Timeline

Small images between paragraphs divide the seasons to gaming sessions.

Winter 1172:

Studying: Profanus' experiment going wrong. See labwork history.

[ 1172 | 1173 | 1174 ]

Spring 1173 - Spring 1174:

Studying. See labwork history.

The morning came, and with it a call to arms. A large ship was approaching our island, and when coming nearer it raised a flag, a lightning bolt on top of a helmet, the symbol of Horsingas covenant. They hailed us for a permit to land, which was granted.

The ship had a few familiar faces as well as a few unknown ones. Our old friends, Whitburth Frithowebba and Sir Edwin of Hexham were there, as well as two more magi of the Horsingas covenant; Giuseppe del Mato, a scarred Flambeau with a dispute towards Merinita and XXX, magus of YYY. They had news. Sons of the English king, ZZZ, had risen into rebellion against their father, and the king of Scotland, William, had joined them.

(Sorry, can't remember those names)

There also were rumors that the Stonehenge tribunal were aiding the King of England in the war. This did not aid the bad relations between the Loch Leglean and Stonehenge tribunals.

This was a good time for the Loch Leglean and Stonehenge tribunals to beat the hell out of each other, and that exactly was in our visitors minds. They were going to declare a Wizard's War against their old arch-enemy, the Voluntas covenant. They were just a little bit short of Terram vis, which they needed to break down the defenses of the covenant. That was what they wanted of us. We agreed to lend them 12 pawns of Terram, if they repaid us 15 pawns, and 1 pawn as an interest per season. They happily agreed, and we returned to our laboratories.

This happened in the summer of 1173. We expect payback in summer 1174.

[ 1172 | 1173 | 1174 ]

Spring 1174:

Another morning came, and with it a small boat. One of the men inside took out a red hat, and put it on. We admitted them to the shore. The redcap had news for us. Praeco of the Loch Leglean tribunal, Caitlyn Sul-Uaine, warned the tribunal not to interfere in the mundane war, and especially not to take this opportunity to weaken the relations of the Loch Leglean and Stonehenge tribunal. For us, this came a bit too late, since the redcap had another scroll with him. Whitehaven, a spring covenant in the Stonehenge tribunal, declared a Wizard's War against us.

It was three weeks untill full moon came. We began to organize our covenant's defenses, and to hone our plans to attack to the Whitehaven. This took time. All the women and children were sent away, and the men began to train their skills. Bows and arrows were made, base defenses constructed.

Full moon draw closer. We had almost organized our defenses, but our attack plans were far from ready. Amaryllix had sneaked into Whitehaven to bring some reconnaissance information, and we had their guarding patterns, floorplans and all.

Before we had time to act, our island was "conquered" by large black ravens. They started attacking us, aiming for our hair and clothes, but being weak birds had no chance against us. Soon they started their own recon mission, circling far above our heads and beyond bow's range.

Suddenly something creeped in front of the sun, blocking the light. Our grogs were uneasy; some came to ask the magi what was wrong. Bearnard casted some light, but a spontaneous spell is no match for the sunlight. Then the shadow moved, and there was light once again. We had a nagging feeling inside though. Hector had an ill feeling, and ran into the northern ledge, only to find two of our guards posted there dead and cold as ice. Alarm was sounded, but the enemy was already inside.

Bearnard rose up to the air and conducted a scouting sweep above the island, but found nothing. Other magi sprinted to the sancti in the lead of Caligula. The fear was correct. Bearnard saw them and sweeped down to them. All of a sudden, two magi appeared; one man behind the houses near our sancti, and one woman up in the air.

It all started. The woman in air let go an Incantation of the Lightning, aimed at Bearnard, who in turn casted a Pilum of Fire. The man on the ground cast Wave of the Earth's Crest at the other magi and their custos. Bearnard's Pilum stopped into her Parma, and (luckily) her Lightning missed. (We're talking about lvl 35 spell with +45 damage!) Tomas fast-casted a Rego Corpus spell and succeeded in avoiding the wave, but the others were not so lucky. They were tossed aside, but nobody got hurt. The magi run and flew away in the next round, and disappeared when we pursued them.

All we found were footprints that ended like the man had disappeared into thin air. Lower on the island, two magi appeared. One was a Tytalus-magus, dressed in dark, and the other a Merinita. They started bringing mayhem and destruction in the middle of our grogs. The Tytalus casted a Earth Shock, and everyone nearby (within a hundred paces) were down on their knees. First one to recover was Hector, who saw the magi casting spells, and took out his bow. An excellent marksman, he got the Merinita in the middle of her casting. The arrow pierced her throat, nearly killing her. Nob was quickly at her side, and made her smile widely - from ear to ear. She passed away, and the Tytalus disappeared. All that was left was a small stick, broken in half. Merinita had been holding one too; it had some Verditius runes on it, Rego Corpus.

We thought that the worst was over, since all became quiet for a while. We started questioning the fallen Merinita, but she had little to say, and we had even less to ask her. Just when we were finished, a scream from outside woke us up into the real world. The attackers were back.

Running outside to the origin of the sound, we saw two more of our men, dead. A short while after another sound ensued, and we were running. One man was running away, a gleam in his eyes, his drawn blade bloody and a cut on his thigh. He wouldn't calm down, even when two of our grogs were holding him down, so we had to calm him with a Call to Slumber.

When the next scream was heard, we were already on the move. Coming into the scene, we saw one of our own grogs just killing his guard partner, then jam his spear into the ground and throw himself at it. Again Tomas fast-casted a spell, which suspended the man in mid-air above - what should've been his spear, but what now was only empty air, since Bearnard fast-casted a spell which took it away. Alarmed by this, Nelly began to identify invisible people again through Intéllego Imáginem spells, and not to a big surprise found our old enemy, Brian ex Guernicus. She let go a yell, pointing at Brian, who began casting again. We only heard he was casting something that involved Rego Mentem arts. Seumas, Ewan and Caligula were already going at him, directed by his chanting. Ewan and Caligula were the first to intercept him, flailing wildly at thin air Ewan managed to hit him, and he fell.

Still, this was no picnic. Brian had finished his chanting before he fell down, and now had three swords and one battleaxe coming his way. When the weapons sliced through the air, that's the only thing they found; that and a broken stick with Verditius runes Rego Corpus. Behind us, bad things were afoot. Nelly was casting something, and Tomas began casting a counter-attack. Tomas was faster, but his Call to Slumber ended in Nelly's Parma Magica. Nelly's mastered Visions of the Infernal Terrors found their mark, and Tomas was scared; he sprinted away, fleeing his terrors.

Others saw this, and it was not a pretty sight. Visions can kill, it has been seen. Bearnard cast a spontaneous Perdo Terram, the famous "Kuoppakikka", and being a fast caster (as the 3rd Edition Virtue) his spell came first. Nelly suddenly found herself falling into a hole 6 meters deep, and was a bit battered coming down. Another spontaneous Creo Terram placed a rock on top of the hole, trapping the renegade, controlled, magus inside. This was just in time, Nelly was already coming up through a spontaneous Rego Corpus spell, mimicking the Rise of the Feathery Body. She hit her head on the rock, and was forced to return to the bottom. The sunset came, Tomas regained his stature, the large rock disappeared, and Nelly became herself once again.

The Wizard's War I will be continued.

[ 1172 | 1173 | 1174 ]

After the attack, all was quiet for a few days. Life became almost normal once again, with people returning to their everyday tasks. A sense of alertness remained though.

We received another guest. One morning, a small ship arrived, and on it a man. He looked as if he had seen quite a few battles, wore chain mail and waved a greatsword. He asked for a place to stay and food to eat, and stated that he would pay with his work. We agreed. This was a welcome coincidence when we were at war.

One night something happened. In the morning when guards were changed, one of the grogs were found in the shoreline with his throat cut. He was interrogated with Whispers Through the Black Gate, but he didn't say anything else than "Men rose from the sea, armed with spears and crossbows. Men rose from the sea."

Guard shifts were reinforced, and the next night almost all the covenfolk stayed up, on their own guard post somewhere around the island. Then it happened again. First to notice this was Hector, who saw three men rising from the sea again, and signaled this to Ewan. The men noticed Ewan at this point too, and almost got shot; the crossbow bolt whirred only slightly past him. The attackers then faced a missile shower themselves: two arrows from Hector and one from Ewan, in one round, was enough to kill them.

Other guards also found something to swing their weapons at. Kif noticed something, and woke the magi up. A ship was circling the island, it couldn't make a landfall because of the vertical cliffs on the higher end of the island. Seumas was again swinging his axe, there were two men hiding in bushes, making an ambush as he was dashing through them. They were soon dead.

After a while, the magi noticed that after all these sessions, the covenant was on fire for real. Bearnard and invisible Caligula run to the sanctum buildings. Nobody was in sight. Bearnard flew on top of one of the buildings, and saw three men waiting around corners. He sneaked to the corner and let go a Pilum of Fire at the man below him. The man melted to the spot, but the attentions of the two others were turned to Bearnard. Caligula took care of the other one, the other shot Bearnard with his crossbow but it was of no real help.

Surprise was big when Bearnard suddenly found himself speeding up towards the skies. A magus from the Whitehaven covenant was also there, but she had been hiding. After some difficulties in concentrating, Beanard was finally able to cast Wings of the Soaring Wind and saved his own life.

Then the attack was over. Attackers laid dead, the magus had teleported away. Insula Maledictus didn't lose a life on that night, but others might still be coming. After this battle, things slowed down again and it became quiet. Day passed, then another, and a new moon rose to the sky.

Wizard's War I had ended.

[ 1172 | 1173 | 1174 ]

Summer 1174:

Again we wake up to some trouble. Angus, our boatman, had been to shore in Port Erin. He brought back troubling news about the death of one of our grogs, Tormod. He had been visiting his parents in their home village on the Isle of Man. The matter needed our attention, so we packed our bags and left. The journey to Port Erin was uneventful, but the walk to the village was not. We noticed something gleaming in the bushes ahead, and the ever-so-watchful custos, Seumas and Kif sprinted to destroy the ambush. He noticed this and turned around, running. Evan tackled him down, while back on the road two more men appeared from the bushes, attacking Tomas and Nelly.

Three more men came out to the road, demanding our valuables. A small display of magic changed their minds, and we were free to continue our journey. Before that we intimidated the unlucky fellow, who had been too careless to show his blade to us too early. We offered the outlaw band (who were actually a crew of a vessel that had crashed) work, if they needed it, with a message to come looking for it in the Insula Maledictus.

When we got to the village, we had a welcoming committee waiting for us. The peasants were armed with tools and whatever they could get, and their elder told us to leave. A girl had died mysteriously, and the last thing she had been able to mutter was that "the witches from the Calf hurt me". Since we had never been there, it wasn't possible (although Caligula wasn't with us at that point...). The girl's mother darted from one house, dagger in hand and tried to hit Bearnard, who just stared at her. She hit Bearnard, but her blow was glanced aside. She hit him again a few times, then fell down to her knees crying. (Remember the Ring of Defence?) After we learned that the girl had been playing with her friend outside the village, we turned around and left it, only to return invisible in the dark of the night.

We headed to the graveyard wanting the corpse of our fallen comrade. In the graveyard was sitting a girl, who saw through our illusions, since she was looking straight at us. She told us that she had seen a "bad man" coming to talk to the (now) dead girl, then stabbed her and - what is the most strange thing - drank her blood, leaving her to die. Luckily for us, he had left his hood behind. The problem was that we couldn't do anything with it. We remembered one person, who had had a similar hood - Brian of Whitehaven. We talked to the girl and sent her off to bed.

Back to the graveyard. The elder had said that our grog should burn in hell, so they hadn't even tried to bury him properly. Bearnard inspected the ground with InTe, then raised the earth with ReTe, Tomas lifted the corpse out of the grave with Raise of the Feathery Body before Bearnard lowered the earth with his spell. If you have the skills, why use shovel? We casted a spontaneous Charm Against Putrefaction on the corpse to avoid stench, and headed back to the Port Erin and our covenant.

This had taken us all night, so after a short journey we needed to get some rest. In sleep, a faerie came to visit Nelly, and told her that Brian had been seen in the graveyard shortly after we had left. The faerie gave us one of his hounds to track him down. We let the hound smell the hood and he bolted ahead, us behind him. He led us to an old manor house, nodded and left. Same drill again, Veil of the Invisibility on every magus and then off to scout the area. We went into the house and saw a hall with two guards chatting and sitting at a table. Shortly after we had gotten in, there was a sound of stabbing upstairs, followed by a another sound of something falling down.

Bearnard was off to investigate, but suddenly the magic was gone, and we were visible. Bearnard went upstairs, seeing one empty room with just one door. Opening it he saw a man dressed in full chain mail, bloody sword in his hand starting to realise what he had done, and fell to his knees in front of a decapitated woman's body. Bearnard casted spontaneous CrTe spell, causing ash to fall to the ground for a couple of inches in both rooms, but there was no sight of Brian or his bootprints. The man realised that he was not alone, turned to Bearnard saying "You made me kill her!" and attacking.

Meanwhile downstairs the two guards had seen Nelly and Tomas. Instantly the other fell down to a mastered Visions of Infernal Terrors while the other one started to attack his comrade because of Tomas' Strings of the Unwilling Marionette. Afterwards, the same guard started to bang his head to a stone wall until he lost consciousness.

The magi were in trouble. The murderer upstairs had come after Bearnard, beating him with his sword and kicking him (in vain), and was now at the top of the stairs in the first hall. Downstairs there was Tomas and Nelly, with three guards coming through the front door and two from the kitchen door. Nelly sent a message to the grogs with CrIm, and they came running. Before that we had some guards to deal with ourselves. Bearnard and Nelly ran to the windows, trying to jump through them to the yard. Tomas used Gift of the Frogs Legs from his staff and jumped to the stairs behind the chief guard / lord of the house, who luckily did not see this. After a short run Evan, Nora and Seumas were there. There was a fight, in which our grogs and magi emerged victorious, the guards surrendering.

Now we had another problem in our hands. We almost caught Brian, but without the hound, it was very hard if not impossible to track him down. That's what the next session is going to be all about.

[ 1172 | 1173 | 1174 ]

After questioning the knight who had just killed her wife, we weren't much wiser. The man still blamed us for the murder. We headed north, since Brian's trail was going that way.

Meanwhile in the covenant, James gave Duncan, an old crusader, a package to deliver to us. We met Duncan on the King's Road going north. The package contained a book from our library, the one containing the Inexorable Search. Duncan also had a map, so it was easy to start tracking Brian with his hood. During the travel we started to feel a little peckish, and needed food. Spontaneous CrAn with Ignem requisite gave us some hot wild boar ribs.

We followed Brian through the Isle of Man, to the Point of Ayre in the northern point of the island. There we found his footprints, which led into the water, new ones forming every second but no Brian to be found. Nelly realized after a spontaneous Imaginem spell that the log laying on the shoreline was not a log, but Thomas of Whitehaven; we had walked straight into an ambush.

Suddenly four men, armed to the teeth, rose up from the sand behind us. Brian and Caitlin walked back to the shore from the sea, without looking like they had held their breath there. Reynard and Thomas stood up. There were magi and grogs all around us, when Brian spoke: "This is my island. Leave it or be killed."

Strangely enough, we didn't. Both Duncan and Ewan sprinted at Caitlin, the Whitehaven's Elementalist we'd seen hurling lightnings earlier. Tomas used Gift of the Frogs Legs from his staff helding it horizontally in front of him and aiming at Caitlin. Nora and Nelly, still on their faerie horse aimed at Brian, trying to trample him below its feet. Seumas dashed to meet the two swordsmen, while Bearnard aimed a Pilum of Fire at Brian.

Caitlin threw Tomas to the side with a fast-cast Creo Auram, but was in trouble when Duncan hit her with his fist and his sword. Her life was over when Ewan ran through her with his twin shortswords.

Brian fast-casted a spell at Nelly's horse, sending it back towards Bearnard, but missing with only an inch. Nelly and Nora, on the other hand, kept going forward and landed in the water. A Muto Mentem - spell came through Bearnard's Parma Magica, cast by Thomas, but luckily it didn't work; he tried to turn Bearnard's opinions about the Whitehaven folk, but his mind was too strong to be affected. Other spellcasters were through with their fast-cast spells.

After some hectic minutes, the battle was over. Reynard had been crushed into the bottom of a pit with a large stone, Thomas had been hit unconscious and Brian had been cut, when he surrendered. The minute after this, he started trembling, and a black demon exited his body, saying that "Brian, you have failed us" and leaving.

Brian was beaten unconscious, too. The last living magus of the Whitehaven covenant, Septimus, had been watching the battle on top of a dune nearby, but not participating. When the battle was over, he approached, and asked us for a permission to leave. When it was granted, he promised that we wouldn't see him again he gave us a gift, a key to Brian's sanctum and a scroll telling us that.

While we were looting the vis the magi had had, Nelly saw something far behind us. It was the Lord of the land faeries, Arawn, who told Nelly to kill Brian. After that, he addressed us all, inviting us to a feast in his domain, which took place the next day.

We travelled to our own covenant, victorious and elated, celebrated there for the night and returned with almost all our covenfolk to Isle of Man, where there was a dolmen, a passage to Ancardia.

Through the portal we came to green plains near a marble white mansion. The place was full of strange faeries of all kinds, but the food was marvellous and drink did not run out.

Next morning we woke up to horrible headaches and hangover, the whole party gone and leaving us alone on the plains. We headed back out with Nelly's lead.

[ 1172 | 1173 | 1174 ]

Continued in next chapter.