Gathering 1114 event report
As ever, this is the version Obsidia would tell if asked, so if you wouldn't ask or she wouldn't tell you, don't take it as IC. We're all big boys and girls here :-)
Also, as always I love feedback so if you feel willing to I'd love a comment!
I had quite a short Gathering, in that I was busy back on Lantia on Friday and Monday, so I was only there for two days, but they were busy ones. I had spent months organising something sheriffy on Pardulon only to have Tatalus invade the island right before the Gath so all of that went out the window (OOC: Plus my new job keeps overrunning on Fridays, and we were leaving for the Isle of Wight on Monday).
Given the nature of the area (just outside Al’Quafar) and the way things had gone for the moots, the first question I asked when I arrived was to find out who had died. It felt like being back in the Void, meeting up with a comrade you hadn’t seen for a while, getting the vital updates. The answer was four Lions, of which the only one I was able to find out the name was Freya. She had been chosen as the faction’s champion, and had been killed by Dracos followers before she even made it to the champion’s ritual. Nemiel was thus given it, as the second runner in the voting.
I also heard about an awesome rescue that happened on Friday, though sadly I didn’t get the names of anyone involved. It seems that Drakos and his followers were beating people up, dragging them to the circle and Wasting them, so some clever chap quietly threw up a protection chant and let them hit him, then when they thought he was dying and dragged him to the circle, quietly swapped his vocals for a transport rite while they were attempting to Waste him, and then transported everyone to the central marketplace, where the Jackals faction poured out of their gates and splatted all the bad guys.
Saturday
I arrived as everyone was leaving, though I didn’t know where they were going. Since they seemed organised and I wanted to Armourers to have a look at my sword before I used it anyway (OOC: weapons check), I left them to it. All the Lions left behind in camp explained that they were off to the planes of Unlife to go bash things there, apparently it was White Reaver’s idea but even so people had thought it was a good one, so off they went. Amazingly, everyone came back alive though no two people seemed to think the mission had had the same outcome, so I never found out what was going on. The only thing that everyone agreed on was that someone had brought and planted a flag, so the Planes were ours now. I clarified to several completely disbelieving people that this was not in any way illegal unless we sold them (trading in necromantic items).
I went down with Lanceman Damien to watch Nemiel’s ritual, but I couldn’t hear it so Damien filled me in on what had been happening so far. Elspeth had a go at us later for that since apparently the Watchers were unimpressed that we had been talking, but they can’t really expect us to stand in silence for twenty minutes when we weren’t even in the ritual. Elspeth seemed to think we’d come to Contribute so I didn’t really want to point out that I generally don’t do that and tend to watch rituals only in order to help if/when people get void flushed, so I just let her. Ritualing is a pretty stressful job so I’d far rather she blows off steam that way than in the circle or at contributors.
People’s day muster happened, with the usual interruptions and faff and unliving attacks and changing procedure that it always has. But it happened, and everyone seemed happy. Ravenfire was Knight General and declared war on everybody, just to be on the safe side.
Since it was people’s day and I had no work to do in the faction I decided to follow Reth’s example and take it as a day off - that, and I wanted to take my mind off various other things people’s day was reminding me of. So I bumbled down to the scouts’ guild to see what was happening there, on the grounds that something usually was.
I met a guy called Anders (a pseudonym, it’s Teutonic for different, weird or stranger) who wanted to embody Leo, and someone else who wanted to kill Libra. He seemed to have pretty good reasons, so I agreed to help if I could. Libra and Leo were both expected to turn up at eight, which is awkward since that was also when Mind was due to be killed at the Lions camp. Also Dacks from the Healer’s guild was running late and would be expected some time after seven. Scheduling was looking tricky (OOC: and of course I knew that there wouldn’t be three mass combats at once, but IC that’s less of a thing).
While we were waiting, Llewis, Elia, someone else who’s name I’ve forgotten and I went to the Gryphons to try a tracking rite to locate a cave that a former guildmaster had hidden a treasure in. I ended up with the magic sash that let you track, which was a weird experience, seeing the strands of power that Llewis was building between two keystones and following them zipping across maps like lightening across a sky. We weren’t able to find the cave itself, but Elia made a deal as part of the rite that she would walk the spiral for the information, so assuming she survives we should get it. I really hope she survives, she’s turning into one of my closer friends.
Dacks made it first, so I helped out there with the healing while people with more powerful weapons than me took him down. Hopefully that’ll make Ravenfire’s life easier anyway.
Mind was next in the queue, thanks to a massive rite that Tyrell and Matthias led in the camp. We killed him. It was satisfying.
To expand slightly, it was a very well planned and executed hit. I was with Malcolm and Virago on a poison hit squad to go after him, while Matthias led a charge with really heavy hitting weapons, demon bane and artefact and the like. We were still rather surprised at how easy it was so there was a bit of concern that it was a trick and we didn’t actually get him, but actually when the dust settled, I think we probably did.
My duty done, I popped back into the scouts guild to see what was happening and hope that I made it back there in time to help with the third fight, Libra. Actually it turned out that Libra hadn’t yet made it, and in fact didn’t show up all weekend.
I decided that since it was pretty dark and I had stuff to do in camp, I should head back up. Karma decided that I needed a bodyguard, I’m not sure why, but assigned Jasper to make sure I got back up to the Lions safely. Unfortunately just as we left the guild tent I saw that the fight I had been planning to skirt around included an unliving PB so there was a quick change of plan as I wasn’t going to walk away from that. It was the same one that we had seen as a revenant on Gallathrix earlier in the year, we had tried to lay him to rest but without a Prince Bishop at the time there was no one who had been able to release him from his oath and formally free him.
I tried to explain to Jasper what I was doing but he was determined to take me to the Lions and I was kind of busy trying to deal with the situation with the dead sergeant, so there was a communication issue. In the end he left. I later heard that he went back to the guild to tell Karma that he’d left me with one of my unit and Karma had had to patiently explain the difference between “safe” and “going toe to toe with a death knight”, but I assume that was exaggerated somewhat. Either way, Jasper did reappear at one point, as did Michael D’Ascoyne and a few other Lions.
Trying to take some kind of charge, I yelled at him. “LanceSargent, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He stopped. He looked at me. A large bumblebee bonked off his head. He shook himself and went back to the fight.
I heard Pebble try the same thing, echoing my exact words, and he turned and pounded her furiously into the ground. So I guess he did recognise me, meaning that what I was planning next wasn’t totally suicidal, which is always a good heads up to get.
I stood firmly in front of him, my sword in its sheath, and demanded that he recognise his oath to me and stand down. He stopped and seemed to be thinking, so I requested a sit rep (being the first and indeed only plausible order I could think of at the time) and tried to pretend that I was confident. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but the unliving control on him was obviously a difficult thing to fight against and he hit me on the arm with a blade that cut cleanly through the Ritual of Peace (OOC: Living bane). I stood and took it and he looked puzzled for a long moment, I think he expected me to turn on him - as if my wee sword would have had any effect on such a powerful creature - or to flee. Instead I just held his gaze, trying to distract him as long as possible. I’m really not used to shouting about and commanding people, but I think I’m going to have to get the hang of that pretty sharpish. I got the feeling that if I’d known how to, I could have stopped him. Someone like Hatfield or Lemming or Lochlan or Meg could have stopped him. Me, I just looked at him and tried to fit into their shoes. He hit me a few more times on the same arm and eventually turned away, focussing his attention on the rest of the crowd who were trying to take him down.
I didn’t manage to connect with him again, but he did avoid hitting me all fight, so I just ran about getting in his way so others could rescue the fallen and generally tried to help get him taken down. When he did he vanished, leaving only his tabard, and so as we had done back on Lantia we tried a Lay To Rest, hoping that by adding a bit more power and making it a full rite we would have more success. A guy from I think the Dragons started and then Tyrell took over, which I think helped since he knew the PBs in general better. I formally released him from his oath to me once he completed my final order, to travel to his Ancestor (because I wanted to make sure that if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t be back again except without any control at all). It seemed to work: at least, he didn’t reappear so we must assume it worked. I really hope so.
Nemiel, V and I ended up drinking in the Dragons camp for a bit, passing round various bottles that I'd mixed up. It seemed pretty popular and it was a fun part of the evening. Interrupted by something, I can't remember what but it was probably unliving.
Back in Lions camp (yes, I know this report jumps up and down all the time, but so did I) I met Mord short for Mordecai, the one who’d planted the flag. He was keeping warm with the CKs, which seemed a good idea. They also had another knight who had come to join them, a guy called Sir Tristan. It’s good to see the Order growing. There was also fun round the campfire as Prince Zachary knighted several people - not with as dramatic titles as Morbo had used, but some pretty fun ones all the same - and Emperor Ramsey declared me to be the faction Viceroy To The Planes Of Unlife. I protested, since People’s Day was meant to be my day off from responsibility, but I’m pleased to report that my tenure was peaceful and successful and didn’t involve any instances of Maar’s Bells at all, so I think I did a pretty good job.
Sunday
There was an honour battle arranged over the issue between the Dragons and the Tarantulas - the invasion of Caer Dannon. The Lions of course sided with the Dragons, as did the Jackals, Vipers, Harts and Gryphons. And I think Bears, I heard both sides about that one. Either way we were facing off against the Wolves, which we won pretty convincingly acting as the anvil to the Vipers’ hammer. Sam, Tyrell, Michael and Elspeth had to lead a golem empowered by Avalon up the hill to a magic tree, so we distracted the enemy while they got cracking. We lost track of the golem so we figured either they’d made good use of the distraction, or Rhino had got charge of the golem and was charging into a fight somewhere. Fortunately it was the former, though the latter theory did prompt impressions of a golem trying to be half Rhino half Mal (Crush! No, Harm! No, Crush! Fatal? Etc).
The magic tree seemed a bit confused by who had won, reanimated all the golems and discussed it with all of them which rather confused the faction members who had been led to believe that winning the battle would have an effect (OOC: and spent a fair bit of the discussion making choo-choo noises), but eventually the magic tree agreed that the winners ought to be considered to be the people who won, and so the Dragons were declared victorious. Ravenfire declared war on ice cream and the Lions valiantly went to her aid.
While we were waiting for the battle to begin, just to jump back a bit, I overheard someone wondering aloud about whether they would be allowed onto the battlefield since they were only healers. They sounded a bit lost so I went and introduced myself and spent some time talking them through what was going on, and practice sparring before the battle proper began. It turned out they, Sylvia and her husband whose name I didn’t actually catch, were new to the faction outings and so they’ve both joined up to White Lance for a bit to see if they fancy becoming PBs.
(OOC: and my major gripe with the weekend: the research vouchers were being given out opposite the battle, so you couldn’t do both. And there were only 40 for everyone, with the queue being easily more than that by approximately time in. IMO that’s a seriously not-working system)
I got talking to Zach and Lio'ara at their respective guilds, which resulted in a "who is the most mad?" competition, which they both wanted to win. The Alchemists laid down the challenge and the Bards replied that they had an invisible wombat, which I took to be acceptance. Thoughout the day I sent people that I thought they wouldn't realise were from me - Elia, Moch Tar, Syna and various others - to evaluate both guilds, and when the final results were in the bards won 3:2. Personally I agreed with Llewis that the Alchemists' straight-out crazy beat the Bards' kookiness, but I wasn't judging. I understand that the results were published in the Testaments, so I guess it was an important duel.
Having discussed it with Capulet at the previous moot I had decided that I wanted to swear an oath to the scout’s guild, so I broke that news to Nemiel and V. They’d both sworn to the faction earlier in the day, but V in particular was a bit concerned that I might end up wandering off to the spiral mountain and dying without telling them - which I did point out was quite far from my intention - and so he decided to swear the same oath, and Damien thought it might be right for him too. I left them with Llewis discussing the idea, since it seemed wrong of me to prompt them or anything.
I spoke to Capulet who was keen on the idea, but wanted to wait till dusk so everything was a bit more spooky.
This time at the guild I found two people trying to figure out a riddle from Capricorn. They managed the translation which was pretty good going, but that gave a confusing clue to the person they had to find.
Sweet as virtue
Dark as a celestial object
Sit!”
I suggested it was a werewolf from the Fellowship of the Full Moon, but not actually knowing anyone who fitted that description, I’ve no idea if that was right. I ended up leaving them to it - I just don’t know Edreja well enough to get that.
Max, a sheriff from Andelus who had kind of ended up helping out after the demon attack on Gallathrix, asked if he could sign up as a Prince Bishop’s Man. I was a bit concerned that he wants to take a lifelong oath of commitment purely because he’d never taken one before, but we agreed that he should spend some time in White Lance to see if a lanceman’s life was what he wanted.
Tyrell and Mistress Culpepper announced that the Incantors had put a magical tree on Camelot and if we didn’t pray at it then our Ancestors wouldn’t hear us and we would lose Incantation magic. It was met with scepticism and I tried to ask about it, but the muster was already dragging on so Caileb asked us to leave it. I talked to Tyrell later and it seems it was just a bad explanation - the tree was part of the Tree of Incantation (a different magical tree from yesterday) and the Tree of Incantation was in trouble, which was spreading out to the tree in Camelot. So if we didn’t pray at the tree in Camelot it would die, which could then kill the big Tree, which would then make it harder for us to contact our Ancestors, which would then mean our Ancestors wouldn’t be able to hear us properly, which then meant we would lose Incantation. So basically they were explaining the end situation rather than the current situation, which made a lot more sense. I passed that information on to everyone I could think of who would be helpful to know.
I was watching the sky all day and as soon as it started to turn dark I went to the scouts’ guild to find Capulet. She was pretty busy though, leading an expedition into the mountain to stop Libra dicking around (probably something more technical, but I don’t know what) there, so since I couldn’t go on that and she clearly wouldn’t have time at this point I just had to leave it. The real kicker is that that meant I was just too late from then on, since there was an issue at the mountain and Capulet had to agree to stay behind, binding herself to the balrog’s shadow (she had been connected to the balrog before, so I assume that’s why it was her), and Arbour decided to stay too, to guard her. Maybe once Libra is dealt with it’ll be possible to recover her, but I don’t know. I hoped she had her security axe.
More unliving attacked, Drakos’ I think. Mainly I just ran around healing people and dealing with something Lenia needed to talk to me about, which was going to take more diplomacy than was practical in the middle of a pitched battle.
She had agreed - largely it seemed because she had been manoeuvred into it - to host the trial for the Viper who had killed Don Carrado last year. She wanted to let me know first since it meant suspending Lions law for the duration and putting the camp under Militia law so that the unliving could come in, which yes she was right that annoyed me, but I knew her well enough to know how much the decision had cost her so if she was fine with it, I was fine with it. Neither of us was fine with it, but you know what I mean. I did have one clarification to add to the situation, to define exactly when the trial ended so nothing undiplomatic happened - at least not from our side - which involved far more negotiation with Belladonna of the Vipers and a chap in a military jacket from the Militia than it should do, so I got an inkling of how stressed Lenia probably was by this point.
Dacks got hold of the Green Knight’s Axe, so Ramsey led a squad to chase him the length and breadth of the field to get it back, which they duly achieved.
Back in camp, Lenia called a muster and I stood by her side as she explained to the faction what was happening about the trial and the camp, which was a weird experience but I think it helped her. Understandably, there was a lot of upset, especially when Lester the Undead Jester was one of the first into camp. Myself, I really wasn’t happy about the fact everyone was so upset and there seemed to be no recourse for us - so people kept asking me “What if X happens?” and the answer was always that there was nothing that we could do about it. I didn’t sit in on the trial, I don’t know anything about the situation and (perhaps ironically for a high sheriff) that kind of thing bored me to death when I’m not emotionally involved, and the command tent was full to bursting with people who were interested so there was no real room for anyone else. Besides, Lenia looked like she could do with a friend, so Clara and I went to join her.
So did lord Wolf (at least, I think that’s who it was) and Rory the Ragger. I have absolutely no time for Rory the Ragger since he held a knife to Meg’s throat for daring to think that a Prince had the right to back up his Knight Captain, so I made my excuses. Everything in the camp was tense - a militiaman tried to stop Matthias from crossing the camp for some reason, which didn’t help matters, and some of the militia yelled at the Lions round the camp fire for singing which really didn’t help. The problem seemed to be that no one knew who had the right to do what, so with some people overstepping the mark and some backing down when they didn’t have to.
Eventually the trial finished - since the militia had agreed that the Bards could insist there was no death penalty (which also irked me, since I’d asked for the same clause when they tried Cade and was told no one could insist that), the accused agreed to help the Watchers for a year or so and everything was completed. Ramsey and Matthias organised wedges to enforce the return of the land to the Lions, and we finally got our command tent back.
Beron grabbed me during another fight and said that Caileb wanted to talk to me about something, so I did the only thing that ever seems to work when you need to speak to Caileb, which is stand politely just within irritation distance and follow him around till he stops being busy for long enough to start the conversation, and repeat until the conversation is completed. In this case this meant I accidentally joined in a rite to Mithras at the Incantor’s guild (the Tree of Incantation thing), but given that I had to then lead a rite to Avalon and the entire palatinate pantheon just after that, that was probably rather a good thing since it meant I got to see how it was done.
I had to get back to Lantia before the final battle on Monday, but I did hear that the plan was to summon Drakos and stab him with a beautiful dagger that Elia showed me, one that had water from the planes of life in a fine glass vial built into it in the way that one would usually use a poison. I don’t know exactly what happened though I did learn that several people died, including Libby and Mistress Culpepper in the attack, and no doubt several others. Since the world hasn’t ended however, I assume the plan was successful.
Also, as always I love feedback so if you feel willing to I'd love a comment!
I had quite a short Gathering, in that I was busy back on Lantia on Friday and Monday, so I was only there for two days, but they were busy ones. I had spent months organising something sheriffy on Pardulon only to have Tatalus invade the island right before the Gath so all of that went out the window (OOC: Plus my new job keeps overrunning on Fridays, and we were leaving for the Isle of Wight on Monday).
Given the nature of the area (just outside Al’Quafar) and the way things had gone for the moots, the first question I asked when I arrived was to find out who had died. It felt like being back in the Void, meeting up with a comrade you hadn’t seen for a while, getting the vital updates. The answer was four Lions, of which the only one I was able to find out the name was Freya. She had been chosen as the faction’s champion, and had been killed by Dracos followers before she even made it to the champion’s ritual. Nemiel was thus given it, as the second runner in the voting.
I also heard about an awesome rescue that happened on Friday, though sadly I didn’t get the names of anyone involved. It seems that Drakos and his followers were beating people up, dragging them to the circle and Wasting them, so some clever chap quietly threw up a protection chant and let them hit him, then when they thought he was dying and dragged him to the circle, quietly swapped his vocals for a transport rite while they were attempting to Waste him, and then transported everyone to the central marketplace, where the Jackals faction poured out of their gates and splatted all the bad guys.
Saturday
I arrived as everyone was leaving, though I didn’t know where they were going. Since they seemed organised and I wanted to Armourers to have a look at my sword before I used it anyway (OOC: weapons check), I left them to it. All the Lions left behind in camp explained that they were off to the planes of Unlife to go bash things there, apparently it was White Reaver’s idea but even so people had thought it was a good one, so off they went. Amazingly, everyone came back alive though no two people seemed to think the mission had had the same outcome, so I never found out what was going on. The only thing that everyone agreed on was that someone had brought and planted a flag, so the Planes were ours now. I clarified to several completely disbelieving people that this was not in any way illegal unless we sold them (trading in necromantic items).
I went down with Lanceman Damien to watch Nemiel’s ritual, but I couldn’t hear it so Damien filled me in on what had been happening so far. Elspeth had a go at us later for that since apparently the Watchers were unimpressed that we had been talking, but they can’t really expect us to stand in silence for twenty minutes when we weren’t even in the ritual. Elspeth seemed to think we’d come to Contribute so I didn’t really want to point out that I generally don’t do that and tend to watch rituals only in order to help if/when people get void flushed, so I just let her. Ritualing is a pretty stressful job so I’d far rather she blows off steam that way than in the circle or at contributors.
People’s day muster happened, with the usual interruptions and faff and unliving attacks and changing procedure that it always has. But it happened, and everyone seemed happy. Ravenfire was Knight General and declared war on everybody, just to be on the safe side.
Since it was people’s day and I had no work to do in the faction I decided to follow Reth’s example and take it as a day off - that, and I wanted to take my mind off various other things people’s day was reminding me of. So I bumbled down to the scouts’ guild to see what was happening there, on the grounds that something usually was.
I met a guy called Anders (a pseudonym, it’s Teutonic for different, weird or stranger) who wanted to embody Leo, and someone else who wanted to kill Libra. He seemed to have pretty good reasons, so I agreed to help if I could. Libra and Leo were both expected to turn up at eight, which is awkward since that was also when Mind was due to be killed at the Lions camp. Also Dacks from the Healer’s guild was running late and would be expected some time after seven. Scheduling was looking tricky (OOC: and of course I knew that there wouldn’t be three mass combats at once, but IC that’s less of a thing).
While we were waiting, Llewis, Elia, someone else who’s name I’ve forgotten and I went to the Gryphons to try a tracking rite to locate a cave that a former guildmaster had hidden a treasure in. I ended up with the magic sash that let you track, which was a weird experience, seeing the strands of power that Llewis was building between two keystones and following them zipping across maps like lightening across a sky. We weren’t able to find the cave itself, but Elia made a deal as part of the rite that she would walk the spiral for the information, so assuming she survives we should get it. I really hope she survives, she’s turning into one of my closer friends.
Dacks made it first, so I helped out there with the healing while people with more powerful weapons than me took him down. Hopefully that’ll make Ravenfire’s life easier anyway.
Mind was next in the queue, thanks to a massive rite that Tyrell and Matthias led in the camp. We killed him. It was satisfying.
To expand slightly, it was a very well planned and executed hit. I was with Malcolm and Virago on a poison hit squad to go after him, while Matthias led a charge with really heavy hitting weapons, demon bane and artefact and the like. We were still rather surprised at how easy it was so there was a bit of concern that it was a trick and we didn’t actually get him, but actually when the dust settled, I think we probably did.
My duty done, I popped back into the scouts guild to see what was happening and hope that I made it back there in time to help with the third fight, Libra. Actually it turned out that Libra hadn’t yet made it, and in fact didn’t show up all weekend.
I decided that since it was pretty dark and I had stuff to do in camp, I should head back up. Karma decided that I needed a bodyguard, I’m not sure why, but assigned Jasper to make sure I got back up to the Lions safely. Unfortunately just as we left the guild tent I saw that the fight I had been planning to skirt around included an unliving PB so there was a quick change of plan as I wasn’t going to walk away from that. It was the same one that we had seen as a revenant on Gallathrix earlier in the year, we had tried to lay him to rest but without a Prince Bishop at the time there was no one who had been able to release him from his oath and formally free him.
I tried to explain to Jasper what I was doing but he was determined to take me to the Lions and I was kind of busy trying to deal with the situation with the dead sergeant, so there was a communication issue. In the end he left. I later heard that he went back to the guild to tell Karma that he’d left me with one of my unit and Karma had had to patiently explain the difference between “safe” and “going toe to toe with a death knight”, but I assume that was exaggerated somewhat. Either way, Jasper did reappear at one point, as did Michael D’Ascoyne and a few other Lions.
Trying to take some kind of charge, I yelled at him. “LanceSargent, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He stopped. He looked at me. A large bumblebee bonked off his head. He shook himself and went back to the fight.
I heard Pebble try the same thing, echoing my exact words, and he turned and pounded her furiously into the ground. So I guess he did recognise me, meaning that what I was planning next wasn’t totally suicidal, which is always a good heads up to get.
I stood firmly in front of him, my sword in its sheath, and demanded that he recognise his oath to me and stand down. He stopped and seemed to be thinking, so I requested a sit rep (being the first and indeed only plausible order I could think of at the time) and tried to pretend that I was confident. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but the unliving control on him was obviously a difficult thing to fight against and he hit me on the arm with a blade that cut cleanly through the Ritual of Peace (OOC: Living bane). I stood and took it and he looked puzzled for a long moment, I think he expected me to turn on him - as if my wee sword would have had any effect on such a powerful creature - or to flee. Instead I just held his gaze, trying to distract him as long as possible. I’m really not used to shouting about and commanding people, but I think I’m going to have to get the hang of that pretty sharpish. I got the feeling that if I’d known how to, I could have stopped him. Someone like Hatfield or Lemming or Lochlan or Meg could have stopped him. Me, I just looked at him and tried to fit into their shoes. He hit me a few more times on the same arm and eventually turned away, focussing his attention on the rest of the crowd who were trying to take him down.
I didn’t manage to connect with him again, but he did avoid hitting me all fight, so I just ran about getting in his way so others could rescue the fallen and generally tried to help get him taken down. When he did he vanished, leaving only his tabard, and so as we had done back on Lantia we tried a Lay To Rest, hoping that by adding a bit more power and making it a full rite we would have more success. A guy from I think the Dragons started and then Tyrell took over, which I think helped since he knew the PBs in general better. I formally released him from his oath to me once he completed my final order, to travel to his Ancestor (because I wanted to make sure that if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t be back again except without any control at all). It seemed to work: at least, he didn’t reappear so we must assume it worked. I really hope so.
Nemiel, V and I ended up drinking in the Dragons camp for a bit, passing round various bottles that I'd mixed up. It seemed pretty popular and it was a fun part of the evening. Interrupted by something, I can't remember what but it was probably unliving.
Back in Lions camp (yes, I know this report jumps up and down all the time, but so did I) I met Mord short for Mordecai, the one who’d planted the flag. He was keeping warm with the CKs, which seemed a good idea. They also had another knight who had come to join them, a guy called Sir Tristan. It’s good to see the Order growing. There was also fun round the campfire as Prince Zachary knighted several people - not with as dramatic titles as Morbo had used, but some pretty fun ones all the same - and Emperor Ramsey declared me to be the faction Viceroy To The Planes Of Unlife. I protested, since People’s Day was meant to be my day off from responsibility, but I’m pleased to report that my tenure was peaceful and successful and didn’t involve any instances of Maar’s Bells at all, so I think I did a pretty good job.
Sunday
There was an honour battle arranged over the issue between the Dragons and the Tarantulas - the invasion of Caer Dannon. The Lions of course sided with the Dragons, as did the Jackals, Vipers, Harts and Gryphons. And I think Bears, I heard both sides about that one. Either way we were facing off against the Wolves, which we won pretty convincingly acting as the anvil to the Vipers’ hammer. Sam, Tyrell, Michael and Elspeth had to lead a golem empowered by Avalon up the hill to a magic tree, so we distracted the enemy while they got cracking. We lost track of the golem so we figured either they’d made good use of the distraction, or Rhino had got charge of the golem and was charging into a fight somewhere. Fortunately it was the former, though the latter theory did prompt impressions of a golem trying to be half Rhino half Mal (Crush! No, Harm! No, Crush! Fatal? Etc).
The magic tree seemed a bit confused by who had won, reanimated all the golems and discussed it with all of them which rather confused the faction members who had been led to believe that winning the battle would have an effect (OOC: and spent a fair bit of the discussion making choo-choo noises), but eventually the magic tree agreed that the winners ought to be considered to be the people who won, and so the Dragons were declared victorious. Ravenfire declared war on ice cream and the Lions valiantly went to her aid.
While we were waiting for the battle to begin, just to jump back a bit, I overheard someone wondering aloud about whether they would be allowed onto the battlefield since they were only healers. They sounded a bit lost so I went and introduced myself and spent some time talking them through what was going on, and practice sparring before the battle proper began. It turned out they, Sylvia and her husband whose name I didn’t actually catch, were new to the faction outings and so they’ve both joined up to White Lance for a bit to see if they fancy becoming PBs.
(OOC: and my major gripe with the weekend: the research vouchers were being given out opposite the battle, so you couldn’t do both. And there were only 40 for everyone, with the queue being easily more than that by approximately time in. IMO that’s a seriously not-working system)
I got talking to Zach and Lio'ara at their respective guilds, which resulted in a "who is the most mad?" competition, which they both wanted to win. The Alchemists laid down the challenge and the Bards replied that they had an invisible wombat, which I took to be acceptance. Thoughout the day I sent people that I thought they wouldn't realise were from me - Elia, Moch Tar, Syna and various others - to evaluate both guilds, and when the final results were in the bards won 3:2. Personally I agreed with Llewis that the Alchemists' straight-out crazy beat the Bards' kookiness, but I wasn't judging. I understand that the results were published in the Testaments, so I guess it was an important duel.
Having discussed it with Capulet at the previous moot I had decided that I wanted to swear an oath to the scout’s guild, so I broke that news to Nemiel and V. They’d both sworn to the faction earlier in the day, but V in particular was a bit concerned that I might end up wandering off to the spiral mountain and dying without telling them - which I did point out was quite far from my intention - and so he decided to swear the same oath, and Damien thought it might be right for him too. I left them with Llewis discussing the idea, since it seemed wrong of me to prompt them or anything.
I spoke to Capulet who was keen on the idea, but wanted to wait till dusk so everything was a bit more spooky.
This time at the guild I found two people trying to figure out a riddle from Capricorn. They managed the translation which was pretty good going, but that gave a confusing clue to the person they had to find.
Sweet as virtue
Dark as a celestial object
Sit!”
I suggested it was a werewolf from the Fellowship of the Full Moon, but not actually knowing anyone who fitted that description, I’ve no idea if that was right. I ended up leaving them to it - I just don’t know Edreja well enough to get that.
Max, a sheriff from Andelus who had kind of ended up helping out after the demon attack on Gallathrix, asked if he could sign up as a Prince Bishop’s Man. I was a bit concerned that he wants to take a lifelong oath of commitment purely because he’d never taken one before, but we agreed that he should spend some time in White Lance to see if a lanceman’s life was what he wanted.
Tyrell and Mistress Culpepper announced that the Incantors had put a magical tree on Camelot and if we didn’t pray at it then our Ancestors wouldn’t hear us and we would lose Incantation magic. It was met with scepticism and I tried to ask about it, but the muster was already dragging on so Caileb asked us to leave it. I talked to Tyrell later and it seems it was just a bad explanation - the tree was part of the Tree of Incantation (a different magical tree from yesterday) and the Tree of Incantation was in trouble, which was spreading out to the tree in Camelot. So if we didn’t pray at the tree in Camelot it would die, which could then kill the big Tree, which would then make it harder for us to contact our Ancestors, which would then mean our Ancestors wouldn’t be able to hear us properly, which then meant we would lose Incantation. So basically they were explaining the end situation rather than the current situation, which made a lot more sense. I passed that information on to everyone I could think of who would be helpful to know.
I was watching the sky all day and as soon as it started to turn dark I went to the scouts’ guild to find Capulet. She was pretty busy though, leading an expedition into the mountain to stop Libra dicking around (probably something more technical, but I don’t know what) there, so since I couldn’t go on that and she clearly wouldn’t have time at this point I just had to leave it. The real kicker is that that meant I was just too late from then on, since there was an issue at the mountain and Capulet had to agree to stay behind, binding herself to the balrog’s shadow (she had been connected to the balrog before, so I assume that’s why it was her), and Arbour decided to stay too, to guard her. Maybe once Libra is dealt with it’ll be possible to recover her, but I don’t know. I hoped she had her security axe.
More unliving attacked, Drakos’ I think. Mainly I just ran around healing people and dealing with something Lenia needed to talk to me about, which was going to take more diplomacy than was practical in the middle of a pitched battle.
She had agreed - largely it seemed because she had been manoeuvred into it - to host the trial for the Viper who had killed Don Carrado last year. She wanted to let me know first since it meant suspending Lions law for the duration and putting the camp under Militia law so that the unliving could come in, which yes she was right that annoyed me, but I knew her well enough to know how much the decision had cost her so if she was fine with it, I was fine with it. Neither of us was fine with it, but you know what I mean. I did have one clarification to add to the situation, to define exactly when the trial ended so nothing undiplomatic happened - at least not from our side - which involved far more negotiation with Belladonna of the Vipers and a chap in a military jacket from the Militia than it should do, so I got an inkling of how stressed Lenia probably was by this point.
Dacks got hold of the Green Knight’s Axe, so Ramsey led a squad to chase him the length and breadth of the field to get it back, which they duly achieved.
Back in camp, Lenia called a muster and I stood by her side as she explained to the faction what was happening about the trial and the camp, which was a weird experience but I think it helped her. Understandably, there was a lot of upset, especially when Lester the Undead Jester was one of the first into camp. Myself, I really wasn’t happy about the fact everyone was so upset and there seemed to be no recourse for us - so people kept asking me “What if X happens?” and the answer was always that there was nothing that we could do about it. I didn’t sit in on the trial, I don’t know anything about the situation and (perhaps ironically for a high sheriff) that kind of thing bored me to death when I’m not emotionally involved, and the command tent was full to bursting with people who were interested so there was no real room for anyone else. Besides, Lenia looked like she could do with a friend, so Clara and I went to join her.
So did lord Wolf (at least, I think that’s who it was) and Rory the Ragger. I have absolutely no time for Rory the Ragger since he held a knife to Meg’s throat for daring to think that a Prince had the right to back up his Knight Captain, so I made my excuses. Everything in the camp was tense - a militiaman tried to stop Matthias from crossing the camp for some reason, which didn’t help matters, and some of the militia yelled at the Lions round the camp fire for singing which really didn’t help. The problem seemed to be that no one knew who had the right to do what, so with some people overstepping the mark and some backing down when they didn’t have to.
Eventually the trial finished - since the militia had agreed that the Bards could insist there was no death penalty (which also irked me, since I’d asked for the same clause when they tried Cade and was told no one could insist that), the accused agreed to help the Watchers for a year or so and everything was completed. Ramsey and Matthias organised wedges to enforce the return of the land to the Lions, and we finally got our command tent back.
Beron grabbed me during another fight and said that Caileb wanted to talk to me about something, so I did the only thing that ever seems to work when you need to speak to Caileb, which is stand politely just within irritation distance and follow him around till he stops being busy for long enough to start the conversation, and repeat until the conversation is completed. In this case this meant I accidentally joined in a rite to Mithras at the Incantor’s guild (the Tree of Incantation thing), but given that I had to then lead a rite to Avalon and the entire palatinate pantheon just after that, that was probably rather a good thing since it meant I got to see how it was done.
I had to get back to Lantia before the final battle on Monday, but I did hear that the plan was to summon Drakos and stab him with a beautiful dagger that Elia showed me, one that had water from the planes of life in a fine glass vial built into it in the way that one would usually use a poison. I don’t know exactly what happened though I did learn that several people died, including Libby and Mistress Culpepper in the attack, and no doubt several others. Since the world hasn’t ended however, I assume the plan was successful.