Alpha Storyguide: Chris Blake
Roland set off early in 1224 on his annual trip to hear Japhet tell his story, allowing Roland to collect the vis from the waterfalls near the Wast Water (for background, see Japhet's Story). Upon Roland's arrival, he found that Japhet was too upset to tell his story. One of his stories was about a beautiful swan named Ariel that fell in love with a prince. When Ariel came to life in the faerie regio, there was no prince, so she left the regio and set out to find one. Japhet had word that she had taken up with the Baron of Millom. This year she was to return, and she had not. Japhet had sent a letter to her in Millom, but there had been no response. Japhet wanted Roland to find her and return her to the regio within two days.
Roland, Aeddan, Richard and Christopher set off for Millom to talk to the Baron. The Baron said that Ariel had lived with him for almost twenty years, but a little over a year ago she had had some kind of disagreement with his son Dillon and left. She had said simply that she did not wish to come between a father and his son. The Baron thought Dillon might know where she went, and suggested the group seek him out at his hunting cabin in Ulpha Park.
Dillon was not at the cabin when the group arrived, but they did find Sir Benson having his way with Ariel. Benson was rather angry at being interrupted, but was quickly rendered unconsciois by Aeddan. Roland, Aeddan and Christopher then made a hasty departure from Millom, while Richard went to the Baron to reveal what had been learned. Along the way back to the regio, they learned what had happened to Ariel, and why she did not answer Japhet's letter. It seemed that Dillon had locked her in his hunting cabin to service him and his close friends. That was about a year ago.
The magi got Ariel back to Japhet just in time, but then they had to get his girth up the waterfall as well as their own. After some minor struggles, including Christopher shedding his heavy chain mail, the party reached the summit and entered the regio. With the appearance of Japhet, the residents of the regio all came running to hear what their creator had to say. Yet before he could start his story, he was interrupted by three angry knights demanding to know what is going on: Sir Benson, Sir Dillon, and another accomplice. After a brief argument, Dillon made a lightning quick lunge for Japhet. Christopher flung himself in front of his sword, but he is too slow; Dillon runs Japhet though, killing him. With his weapon now embedded in the aged toy maker, he left himself wide open for a powerful return blow from Sir Christopher. Christopher's sword nearly severed Dillon's neck and would have killed a lesser man. At this point the other two knights jumped into action, seeing their liege go down. Before more blood could be spilled, the Baron himself appeared with Richard and put a stop to the fighting. He grimly listened to what transpired, then ordered the two uninjured knights to gather up his son and bring him. Leaving the regio, the magi were shocked to find Dillon sprawled at the bottom of the rocks below. His own father had ordered him thrown to his death.
With the death of Japhet the regio slowly faded away, robbing the magi of an Aquam vis source.
Cast: Roland (Ann), Richard (Chris), Aeddan and Christopher (Patrick).
Alpha Storyguide: Chris Blake
In the fall of 1224, everybody traveled to London for the wedding of Roland and Margaret Armestronge. The wedding and the journey to it were pretty uneventful, although the party did meet the enormous Sir Gilbert Roos, an old friend of Victor Marlowe's from the Crusade. Additionally, Lady Leela Lancaster was present and seemed again intent on bedding Roland. Although Roland rebuffed her advances, he did have a glass of wine with her, remembering nothing thereafter the next morning
Sir Gilbert had a strange tale. Since his return from the Crusade to find his family murdered, he had been unable to control his temper. Back in London he sought out a priest to help find a cure. He was told that he needed to do penance, and since he was a soldier, he needed to help out thus less well-off than himself. He could start by finding and sleighing the swamp beast of Lilo Swamp.
Lilo Swamp happened to border Roland's lands in Sherwood Forrest, so the magus took some interest in the matter. Arriving at the village of Lilo, Roland, Sir Gilbert, Baelthornon, Prava and Sir Christopher found that the swamp had been growing ever since a woman named Nesta went in to find her children. She never came out, nor did her kids, although her husband had sought them out and fled the swamp as a madman. The assembled nobles (and Prava) decided the only thing to do was to go in and look for Nesta and her family themselves. Walking though some really deep and thick mud, they were attacked by a multitude of little mud creatures. Though they were easily dispatched, their sheer numbers made the fight very tiring and a near thing. After resting up from their encounter with the mud men, the party came to a large lake surrounding a small island. As they approached the island, something burst out of the water right behind one of the grogs and pulled him under. A quick search of the shallow lake found the creature dragging the grog to the island, so the group now approached the island while watching each other's backs. This tactic worked pretty well, for the next time the creature showed itself it was hit by number of arrows.
The impetuous Prava had meanwhile gone on to the island to find out what was in the hut. He found Nesta and her kids, who said that the creature was taking care of them. In return they were helping him expand his home, the swamp. Their conversation was cut short when the creature entered the hut. It had been hurt and was coming to have Nesta remove the arrows from it. Finding Prava there angered it greatly; Prava was lucky to escape with his life. When the rest of the group showed up, the creature was felled. They then returned Nesta to Lilo, which was soon freed of the swamp.
Cast: Prava (Mike), Roland and Margaret (Ann), Richard and Celer (Chris), Baelthornon and Christopher (Patrick).
Gamma Storyguide: Patrick Murphy
For full comprehension of events related in this story, first see the story Our Mutual Friend.
No sooner had Roland and his new bride Margaret returned from his estate in the fall of 1224 than the nobles and "scholars" were invited to another wedding. Michael Merrick, their friend from Mary's Garden, arrived to deliver the invitation in person. It seemed that his sister Rebecca was to marry Sir Robert Lowther, youngest son to Merrick's liege, Lord Michael Lowther. Although Robert was the youngest of the lord's sons, Merrick was obviously pleased at this minor political coup.
Journeying to Lowther, just south of Penrith, the assembled representatives from Austhwaite Manor hobnobbed with Lowthers, Merricks, Curwens, Huttons and Musgraves; in short, some of the most powerful noble families of Cumbria. Prava and Sir Andrew were particularly taken with Lady Eleanor de Rothe, a charming young brunette representing her family from Yorkshire. During the celebratory feast after the wedding, the guests took note of some boisterous Irish knights at a nearby table. The men would not be quiet, and soon a fight erupted between the uncouth visitors and the flower of English knighthood. Lord Lowther's men soon subdued the knights and they were expelled from the celebration. Later it was learned that the men were "knights" sent to represent the Lady Socha of nearby wythburn, newly installed by the Bishop of Carlisle as Lady of the Manor.
Roland then noticed that his new bride was missing. Roland had been tipsy, and getting along well with the lovely Lady Eleanor, so at first he thought Margaret had simply walked off in a fit of jealousy. However, it soon became clear that she had vanished. While Lord Lowther's men combed the area for her, Roland and Prava used an arcane connection to find the general direction in which she lay. After the magi arrived at a nearby village with Sir Andrew and Lady Eleanor, a peasant told them that clearly the hag Hereswith must be responsible, and gave them directions to her hut.
Arriving at her hovel, the magi found the witch Hereswith suspicious of them and unimpressed with their titles or magical prowess. It was clear that Margaret was not within Hereswith's hut, but she told them that the giant Isis must have taken their young lady, explaining that he had an eye for the ladies. She said that he lived in a cave southeast of Penrith, and the magi set off to find him.
True to her word, Hereswith's directions had led them to a rocky area about 3 miles East by South of Penrith, on the north side of the Eamont River. Here was a perpendicular rock with two recesses. The approach was difficult, and afforded only by passing along narrow ledges of the cliff and holding the shrubs that grow along its rugged side. The first recess was small and narrow, and was really only a niche. The second, however, was sizable. A locked metal gate blocked entry, and though very old, it showed signs of recent oiling. Magic proved to allow entrance through the locked gate, but some sort of spell gripped Andrew, making him afraid to enter. As Roland stepped within the chamber beyond, he was surprised to find a spear point placed in front of his throat.
Even more surprising was the figure before him. A towering creature, apparently a man, stood before him in ancient Roman armor. His arms betrayed a coarse, black hair, and a snout not unlike a boar's was placed between beady yellow eyes and above tusks jutting from his lower jaw. Parlaying, the magi learned that the creature was called Tarquinius, and had been a Roman magician stationed at Hardknott with the Fourth Cohort, and therefore over a thousand years old and a member of the Cult of Hermes!
Tarquinius retold how he had come to Cumbria and fallen in love with Nuala, a Pictish practitioner of magic. She apparently betrayed him, for within days of him revealing a secret entrance to the fort to her (discovered by the magi in the story Don't Let the Bull Bite You in the Ass on the Way Out), her Pictish allies took the garrison by surprise, gaining entrance through that very portal. The Fourth Cohort was decimated, and Tarquinius fled. However, he returned seeking vengeance and killed her. As he plunged his gladius into her chest, she cursed him to live forever, shunned by all. Some power then transformed him into a hideous figure, and he had since lived in seclusion. Prava marveled at his tale and his importance to the Order, and Roland delighted in his revelations of both Dunmail and his losing encounter with Sir Lancelot and others of Arthur's court!
Tarquinius apologized for abducting Margaret, who was unharmed but traumatized by her tenure with the Roman magician. He said he had longed for some company, and had merely wished to talk to her. He denied any knowledge of Socha and/or her accomplice Fulgurator. The group returned to Austhwaite manor to seek the council of the other magi.
Deciding to once more speak to Tarquinius, especially about possible involvement with Socha. Margaret had spent some time in a small chamber that smelled of flowers adjoining Tarquinius' main chamber, and thought she had glimpsed a woman within another chamber beyond. All of the magi save Savaric went forth to challenge him, and though he grew angry about the matter of the woman, he asked many questions about the Hermetic Order and its rules. Convincing the Roman that he would have to join or be Marched, and that Socha would likely be Marched for her actions, he revealed that he had in fact been approached by Fulgurator and Socha. His magics had been unable to penetrate their Parmæ, and in return for vis he had agreed to assist them: he buried an iron cube beneath the standing stones at Eamont. The magi invited him to visit them at Austhwaite Manor, which he declined, and then set off to find the cube.
Unearthing the unmarked metal cube, the magi decided not to confront Socha before studying the magical device to learn its capabilities. After a season of study, Celer was frustrated to find that he could not discern a single one of its powers.
Realizing that they still had almost no idea what Socha and Fulgurator were up to, the magi journeyed to Wythburn to challenge Socha face-to-face. Her "knights" led the magi to the old Porter manor, where David still served reluctantly as butler. Socha grinned wryly as Celer and Prava tried to provoke her, insisting that her appointment as lady of the manor there was not prohibited by the Code and that she would not cede any magical resources on her lands. She stated that she was a spirit mistress, and something of a Seeker, interested in Dunmail's Raise and the spirits there. With no progress with Socha, the magi investigated wythburn, learning that men of the Bishop of Carlisle had founded a small monastery there. The magi had almost nothing to go on: no idea as to what the box did, no way to prove allegations against Sochaand bringing allegations of wrongdoing to the Sheriff of Cumberland likely to fall on deaf ears, being that the Bishop had been elected Sheriff in 1222!
The dejected magi returned to Corona Montis, where they were surprised to learn that the missing John Porter was waiting for them. He related how, uninspired by the prospects of maintaining his late father's lands and scorned by the girl he loved, he had agreed to run off to Ireland with Fulgurator and Socha after they had faked John's death. They had promised him adventure and to teach him magic, but with time he became aware of their designs on his lands. He had escaped them and now feared for his life, and thus turned to those magi he had learned opposed the conspirators. Somewhat suspicious of the boy and their stroke of luck, Prava used a Mentem spell to ensure that they did not magically control the boy. After learning he was not, the magi set off for Papcastle, seat of the Baroness Alice of Allerdale, seeking to reveal to her how she had been duped into granting the Porter lands to a commoner after such deceit.
The Baroness recounted how the lands had been granted to the Bishop of Carlisle in accordance with the wishes of Donald, the devout but simple peasant to whom the Porter lands had been granted following the demise of William and John Porter. With the appearance of John Porter, a livid Baroness set out with ten of her knights to evict Socha, inviting the magi to accompany her. A stunned Socha was ousted and arrested by the Baroness, and was to be taken to the Baroness' dungeon beneath her castle at Cockermouth.
The smug magi returned to Austhwaite Manor, and even the news that Socha had somehow disappeared en route to Cockermouth could not spoil their political victory: John Porter was reinstated as Lord of Wythburn, and while little of Socha's plot had been revealed, the magi felt confident that her plans had been disrupted for the time being.
Cast: Prava (Mike), Roland and Margaret (Ann), Andrew, Richard and Celer (Chris), Tarquinius, Socha and Eleanor (Patrick).
This page last modified August 26, 2011 10:55 PM
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