through hot, sticky, wet swamplands. It is awful, but I do my best to keep the wind moving for us. The first night, while on my watch, I hear things all around us. I shout for everyone to get up as zombies charge in. We keep them men out of the fight, the zombies are focused on us, and we don’t fancy getting shot, or losing any of the men. Marybeth falls in the fight, and before we can help her, darkness gathers round.

“Who dis who has trespassed in my swamp”? the darkness asks.