Journal of Arminius ex Guernicus
Since returning from my apprenticeship in the Tribunal of Thebes, I have been most busy with setting up my Ager Privatus, and have thus had little time to record my thoughts and impressions. Thusly, I regret that several seasons have passed before I have had the opportunity or energy to write down my recollections of my life as a full member in The Order Of Hermes. Hence, I shall only write briefly of events come to pass since arriving back home to my native lands. In the future, I hope I will have the opportunity to write while my memory is still fresh.
1220 AD
Spring
I passed my Gauntlet in early spring. My master Thessalonicus Ex-Guernicus, assigned me a Gauntlet where I had to mediate between two covenants who had disputed resources, and had led to frequent breaches in the Peripheral Codes. I mediated the dispute and sanctioned both parties accordingly. My master was pleased and presented me with my Sigil, as he considered my Gauntlet as a success. After my Gauntlet I spent some moons aiding my Parens with his investigations, but these months were mostly uneventful, as it was mostly trivial matters, which could easily have waited until a Tribunal Hearing.
Summer
I was planning on staying with my covenant, [Keksin kyllä!], in the city of Nicea, and the primus of the covenant did not object. I would have preferred staying there, in the centre of Imperial power, and an age old testament to human civilization, but I received a nightmare vision of my father on his death bed, and decided to visit him before his death.
My departure was not without complications. My wife of three years, Irene, the daughter of a lowly courtier, took the news of my departure very well. She screamed at me for hours before she decided that I also needed hitting.repeatedly. Greek temperament is a terrible thing to behold! Getting her pregnant and eloping with her was a very dangerous thing in the first place. Without my master's persuasion, her father would have killed me, or died trying. The matter is now "settled".
After calming her down, I left hastily on a ship for the Roman Tribunal. The trip was uneventful by all standards. It was a Genoese ship, and this made communication somewhat difficult. I spent most of the trip below deck fearing for the well being of my father. I arrived in Rome after many weeks on the seas, and set forth to Magvillus, our Domus Magna, as my Parens had instructed me.Magvillus is a massive fortification made of solid iron and has the strongest known Aegis in The Order. It is a magnificent place by any standards, and gives some indication of the power Guernicus possessed in his life time.
I met some senior members of our House and they offered me hospitality and I was welcomed into the House Of Guernicus. After I had rested and told them of my travel plans, they told me, I would be wise to redesign my plans. They gave me a letter appointing me as a representative of our House in the Rhein Tribunal. I accepted their orders, albeit with some protesting, but that was to no avail.
The rest of the day was spent imagining the anger of my wife as she would receive my letter informing her of us moving to my homelands, which she considered barbaric. I sent her a hefty sum of silver with my apologetic letter, and told her to wait for the birth of our second child before leaving. At this point I was almost certain she would not follow me.
From Magvillus I travelled swiftly to The Rhein Tribunal. Being on official business on behalf of my House, I had access to Portals Of Hermes should I require them. Naturally I used them. Some positions of office grants a man some very welcomed perks. This was definitely one of them. Travelling by land in this part of the world, would have been a most unpleasant experience.
Fall
I arrived back at my father's house just in time to see him alive for one last time. I also met my brother's there for the first time in over 15 years. They had also recently passed their Gauntlets and now we were brothers also in a context beyond the mundane definition. We said our goodbyes to our father. At this point we also met our father's long time friend [blablabla] Ex-Bonisagus, who would help us getting settled in the Tribunal and introduce us at Durenmar.
We immediately set forth to Durenmar and were introduced to some important people of that fabled covenant. We were briefed in the history of the Tribunal and more recent events. As some of these events were somewhat mysterious, more precisely the destruction of some covenants within eerily precise intervals, the magi of Durenmar sent us forth to investigate the matter.
We suffered wretched conditions of travel during our investigations, which I feel were not altogether satisfactory. We visited each of the sites of the destroyed covenants and unearthed whatever information, historical and folklore, to provide us with answers. I am sure I shall make further attempts to gain answers on this matter at some point. I feel, that at this moment, I lack the experience for properly dealing with the questions involved.
During the course of our investigations we suffered every hardship of travel imaginable in an uncivilized country. We suffered bandit attacks, piracy, outdoors, a sanctum laden with magical traps, an ancient warrior lost in time, and a haunted tower. I could go on and on about the haunted tower, but I would rather forget about it altogether! The matter is taken care of, and I will leave it at that. It was one miserable experience and took me several months to remedy.
After finding out what we could in regards to the destroyed covenants, we returned to Durenmar. We received thanks for our investigations, and given permission to found our own covenant. We decided to live separately, and set forth to look for suitable sites where to set up our Ager Privati. Thus our covenant is spread out around the banks of the river Rhine, and our habitations are quite a distance from each other. As we were somewhat estranged during our apprenticeship, this seemed like a good idea.
Late Fall & Winter
I quickly found a suitable site in Bingen. It was an old, quite dilapidated building, which clearly had ancient origins. I got the property cheaply, as it was on the outskirts of town, barely within the city walls, and as I mentioned, in quite bad disrepair. I hired some workers and started rebuilding the mostly ruined property. I quite quickly noticed the area having a magical air to it, and ordered the construction crew to start digging cellars.
During these excavations, a most welcome turn of events occurred. It appeared that the ruins were in fact ancient in origin. Apparently the property had once been a roman villa or outpost, as after a little digging some ancient cellars were discovered. I explored the cellars and concluded they possessed a strong magical aura. After some more exploring and digging, another level of cellars were found. Here the aura was very strong, and it turned out that parts of it had once been a Mithraeum, a roman temple to one of their pagan gods. My luck became even greater when it turned out, that the marble statue of Mithra performing the taurobolium ritual was actually also a source of Vis.
I kept the lower cellars as my own information and made access to them known only to me, as this is where I founded my sanctum. The rest of the property was built much in the same fashion as Italian merchants build their city houses, it is as much fortification as it is home. The main building is a sturdy three storey house, not unlike a tower. It is a house designed to be easily defended. In addition, my property is also walled. The yard has servant's quarters and other buildings, that a civilized dwelling can not survive without.
It also has a view of the Meuseturm. It was a major factor in the purchase of the property. The view of that cursed and haunted evil at first reminded me of my failures, now it reminds me of my successes.
By the end of winter, I was more or less ready with my Ager Privatus, which I now called Liber Veritas. I am pleased with it, as it has good location and is adjacent to what qualifies as a big city in these lands. It is still barbaric and rural by my standards but it will do. Sadly civilization has made very little progress here in the last 15 years, but I am glad there are more fields and signs civilization, than when I left.
1221 AD
Spring
I spent most of the springs dealing with that cursed island, which housed the Meuseturm, until I razed that cursed monument of diabolical evil to the ground. During the spring I finally had time to deal with the problem of the haunting spirit on that island, which I concluded was infernal in nature, and possibly that of bishop Hatto II.
I clandestinely approached the local clergy and spent a great amount of time and effort to find a man of the cloth, who would be at least somewhat sympathetic to the Order, and also pious and brave enough to perform an exorcism to banish what remained of bishop Hatto II to the Abyssum Infernum. I naturally concealed my true identity and posed as man of scholarly pursuits living off an inheritance, which in a sense was true. Me and the guards I have hired assisted him in the exorcism, and after it proved to be successful, I have been sleeping my nights better.
I also tried making contacts with the civil strata of the local society, but I must admit I have not met much success in this endeavour. I have been keeping low profile thus far, and I intend to keep on doing so, until my social contacts have improved. In an effort to achieve this, I give the occasional legal advice or draft a document or so.
During this time I also corresponded fervently with my wife, who was less than happy in regards to her travelling funds and means. She had arrived in Venice by late spring and was demanding more money for better accommodations and for better means of travel. With the assistance of a jewish moneylender, I sent her yet again a hefty sum in silver and an apologetic letter. She was staying with a distant relative. Just to spite me, she decided not to inform me on the matter of gender regarding our second son. At times like these, I envy the magi who are merely married to their laboratories. She informed me she would most likely arrive in the end of summer, or early fall.
Summer
The Summer of 1221 me and my brothers attended our first Tribunal. This Tribunal was held in the fabled Durenmar, which sadly is located quite a bit from our Ager Privati and required far more travelling than I would like. At least as far as primitive conditions are concerned.
We travelled mostly by boat, which is the most comfortable and convenient way to travel these lands, but sadly accommodations in what qualifies as a tavern here, are mostly appalling. Baths are a rare luxury and far in between indeed.
These lands are quite wild by any civilized standards and as was to be expected, we had not even travelled half way before we were set upon by a gang of bandits. This was mostly an inconvenience, but we did lose a few days of travel time owing to the fact that this gang was under the auspices of a powerful faerie entity.
I do not like the fey folk at all. They are anathema to civilization and humanity. Furthermore, they are untrustworthy and their ways perverse and bizarre. Yet we had to co-operate with them and in exchange we were granted access to a source of Vis, and even got some on the spot.
I would like to think, that our actions furthered the separation between man and fey. By causing the abandonment of a nearby settlement, we managed to curtail the need for the fey to employ bandits in order to protect their forest. This will hopefully result in the local lawmen not having a need to patrol the area, and thus we avoid a possible conflict between the fey and men. I did not like the arrangement, but I hope it will work for the best, and isolate they fey from men, just as God intended. I will look into the scriptures to find a passage to support that claim.
After much laborious travel we finally reached Durenmar. We arrived just in time for the Tribunal, and thus we did not have the time to find many allies or get our bearings before the actual proceedings started. Some of us traded and made social contacts, some of us just inspected the atmosphere. I briefly met the two other Quesitores before the Tribunal commenced. Surprisingly, only three of us were in attendence.
We decided on the senior of us, [Perskärpänen], to function as presiding Quesitor, though his seniority is not that great. We were all young and somewhat baffled by this, but decided to proceed in accordance with the code and the status it grants us. The third Quesitor was [se nössö], a young maga also freshly gauntleted. She does not have the fortitude of will and mind that one would like to have in a Guernicus magi, but I hope she will mature over time and look to herself for guidance.
At the Tribunal me and my brothers were welcomed into the tribunal with other newly gauntleted magi, including the third Quesitor. After that we proceeded with Tribunal matters in accordance with stipulations regarding etiquette and procedures at tribunals.
I do not feel the need to discuss the Tribunal here in greater lengths, as I am certain that better accounts have been made available by historians within the order. Also it would be a most laborious and time consuming effort to write an account of the Tribunal at Durenmar in 1221 AD, not to mention the sheer amount of wellum this would consume. I will get a copy of the tribunal transcripts at some point and add them to this text, most preferably I will have skilled scribe do it.
After the Tribunal we headed home to our Ager Privati and immersed ourselves in our laboratories. I started studying my excellent Summae, "Parma Fabula - A Thorough Investigation To The Secrets Of Parma Magia By Porcius Ex-Bjornaer", which is basically all I did for many months. It is a superb work in both authorship and quality, and probably on of the most exhaustive books ever written on the subject. I am very lucky to have obtained this legend among modern hermetic research, although it nearly put me into the poor house. But then again, it has been worth every effort that I put into obtaining it, and I am sure it will repay itself many times over. Books like that are rare and far between.
Fall
Most of the summer I found myself immersed in the in the laboratory studying the exquisite book I have already mentioned. I can not help but to marvel at it's content and genius. Even the craftsmanship strikes me with awe! I can not possibly ever hope to obtain a tome of such great wisdom or beauty.
I also corresponded with my wife who was getting to arrive slowly, but surely. She did not wish to cross the Alps, so she insisted on taking a detour through Frankish lands. As she was travelling with an infant, I can not to scold her for this. I was selfish in wishing her hasty arrival, but we have been separated for more than a year. She informed me she would be staying with distant relatives in France. Though a blow for the civilized world, the sack of Constantinople some fifteen summers ago has greatly lessened the strain on my purse in regards to my wife's travel expenses. The benefits of the fourth crusade and scattering of the Roman aristocracy, as apparently not benefited only the Venetians and the papacy, but me as well.
I was worried, that if she did not arrive before winter, I would have to wait until spring at the earliest before being reunited with my now expanded family. If winter would have cut her off, I would have travelled to Provencal at my own expense. Hopefully on Questitorial business, just to save on the expenses.
Just to be on the safe side, I dispatched yet more silver to her, and a necklace as a way of apologizing. The necklace was from a jewish goldsmith's store, and surprisingly good quality for local produce. Maybe not quite what she has grown accustomed to, but I am sure it will do. I also sent her a winter cloak of quite good quality. Poor thing will be shocked when she realizes what the winters here are like. Even I was surprised after my 15 years away. This is a harsh land. I am still amazed that she decided to follow me. Not as amazed as I am happy, though.
Winter
I seem to recall spending winter still reading that book about Parma Magica. I am raving on and on about it, but it just has the most interesting insights I have ever come across. It is the gem of my humble library, although it puts all my other volumes to shame. But it was either that magnificent work of art, or more of mediocrity.
Also my family arrived in the early weeks of winter. It had been a hard and gruelling journey, but they made it here safely and in good health. Luckily my wife's anger had somewhat cooled down during that last 16 months, so she was happy to see me and just slapped me once and took me leaving so abruptly telling her to follow her rather well.
Also the gender of my second child was revealed to me at this point; It was girl. We decided to Name her Zoe after her mother, as our son, now almost four years old, was named after my father, Cristophus. This family happiness did not last long, as the matter of baptizing her proved to be somewhat difficult.
She is an devout orthodox, this area is catholic. We had several furious arguments regarding this matter. I finally agreed on paying for an orthodox clergyman to come and perform the baptismal sacraments, on the condition that she would find one. She is corresponding with relatives regarding the matter still. There are orthodox clergymen in the Mediterranean harbours, but few are ready to make the trip. Maybe we will send Zoe there when she is older? I will pay for it.
Irene quickly set about to become the mistress of the household. She is keeping the staff in tight check. Language is an issue, but she is good at getting the staff to do what she wants just by angry looks. With servants around household chores to supervise, she shows more affection towards me. She needs to keep busy, or her temper will get foul. Other than that, she is a very good wife. Thus I strive to fulfil her needs and keep her happy anyway I can. I also need to hire a teacher for our son at some point.
I also hired a man from the company of guards that escorted her here. A German man, not native to this area, formerly employed as an executioner. His appearance is hideous and his speech so slurred it is hard to understand, but he seems good hearted and is jolly of spirit, despite his grim past. After seeing a demonstration of his skill with arms and his brute strength, I decided to make him my Custos. I later noticed he has a sense of vision which is borders the supernatural. Unlike many martial men, he is not as dim witted as he might first appear. His slurred speech is nearly unintelligible, but he is clearly not stupid, though he does not seem overly bright either.
1222 AD
Spring
This Season, I have mostly been studying the art of Corpus. Finally put my fabled book down and switched to a mediocre Summae regarding Corpus. It gives me new insights, but it is sadly lacking in content and is poorly written. I do not think I will try and obtain any more works authored by this Profanus Ex-Tytalus. The pompous title, "The Secrets Of The Mundane Cadaver", Is more show than anything else. Not by any means useless, but I would like something more insightful at this stage of my studies. Well, I should be happy with what I have, Most apprentices see works of much less quality. Reminds me of that book about Vim I read once. It was authored by some magus in some provincial tribunal and his handwriting was horrendous and his way of magic seemed awfully confusing. Avoid by all means Caligula Ex-Mercere's "A Treatsye In Ye Noblest Of Ye Arts, Vim - The Master Key Of Performing Bladed Coitus In Ye Unholiest Hindquarters Of Ye Devils Miniones, Ye Deamones ex Abyssum Infernum.", Yes, that is what it is called.
Also now my Journal has caught more or less up with the present. I wish I had more time to write, but labwork and family consumes my time. I am lucky to get a few hours of quality time with my family per day. At least they are with me now, the time apart was heavier than I realised. This is indeed a blissful time. Sadly I have missed over a year of their lives.
Having Irene run the household greatly decreases the responsibilities I have to deal with in running my Ager Privatus. She is learning the local language a bit, which makes her running the household a bit easier. Communication between her and the servants is basically a mix of Greek and German, it works to some extent. Most importantly, this makes the atmosphere in the household a lot less tense. Also she is happy, which makes me happy. I wish I could provide her with a standard of living closer to what she deserves.
Through some unfathomable reason Kff, my custos, is very good with the children. Irene disapproves of this, but I am sure he can keep them safe from any danger. Also he enjoys their company as they do not judge him or know of his grim past, and would not understand it even if they knew. Kff is content living inside the walls, he is often recognized and most people shun him at the very least. He spends his days training, guarding or watching after the kids. I hope he does not affect their ability to learn speech in any sense. That would be laborious to remedy. He is a good man, but he's exterior flaws hides his inner virtues.
Summer
The Summer of 1222 AD I received a redcap who brought me a request for aid from a certain Bartolomeus Ex-Jerbiton. I recognized the name and recalled hearing of him at the Tribunal and he was quite frequently referred to as a hedge wizard. The summon by itself was not remarkable in any way, but he had used some weird phrasing in his letter which made suspect breaching on the code, particularly a peripheral code ruling of [8XX AD] regarding court wizards. He was referring to a mundane lord as his "lord and benefactor", I contacted my brothers, of whom most were tied up in one way or another, but finally Conrad, Corvus, and Pyrhos replied.
We met in a village [pillunraitinkylä] near the castle of [Paroni X], whom we had previously encountered while doing our inquiry regarding the destruction of covenants on behest of Durenmar. Here we also met Bartolomeus Ex-Jerbiton.
He turned out to be as eccentric as his reputation. It seemed he was highly pious and had recently returned from a pilgrimage in addition to which he was fasting and had deprived himself of magic for a period of time. He had found employment as a tutor for the baron's children. He certainly came across as somewhat unusual and mundane, even for a Jerbiton magus, but I can not truly criticize him for that, as I myself prefer keeping close ties to the mundane world.
The baron dined with us and was most amiable to us. He also told us why he had summoned us through Bartolomeus. It appears the villagers had a problem and he inquired whether or not we could help. I was at this point more interested personally in investigating Bartolomeus' actions, but we heard him out.
It appears the village by his castle had many cases of young boys disappear at irregular intervals. Except for their gender and ages, it seemed somewhat random. After discussing the matter with Bartolomeus and the baron, we concluded that the nearby creek, that apparently had appeared out of nowhere some years ago, was where we should start looking. Also the boys had disappeared even from under heavily guarded houses, without anyone seeing a thing. The village was under guard, and as an extra measure, church bells were rang during the night, as that was the time of day when the children had disappeared.
The baron asked us to resolve the matter quickly and he promised to compensate us. He wished us to work swiftly as the villagers suspected his architect being the culprit. Him being jewish did not alleviate the villagers suspicions any less, than that the disappearances had started briefly after his arrival. We interviewed the poor man, who had already been beaten up by mobbed villagers at least once, and quickly concluded he was not to blame.
We then proceeded to question most of the villagers and the creek seemed like the cause of all this distress and we decided to investigate it closer. We were followed by Bartolomeus and some of the barons men upstream, and noticed that getting ahead was getting most difficult, almost as if the forest wanted to stop our advance. The foliage became denser and the forest around the creek became eerier by every step upstream. When we tried to wade up the creek, a mighty wave arose and tried to flush some of us out to the Rhine. It was getting dark, and progress was difficult. Also the baron's men might not react well to us weaving the fabrics of magic in order to hasten our investigation, so we headed back.
We had suspected the fey all along, now it was becoming obvious that all this was the working of those foul creatures. The baron had told us there was a faerie court nearby, but it had not caused trouble in decades, and furthermore, it was much further away that where we had gone up the creek. We suspected the faerie court had moved closer to the village and now it had some twisted agenda involving the villagers children. We decided to post our own guards for the night. Grogs and magi alike held watch. Our caution paid off, as during the nightly hours we saw one of the creatures most certainly responsible for the disappearances and we quickly trapped in a pit.
There was much commotion in the village and our prisoner turned out to be some small and pathetic, yet malicious fey of the water. We imprisoned it in a shed under heavy guard and proceeded to interrogated it. Unfortunately the foul creature had now language and we found no means to scry the workings of it's mind. So we decided to head up the river once more. This time we went by ourselves and were accompanied by now outsiders, which gave us liberties not possessed earlier.
With much hardship, yet even more determination we pressed onwards and pushed our way through even the densest shrubberies and even withstood onslaughts of the creek's waters, and finally we spotted a regio border and knew we were now close. After crossing into the regio, which was clearly attuned to faerie power, our progress became easier.
We soon encountered more of those horrible, wretched creatures and scared them away. We now knew we were close to finding the missing children, or at least the culprits behind their disappearance, and no sooner than we reached the fountain which fed the creek, did we meet our foe.
It was a faerie creature called "Lord" Blue. We briefly parlayed with him and soon discovered him to be a vain and egomaniacal renegade fey exiled from the previously mentioned faerie court. He told us to leave, we told him to deliver the children to our custody. An agreement could not be found, so he attacked us with water based faerie magic. We defended ourselves rigorously.
The fight was brief but furious, "Lord" Blue's court consisted of less than half a dozen of these little wretched creatures and most of them ran away when we fought back. One was seized by us and Kff felt it was too pathetic for anything more than a punch in the face. We had some troubles in the fight, but nothing we did not conquer and pretty soon "Lord" Blue was trapped in a pit, pinned under a tree, and received a battering most brutal and humiliating by Pyrrhos homicidal custos, Pest.
With more than our noble "Lord's" pride dented, we held him prisoner and demanded return of the children. He told us their location and as we started retrieving them from his "throne room", a damp hole underground, our watchfulness slipped and he escaped into the creek. We found some Vis, released the "Lord's" minion we had made prisoner, and returned to the village. The way back was much easier, the forest seemed to open a path for us to ensure our swift departure. The children had no recollection of their abduction or time in captivity, and we never got to question "Lord" Blue properly, but at least we had accomplished what we set out to do.
We arrived at the village and there was much rejoicing. We released the prisoner we had taken the night before, which we now determined was a water imp of some malicious sort and it quickly disappeared into the creek. The villagers thank us for our efforts and we yet again dined with the baron.
The baron thanked us and gave us the reward we had agreed upon [Antti täyttää], but I still had some business to conduct. I informed Bartolomeus that I wished to inquire in depth about his relationship with the baron, in case there had been in fact some breach of code, he agreed to this and I thoroughly questioned him, and concluded there had been no wrong doing on his part. Satisfied with this, we thanked the baron and Bartolomeus and set forth to return to our Ager Privati.
Thus concluded our short interruption of labwork this summer, we have just recently received and invitation by a local lord to visit him at his court. Baron Heinrich II. I have not heard of him before this, but I am sure Avernus has more information for me, as the invitation was sent through him to the rest of us. I will now depart, but I will update my Journal at an convenient time. I am expecting this to be a short visit. This should please my wife, as she does not like me travelling extensively and if I am not at home, she will have difficulties with the servants. I should let my brothers read my entry regarding Lord Blue, should they feel my account somehow shuns them, or robs them of credit they are due. Apprenticeship grants many people the vice of vanity.