January: The First Chapter of Our Saga

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Unknown Cargo
121

A swarm of crows comes shrieking down into your circle, crashing in a pile of blood and bone and feathers and the bloody pulp reassembles itself into a mis-shapen humanoid figure. Given that it smells slightly of brimstone and and great big slavering fangs, it may well be a demon. It tries to crash through the side of your circle (but rolls a 0 then a 7, which is a fail.]

"Why have you called me up, fleshling? Release me or I'll slice your soul thinly and serve it as an antipasto." it says in a voice that sounds like songbirds being slowly strangled with a chain.

122

To be on the safe side Theodora rapidly draws a circle around herself and casts a Circular ward vs demons with a pained curse
Then announces "I may have accidentally called the demon from the bridge does anyone have any spells for smiting it ? I fear that my abilities will not be able to compel a demon to answer anythign and may even fail to contain it , so answer quickly "

OCC
As I am going to be difficult to contact for a while this is waht Theodora intends to do.
If other magi are present she will see if they can drive it off if not she will use command "Begone foul creature and return to hell , never to return to this land or to trouble me" If that does not get rid of it she is in trouble

Iff no other magi are present she does the same but calls upon Cthonic magic to try to enforce the dismissal calling upon the pagan goddess Hecate to bind this creature back into her domain which should be the necessary sin

123

Iohannes is present. "How powerful is it?"

(If he can get an idea of this himself with Second Sight, he does.

124

[You don't know.]

125

ooc: Iohannes is supporting Theodora here, and she is in the middle of a conversation, so I'll wait.

126

The demons smirks and says "Gone I shall be, but to Hell? No." and then it errupts into a murder of crows that spew into the sky and head for the horizon.

127

"Hmm, I am not sure if that went well or not. As I understand it the creature must either have overcome my compulsion or is bound to earth by a greater force than I could apply. Either way it is gone for now but I fear it will return at its own time, we would be wise to find its anchor which I beleive to be in that infernal aura so we can send it back to hell whence it came. In any case I beleive I have learned all I can from the spirits of this place"

Theodora carefully wipes out the traces of the summoning circle in the ground .

128

Is there anything we can do now or must we retreat to bide our time and gather strength? There seems to be a great evil afoot here, one that we perhaps are not equipped to face, at least not yet. Is there anything else we haven’t explored yet? Titius is still impatient and seemingly no content with opposing a entity that he is not ready to vanquish.

129

"We'll know more when Vispilius returns."

130

"I agree any decision should wait until we see what Vispilius had learnt"

131

[OK, here I'm waiting to know specifically what Vispillus is doing. If this has already been answered, then either I'm missing it, or the thread gremlins have eaten it, so if I could have it again, that's be good and we could kick on.]

132

OOC: IIRC, he went to do peer into various mundane minds and learn more.

133

(Yeah, and it got waved off. He came, he saw, he got diddly. Afaik. Impression I got was it was not even worth the effort to RP - same info as we had before, nothing new.

Don't know if we know that IC, or if he's back yet - I thought not.)

134

OOC: Really? I think I missed that. You posted something on Tuesday, December 18, and I didn't see any development of that.

Anyway,

Ken

135

It didn't get waved off, you didn't actually do anything. You just soliloquied a bit about how you might do a bunch of different things. I asked you what you were doing and you haven't answered that post, insofar as I can see.

I'm sorry you got the impression that there was nothing of value..I'm not sure where it came from. My perception is that I'm waiting on a post from you.

136

(With apologies for the delay...)

Meanwhile...

Vispilius goes into town as a high-blooded priest, and, being more than confident in his abilities and plan, he'll check in first at the church, and try to gain the local priest's aid. As The Gift may be a problem, he'll first attempt to Enchant the priest, but also explain it away as a burden that the good lord has placed upon him to try his faith, "as with so many these days." If the enchanting fails, he may resort to spells, or just beat a retreat with much thanks, depending on how things go.

(If the latter, he'll wait outside invisibly and try the spells again, expecting an angry or worried priest to proceed into the town - rewriting the priest's memory, and going from there, either trying again or, if he feels that unlikely to work, simply proceeding alone.)

If possible, he'll ask if the priest has noticed anything sinister about the bridge beyond the fae, or in the town in general, anything that V thinks might tie in. Also about what appears to be someone buried there - if there's any record of such, or of someone disappearing, either when the bridge was torn down or about the time that Vispilius knows the knight showed up. Lastly, he'll ask the priest who might live locally to the ruined bridge, and also if he wouldn't mind accompanying him to meet these people, to introduce him and help him in his questions... please, brother...

If there is someone in the latter category, he'll question any who might have noticed changes or events that the townsfolk had missed.

He'll try to track down someone who knows one or both of the nobles, Lord Hans or his rival (and ID that person if it seems significant), and/or question any who was part of the crew that destroyed the bridge, or witnessed it, to see if anything odd was observed or remembered, about the incident or events leading up to it.

He'll track down the fisherman, and use the spell to pry the Latin out of his memory - tho' he may not understand it, it should be there still.

If he sees any crows, and he's not in public, he'll just blast them, unless there are too many.

[color=brown]
OOC:

While he has spells at his disposal, he'll mainly rely on simply entrancing folk, with a "Talk to me, my child" sort of approach.

Entrancement 3(+2) (cooperation), Pre +3, = +9 vs their Stam +3 (& see p 65)

Spells he might use if/as needed, with base casting totals:

Against crows:
Swarm of Shafts (Cr(Re)He 15/+12) (Mastery 1: Penetration)

For the villagers that Enchantment does not sway, to gain their cooperation and/or maintain/augment his cover:

New Memories for Old* (Voice, Sun) (MuMe 15/+14)
Loss of but a Moment's Memory (PeMe 15/+14)
Memory of Distant Dream (Voice) (CrMe 25/+14)
Pose the Silent Questions (Diam) (InMe 25/+14)
(* Major change to series of events)

To see and hear what's going on after he leaves, to make sure he's not getting into trouble:
Prying Eyes & Ears (Voice range) (InIm 15/+13)

If he needs to ditch the crows, or a nosy villager, he might jump from one location to another:
Wizard's Leap (ReCo 15/+8) (Mastery 1: Fast)

Or just disappear, tho' he doubts that will fool demonic crows:
Brief Veil of Invisibility (Touch, Diameter) (PeIm 15/+13)

Int +3
Per +1

Com +0
Pre +3

Second Sight 3 (illusory disguises)

Awareness 3 (guards/security)
Guile 2 (fast lies)
Stealth 3 (urban)
Craft: Acting 1
Craft: Disguise 1 (clergy)
Charm 1 (first impressions)
Folk Ken 2 (townsfolk)
Intrigue 1 (rumors)
Leadership 2 (intimidation)
Latin 4
C&C Law 1

137

Vispilius gains the aid of Father Peter, an elderly priest with arthritic feet who hobbles around and shows him the town, under the mistaken impression that he's here from the bishop.

He knows about the bridge, and about the fae, indeed, every local person does. No-one ever camps there. The knight who was there went mad when his bridge was pulled down. He's said to be the ghost of Sir Henri, who died defending the bridge that day, against the forces of Lord Hans, who had come to destroy it, but who can say?

You spend some time in the cheap part of town, in the line of fishing huts near the river. The oldest guy you can find here reckons this Henri business is all bunkum because the faerie was always there before and all you needed to do was throw fish to his squire and you'd be right, but he doesn't eat fish anymore. Several people in this area have been attacked by him: several of the old guys at least, and they didn't think anything of it, since they are all fine now, they reckon.

The bridge was destroyed when two nobles were fighting. About lands, or women or something. Lord Hans sent his men to pull the bridge down, but Sir Henri was against it and died on the bridge. Henri was the local lord, now his son, Ebert, is. Ebert pays his taxes to Hans now.

The Latin's garbled in his moemory...you get the word for "sign" and "frost" and "harvest".

138

Having spent an hour or three, and assuming he's exhausted all the avenues that immediately present themselves, Vispilius thanks the good Father profusely, and sincerely, for what that's worth, and, with a promise to pass on a good word to the Bishop, goes on his way, and returns to the group, where he'll give a full report of what little he's discovered.

And maybe blasting a crow or three along the way, for good luck.

"I think we needs must find out more about these two lords, Henri and Hans, and their quarrel. And, perhaps, bring some fish for the squire, just on the off chance. Other than that, our hands are tied this day, for without a clear target we are certainly firing blind."

139

"On the contrary I think you have gained much useful information . I suspect that this Lord Henri has not been given a christian burial and the festering resentment and anger of his spirit trapped within his body at the bridge has given rise to the infernal aura and corrupted the guardian of the bridge. We must determine that he is indeed still buried at the bridge. If he is I can raise up his spirit now I have his name , besides this it would seem very likely that what we must do is remove his body and then lay his spirit and soul to rest. His anger will have only been reinforced by the fact that his son is obeying the orders of the man who had him killed.
I agree with you that the nature of the dispute may be critical and it would be best to learn the details of this before raising the mans spirit "

140

Iohannes agrees. "That was cleverly done. I think our next step lies with the two nobles, Hans and Ebert. Not just what they say, but what they think. And where is Henri buried?"