t the end of my last diary entry, Thor and I
were leaving the castle in order to go and get pissed in town due to the disappearance of
Darius and Bryan on the Pattern. As we saw it, it was either an early wake, or a late wake
(for Lorien). Anyway, we both needed little excuse to go and get drunk. On the way to the
bar we met Ricardo and Walker who came with us to drown any sorrows they might have.
And so it begins.
ot more than a couple of hours into the
drinking session, there was a whistling sound and Thor was shot with an arrow. A few
seconds later, he was shot again, but no arrow could be seen. Ricardo rushed outside,
having some sense of deja vu, but could not see the would-be assassin. I
explained that the assassin, like the second arrow, would probably be invisible.
Ricardo gave chase on his hearing whilst I carried Thor back to the infirmary and Walker,
ever the gentleman, walked by me and didn't offer to help.
hor needed a couple of weeks rest. I did
some things. Ricardo did some things. Darius appeared in a courtyard with only a
small headache, and Johanna disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Flora asked
Ricardo to go and find her, and even gave him a trump of Johanna. Ricardo collected the
rest of us and we went to see Thor, since trump was somewhat unreliable of late and
he could probably get it to work. We experimented with trumps a bit. Darius wanted to know,
that if Johanna's trump didn't work, would his:
Darius: Does anyone have a trump of me?
Ricardo: Well I've got a trump of me and a pencil...
e couldn't get through to Johanna and so instead
Darius got Thor to use a trump of a nearish shadow and post us all through,
where we could continue on horse.
This plan worked, and we came upon a battlefield. A horde of small, chitinous, six-armed
insecty things was attacking what looked like Johanna, a figure in black armour, a HUGE
and rather familiar Ygg-like tree and a suspiciously familiar panther.....
icardo waded into combat with a sigh while
I immobilised most of the horde with candy floss. The battle was quick. Darius wibbled.
When there seemed little danger, the figure in black armour turned, saluted Johanna
and challenged her to mortal single combat on the grounds that her "people were
responsible for this". Johanna accepted, and after a few minutes,
started to lose, as the figure ("I am Dreph, bodyguard to king Atathon") proved much
stronger and started to choke her after disarming her. Ricardo interrupted and was called
a dishonourable cur, before the fight restarted and went much the same way as previously.
Johanna screamed something at Dreph and it failed utterly. The fight got into the area
around the base of the tree, before Thor decided to trump Johanna.
She accepted and as Thor pulled her through, Dreph tried to sever her hand. He would
have succeeded if I hadn't intervened, and so as it happened Thor got Dreph as well by
association. Thor got kicked, and the fight continued. Johanna's wounds started to ooze
green stuff as well as bleed, probably to do with the magically poisoned sword Dreph
was using. Ricardo interrupted again, and hacked at Dreph's armour, cutting a chink
in the shoulder. Dreph and Johanna disappeared through a black wibbly gateway. It shut and
Darius tried to lead us through what was, even for him, a very syrupy process. Half way there,
Dreph boomeranged past us somehow. His face was flaming. He disappeared through
another portal. We then lost Johanna and could not pursue her further, mainly because of the
frenzied panther attacking us. Walker grabbed it and we knocked it out, since we could
not remove the highly powerful magical collar it had on. While I sat on the panther with
brick at the ready in case its eyes opened, Darius went inside its head to have a look round.
(Thor had disappeared through trump after a few seconds delay when the panther went for him.)
pparently it was Bryan. About ten percent
of it. Darius tried to help him out of his internal struggles gently. The Collar,
on closer inspection was shown to be some form of command issuing and enforcing device.
Darius: Well, Bryan is using all of his psyche to fight back....
Chorus: Oh dear....
Unsure of how to deal with this, I encased Bryan in a crystal sphere with a couple of cobbles
to keep him quiet and we rolled off (with difficulty) through shadow. In some
intervening conversation about Dreph, Darius revealed that he had walked the Pattern
at some point in the past, and was not chaotic.
e soon encountered Random, who was annoyed with
Darius for not keeping an appointment. We then explained everything that we knew, and, a
few moments later, Random explained that he had been examining some strange phenomena at the
broken patterns. He said we ought to see and started to take us to one. However things got
very strange, and, amidst an exploding pattern in the head, we sort of passed out and awoke
in a shadow that contained Thor and an uncaged Bryan. Making another sphere quickly around
Bryan, Thor then explained that I should kill him immediately since all that was left in
there was an animal under someone elses' control. I said that if Thor believed that, fine, but
he would have to do his own dirty work, and I gave him the plugs to stop Bryan's air supply.
Thor wouldn't do it, so I presume he was lying and uncertain in his convictions, or just
wanted to kill Bryan while he could.
Thor: Bryan's not in there any more. He's dead or mentally disintegrated.
Darius: I had a look earlier. He was in there then.
Thor: Not any more.
Darius: I was afraid that I'd drown his psyche.
.......[Pause].......
Darius [To thor]: You've drowned it, haven't you?
hile I may sympathise with killing Bryan at
times (like when Bryan is attacking me), I considered it a bit harsh under the circumstances.
Meanwhile, Darius brought the Pattern to mind, or rather tried to, and passed out.
e were accosted by a stranger in a grey cloak
and wolf pelt. I looked at him. He took offence. I apologised. He introduced himself
as Revan ex Criamon.
With diligent questioning it became apparent that he was a mage. He took us back to
his "covenant" and introduced us. I was introduced to a mage called Gwyntar, who invited me
into the magic suppressing zone about the building, while another mage called Dmitri hit
Darius with a rather ineffective lightning bolt. Before I could swear to the code, and
hence its decree of non-aggression towards other magi, I was forced to stop Dmitri hitting
Darius again. Enclosed in a glass dome, Dmitri was hit by his next lightning bolt and was
carried off to the infirmary after I dispelled it. When we needed money to pay for
accommodation, Darius produced some steel coins from his usually ample and correct pockets.
The money was unacceptable though they would (and did) take his sword for further
examination in return for rather a large sum of money.
arius was next morning worried about possible
recriminations from Dmitri and I therefore built him an impermeable magical defence. When
Dmitri came to blow Darius up later, powering his spell with strange daisies ( but very
magical ones ), Darius managed to almost make psychic contact before Gwyntar disrupted the
spell. Daemons started to drop out of the air. Revan, Ricardo and myself waded into the
fray with two pattern swords between us, and the daemons dissolved, although some invisible
daemon had ripped into an invisible Darius and he was wounded. Bryan then saw fit to bite
Dmitri's head off, releasing a highly destructive death spell. This caused me some pain,
behind my shields, but everyone else apart from Bryan was in a world of pain and misery.
Bryan was strangely unaffected. All the locals were dead (or invisible).
hile we tried to piece together exactly what had
happened, the air beside us shimmered slightly and Gwyntar, or rather his ghost, appeared
next to us. We finally explained that we weren't quite what we seemed, and were looking
for a way home. Darius said that he thought he might be able to dent shadow elsewhere, and
I mentioned that, having seen what happened with Dmitri, I could possibly open a portal
to where the demons had come from using brute magic. The ghost of Gwyntar said that
that would require a strongly chaotic aura and he mentioned that indeed our auras had
seemed highly ordered. Darius then said that finding the place with the strongest ordered
aura would offer the best chance of finding a way out of the shadow. Gwyntar said
that this would probably a place called "the Vatican". We now leave this place to find it.
Gwyntar's Ghost: You seem like nice people
Players: [Raucous laughter and mirth.]