Roztov's Everquest Lore Library Update 25-05-2022

 

All the latest Terror Of Luclin Lore (such as it is...) has been added!

Everquest Lore here:

http://roztov.epizy.com/lore/index.htm

(G486 07/05/2022 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), KT, AD) HOM10

 
(G486 07/05/2022 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), KT, AD) HOM10

[The adventurers Griffolk Ethyn the Dragon-Shaman, Sparkledingle the Gnome Wizard and Fangorino the Barbarian are on a mission to follow Baroness Partick and have been onboard the galleon known as the Dementor for several weeks now.
Recently the First mate, Mull-Master had gone crazy and killed one of the crew. The adventurers managed to subdue him and stashed him in the infirmary. Now read on...]

DAY 23 (12) cont ...

An hour later, Griffolk, Sparkledingle and Fangorino huddled together in one of their cabins and discussed their options.

The first idea mooted was to sink the ship. There were two boats up on the deck, the jolly boat and the captain's pinnace. All the crew and passengers would struggle to fit in them though.

So rather than that they decided to go and talk to Captain Pickles. Pickles was a half-halfling, just about five feet tall, so his cabin was built with his size in mind. He was jolly, almost manically so, and poured them all drinks and offered them food when they came to visit him.

They laid out all their worries, but each of them he poo-poo'd, saying:
'I know the sea can be a scary place if you've not sailed on it before! But don't worry, we are not cursed! The death of Surgeon Minty was a tragic accident, nothing more, and Mull-Master - well you know half-orcs! Strong fellows, but sometimes they can go a bit doo-lally! Everything else we can put down to bumps in the night and over-active imaginations! Hahahahaha!'
He laughed loudly and poured them all more drinks.

Every other attempt to get through to him failed. Fangorino even tried to scare some sense into the fellow by slamming his axe down on the table.
Pickles was not phased though and said, 'Don't be silly old chap. Now try some of this Waterdavian Whiskey, its sixteen years old!'

Pickles more or less successfully diverted any other attention by getting the men drunk on fine wines and spirits. Sparkledingle did not drink, but he was fighting a loosing battle.

He noticed, among the various curios in the cabin, a withered hand in a display case. 'Gulp! What's that captain?' he enquired.

Pickles muttered the start of a story, but lost his thread, hiccupped and poured them all another drink. Sparkledingle tried a ruse of going out, casting Detect
Thoughts, and coming back in again. He tried it twice, but both times he failed to get anything out of the Captain's mind.

Once they were indecently drunk the young men went to the galley and demanded of Cookie Cook, 'Chips and cheese please Cookie! And a kebab!'


DAY 24 (13)

The Dementor made good progress today. Murky misty weather. No sinister events happened today.


DAY 25 (14)

After lunch Griffolk decided to unfold a deck chair and sit on the main deck reading his 'Monster Manual' recently bought in Candlekeep.
Every time someone passed him he drew their attention to the chapter on vampires.

This caused a bit of a problem for him when, later in the afternoon, the body of one of the stewards was found, drained of blood, in Griffolk's cabin.

Gingols the Sane was the first on the scene and he raised a hue and cry. He was certain that Griffolk was to blame, but everyone else were not convinced, even though he had been reading about vampires all morning!

Griffolk gathered everyone together in the dining room and they all carried out some 'garlic tests'. No one, not even Baroness Partick reacted how they thought a vampire might.

They then tried mirrors, but with the same negative results. Even so, some of the passengers where getting very uneasy. Jilly Hidescore was starting to put it all together.
'I agree,' she said. 'Something awful is going on and we need to find out what it is.'

At this point Baroness Partick nodded silently at the captain who then interrupted. 'Well, that's enough for now I think! Please, Mr Ethyn, if you could retire to your cabin for now, while I carry out further investigations.'

Everyone went back to their business. At this point, for some reason Fangorino attempted to intimidated Sparkledingle. It didn't work. Sparkledingle tried to Charm Person Fangorino. That didn't work either. After that they both gave up on trying to annoy each other and went to see Griffolk in his cabin.

There was a guard at the door, a sailor by the name of Bobby Shafto. He seemed a bright young man.

They did little else tonight other than come up with one bad idea after another only to dismiss them on consideration.
Plans included drilling a hole in the ship (but they lacked a drill) and using mirrors to channel light into the hold. They did have plenty of them, but they were all small, hand mirrors for ladies.

They ship's carpenter did sell them 20 stakes of ash and oak, although he refused to give them a drill under any circumstances.
'But, ahhh..' tried Sparkledingle. 'My friend has a wooden leg you see...'
'Stow your nonsense!' snapped the carpenter.


DAY 26 (15)

Captain Pickles called a meeting of crew and passengers and gave them an obviously made-up story about how Mull-Master had escaped the infirmary, killed the steward and then returned to his room.
'We've doubled the guard!' he declared. 'And that's the end of the matter.'

This was good news for Griffolk, but suspicious eyes still followed him at breakfast and lunch. Gingols seemed sure that Griffolk was to blame somehow.

Matters did not improve when there was a lot of banging and shouting when Mr Baleworth could no longer locate his wife. Mr B then spent the rest of the evening kicking up a fuss, demanding answers from everyone. He then accused Griffolk;
'That body in your room! You are always in the thick of it! Where's my wife, you cad!?'

Truthfully Griffolk did not know, and his genuine confusion seemed to convince Baleworth.
'Well then, what do we do, blast it man?' bellowed the aristocrat. 'I'm going to demand the captain turns us back to Candlekeep!'

Baleworth went to the captain's cabin, where it can be assumed that Pickles used his usual trick of appeasement with food, wine and strong spirits.

 
DAY 27 (16)

Mr Baleworth searched high and low once more for his wife on the Dementor. It was a big ship, but it was not too long before he found himself at the locked door where the evils lurked.
Soon he was back at Griffolk's door.
'You've been banging on about vampires in the hold. Well, let's go. Let's open it up!'

Griffolk wasn't so sure though. He remembered his instructions to make sure they arrived at Yacg'harr Island and realised that opening the hold would probably put an end to all of that.

'Bah, cowards!' he yelled and grabbed on of the stakes that was on the cabin dresser. He then went down to the hold.

Griffolk and Fangorino just shrugged and paid no more attention to what happened next. Only Sparkledingle was curious enough to follow him, and he did so while invisible.

'Open that bloody door!' he demanded of the sailor that was guarding the outer hold.
The sailor did so, but would go no further.
Baleworth entered the hold area and approached the door at the back where the evil lurked. The sailor, and Sparkledingle, watched from the far door.

'Petunia? Petunia?' called Baleworth bravely. 'Are you in there?'
He then pressed his ear to the door, listening.
Sparkledingle could hear something whispering, but could not make out the words.
'Is that you Petunia? Are you ok?' he whispered back.

There was a click, and the door slowly opened. Baleworth cautiously leaned forward to look into the darkness of the hold. Suddenly a pale skinned hand reached out and grabbed him by the next. Baleworth was yanked into the room and the door slammed shut. The sailor screamed and shut the outer door, nearly crushing Sparkledingle as he leapt out of the way.

I should hope they all felt bad about standing by and letting all that happen. When Sparkledingle reported it all back to the others, Griffolk decided to go around and talk to everyone else on the ship and dish out some cloves from his sack of garlic.

Sparkledingle talked to Cookie, but she had 20 bulbs of garlic of her own and did not need any more.

They talked to the sailor Bobby Shafto, but he did not need any convincing about there being vampires in the hold. When asked what he thought they should do, he replied;
'Begging your pardon, good sirs, but should it not be me asking your advice? You are a wizard, a dragon-um-person, and a barbarian. I am just a sailor.'
'Fair point,' agreed Griffolk who then gave the lad some garlic and a mirror.

They did the same for the sailor that had witnessed the end of Mr Baleworth.

Griffolk and Sparkledingle then canvassed the rest of the ship, looking for others that could be trusted and relied on if things all went pear-shaped;

- Gingols was in his room and was talking to no-one.
- Jilly Hidescore was very nervous and not at all talkative.
- First mate Mull-Master was still a raving madman
- Midshipman Krondor was talkative, but seemed oblivious to everything that was going on. She told them that she didn't believe that vampires existed and it was all a fuss about nothing
- Cook Cookie seemed like a dark horse, but when asked about her background she only said "wouldn't you like to know"

Finally though Sparkledingle stuck gold. He went to talk to the new Bosun, a middle-aged fellow called Redthorn.
'Keep it to yourself, little one, but I'm a Harper Agent. We got word of this ship and its evil cargo and since I happened to be in Candlekeep when you arrived it was decided I should
come on board and take a look. Seems like our suspicions were correct.'
'Oh praise Mistra, we're saved!' declared the gnome, who had heard of "Those Who Harp" and held them in high regard.
'I wouldn't go that far,' said Redthorn. 'Here, you three didn't arrive on board by accident either did you? Who do you work for?'
Sparkledingle was never very good at holding on to secrets so when he mentioned the name 'Cavu' his backers were revealed.
'Oh aye,' muttered the Bosun. 'Makes sense. Cavu always likes to hire the odd ones. Word of  warning to you though. He works for a powerful oracle called Gertrude the White. They won't care much if you live or die. They were all mixed up with the yuan-ti back in Waterdeep, that's what I heard. When we offered to help, they refused.'
Sparkledingle didn't know what to say to any of that, he was just happy that he'd finally met someone that appeared to be at least half-way competent!

(G485 23/04/2022 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), KT) WA96

 

(G485 23/04/2022 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM), KT) WA96

[And now back into the Underdark with Fenrir and Reinward, who have entered the Lair of Queen Arachnia and with one of the magical keys in their possession they are now going to go after the second.]

DAY 506(21th Flamerule)(july) cont ...

Having finished with Lord Vengariss, Xama Niriwin, Priestess of Ghaunadaur, led them back to the keep occupied by the Descendants of Addar.

It was late now and they were tired, so in an abandoned room deep in the keep they lay down their magical bedrolls and went to sleep.


DAY 507(22nd Flamerule)(july)

Xama Niriwin lead them to Lady Petal-Ash's mansion after breakfast.

It was surrounded by ruins and much of it was falling down, but they eventually worked their way in to the central area where the remaining part of the mansion still stood.

They entered a large store room, that had a high ceiling, with many paintings on the walls. As they explored the room a barrel came sluggishly towards them, a hungry mimic, looking for a meal.

Fenrir stepped back and blasted it. As they explored further, they found that nearly all the barrels, sacks, shelves and chests were either mimics or illusions. In the end Fenrir stepped back to the entrance and with his eldritch blast in a cone laid waste to the entire room.

More mimics were scared out of their hiding places, but they were too slow. Soon the whole room was a smoldering ruin full of dead mimics.

The only thing that survived was the paintings high up on the walls. Fenrir flew aboutand found one that was magical. Using the Ring of Knock he revealed it to be a door.

The room they came to next they entered though an illusionary mirror. Two sets of steps led up to a larger chamber where two lizard head statues were built into the furthest wall.

They came under attack buy flurries of arrows. The arrows did not do much damage at all as both Fenrir and Reinward were protected by deflection magics of various kinds.

All the arrows came from one being though, and although they did not know it, from the description and my research I suspect it was a Cuprilach, a type of Extraplanar Outsider known for their stealth and expertise with a bow.

The Cuprilach cast illusions, and used Dimension Door to sneak about, but it was outmatched by the two men. Reinward could locate it with his blindsense magic and Fenrir could blast away constantly at anything and everything. As its arrows and sneak attacks did little it was not long before it was vanquished.

The next room they came to would prove more of a challenge. It was a Hall of Mirrors, much like the type you wound find at a Carnival, illuminated by mysterious gloomy light.  As they worked their way through its confusing maze-like passages they were confronted by an orc cracking a whip at them.

It did not attack, but Fenrir blasted it anyway. The ray went right though the orc (as it was an illusion) and broke the mirror behind it. As the mirror shattered an exact copy of Fenrir came into existence.

The two Fenrir's blasted away at each other for some time, as Reinward stood back and listened. The real Fenrir took some damage, but in the end he blasted the duplicate and it fell to the floor in a shower of broken glass.

They moved on, Reinward leading the way. At the next junction he found an illusionary floor, anything dropped on it went straight through, falling to who knew where. They could jump it easily enough though, and eventually found there way to a door that led them out of the mirror maze.

Reinward listened at they door and heard what sounded like a husky female voice making odd sounding noises of pleasure. He opened the door and looked round the corner.

There was a hugely tall, horned female being, easily ten feet tall, lounging on an equally massive sofa at the back of the room. She was provocatively dressed.

The men were well hidden, but however she did it, she knew they were there.
'Well hello there!' she said.
'Err.. who are you?' they asked.
'My name is Evengelina!' she replied. 'Come on in!'

Neither of them trusted her though and they backed off into the maze again. They had not explored the eastern portion of the maze yet so they pushed on in that direction. As they went deeper into the maze though, the lights suddenly started strobing. Blinding light then total darkness, flickering from one to the other. Fenrir was effectively blinded, so  Reinward led the way.

At the end of a long corridor section he sensed a figure. It mocked him in his own voice and attacked. The two Reinwards fought. Both were well protected by all their defensive magic (such as the Ring of Blink) that they could hardly hit each other. Fenrir, still blind, decided to speed things up and took a guess as to who the real one might be.

He missed both though and his blast hit the mirror at the far end of the corridor and another Fenrir clone sprung into life! This clone fired off a blast of its own. This one missed too, and another mirror broke and yet another Fenrir was born!

The real Fenrir had had enough by now. This was too dangerous an area for a fight and even defeating the first clone had been hard. He legged it back to the Cuprilach room.

Reinward did so too, nearly falling down through the invisible hole in the process, but managing to grab the edge of the pit and continue his escape.

Here they had more room to manoeuvre, but fighting two versions of himself was impossible for Fenrir and it was not long before he was bleeding and badly injured from all the incoming blasts. He turned invisible and tried to hide in the chamber. The enemy Fenrirs were not much interested in Reinward, who they could barely see anyway.

Then he remembered something. And just as well, as it would have been all over for him if he had not. There were some shards in his bag, given to him as gifts as thanks from the grateful people of the FAMP.

There use had been explained to him and he remembered that they were all very powerful. He reached into his Bag of Holding and pulled out the one that had Chain Lightning engraved on it.

Fenrir appeared and blasted them with the spell in the shard. A massive bolt of lightning hit all of the enemies, killing the fake Reinward in a single hit. The other two staggered and where killed off in showers of glass when the second wave of lightning arced between them.

Fenrir said a thankful prayer to the 'God of Recollection' or the 'Memory Fairy' or whatever it was that had suddenly remember those shards as up until about 30 seconds previous he had completely forgotten about them!

(G484 16/04/2022 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF, KT) LR52

 (G484 16/04/2022 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF, KT) LR52

[Myself and Dak are on the trail of the Black Mirror and have arrived in Waterdeep.]

DAY 565 (19th  Eleint) (September) cont ...

Sometimes, when you are just sitting around drinking in the tavern, and adventure falls in your lap.
The Singing Sword is often frequented by adventurers, powerful fighters, wizards, rogues, you name it, and is a place where people go who have got a lot of trouble, but also a lot of money, to get their problems - hopefully - dealt with.

Such a man was Roge Gelnne, who we first saw going from table to table trying to recruit people to help him. Most were turning him down. One table of young fellows were about to go, but the innkeeper, a clever fellow, said to Roge;
'Not them, they are too inexperienced, it would be suicide.'
He then nodded towards me and Dak. I was in disguise, you may remember, but perhaps the innkeeper had a nose for matching up adventurers to tasks that were equal to their talents.

We heard out Roge Gelnne. He was a well-to-do merchant who was renovating his wine cellar. The builders had unearthed an ancient tomb though, or something like it, and terrible noises were heard coming from the darkness at the bottom of the stairs.

Roge had quickly sealed it off again and had informed the authorities. The authorities had bigger problems though, apparently, and poor old Roge was now taking matters into his own hands.
'I need this sorted by the 30th!' he cried. 'I've a big party planned and I can't have it ruined by monsters in my wine cellar!'

We had nothing better to do, so off we went. Roge had a nice house, but we didn't see much of it as we were ushered down into the cellars straight away.

A sledgehammer was taken to the walled off stairway, and down we went. The first room we came to had what looked like two mummy lords in it and three treasure chests. The mummies were wearing ornate armour and surrounded by grave goods.

I didn't really want to touch something, but it was obvious someone had to, so Dak bravely went and poked a chest. Needless to say the mummies came to life and attacked us. I summoned apes and salamander flame brothers to hold them off, then pinned them down with Sudden Stalagmite spells. This allowed Dak to wade in and chop them to bits.

One of them tried a Slay Living touch on Dak, but he shrugged it off. Once they were finished we took all the treasure and moved on.

The next room contained four giant zombies, and we waited at the door while they filed through. I used Sunbeam spells to harm and blind them, while Dak used his axe to finish them off.

So, by the time we met the Dread Wraiths I was feeling quite smug, quite full of myself. Look at me! Me and my pal Dak absolutely ripping through this dungeon like pros.

My hubris was soon to be my undoing! Our equipment and tactics were well suited to our foes so far, but Wraiths are dangerous and Dread Wraiths doubly so. I've never fought them before, but Fenrir has. I wish I'd paid more attention to his bragging last time we'd met!

There were four (I think) and they were not stupid. While two went for Dak, the others went for me. Whatever spells I had left were ineffective, and my armour was not good enough to throw off their touch. Quickly my constitution was drained until I could barely crawl. Dak was not close enough to rescue me.

I felt like I was about to die, and to be honest, I think the Hairy Belly of Fate saved me that day. I should have died, but by some miracle I did not, and I was able to crawl back up the stairs while Dak came charging in with his axe to kill my tormentors while their claws could do nothing against him.

Dak had invested a lot of money in all that armour and I realise now, that if I want to be the sort of fellow that the innkeeper at the Singing Sword thinks can take on Dread Wraiths then I need to make a similar investment.

In addition, although I know I have enough money for a Resurrection I have no desire to die, not least at the hands of the undead! I know I'm going to have nightmare for a month now. Should have stayed in the pub.

Paradise - Chapter 2: Exodus (4842) [EARLY DRAFT!!]

 

Chapter 2: Exodus (4842)

Bishop Thomas Thorman was called down to the burning rooms. This usually only happened when there was trouble, so that was what he was expecting when he got there.

The smell of burning meat was everywhere in the temple at Merric College, but strongest on the floor of the building where the burnt offerings were burnt and offered. He walked from the butchery tables where the meat came in, past the altar drenched in ceremonial blood, to the waste bins where the charred remains were left for later removal and finally where cuts of excess meat were left for the priests. Over the last year, the rituals had been streamlined, out of the necessity for speed, more acolytes had been assigned to the task, more braziers and extractor fans installed. What once had been a place where parking permits and bus passes had been issued, was now halfway between an abattoir and a steakhouse. Bishop Thorman preferred the smell of it to the sight of it, it reminded him of summer barbecues from back before the reditus.

His wife always complained that the smell of him made her hungry when he came home. There was nothing that could be done about it though, all clergymen smelled of grilled meat now.

Thorman entered the cordoned-off area where the industrial-sized refrigerators stored the priest-portions, the thick leather curtains pulled aside for him by laymen and stalked to the far end where there was an altercation in progress.

Shadwell, the sin-eater, his hand resting on the handle of one of the fridges, was arguing with an acolyte.

When they saw him approach, they bowed their heads and mumbled, ‘Your Grace’.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked. Bishop Thorman was a tall man and towered over both of them.

‘He’s at it again, Your Grace,’ said the acolyte, a middle-aged man called Acton, who had been a councilman before the reditus. In the time before, Acton had been no more religious than anyone else, going to church, no doubt, for funerals and weddings only, but was now one of the altar servers, ordained acolytes that assisted the priests in the running of the temple, specifically in Action’s case the burning of the offering, one of the most prestigious assignments available to those of his station.

This was a council building, or had been before Evermarch had splintered. A tall gothic edifice built in the 1830s, now consecrated as holy ground and the largest structure of its kind in the city, the old cathedral having been almost laughably small. Acton, and many other of the functionaries that inhabited the place had come with the building.

‘I’m just here to take what I need, Your Grace,’ retorted Shadwell, the stocky Welshman.

‘Nothing for you down in the morgue?’ enquired the bishop.

‘Not a morsel, not a nibble of anything, Your Grace!’ moaned Shadwell. ‘They’re behind in their deliveries is what I say. I can’t does the vegetarians and the vegans, as you know Your Grace, if there has been no fruit delivered, in keepings with the families wishes as you understand. But a bit of bacon, or a little bit of steak? Where’s the harm? It’s just going in the bin anyways.’

Thorman held up his hands to stop the scatter-gun rambling of the sin-eater.

‘Now, Shadwell…’ he began but was interrupted by Acton.

‘He wants to eat it himself!’ cried the acolyte. ‘He’s lying. He just wants it for himself!’

‘Oh, oh, oh!’ said Shadwell, almost howling. ‘Of course, I’m going to eat it myself! I’m a sin-eater aren’t I?  I’ve ten down there I could get sent on their way to their graves right now if I could only gets me hands on some bacon, or a bit of rib eye, or some chops. They are stacked up down there, Your Grace, stacked up! It’s a mortal shame, Your Grace, a sin, to leave them like that, for want of a bit of bacon.’

‘He’ll have it in between two slices of bread and covered in brown sauce,’ yelled Acton before Thorman could speak. ‘And take the rest to the pub to sell to his mates. You’re a rogue, Shadwell, always skulking around in here, on the mooch!’

Irritated at being interrupted twice by the acolyte Thorman put his hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Have as much meat as he desires wrapped up and sent down, Mr Acton.’

Acton looked like he was going to say something, but then thought better of it.

‘Mr Jones,’ went on the bishop, addressing the sin-eater. ‘Go back to the chapel. If you have any further delays in your deliveries then you should raise them with Reverend Simpson, as you well know. Gentlemen.’

With that last word he turned and left the altar room, both men bowing and muttering ‘Your Grace’ as he left. Thorman wished all his problems could be resolved so easily, but he had a feeling that Shadwell was going to cause more trouble in the future. The sin-eater had been sent by the arch-bishop, wanting to get rid of him, in all likelihood, just a few months ago. A left-over man, in the wrong place when it had all happened, but a cunning fellow that when the seals had been broken had known where the safest place to be was, namely, the church.

Thorman had no idea where Wales was now.

 

Later that day four members of the Committee brought a sinner to Merric College, a man that had allegedly been working on a Sunday, demanding that he be punished to the full extent allowed under the rules of the temple.

He had the man taken down to the cells and sent the four zealots away, thanking them as he always did, for their vigilance, but secretly, in his inner-most thoughts, cursing them for the bloodthirsty fools that they were.

He then returned to his chambers and attempted to a long overdue letter to the Arch-Bishop in Strake. When he tried to put pen to paper though, his mind returned to the sour expression on Acton’s face when he had sided with Shadwell. Acton would see him dead; he was in no doubt of that. The acolyte would happily light the fire that burnt him, he’d roast Thorman on the altar itself if he could. The reditus has bought out the best in some people and the worst in others and it didn’t take much to get yourself killed these days. Who would have thought it, that when the Lord finally came again, that the world would turn to…

Thorman found that he was stuffing the sleave of his vestment into his mouth and biting down hard on it. He was stifling a scream, or something blasphemous, or who knew what? He had been doing this a lot lately, but thankfully only when he was alone.

Nervous and unbidden as this habit was, he was sure that he was not insane. It was amazing, he reflected, how clearly, he saw things now. A miracle, he supposed. Before the reditus he had been a different man. The coming of the lord had really changed him, and not particularly for the better. As he often thought, when he had faith, he had been sure of himself. Now there was no need of faith and he was sure of nothing, least of all himself.

Slowly he pulled the surprising large amount of damp cloth out of his mouth. He examined it thoughtfully. He wondered if he would ever make sense of anything ever again. At least things had settled down a little since this time last year. Last year he had been in fear of his life.

His life was safe now, but small. He went from home to the temple, back to home, with nothing in between. He was a Bishop, but had no real power, deferring almost everything back to the Arch-Bishop. Before the reditus his life had been small then too, but in a different way.

He had been crazy, although like all crazy people, of course he had not realised it at the time. He wasn’t now, it was like he had gone sane, but the whole world had turned crazy. Turned on its head.

Before the reditus he had been driven, the power and purity of his faith driving his eldest son to suicide and his younger son to drugs. Now Mathew, who would have turned eighteen, was lost to them, perhaps on a splinter of the world so small it had not been mapped yet, or perhaps was dead, caught up in one of the early pogroms, or from one of the countless viruses that scourged the world.

He missed the boys terribly and was eaten up with newfound guilt. He felt guilt over the death of Luke, his eldest boy. He had felt nothing at the time, or if he had, it was deeply buried. All that had been in him then had been an unbending righteousness, the steel rod of his faith more certain to him than anything else. Compared to his faith everything, his family, his children, himself even, were phantoms, mere whisps of dust on the air.

He realised now that it was his unbending zealotry that had driven Luke first away from their family home and then a year later from life itself. He felt guilt over the loss of Mathew, and his inability to use his status as a Bishop to help in any way. He felt constant gnawing guilt about both these things and for what he had turned his wife into, a twisted reflection of himself, of what he used to be.

That person, that version of Thomas Thorman was gone now. Now that God was here (and if he ever doubted it, he just had to look up at the sky) there was no need for faith anymore. A year and a half in and a bishop had the same function now as a bricklayer or a car mechanic. It was a job that needed doing, that was all.

The seventh seal had been broken, there was no need of faith. The righteous madness that had once gripped him was gone. If he wanted to see it, he just needed to walk along the main street of Evermarch. If anyone had thought that the coming of the Lord was going to simplify things, they were sorely mistaken. With the loss of faith, religion had lost its goodness, or so Bishop Thorman thought, and with God as a solid stone fact, like the Sun or Mount Everest, everyone seemed to be taking turns to persecute everyone else, safe in the knowledge, supposedly, that if they were doing something wrong, God would step in and stop them.

‘God forgive me,’ whispered Thorman as he bit into his sleeve. ‘God forgive me.’

 

Over the next few days, encouraged by his favourable encounter with the bishop in the burning rooms Shadwell had started visiting Thorman after his shift had ended. It had started with discussions on scripture, something the bishop could hardly discourage, but soon ranged onto other topics, gossip mainly, but also long rambling stories of Shadwell’s days before. It was not something that Thorman had encouraged, but the sin-eater was a law unto himself, like most others of his vocation, he was not afraid to speak his mind or barge into places he had no right to be in.

 

 

And so it was not unusual when, a week later, as the evening descended into darkness there was a knock at the door and the sin-eater came barging in. Bishop Thorman quickly hid his chewed wet sleeve under his desk.

‘Shadwell. What is it?’ he asked softly.

‘Home time, Your Grace,’ smiled the sin-eater as he sat on the edge of the desk.

‘What’s the plan for Charlie in the cells, Your Grace?’ asked Shadwell.

‘Who?’

‘The man the muta brought in last week.’

‘You shouldn’t call them that,’ chided Thomas mildly. ‘I’ll hear his confession. Write to the Arch-bishop.’

‘Ye’ll not kill him, surely?’

‘Of course, I’d rather not Shadwell, but you know what they’re like.’

‘Kill them all and let God sort them out, Your Grace?’

‘I’ll do everything in my power to help him, Shadwell,’ said Thorman placing his hands on the desk, then pulling them back again when he saw the state of his sleeve.

‘Can’t ask for more than that,’ said the sin-eater as he got up to leave. ‘See you tomorrow, Your Grace.’

‘Remember to read the those verses I…’ began Thorman, but by then the other man had gone.  

 

The next morning Bishop Thorman went to the cell of Charles Jett and heard his confession. In truth he’d forgotten about this man, and felt rather bad that it had taken the sin-eater to remind him. Jett looked and smelled like an alcoholic. He was in his late fifties, fat, bald and dull witted. Easy prey for the Committee. Thorman had heard a great many confessions since the reditus, this was not much different from the others.

After he had confessed his sins and pleaded his case, however uselessly to Thorman, and Thorman had explained that nothing was up to him at all, but that sentence would be passed by the arch-bishop and then another half an hour or so of tear filled begging and wheedling, and once the tears had stopped and there was nothing, really nothing, else to be said on the subject, Jett’s mind seemed to free-wheel for a while and not wanting the bishop to leave him alone to his own deliberations he began a discussion on how the world had…

‘… get into this mess? I owned a garage, man. I had a house, two cars, I had six people working for me. The kids had all left home, we were happy though, ken? My wife was visiting her sister in Canada when it happened. I lost her, the kids, the garage, everything. I ask ye, where is the sense in any of it?’

‘It was God’s will.’

‘Aye maybe but come on. There were no warnings at all. You’re a bishop though, didn’t you guys’ plan for anything like, like… this?’ said the condemned man waving his hands around in circles to encompass the world.

‘Of course not,’ admitted Thorman. ‘Do you think the Scottish church spent much time worrying about the Book of Revelations? We were all raffles and tombolas, collections for the roof, jam and Jerusalem,’ said Thomas who tended to be less guarded when talking to people who would most likely be dead within a day or two.

‘Aren’t you afraid he’s not listening?’ hissed Jett, leaning in conspiratorially.

‘I’d rather he did, because quite frankly, I’ve some questions,’ stated Bishop Thorman and meant it.

‘But it’s all real, aye, Bishop? All of it?’

‘Apparently so.’

‘So where will I go?’

Thorman didn’t want to answer that question so changed the subject.

‘You never found your wife?’ he ventured. ‘No word through the DP agencies?’

‘Not a word, Bishop,’ sighed Jett, lapsing back into tears. ‘They said that that part of Canada just vanished. Maybe at the bottom of the sea, I don’t know. I gave up asking. I don’t want to die, Your Grace.’

Thorman had been through this cycle of self-pity with Jett twice already.

‘You have nothing to fear, Charles,’ he said standing up and smoothing down his vestments. ‘We are all in this together now.’

‘Pray for me, Bishop, will ye? And for my family?’

‘I will do that Charles, I will do that,’ repeated Thorman as he bowed out of the room. As he walked away, one of the cell laymen closed and locked the cell door behind him. The bishop rubbed his eyes as he waited for the lift up to the seventh floor. He thought about going home early tonight. He had no desire to talk to the sin-eater today.

 

***

‘Surely a bloody husband art thou to me,’ said Bishop Thomas Thorman’s wife as he crossed the threshold of his house. It was a large six bedroomed sandstone house in Evermarch’s suburbs. The splintering had placed it close to an area of Delta slums which had since been removed. Now their west facing upper windows looked out on recently planted park land that lay on the other side if the Zone.

‘What is it?’ he grunted at her. He went to the kitchen and started to make himself a sandwich. As he did so he drank from a large glass of red wine. He had already deduced there would be no dinner made for him tonight and he was taking matters into his own hands.

She was talking about Committee matters, but he wasn’t listening. As always when he got home his thoughts had turned to trying to figure out how to get himself out of the mess he was in. He took the cheese sandwich, the glass and the bottle through to their living room and switched on the TV.

‘Are you even listening to me?’ she demanded.

He raised his eyes up to look at her as he bit into the bread. Here she was, five feet two in her stocking feet, a slim and still attractive woman in her late forties. You would not think it to look at her, the number of people she had sent to their death. How he wished she would die. Or someone would kill her. Someone out for revenge for a relative killed by the Committee, it was not unheard of.

Besides all that bloodletting, there was a big drive about circumcision, it had been building all summer. He had no idea how they came to these decisions, or why they thought this particular thing was important when balance against everything else, but there it was.

‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What’s happening at the temple? What’s going on? Elder Ritchie has had no answer to his e-mails and he’s coming to me to ask you directly.’

‘Ask me what?’

‘What I’ve just been talking about for the last half hour! About what the church is going to do about the uncircumcised. You can’t expect the Committee to handle everything.’

‘It’s not up to me, it’s up to Arch-bishop Sinclair. You know I have no power over these things.’

She grimaced at him and shouted, ‘then what bloody use are you?’ before turning on her heals and leaving him alone in the large room.

‘None at all,’ he muttered to himself and glugged down half a glass of wine in one go.

There was a leaflet from the Committee on the table beside the sofa. He picked it up and read the front page. “The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” it was titled, then the subheading read “If you live with another as man and wife but are not married – it is a sin!”

There was a picture of a man and a woman hugging and kissing together while the man rested his back against a door, as if holding it shut.

It looked like they were starting another campaign, going after unmarried couples. As bad as it is now, he realised, as bad as it had been in the past, it’s going to get much worse. They were regularly stoning people now; they had been stoning people for working on Sundays for a while now. People were terrified to leave their houses, and it was only a matter of time before the Committee were in there too, rooting out the sins that went on behind closed doors.

He poured another glass of wine and watched the news. More plagues in Egypt. As the country had suffered in the bible, it suffered now. There was a no-fly zone, enforced by angels, or so it was reported. He didn’t know what to believe in the news these days, there was so much of it that was fake it was hardly worth watching.

The reporter went back to local news and regretted to inform the viewers that still up to fifty percent of men in the Delta area were still uncircumcised. He interviewed a Committee spokesperson that chastised all those that had not gone to a clinic to have it done yet and threatened them with hellfire if they did not. He switched off the TV, he had seen this all before.

His wife was in the kitchen, talking to another Committee member on the phone. She’d be there all night. Thorman drunk himself into a stupor, then went to bed.

 

***

The next day, Shadwell came to talk to Bishop Thorman once more. His recent reading of the first chapters of the bible, for the first time suspected the bishop, were leading him into the dangerous territory of near blasphemy.

‘I mean,’ rumbled on the portly Welshman, ‘I’m maybe being picky here right, but why did Moses and God wait until everyone was thirsty and moaning about it until they actually did something? I mean, this was what God wanted after all aye? March six hundred thousand people into the desert. Didn't he realise they'd get thirsty? Very poor organisational skills and he doesn't even apologise for it, instead makes a big show of how great he is by providing them magic food and water and infantilising them even more.’

‘For God’s sake, Shadwell,’ hissed Bishop Thorman.

‘I mean,’ carried on the sin-eater regardless, ‘You can organise food and water for people without magic if you think ahead enough. Those poor buggers marching around in the desert for forty years, continually being told off and continually acting up. Did I tell ye I had four brothers? It was just like that with my da. He never got tired of thrashing us!’

‘Please be quiet, Mr Jones!’ demanded Thorman.

‘Sorry, Your Grace,’ replied Shadwell.

Bishop Thorman looked down at his desk, he could never finish anything. All of his work lay undone. He had had a secretary at some point, but they had mysteriously disappeared, probably they lay dead out in the Delta somewhere, assassinated by a muta death squad. The Arch-bishop had not seen fit to assign him another one. He let it all pile up. If someone really wanted him, they either had to call him or come to see him at the temple. Then there was Charles Jett to deal with, languishing down in the cells, wondering if today would be his last. He really needed to talk to the Arch-bishop at some point today. He started shuffling through his papers, looking for something that had happened last year that was tickling his memory.

 

Shadwell was not quiet for long. ‘But God speaks to you right?’

‘Yes, of course,’ lied the bishop. It was a lie he told so often he no longer noticed he was doing it.

‘I wish he’d talk to me,’ sighed Shadwell. ‘And explain it all to me. I can’t believe… you know, back when things were normal, you have your life, and it’s under control, more or less, but then... This must have been what World War Two felt like to our grandparents, on an even larger scale. An incomprehensible upheaval. Everything changing. What were you before all this?’

‘I was still a bishop.’

‘I was a singer,’ a fact that Bishop Thorman was very well aware of since Shadwell had told him many times. ‘Who would have thought it eh? My family had a sin eater in it from two hundred years ago, or so my grannie told me. It was crusts of bread and ale back in those days of course…’

Thorman sighed, put down the papers he was trying to read and looked up at Shadwell.

‘Sorry Your Grace,’ said the porty Welshman. ‘I’d better leave you too it. Oh, here’s one though, since we’re on the subject. I read this one the other night - And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.’

‘That’s very impressive,’ admitted the Bishop. ‘To quote Isiah so perfectly from memory.’

‘Aye, but what’s it all about?’ asked Shadwell. ‘What sort of method of fighting a battle is that? What, was his hand affecting the battle? What was God playing at? I mean, on the face of it, it’s farcical!’

‘Shadwell!’ scolded the Bishop, feeling panic and fear well up inside him. ‘Look. I’ve a lot to do. I’m sure you have a home to go to.’

The sin eater got up to leave, the bishop’s desk creaked and groaned at the Welshman’s considerable backside was removed from it.

‘I mean,’ sighed Thorman. ‘It’s obviously good that you read the bible so closely, but there is no need to question every verse.’

Thorman waved his hand at Shadwell to leave and shut the door behind him. The bishop then had a mild panic attack, stuffing his sleeve into his mouth, biting down hard to stifle his moaning. I can’t take any more of this, he thought to himself, but realising he evidently could. I’m going to go insane. But again, that wasn’t true, the problem was quite the opposite in fact. The problem was that he had gone sane.

‘Just focus on small things,’ he muttered to himself as he unspooled his sleeve out of his mouth. ‘Do one task, then when that’s done, do another. Push everything else out of your mind.’

Suddenly his eyes found the bit of paper he had been looking for. He clutched it in both hands like a drowning man finding a life-raft. Perhaps if he saved Jett, then that would be enough for now?

 

***

Thorman resisted the temptation to go and talk to Jett before he was set free. The man’s gratitude would have been too much for him, and not a good thing to have talked about amongst his enemies in the temple.

He contented himself with getting it second hand from Shadwell. He made light of his contribution, telling the sin-eater it had not taken much to release Jett, when in reality he had stuck his neck out quite a lot in order to attain it.

Last year Arch-bishop Sinclair had granted a reprieve to one of his friends, a former judge that had been accused of the usual sort of thing and was due to be stoned to death. Sinclair had intervened and the man had walked free, it was corruption, certainly, considering how many other people the Committee were persecuting that the Arch-bishop hadn’t been interested in helping. He had used the New Testament to do it, claiming the rights of Pontius Pilot, although his justification owed more to The Master and Margaretta than to the bible, not that those ignoramuses on the Committee would have known that, but anyway, it was decided that once a year any bishop could free any one condemned man or woman.

At the time Thorman had filed away this decree, hoping that he would be able to use it, should the need ever arise, to save someone from the Committee. A Get Out of Jail Free card in effect. But a year had passed, and the world had changed a lot since then, Thorman ran out of people that he cared enough about to save and the decree sat in his desk’s bottom draw, forgotten.

Now he had used it to rescue Jett, an act he knew in his heart was nothing more than vanity. He had wanted to show off to Shadwell, and he had wanted to show to his wife that he wasn’t utterly impotent.

It hadn’t been easy; it had taken days to wheedle the pardon out of the Arch-Bishop.

‘You realise if you use it now, it’s gone? For at least a year anyway?’ Sinclair had said.

‘The only person I have left in my life is my wife,’ Thorman had replied. ‘And she’s Committee.’

The Arch-bishop hadn’t even asked, why this man? Why Jett? He hadn’t been interested enough to find out. Thorman would have struggled to find a sensible answer, as the truth was that Jett was no one, hardly even worthy of salvation at all. Just a man who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had ended up in a cell, just like countless thousands everywhere where the

Committee had influence.

Now though, as he sat at his desk, his sodden sleeve falling limp across his desk, he wondered why this one act of mercy didn’t make him feel any better. Before, it had felt like Jett’s salvation would somehow hasten his own, but in the end he was left with the feeling that he had made a terrible mistake.

(G483 02/04/2022 via Roll20 - - AP, JF(GM), KT) WA95

 (G483 02/04/2022 via Roll20 -  - AP, JF(GM), KT) WA95

[And now back into the Underdark with Fenrir and Reinward, who have entered the Lair of Queen Arachnia and are doing a deal with the 'The Descendents of Addar'.]

DAY 506(21th Flamerule)(july) cont ...

It was late in the afternoon when they had their next audience with Gardex Jur'Heer, the  leader of the Descendents of Addar. He said this:


''
Now pay heed to my words, lesser beings. I am too old to repeat myself. The Queen is of great  power, and unaided you will not be able to enter her citadel and defeat her.
There are three lords, and each of them holds a magical key. You will need all three of them to enter the citadel.
- Dark Lord Vengariss is a vampire, he was once my great-uncle. He has many undead warriors guarding him.
- Lady Petal-Ash is a liche and mistress of illusions.
- Lord Amber is an undead wizard and cleric of Kiaransalee. He is the most powerful of the three.
    
To defeat her, you will be greatly aided by performing the three trials of Ghaunadaur.
If you wish to do any of the trials you must first pray to Ghaunadaur at his temple. We have among us a priestess of Ghaunadaur who can guide you in this, but to put is as simply as I can for your dull wits the trials are of the Body, the Mind and of Pride.

In the trial of the Body you must sacrifice a limb, or an eye. The greater the sacrifice the larger the reward.

In the trial of the Mind you must lose yourself to madness.

In the trial of Pride you must suffer some great humiliation or injury to pride.

If all the trials are completed you will become almost invisible to her, or so I am told.
''

Several times Reinward tried to be funny, by saying 'Pardon?' and 'Can you repeat that?'. It did not go down well.

Fenrir and Reinward then discussed their next move. They considered visiting the magical shop, but decided not to in the end as the rumours were that it was guarded by two devourers and 'something else even nastier'.

They thought of the Earth Node (or possibly a portal) and whether it was worth investigating as a possible escape route if needed. Fenrir did remember that the Node he had used to get to Pedestal has been two-way, but in the end, they realised they would have to go back to get Veddic and the others anyway, so in the end they decided to just get on with the main task at hand.

Xama Niriwin, a priestess of Ghaunadaur was summoned by Jur'Heer. She was blind in one eye and badly burned. She wore a gold mask over her face and appeared to be fairly off her rocker.

Reinward, who always liked to annoy people when he first met them, (perhaps making sure  everyone disliked him from the start saved a lot of time later on, I don't know) made a  joke about her withered left hand. 'Is that your strong hand?' he asked. She looked straight through him.

After an hour or so of preparation they all head off to the ruined castle of Dark Lord Vengariss. Xama Niriwin led the way, keeping to the back alleys and turning undead away when required to do so.

She waited at the entrance while they snuck in. Using their various invisibility magics they made it all the way to the castles central hall where Vengariss dwelled.

The Dark Lord was on his throne, accompanied by his two daughters and protected by two score of skeletal warriors. They were deciding which of their captives to drink from first - there were two dark elves and a dark dwarf.

Reinward attempted to sneak into the hall, and managed to make it past some of the guards before he was detected. One of the daughters, a vampire and a bard, cast Daylight and the rogue's location was revealed to all as it dispelled his Deeper Darkness magic.

At this point Fenrir, who had been floating up in the rafters, started raining destruction down on the guards, destroying four with his first blast.

Vengariss took up a large crossbow and fired at Reinward, who then re-cast Deeper Darkness and tried to hide again. But again, the bard cast Daylight, again revealing Reinward's location, lurking amongst the skeletons.

The rogue, angry at his stealth plan failing, ran up behind the bard and stabbed her in the back, a magically-aided strike that sent her down onto the floor. As she tried to turn into gas and escape, Reinward attempted to shoot her in the heart, hoping that a  crossbow bolt would be the same as a stake. He missed her heart though and she was able to escape a moment later.
 
Meanwhile Fenrir had blown all the skeletons to bits and had finished off Vengariss to boot. The wily old vampire turned into a gas though, and made his escape through a crack in the floor.

Not having any great desire to go hunting around the castle for the vampires' coffins they searched the hall instead and found the magical key that they needed as well as some other valuable treasures.

The vampire's 'food' skulked out of the hall.