Session Date: 1/7/01
Delta and Gamma Storyguides: Ann Harper and Patrick Murphy
In the spring of 1231, once again the honor of holding the local tournament fell to the Austhwaites. Many of the same knights from the previous tournament elected to participate, although there were some new faces. The eager Sir Alan FitzSwein arrived, eager to prove his mettle; Sir Thomas Aughton was not present due to an injury, although Sir Julius was nonetheless happy to see his sister Elise; and the circuit was abuzz with the appearance of Sir Klaus Von Naumberg, a professional tournament knight. But perhaps the most interesting visitor was Lord Seldin and his two sons, Sessum and Severin. They arrived wearing exotic apparel (including seal pelt cloaks and a torc carved from walrus tusk) and looking very much out of place.
Lord Seldin explained that John Austhwaite had visited his home and, in return for Seldin's hospitality, had offered to help his host should he require it in the future. Seldin's daughter had been missing for some thirty years, and so now he sought the aid of the magi of Corona Montis. The magi questioned him, and Roland discerned that the visitors were shapechanging selkies, whose seal skins hung around their necks when they took the form of men. Seldin explained that his daughter must soon return to the sea or marry and have children to tie her to the land. Failing this, she would perish. The wizards assented to helping their new friends.
The magi did not have to wait long to find a lead. The dastardly Sir William Wyberg, villain of the previosu tournament (see the story Lion in Sheep's Clothing), was in attendance once again and he wore a cloak trimmed with what the brothers recognized as a pelt similar to their mother's pattern. Seldin offered to buy the cloak from Sir William, who seemed interested in gouging a high price for it.
Meanwhile, the tournament had begun, with the hunt concluded and won by Sir Richard. Sir Julius had boldly gained Lady Elise Aughton's favor, and the knights of Austhwaite Manor conspired to capture Sir William during the grand melee and ransom him for his cloak. Epileus took this opportunity to cavort in the Wast Water with Sessum and Severin, whose ability to see magic found a new vis source for the covenant, in the form of pearls from freshwater mussels.
The second day of the tournament began with a surprise, as perennial jousting favorite Sir Christopher was defeated by Sir William Asemundirlaw in the jousting final. The melee ended with the local knights' team winning and Sir William successfully captured. He reluctantly gave up his cloak and the magi used it as an arcane connection to try to locate Seldin's daughter. The cloak led them to none other than the attractive girl Selina, who had been employed by the Austhwaites to watch over the children. While the women of the house had sought to match Sir Julius with the girl, he was enamored of Lady Elise, and Epileus soon struck upon the idea of marrying her. Her father consented and another of the magi of Corona Montis found himself married
Sir Christopher was named overall champion of the tournament, with Sir Richard and Sir Henry close behind. All was right with the world until Sir Julius proposed to Lady Elise. She was forced to tell him that she and Sir Thomas were one and the same, and that she was compelled to wield a sword. Sir Richard and his knights hotly debated whether or not a woman could bear a sword in the name of the King, generating some hard feelings.
Cast: Epileus and Sir Julius (Mike), Lord Seldin, Sessum, Severin and Selina (Ann), Celer and Sir Richard (Chris), Baelthornon, Sir Christopher and Lady Elise (Patrick).
Alpha Storyguide: Chris Blake
With all the activities of the tournament, the weekly patrols were running a bit late. When Sir Andrew finally set out on patrol, all seemed fine until they reached Coniston. Some merchants there had been robbed by bandits just outside of town. Andrew spent the rest of his patrol time searching the woods about Coniston, but was unable to find any evidence of the robbers. Not wanting to be late in returning from patrol, Andrew returned straight home from Coniston.
When Andrew reported his findings, Richard was none too pleased that he failed to check with the other villages along the roads, to see if they had had problems with bandits as well. So he sent Sir Julius out on the normal route, while he had Andrew go out in reverse. His aim was to ensure that there was no further bandit activity in the area, then meet up with Julius.
Julius found no new activity along the path that Andrew had previously taken, but he did find more evidence of bandits further along the patrol route, in Grasmere. Here Julius talked to several more merchants that had been attacked by bandits, who alerted the young knight that they had been robbed by none other than "the Thrush" (for further background on the Thrush, see the stories The Curse of Mannanan and To Hunt the Thrush).
Meanwhile, Andrew had also learned the name of the bandit leader, but had done so the hard way. Well outside of Grasmere, Andrew was stopped by three men standing in the road. The leader calmly introduced himself as the "the Thrush," and told the patrol to surrender their armor, weapons, and horses. At this point, Bertram Jones turned and fled. Andrew was not about to give up that easily, even though the Thrush had at least 10 visible bowmen in the woods. However, Andrew's refusal to surrender brought a quick response from the Thrush, who signaled his men to shoot Luke. Luke was not too badly hurt, but he was taken out of any further action. Andrew still would not yield, so the Thrush ordered another shot. This shot felled poor Thomas, and Andrew finally capitulated. The Thrush gave Luke a ransom note to take to Richard.
Despite the news about Andrew, Richard soon had a plan to ambush the bandits
and put an end to the Thrush's reign. The next day Richard and Christopher set
out to pay the ransom for Andrew, while Julius and the magi set out to find
the bandits' camp. While the bandits were away making sure that Richard was
not trying to trick them, Julius along with the magi were setting up an ambush
for the bandits back at their camp. When the bandits returned to camp they were
completely surprised by the ambush. The battle that followed was short and one-sided,
with only one bandit survivor, and one major injury on the Austhwaites' side.
Richard soon arrived to mop up any bandits that tried to flee.
The magi used Mentem magics on the lone surviving bandit, to learn where all
the stolen goods had gone. They discovered only that all the loot had been taken
to someone named "Tassilo," in a cave north of Ravenglass.
Assuming the guise of bandits, three magi and Sir Christopher entered Tassilo's cave while the rest of the men waited outside. The inside of the cave looked like a rude lab set up with a small alcove used for sleeping. Tassilo was in the alcove when the magi entered, and was take by surprise when the magi revealed themselves. Outnumbered, Tassilo was passive and attentive as the magi delivered their ultimatum to join the Order or die. Tassilo feigned interest in Baelthornon's exposition, but lashed out by releasing two demons on the magi. During the struggle that followed, Tassilo escaped out a secret tunnel under his mattress. Roland tried to follow but he lost him when he fell into a pool of a strange black liquid. After the demons were dispatched, Aden and Roland followed the tunnel to see where it came out. It ended in the storeroom at the inn in Ravenglass, and Tassilo was nowhere to be seen.
The magi took everything of interest from the cave, then torched it. They then went home to discuss what course of action they should now take. Although Richard was gloating over his capture and execution of the Thrush, the magi were worried about Stephen (whom they knew to be the real Thrush). He had not been seen since the tournament, and all attempts to locate him had proven useless. The first course of action the magi took was to send letters the Quaesitoris, detailing the actions of the court wizard, and to give their recommendation that he be Marched. Richard then sent letters to both the Barons of Millom and Cockermouth. These letters detailed his belief that Pennington was behind the Thrush that had plagued the region for years.
The magi then hatched a plan to infiltrate Pennington's castle. With judicious use of spells like Aura of Rightful Authority and Disguise of the New Visage, they would take on the appearance of the King's justicars, and simply bluff their way past the guards while Pennington was at supper. The magi had an unexpected boon when they learned from the guard that Tassilo was not with Pennington, but was alone in his quarters near the dungeon while Pennington dined in the main hall. Feeling some trepidation at the prospect of entering the dungeon with no means of escape, the magi nonetheless had the guard show them to Tassilo's room. They found the wizard in the process of torturing Stephen in the dungeon's torture chamber. Once he realized who was confronting him, he assumed the form of an owl and tried to flee, but did not make it very far. Epileus buffeted him with winds against the wall, Baelthornon held him motionless, and Roland cut his head off.
Returning with Stephen — their "prisoner" — the magi again bluffed their way past the guards, even managing to secure the very same horses that had been stolen from Andrew before making good their escape. All this happened before Pennington even knew they were there.
However, Pennington did soon discover the aftermath of this raid, and did not take the death of his court wizard lightly. Within a week, he had gathered an army of his closet allies, and marched upon Austhwaite Manor, declaring a siege. Corona Montis elected to send Celer to the Austhwaites' allies for assistance, but they were not prepared to allow Pennington's forces time to build siege engines. The first night of the siege, Baelthornon, Epileus and Roland snuck out with three bowmen. Roland put several of the sentries to sleep, then took up a defensive position with the bowmen. Epileus was in hawk form, and attacked a sentry on the other side of the camp to create a diversion. Baelthornon snuck into the middle of the camp in his Manx cat form, then returned to his towering shape to burn 8 pawns of Terram vis in a spontaneous version of The Earth Split Asunder. He centered the spell on the command tent, and the effect was devastating. At least 25 men were trapped in the pit and subsequently killed, including William Wyberg, Geoffrey Stewart, and even David de Mulcaster, Pennington's son. Pennington's household knights had similarly perished, and in fact Pennington himself was the only knight who survived. Demoralized, Pennington's forces broke the siege the very next day. Pennington exchanged words with Richard and Christopher, but opted not to face the latter on the field of honor to prove his cause.
The barons Millom and Egremont did look in to the matter, and after talking to the parties they decided to take no further action so long as Pennington engaged in no further aggression. Pennington's justification for invading the Austhwaite lands seemed weak, and his habit for ignoring Christopher's repeated challenges to meet on the field of honor could not have helped his case. The magi then sent out another letter to the Quaesitoris, informing them that they had already dispatched of the hedge wizard, trying to put the best positive spin on what some magi might have seen as their blatant participation in mundane affairs.
Session Date: 1/21/01
Gamma Storyguide: Patrick Murphy
As life returned to normal in the wake of the siege, Sir Richard took the new knight, Sir Alan, on the normal patrol route to show him the ropes. Three days into the five-day patrol, Richard was alerted to the fact that a boy from the village of Dockray was missing, and soon his trackers had traced him to the strangely-conical hill named Dunmallought. Following the stone ramp leading around its circumference, the men descended into a cave at the bottom in which the boy Godwine was found, in a catatonic state. Rousing him, he professed to have heard a lady pleading for help from the other side of the back wall, and only had a vague sense of how he had come to be there. Convinced spirits or faeries were at work, Richard returned to the manor and dispatched the magi to investigate the boy and his tale. Returning to the cave, Terram magics were employed to reveal a small cave beyond what appeared to be a cave-in, and several bodies within.
At the behest of Salir of Quaesitor, the Greek maga Ariadne of Mercere was dispatched to the covenant of Castrum Antiquum along Hadrian's Wall. Wizards War between Blackthorn and Rosalba was imminent, and Salir meant to warn Oriel of Quaesitor (the only other Quaesitor in the Tribunal) that Blackthorn sought to erradicate some purported evidence Rosalba had of diabolism on Blackthorn's part. Given the urgency of the message and Ariadne's unfamiliarity with Cumbria, Sigulf of Jerbiton was dispatched from Castrum Antiquum to guide her from Lancaster. Sigulf and Oriel had both apprenticed at Rosalba, and he had visited Blackthorn in an unsuccessful attempt to either soothe tensions with Rosalba or to uncover evidence of diabolism. He took with him his custos, Ekard the Viking, a Christian convert, and a handful of grogs. North of the city, forces they recognized as Blackthorn's assaulted them, and the magi lost all of their grogs save Ekard and two others. Stumbling blindly through the fells of Hougun [Millom and Furness], they soon came upon more violence.
In the upper Esk Valley, three Vikings had made short work of the local men and were about to take liberties with Sister Eadilth of St. Begas [St. Bees]. Ekard and the magi soon dispatched them, and agreed to take her with them to the city of Carduel [Carlisle]. But as the group neared the halfway point to their destination, Blackthorn's forces cut them off, and they were forced to flee to the east, out of their way. The group took refuge in a cave at the bottom of a strange, conical hill, known to the locals as Dunmallought...
As the Redcap finally consented to open the letter for Oriel and the group learned of Rosalba's purported evidence, Sigulf began to remember something about a book he had seen at Blackthorn...he *had* discovered evidence of diabolism, and it seemed Blackthorn had further violated the Code by beating down his Parma and suppressing his memories with magic! Meanwhile, Ekard and one of his men stood watch upon the lip of Dunmallought's cup, and as dusk approached, were dismayed to see Blackthorn's forces move directly towards their hiding place. Apparitions of the previous inhabitants of this hill-fort appeared, saying naught but moving to intercept the would-be invaders, buying the group some much-needed time.
Unfortunately, Sigulf was not so much remembering what he had experienced at Blackthorn as what he had become. Sonneillon, Eidolon of Enemies was who he was, and he had possessed the hapless Sigulf as the mage had read from the pages of the book within which he was kept at Blackthorn. Before he could have his revenge, the magi of Blackthorn had sought to wrest him from Sigulf, but in a desperate feint he managed to flee deep within Sigulf's unconscious, and fooled them into thinking him beaten. Only too late they must have realized their mistake, and now they sought to destroy him and evidence of their Black Arts.
Using his ability to cause dissent, he set Ekard's men against him, and "Sigulf" killed the grogs. Ariadne fled, using magic to overcome the dutiful Ekard, who tried to stop her at his master's behest. She did not make it far, however, as the magi of Blackthorn intercepted her. Ekard entered the cave with Sigulf, and when the possessed magus tried to kill him, Ekard slew him amid the fervent prayers of Sister Eadilth. In the meantime, Blackthorn's forces had achieved the top of the hill, and with Terram vis, Redgar of Blackthorn brought down the walls of the cave, sealing the survivors within.
Back in 1231 A.D., Celer spoke to the ghost Godwine had heard: that of Sister Eadilth. She sought help for the "dying" Ekard, whose body Epileus found next to the crouching form of the Sister and the remnants of the grogs and Sigulf. The Bonisagus told her they would be taken to safety, and her body was removed for burial. In addition to Sigulf's vis, the group discovered that Ekard had kept a careful journal of all of his experiences, and thus learned something of what transpired 332 years ago. Moreover, it was determined that Godwine had the Gift, and Roland considered taking the lad on as an apprentice.
Storyguide's Note: This was a very hard story to pull off, but the players did an admirable job of roleplaying (I guess it helped that they liked the really powerful characters!), not acting on prepossed knowledge of the future, and generally playing along. It also took a lot of preparation on my part, since I had to create the characters and type up handouts on who the characters were, the letter, etc. They seemed to like it, though.
Cast: Ekard the Viking, Sir Richard Austhwaite and Celer of Bonisagus (Chris), Ariadne of Mercere, Sir Alan FitzSwein and Roland Whitney of Ex Miscellanea (Ann), Sigulf of Jerbiton/Sonneillon the Demon and Epileus of Bjornaer (Mike), Godwine, Redgar of Tremere, Tercius of Tremere, and Bernhard of Tremere (Patrick).
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