Gathering 1115
This is the story Sid will tell if asked. Please don't take it as IC unless you're one of the people who would ask and who she would tell, I figure folks can be sensible about that. Please comment if you like (or indeed hate) it, my fragile ego could do with knowing people read this nonsense. Comments on LJ for preference since I can read them again more than once a year, but I'm not here to dictate. I just hope you like it.
Friday
I went to the Gathering with three aims - keep people alive, sort out Pisces, and step down as High Sheriff. Everyone was gratifyingly confused as to why I would do the latter, but when I explained it was because I wanted to keep things fresh and let other people with ideas get a chance, most people agreed. The exceptions were Caileb, who wasn't happy with the idea at all, and Clara, who instantly said she understood and didn't actually wait for my reasoning. I assume that's because she'd heard from someone else and not actually because she thought I was doing a terrible job. Given that I'm amazing I presume the former.
Things had gone badly at Al Quafar: of the five legions we had sent only 800 people remained. Now some of those legions were never trained for that kind of combat and it wasn’t exactly unexpected that shipboard marines hadn’t done well in desert combat, but it was still chilling to hear.
Lanceman Adamu was quite excited to hear that they found the Umbral stone so now he can get awakened too. Wouldn't be my thing but I'm glad he's happy. I expect Michael, Septimus Dodecamus and Gaius might be too, they seem quite keen on wibbly shit.
Apparently the Tarantulas were planning on killing random fae in the faction because of Dracos being killed /fixed/laid to rest /what have you last event. Michael wanted to know if they'd be checking first - he used to think he was fae himself before he found out otherwise - but I only know of one person being challenged and he knows how to handle himself.
Several people were killed, including Kellun Morgan from the Dragons, who had been a good friend of Meg’s and who had made a point of being nice to me after Meg’s death. Me and the lads went over to pay our respects along with Karen. The Crew of the Ghostwalkers also lost their Captain in a fight over at the Gryphons, seems to have just been bad luck but that’s rarely a consolation. The Bears also did a ritual that killed everyone inside the seal, which feels depressingly common for the first ritual of the Gathering.
There were a lot of unliving, which seemed pretty much as advertised, but it meant I ran out of power quite quickly. Given that I'm not the greatest in a fight and most of them were exploding in wide areas anyway I figured the best thing I could do for the faction was to stay out the way and not waste what healing power remained. The only thing I could usefully do was to nip out through the wards whenever people needed a message carried past the bad guys, which I did cheerfully and glad to help and at no point muttered too loudly about the grief I usually get for having learned that talent at all. Other than that I bravely led the unit in getting riotously drunk in the Fighting Cocks while Sina led the singing and we finished approximately a weekend's supply of cocktails in one evening.
Saturday
I was considerably less hungover than I deserved to be, which I put down to my general awesome demeanour.
There were elections for the vacant council positions of Voice Of The People and Head Of The Council, which took forever. So long that when I asked Caileb if they're would be a later muster I could step down at to save adding to this one, he asked me to kill him. So long in fact that when Mithras Himself turned up at the end to speak to the faction, I was grateful he wasn't my Ancestor so I could justify leaving. The upshot was that Ramsey is Voice (which I'm going to call Vox Populous when I shorten it because it's cooler and I won't mix it up with the Scouts' Voice), Clara is Head, Mithras wants us to fight for the right to kill Ancestors and Caileb said I can't do one of the things we were talking about. I investigated further and he meant I couldn't resign, so presumably the order to murder him is still extant. I figured I'd talk to him later about at least one of those.
Down at the guild Lewis suggested I do a rite to contact Pisces. I hate rites and the idea of doing rites but I couldn't deny Pisces needed a kick up the arse so I agreed to do one in two hour's time - no point in prolonging things. I then went down the Mages to learn what I needed (where they completely failed to mention the ooc part of the requirements) then set about finding a ritualist and a rite focus. I found Lanceman Alok, who'd never done one before and so seemed the perfect choice, and lost the zodiac council members who'd agreed to help. I asked Elia but she's scared of rites - an attitude I can sympathise with - so I let her off. I did accidentally mention it to at least one guild master though, so she may not be totally off the hook but I'm sure they'll only mock her gently (nb: this is a lie).
Alok did well at the rite and managed to keep it together even when the evil voice started picking on him. I apologised, I'd somehow forgotten about the evil voice and it hadn't occurred to me to mention it. The evil voice was someone called Canis who was hunting Zodiac members and had kind of taken over the mountain. However Pisces also said that he'd be up for meeting at five to sort things out - and shortly afterwards Avariel told me that all the zodiac council had been told they were gathering at five to sort something out, so whatever it was it was probably set in stone. So at least there was a point to the rite despite it being horrible doing one.
At camp, V asked if he could be a sheriff, so I started explaining how he needed to read the laws and investigate a case, when someone discovered that Beastie was Beguiled and they'd also caught the person who did it. Serendipity! Since Beastie didn't really care though, nobody involved was technically a Lion and they were mostly just trying to get him to go round the factions badmouthing the Scouts Guild, I agreed with V's decision that it was better not to follow up other than by telling the guild just in case it was important.
At five, we transported out to the mountain along with two guild members, who were the only ones who had actually requested the highest level of training from the guild. The mountain was closed and we had to figure out how to get in - I suggested reciting the guild oath, which seems to be basically the scouts' equivalent of "oh sod it do a ritual", and worked just as successfully for all current members of the zodiac council, leaving the other three of us outside. There was a bit of general wondering what to do now when the mountain finally opened to all of us, and it was explained that the two boys had to fight through to the end of the gauntlet without getting me - as the random guild member - killed. As aims went, I thoroughly approved of that one.
It was a hard fight, though made easier when I explained to Jasper how keeping fighting while I healed him basically was the equivalent of having ten second regen until we came up against Elia and she thought to cast Mute. I also had some success with the other classic techniques of "maintaining eye contact while backing off terrified and drawing them forward for a co-conspirator to hammer them in the side", and also "stand slightly back from the main fighter and hack off the arm of anyone who reaches to attack him". There was even one point where I was the only one left standing, which the Spiral got very sarcastic about. Then we had to fight all thirteen at once and needed to make VERY good use of the scenery to keep ourselves standing. Both boys learned the skills they were looking for and I came out absolutely buzzing - to find Hars on his knees with a knife to his throat, and Pisces asking if I had really thought it would be that easy.
There then began verbal and physical sparring, with occasional helpful comments from Hars. Pisces said I had to kill Hars to prove that I wanted to bind him; I said that he had greatly overestimated his (Pisces') importance. He said I had to prove I had the guts to do what the Spiral demanded whether it made sense or not and that was what I swore to do; I pointed out that mine was the Brotherhood oath and he could get bent, and furthermore if he was looking for a braindead patsy he had probably come to the wrong girl. Pisces refused to believe I was serious so I attacked him a bit, which he tells me isn’t the way to win his affection. Good to know, I guess.
Hars asked if it was important and pointed out that he had sworn to die for me if it would help, which was possibly the most misplaced attempt at reconciliation that I’ve ever heard ever and is exactly what I needed to release the tension at that point. He sounded more like a child listening to his parents fight than someone at knifepoint and that reminded me of the vital point: if this didn’t work out it was Pisces who would die without an anchor, not me. I was the one who could afford to walk away, this was just about Pisces surrendering with dignity - ok so he could kill me in front of the guild, but all he’d do from that is lose. The argument became a lot easier when I remembered that.
Pisces suggested my problem with the idea was just because Hars was a PB and so I offered to not murder any number of Tarantulas or Vipers or really whoever else he brought me to not murder, not murdering was not the issue. Murdering for no reason was the issue. Then he told me that the Spiral can see the future and knew that Hars’ children would destroy the PBs, but frankly if they managed that we probably deserved to die - also, this is the man that I gave 4 gold to go to the brothel when I first came to Erdreja and who had stood politely on guard outside the place all night. I got my drama on and made a big speech about how we would adapt and when Hars’ daughter came against us we would defeat her, and when her son came we would defeat him, only marginally deflated by Hars’ asking what if he had twins.
Pisces sidled round to get back to Hars, I got between them, Pisces asked me if I had any last words and got instead my final request, then from my semi-conscious bleeding to death state I felt our patterns merge so I guess I passed. Someone healed me but I woke to be told that Hars had died, which was insane but I couldn’t find a pattern there either. Therefore the whole thing must have been an illusion, I was about 96% confident. And about 4% really worried.
Pisces’ voice echoed in my mind, telling me that the lesson was that sometimes it’s not down to me to choose. Thanks mate, appreciate that. Good to know you weren’t there at Orlganon when I actually had that lesson driven home to me, because if someone with your power had been there and stood back to watch that conversation could have gone very differently. I suppose I appreciated his trying to help.
More bad news back at camp, Tristan of the CKs had been killed. Nemiel and the rest of his Dreamstruck family were taking it pretty hard and were dripping blood from the face when I found them. Dodecamus had also been killed, by a void rift in the market place, and a former Lion ritualist called Tarial had also died in the ritual circle.
Many people got knighted at the muster, including Kell, Clara, Karen (Twice knightly, I believe is the phrase seeing as she’s a knight of Celestial too), Althea and Abby. I decided I never wanted a knighthood from the faction - my pride as a woman would never allow myself to be called “sir”.
Hars eventually came back from Gallathrix at about half ten in the evening to be met by a lot of people being glad he was alive and with absolutely no knowledge of what we were on about. He then spent the rest of the weekend being accosted by random people in grey and congratulated on his continued existence.
I was freezing, so I wore the Pisces tabard a lot to have an extra layer, and was eventually asked to stop stalking round the camp in murder robes claiming to be the high sheriff. The fact it was all true was apparently completely irrelevant. Frax noticed I was chilly and leant me a cloak, for which I am eternally grateful.
Lots of unliving again, but not quite as many as last time and they didn't seem to general affect more than the person they were fighting, so they seemed far more worthwhile to get involved in fighting off in between conversations. I got talking to Sam about the possibility of him taking over as High Sheriff, he was a bit dubious on the idea but he did accept that I saw potential in him even if he didn't think he'd done much yet.
Karen and I attempted to have a quiet girly evening with the remaining cocktails, which was constantly interrupted by various unliving things and/or by people needing to talk to one or other of us, but we managed to hide away with a few glasses for an hour or so after everything calmed down a bit (OOC: about 2am, but who's counting?).
Sunday
I slept in (OOC: read, went to Asda because my boots were hurting and we'd finished the alcohol) and missed the honour battle. It was about whether or not it should be possible to kill Ancestors in the same way Dracos had been killed and since the teams were 6:4 when the Unicorns changed their mind at the last minute, it seemed the most popular answer was the one that won. The Lions were on the losing side and there seemed to be a fair bit of bad feeling about the amount of pattern corrupting and similarly deadly wounds being dealt on the battlefield. Still, nobody seemed to die so far as we heard.
I went down to the marketplace to get lunch and to go round the shops with Michael, since he was the only person I could find who also had time (OOC: and it's Alan's birthday next weekend). However something went down at the scout's guild and I had to run off to find out what, though it seemed to be just a heads up that the mission to kill the big evil thing might be a bit dangerous and a request to get an apprentice by that evening in case we all karked it beforehand. I appreciate it needed said but the timing sucked (and we never got to go round the traders so Alan's present will be delayed).
Thus began the longest walk to camp I'd ever experienced. It took I think about four hours, since every time I got somewhere I was either ambushed by someone wanting me, or I ran into someone I wanted to talk to but they were heading to the guilds.
I bumped into Septimus, who asked if he could give me a hug as this was important flirting practice. I strongly suspected it was not personal, so I gave him a hug and a kiss, and the advice not to do either without either learning body language or asking permission. I added "find out who volunteered me as Septimus' flirtation teacher" to my to do list, though I was never able to get round to cornering the likely suspects.
Met up with some of the zodiac council crossing the field and we got chatting, so I ended up back down at the guilds again.
A new chap had come over from Gallathrix to help out, Dougga, a mage recently (and fortunately) released from the legions.
I tried again and found Lanceman Alok had a ritual to do when I met him almost at the gate to the faction field, so I came down with him too hand in his paperwork since he was nervous. He hadn't wanted to bother the Watchers with asking for help since they were so busy, but was happy to talk to my friend Cosaint one I'd done a brief introduction to what Cosaint used to do and hadn't mentioned anything he currently does. Once Alok realised he was speaking with a Watcher he tried hard to persuade Cosaint to stop wasting his valuable time, but seeing as there's not much that's more important than helping someone not to explode, he didn't have much success. Cosaint was pretty happy with the script which I think helped Alok a lot.
My next attempt ran into about half the unit coming to watch Alok's ritual, so I had to go back to the marketplace for that. He scored a seven, no one died and he got something powerful out of it, so overall I think he did pretty amazingly for a first time.
I gave it one last stab, this time with guild members and Pisces alike reminding me that time was running short and I had said I'd be back from camp by now, and by dint of keeping my head down and refusing to look around, I managed to make it to camp without being accosted with work or hugs.
I put my hat back in the tent as I had intended and returned triumphant to the guild.
In the guild, plans were ongoing for killing Canis. I wasn't sure who Canis was but he'd been menacing Alok yesterday and most of my mates in the guild at various other times so dealing with him was something I was perfectly up for. Other members of the zodiac were getting not particularly subtle hints that the Hand might be involved, so I waited with interest to see if Pisces would get involved and what he thought I ought to know. All in all I was a bit surprised at how different it was from most missions I've been on, no one except me seemed interested in what skills people had, who was weird to heal, what the plan was, things like that. It turned out that this was because I was the only one who actually was a healer, so for most folks it wasn't relevant.
Pisces popped up to give me the sensation of a dagger in my spine and my pattern unravelling with a warning that this was a taste of what was to come, so our plan regarding healing became that Sid doesn't get herself hit and I fix anyone who does. Jack became convinced that my pattern must actually be unravelling and I wouldn't be able to tell so I said I'd get it checked and sauntered off to find someone to cadge an Endurance from instead. Jack gets weird ideas sometimes.
When I came back, the Spiral guys were in a lot of pain and we suddenly teleported to the mountain. I didn't think this would be a surprise to anyone given that I'd told people we were going, but apparently by the time rumour reached the camp we had all been reported as spontaneously combusting or some such, so it did cause a few problems.
In the mountain, which was a lot easier to get into than last time, we found the spiral guardians legging it away, and as promised a couple of things attacking us with pattern corruption. We also met two old friends of the guild, one annoying nightmare thing, and one Canis, whom we despatched. It turned out to be a demonic werewolf, so both my Kerrimanian and void lancer aspects were pleased.
After that there was a lot of talking. I don't actually know who the people involved were but they were clearly important to the more experienced Scouts so I just wandered round healing the people who got Harmed and eventually reminding the corruptor that her friend might need some assistance from those who heal the backwards patterns. It was Evenstar and Nazeel, for those that means more to.
Then after speeches the Nightmare Lord announced he owned the mountain, which made sense as to why we couldn't get in further. We weren't convinced so we asked him to prove it, and suddenly found ourselves back in Al Quafar having had some pretty scary visions, so I guess that was fairly good proof. (ooc: we were to have a nightmare based on our deepest secret, but Sid is shallow as a plate and doesn't keep that kind of secret, so I was a bit stuck. Also since Sid's nightmares are about something that did happen, it seemed a bit cheating to just wake up and say "oh right, that one again", so I decided to vary it a bit).
Everyone was clearly quite shaken and I had just seen the battle of Belec again except with the current PBs playing the part of the front two ranks, the ones that got red misted when the void rift landed, so I ended up grabbing the nearest person by the hand, who I think was Aries but who put up with me while I got my bearings and realised that I was indeed still in Erdreja as Lewis or Galban (I wasn't paying attention) yelled for everyone to go back to the guild. I however hadn't yet entirely got the hang of this random visions thing yet and given the last warning had proved useful, I needed to check that was a genuine nightmare and not an actual heads up, so I told someone where I was going and headed back up to camp to check on the lads.
I cut through the Harts because there was a fight outside, which did involve explaining to someone why I was nipping through their camp wearing something akin to murder robes, but I took the guild tabard off and they seemed much happier. As I passed the Harts gate there was a shout that some Lions were down at the transport obelisk so I joined the Harts in sallying forth to the rescue. Then I got cut down and dragged off to the transport obelisk, which seemed almost inevitable under the circumstances.
Fortunately Lanceman Damian decided to lie down for a bit so he would get dragged over whilst perfectly healthy, this letting him reach the prisoners without all that tedious getting beaten up nonsense that tends to happen. He cured me and one of the others them between us we carried back the other wounded. His axe got lifted in the fracas so I gave him my sword, but someone had spotted the Magpie who took it for safe keeping so it was all good.
I got into camp to learn that the unit were fine except for Nemiel, V and Noctis, who had gone down to the guilds to look for me there. I decided to wait till after the attack to go look for them, which was lucky as they appeared by the transport obelisk with Frax and Michael, which resulted in them all sprinting for safety and only Nemiel being burdened enough with armour to get caught. Fortunately the Bears got him back.
I was unimpressed with nightmare creatures all round and went to get dinner.
Returning from dinner it seemed the attacks on the camp had calmed down a lot, so sensible conversations could be had. I explained to Caileb again why I was stepping down and he either accepted it or realised it had been discussed enough round the faction that it was widely known now anyway. His conditions were that I worked as deputy for at least a year and was prepared to step up again if the new guy was rubbish. I agreed, not least because the new guy wasn't rubbish and had had mostly the same terms, and so we mostly agreed on the situation.
The night included a significant downer though, as a report came up from the guilds that Beastie had been killed over at the Unicorns’ camp. One of the CKs escorted the messenger back to the guilds and I broke the news to Kerr and Ilsa. I asked Kerr somewhat cryptically if she'd heard, figuring she'd forgive the cliché if she had done, and then breaking the news when she hadn't. Ilsa had just stepped up as Grandmaster of the Bards' Guild, so she was on a tour of the factions which meant she got some time to stop and chill in the Lions at that point which was something. Dougga came up with an old song from about 15-20 years ago mocking "Sid The Scout" whose mates tended to wreck her sneaking. The last verse wasn't really me but the lads found it hilarious either way. Me, I was just amused how apt it was for the age.
Monday
Alok had been talking to some folks down the Incantors' guild and had come up with a theory regarding how the Z-demon (I can NEVER remember her name) had managed to play Sleeping Beauty with the Ancestors. It seemed to work from what I knew of the topic, but I saw Rath in the Scouts' guild with Ta'Ci so I went to chck and he thought it seemed likely to be sensible too. He seemed far more likely to be right. Remembering a previous conversation with a friend who was getting a bit bored of being human I queried whether it was possible to use surgery to give someone the appearance of being a different race. Ta'Ci was pretty confident that it was, and also that he would benefit from having a badger grafted to his head. I decided not to name the friend in question, just so he had a bit more say in whether it happened or not.
I had to apologise to Caileb and Gaius that I hadn't managed to talk to the council about the High Sheriff thing at a meeting this weekend as requested, but Clara hadn't actually held a council meeting since there was so much going on, so I just made my own decision. I got a gratifying round of applause when I stepped down, and I'm certain Sam of Sammerix will life up to the potential I see in him. I'm interested to see what he makes of the role.
Karen and Styx came joint third in the Incantor trials: Karen was thrilled, Styx was frustrated. He felt the goalposts had been moved a couple of times midway through the challenges, so I can see why he was disappointed.
Kell asked me if he could conscript some prisoners to restock the legions, or rather told me that he was going to do that and asked for my input. I agreed, seeing as Sam wasn’t there at the time, on the grounds that I would veto some individuals but I would give input on who was good to pick up etc.
Officially the Lions weren’t fighting the unliving in the days’ battle since it was hot undead on undead action and so we couldn’t decide whether we were aiding unliving or not, but realistically most people decided that killing unliving meant there would be less unliving around, so that was something most of the faction could get behind. (OOC: it was a nice idea, no faction was asked to monster but every faction was asked to provide what monsters it could, so no one was left out or had to skip it, but alternately didn’t have to fight it if they didn’t want to).
It was another tough fight, with very few things that weren’t cutting through the ritual of peace and also curses flying around which we learned as Alok suddenly started bleeding from the head but otherwise felt fine. I hadn’t thought we would be able to get it healed mid-fight but apparently the healer’s guild was far more efficient than I thought possible and it was sorted before the barrow wight was.
Squire Tyriel of the CKs got a go with Tope's Sword and had a very enthusiastic go at the barrow wight, but most of us couldn't really affect it with our less powerful weapons.
On the comedy side, Satuun tried to do a badly-planned ritual in an unprepared circle and void flushed himself, meaning that we kind of won that particular part of the battle with an own goal. Hilarity ensued. The barrow wight was dispatched, but frankly that paled into insignificance compared to Satuun’s efforts.
Then it was back to Lantia for tea and medals, or at least for congratulations and every ritualist congratulating themselves on scoring better than an embodiment of evil.
Friday
I went to the Gathering with three aims - keep people alive, sort out Pisces, and step down as High Sheriff. Everyone was gratifyingly confused as to why I would do the latter, but when I explained it was because I wanted to keep things fresh and let other people with ideas get a chance, most people agreed. The exceptions were Caileb, who wasn't happy with the idea at all, and Clara, who instantly said she understood and didn't actually wait for my reasoning. I assume that's because she'd heard from someone else and not actually because she thought I was doing a terrible job. Given that I'm amazing I presume the former.
Things had gone badly at Al Quafar: of the five legions we had sent only 800 people remained. Now some of those legions were never trained for that kind of combat and it wasn’t exactly unexpected that shipboard marines hadn’t done well in desert combat, but it was still chilling to hear.
Lanceman Adamu was quite excited to hear that they found the Umbral stone so now he can get awakened too. Wouldn't be my thing but I'm glad he's happy. I expect Michael, Septimus Dodecamus and Gaius might be too, they seem quite keen on wibbly shit.
Apparently the Tarantulas were planning on killing random fae in the faction because of Dracos being killed /fixed/laid to rest /what have you last event. Michael wanted to know if they'd be checking first - he used to think he was fae himself before he found out otherwise - but I only know of one person being challenged and he knows how to handle himself.
Several people were killed, including Kellun Morgan from the Dragons, who had been a good friend of Meg’s and who had made a point of being nice to me after Meg’s death. Me and the lads went over to pay our respects along with Karen. The Crew of the Ghostwalkers also lost their Captain in a fight over at the Gryphons, seems to have just been bad luck but that’s rarely a consolation. The Bears also did a ritual that killed everyone inside the seal, which feels depressingly common for the first ritual of the Gathering.
There were a lot of unliving, which seemed pretty much as advertised, but it meant I ran out of power quite quickly. Given that I'm not the greatest in a fight and most of them were exploding in wide areas anyway I figured the best thing I could do for the faction was to stay out the way and not waste what healing power remained. The only thing I could usefully do was to nip out through the wards whenever people needed a message carried past the bad guys, which I did cheerfully and glad to help and at no point muttered too loudly about the grief I usually get for having learned that talent at all. Other than that I bravely led the unit in getting riotously drunk in the Fighting Cocks while Sina led the singing and we finished approximately a weekend's supply of cocktails in one evening.
Saturday
I was considerably less hungover than I deserved to be, which I put down to my general awesome demeanour.
There were elections for the vacant council positions of Voice Of The People and Head Of The Council, which took forever. So long that when I asked Caileb if they're would be a later muster I could step down at to save adding to this one, he asked me to kill him. So long in fact that when Mithras Himself turned up at the end to speak to the faction, I was grateful he wasn't my Ancestor so I could justify leaving. The upshot was that Ramsey is Voice (which I'm going to call Vox Populous when I shorten it because it's cooler and I won't mix it up with the Scouts' Voice), Clara is Head, Mithras wants us to fight for the right to kill Ancestors and Caileb said I can't do one of the things we were talking about. I investigated further and he meant I couldn't resign, so presumably the order to murder him is still extant. I figured I'd talk to him later about at least one of those.
Down at the guild Lewis suggested I do a rite to contact Pisces. I hate rites and the idea of doing rites but I couldn't deny Pisces needed a kick up the arse so I agreed to do one in two hour's time - no point in prolonging things. I then went down the Mages to learn what I needed (where they completely failed to mention the ooc part of the requirements) then set about finding a ritualist and a rite focus. I found Lanceman Alok, who'd never done one before and so seemed the perfect choice, and lost the zodiac council members who'd agreed to help. I asked Elia but she's scared of rites - an attitude I can sympathise with - so I let her off. I did accidentally mention it to at least one guild master though, so she may not be totally off the hook but I'm sure they'll only mock her gently (nb: this is a lie).
Alok did well at the rite and managed to keep it together even when the evil voice started picking on him. I apologised, I'd somehow forgotten about the evil voice and it hadn't occurred to me to mention it. The evil voice was someone called Canis who was hunting Zodiac members and had kind of taken over the mountain. However Pisces also said that he'd be up for meeting at five to sort things out - and shortly afterwards Avariel told me that all the zodiac council had been told they were gathering at five to sort something out, so whatever it was it was probably set in stone. So at least there was a point to the rite despite it being horrible doing one.
At camp, V asked if he could be a sheriff, so I started explaining how he needed to read the laws and investigate a case, when someone discovered that Beastie was Beguiled and they'd also caught the person who did it. Serendipity! Since Beastie didn't really care though, nobody involved was technically a Lion and they were mostly just trying to get him to go round the factions badmouthing the Scouts Guild, I agreed with V's decision that it was better not to follow up other than by telling the guild just in case it was important.
At five, we transported out to the mountain along with two guild members, who were the only ones who had actually requested the highest level of training from the guild. The mountain was closed and we had to figure out how to get in - I suggested reciting the guild oath, which seems to be basically the scouts' equivalent of "oh sod it do a ritual", and worked just as successfully for all current members of the zodiac council, leaving the other three of us outside. There was a bit of general wondering what to do now when the mountain finally opened to all of us, and it was explained that the two boys had to fight through to the end of the gauntlet without getting me - as the random guild member - killed. As aims went, I thoroughly approved of that one.
It was a hard fight, though made easier when I explained to Jasper how keeping fighting while I healed him basically was the equivalent of having ten second regen until we came up against Elia and she thought to cast Mute. I also had some success with the other classic techniques of "maintaining eye contact while backing off terrified and drawing them forward for a co-conspirator to hammer them in the side", and also "stand slightly back from the main fighter and hack off the arm of anyone who reaches to attack him". There was even one point where I was the only one left standing, which the Spiral got very sarcastic about. Then we had to fight all thirteen at once and needed to make VERY good use of the scenery to keep ourselves standing. Both boys learned the skills they were looking for and I came out absolutely buzzing - to find Hars on his knees with a knife to his throat, and Pisces asking if I had really thought it would be that easy.
There then began verbal and physical sparring, with occasional helpful comments from Hars. Pisces said I had to kill Hars to prove that I wanted to bind him; I said that he had greatly overestimated his (Pisces') importance. He said I had to prove I had the guts to do what the Spiral demanded whether it made sense or not and that was what I swore to do; I pointed out that mine was the Brotherhood oath and he could get bent, and furthermore if he was looking for a braindead patsy he had probably come to the wrong girl. Pisces refused to believe I was serious so I attacked him a bit, which he tells me isn’t the way to win his affection. Good to know, I guess.
Hars asked if it was important and pointed out that he had sworn to die for me if it would help, which was possibly the most misplaced attempt at reconciliation that I’ve ever heard ever and is exactly what I needed to release the tension at that point. He sounded more like a child listening to his parents fight than someone at knifepoint and that reminded me of the vital point: if this didn’t work out it was Pisces who would die without an anchor, not me. I was the one who could afford to walk away, this was just about Pisces surrendering with dignity - ok so he could kill me in front of the guild, but all he’d do from that is lose. The argument became a lot easier when I remembered that.
Pisces suggested my problem with the idea was just because Hars was a PB and so I offered to not murder any number of Tarantulas or Vipers or really whoever else he brought me to not murder, not murdering was not the issue. Murdering for no reason was the issue. Then he told me that the Spiral can see the future and knew that Hars’ children would destroy the PBs, but frankly if they managed that we probably deserved to die - also, this is the man that I gave 4 gold to go to the brothel when I first came to Erdreja and who had stood politely on guard outside the place all night. I got my drama on and made a big speech about how we would adapt and when Hars’ daughter came against us we would defeat her, and when her son came we would defeat him, only marginally deflated by Hars’ asking what if he had twins.
Pisces sidled round to get back to Hars, I got between them, Pisces asked me if I had any last words and got instead my final request, then from my semi-conscious bleeding to death state I felt our patterns merge so I guess I passed. Someone healed me but I woke to be told that Hars had died, which was insane but I couldn’t find a pattern there either. Therefore the whole thing must have been an illusion, I was about 96% confident. And about 4% really worried.
Pisces’ voice echoed in my mind, telling me that the lesson was that sometimes it’s not down to me to choose. Thanks mate, appreciate that. Good to know you weren’t there at Orlganon when I actually had that lesson driven home to me, because if someone with your power had been there and stood back to watch that conversation could have gone very differently. I suppose I appreciated his trying to help.
More bad news back at camp, Tristan of the CKs had been killed. Nemiel and the rest of his Dreamstruck family were taking it pretty hard and were dripping blood from the face when I found them. Dodecamus had also been killed, by a void rift in the market place, and a former Lion ritualist called Tarial had also died in the ritual circle.
Many people got knighted at the muster, including Kell, Clara, Karen (Twice knightly, I believe is the phrase seeing as she’s a knight of Celestial too), Althea and Abby. I decided I never wanted a knighthood from the faction - my pride as a woman would never allow myself to be called “sir”.
Hars eventually came back from Gallathrix at about half ten in the evening to be met by a lot of people being glad he was alive and with absolutely no knowledge of what we were on about. He then spent the rest of the weekend being accosted by random people in grey and congratulated on his continued existence.
I was freezing, so I wore the Pisces tabard a lot to have an extra layer, and was eventually asked to stop stalking round the camp in murder robes claiming to be the high sheriff. The fact it was all true was apparently completely irrelevant. Frax noticed I was chilly and leant me a cloak, for which I am eternally grateful.
Lots of unliving again, but not quite as many as last time and they didn't seem to general affect more than the person they were fighting, so they seemed far more worthwhile to get involved in fighting off in between conversations. I got talking to Sam about the possibility of him taking over as High Sheriff, he was a bit dubious on the idea but he did accept that I saw potential in him even if he didn't think he'd done much yet.
Karen and I attempted to have a quiet girly evening with the remaining cocktails, which was constantly interrupted by various unliving things and/or by people needing to talk to one or other of us, but we managed to hide away with a few glasses for an hour or so after everything calmed down a bit (OOC: about 2am, but who's counting?).
Sunday
I slept in (OOC: read, went to Asda because my boots were hurting and we'd finished the alcohol) and missed the honour battle. It was about whether or not it should be possible to kill Ancestors in the same way Dracos had been killed and since the teams were 6:4 when the Unicorns changed their mind at the last minute, it seemed the most popular answer was the one that won. The Lions were on the losing side and there seemed to be a fair bit of bad feeling about the amount of pattern corrupting and similarly deadly wounds being dealt on the battlefield. Still, nobody seemed to die so far as we heard.
I went down to the marketplace to get lunch and to go round the shops with Michael, since he was the only person I could find who also had time (OOC: and it's Alan's birthday next weekend). However something went down at the scout's guild and I had to run off to find out what, though it seemed to be just a heads up that the mission to kill the big evil thing might be a bit dangerous and a request to get an apprentice by that evening in case we all karked it beforehand. I appreciate it needed said but the timing sucked (and we never got to go round the traders so Alan's present will be delayed).
Thus began the longest walk to camp I'd ever experienced. It took I think about four hours, since every time I got somewhere I was either ambushed by someone wanting me, or I ran into someone I wanted to talk to but they were heading to the guilds.
I bumped into Septimus, who asked if he could give me a hug as this was important flirting practice. I strongly suspected it was not personal, so I gave him a hug and a kiss, and the advice not to do either without either learning body language or asking permission. I added "find out who volunteered me as Septimus' flirtation teacher" to my to do list, though I was never able to get round to cornering the likely suspects.
Met up with some of the zodiac council crossing the field and we got chatting, so I ended up back down at the guilds again.
A new chap had come over from Gallathrix to help out, Dougga, a mage recently (and fortunately) released from the legions.
I tried again and found Lanceman Alok had a ritual to do when I met him almost at the gate to the faction field, so I came down with him too hand in his paperwork since he was nervous. He hadn't wanted to bother the Watchers with asking for help since they were so busy, but was happy to talk to my friend Cosaint one I'd done a brief introduction to what Cosaint used to do and hadn't mentioned anything he currently does. Once Alok realised he was speaking with a Watcher he tried hard to persuade Cosaint to stop wasting his valuable time, but seeing as there's not much that's more important than helping someone not to explode, he didn't have much success. Cosaint was pretty happy with the script which I think helped Alok a lot.
My next attempt ran into about half the unit coming to watch Alok's ritual, so I had to go back to the marketplace for that. He scored a seven, no one died and he got something powerful out of it, so overall I think he did pretty amazingly for a first time.
I gave it one last stab, this time with guild members and Pisces alike reminding me that time was running short and I had said I'd be back from camp by now, and by dint of keeping my head down and refusing to look around, I managed to make it to camp without being accosted with work or hugs.
I put my hat back in the tent as I had intended and returned triumphant to the guild.
In the guild, plans were ongoing for killing Canis. I wasn't sure who Canis was but he'd been menacing Alok yesterday and most of my mates in the guild at various other times so dealing with him was something I was perfectly up for. Other members of the zodiac were getting not particularly subtle hints that the Hand might be involved, so I waited with interest to see if Pisces would get involved and what he thought I ought to know. All in all I was a bit surprised at how different it was from most missions I've been on, no one except me seemed interested in what skills people had, who was weird to heal, what the plan was, things like that. It turned out that this was because I was the only one who actually was a healer, so for most folks it wasn't relevant.
Pisces popped up to give me the sensation of a dagger in my spine and my pattern unravelling with a warning that this was a taste of what was to come, so our plan regarding healing became that Sid doesn't get herself hit and I fix anyone who does. Jack became convinced that my pattern must actually be unravelling and I wouldn't be able to tell so I said I'd get it checked and sauntered off to find someone to cadge an Endurance from instead. Jack gets weird ideas sometimes.
When I came back, the Spiral guys were in a lot of pain and we suddenly teleported to the mountain. I didn't think this would be a surprise to anyone given that I'd told people we were going, but apparently by the time rumour reached the camp we had all been reported as spontaneously combusting or some such, so it did cause a few problems.
In the mountain, which was a lot easier to get into than last time, we found the spiral guardians legging it away, and as promised a couple of things attacking us with pattern corruption. We also met two old friends of the guild, one annoying nightmare thing, and one Canis, whom we despatched. It turned out to be a demonic werewolf, so both my Kerrimanian and void lancer aspects were pleased.
After that there was a lot of talking. I don't actually know who the people involved were but they were clearly important to the more experienced Scouts so I just wandered round healing the people who got Harmed and eventually reminding the corruptor that her friend might need some assistance from those who heal the backwards patterns. It was Evenstar and Nazeel, for those that means more to.
Then after speeches the Nightmare Lord announced he owned the mountain, which made sense as to why we couldn't get in further. We weren't convinced so we asked him to prove it, and suddenly found ourselves back in Al Quafar having had some pretty scary visions, so I guess that was fairly good proof. (ooc: we were to have a nightmare based on our deepest secret, but Sid is shallow as a plate and doesn't keep that kind of secret, so I was a bit stuck. Also since Sid's nightmares are about something that did happen, it seemed a bit cheating to just wake up and say "oh right, that one again", so I decided to vary it a bit).
Everyone was clearly quite shaken and I had just seen the battle of Belec again except with the current PBs playing the part of the front two ranks, the ones that got red misted when the void rift landed, so I ended up grabbing the nearest person by the hand, who I think was Aries but who put up with me while I got my bearings and realised that I was indeed still in Erdreja as Lewis or Galban (I wasn't paying attention) yelled for everyone to go back to the guild. I however hadn't yet entirely got the hang of this random visions thing yet and given the last warning had proved useful, I needed to check that was a genuine nightmare and not an actual heads up, so I told someone where I was going and headed back up to camp to check on the lads.
I cut through the Harts because there was a fight outside, which did involve explaining to someone why I was nipping through their camp wearing something akin to murder robes, but I took the guild tabard off and they seemed much happier. As I passed the Harts gate there was a shout that some Lions were down at the transport obelisk so I joined the Harts in sallying forth to the rescue. Then I got cut down and dragged off to the transport obelisk, which seemed almost inevitable under the circumstances.
Fortunately Lanceman Damian decided to lie down for a bit so he would get dragged over whilst perfectly healthy, this letting him reach the prisoners without all that tedious getting beaten up nonsense that tends to happen. He cured me and one of the others them between us we carried back the other wounded. His axe got lifted in the fracas so I gave him my sword, but someone had spotted the Magpie who took it for safe keeping so it was all good.
I got into camp to learn that the unit were fine except for Nemiel, V and Noctis, who had gone down to the guilds to look for me there. I decided to wait till after the attack to go look for them, which was lucky as they appeared by the transport obelisk with Frax and Michael, which resulted in them all sprinting for safety and only Nemiel being burdened enough with armour to get caught. Fortunately the Bears got him back.
I was unimpressed with nightmare creatures all round and went to get dinner.
Returning from dinner it seemed the attacks on the camp had calmed down a lot, so sensible conversations could be had. I explained to Caileb again why I was stepping down and he either accepted it or realised it had been discussed enough round the faction that it was widely known now anyway. His conditions were that I worked as deputy for at least a year and was prepared to step up again if the new guy was rubbish. I agreed, not least because the new guy wasn't rubbish and had had mostly the same terms, and so we mostly agreed on the situation.
The night included a significant downer though, as a report came up from the guilds that Beastie had been killed over at the Unicorns’ camp. One of the CKs escorted the messenger back to the guilds and I broke the news to Kerr and Ilsa. I asked Kerr somewhat cryptically if she'd heard, figuring she'd forgive the cliché if she had done, and then breaking the news when she hadn't. Ilsa had just stepped up as Grandmaster of the Bards' Guild, so she was on a tour of the factions which meant she got some time to stop and chill in the Lions at that point which was something. Dougga came up with an old song from about 15-20 years ago mocking "Sid The Scout" whose mates tended to wreck her sneaking. The last verse wasn't really me but the lads found it hilarious either way. Me, I was just amused how apt it was for the age.
Monday
Alok had been talking to some folks down the Incantors' guild and had come up with a theory regarding how the Z-demon (I can NEVER remember her name) had managed to play Sleeping Beauty with the Ancestors. It seemed to work from what I knew of the topic, but I saw Rath in the Scouts' guild with Ta'Ci so I went to chck and he thought it seemed likely to be sensible too. He seemed far more likely to be right. Remembering a previous conversation with a friend who was getting a bit bored of being human I queried whether it was possible to use surgery to give someone the appearance of being a different race. Ta'Ci was pretty confident that it was, and also that he would benefit from having a badger grafted to his head. I decided not to name the friend in question, just so he had a bit more say in whether it happened or not.
I had to apologise to Caileb and Gaius that I hadn't managed to talk to the council about the High Sheriff thing at a meeting this weekend as requested, but Clara hadn't actually held a council meeting since there was so much going on, so I just made my own decision. I got a gratifying round of applause when I stepped down, and I'm certain Sam of Sammerix will life up to the potential I see in him. I'm interested to see what he makes of the role.
Karen and Styx came joint third in the Incantor trials: Karen was thrilled, Styx was frustrated. He felt the goalposts had been moved a couple of times midway through the challenges, so I can see why he was disappointed.
Kell asked me if he could conscript some prisoners to restock the legions, or rather told me that he was going to do that and asked for my input. I agreed, seeing as Sam wasn’t there at the time, on the grounds that I would veto some individuals but I would give input on who was good to pick up etc.
Officially the Lions weren’t fighting the unliving in the days’ battle since it was hot undead on undead action and so we couldn’t decide whether we were aiding unliving or not, but realistically most people decided that killing unliving meant there would be less unliving around, so that was something most of the faction could get behind. (OOC: it was a nice idea, no faction was asked to monster but every faction was asked to provide what monsters it could, so no one was left out or had to skip it, but alternately didn’t have to fight it if they didn’t want to).
It was another tough fight, with very few things that weren’t cutting through the ritual of peace and also curses flying around which we learned as Alok suddenly started bleeding from the head but otherwise felt fine. I hadn’t thought we would be able to get it healed mid-fight but apparently the healer’s guild was far more efficient than I thought possible and it was sorted before the barrow wight was.
Squire Tyriel of the CKs got a go with Tope's Sword and had a very enthusiastic go at the barrow wight, but most of us couldn't really affect it with our less powerful weapons.
On the comedy side, Satuun tried to do a badly-planned ritual in an unprepared circle and void flushed himself, meaning that we kind of won that particular part of the battle with an own goal. Hilarity ensued. The barrow wight was dispatched, but frankly that paled into insignificance compared to Satuun’s efforts.
Then it was back to Lantia for tea and medals, or at least for congratulations and every ritualist congratulating themselves on scoring better than an embodiment of evil.