Prospectus Logs #20: Vengeance Screams the Chicken Mage +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Back to Prospectus Locus and the lions that stalk its night. Also, old | | secrets buried beneath its foundation, and how even mud gods must be | | worshiped. Finally, squawks of vengeance. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Dramatis Personae: Albus of Tytalus Annoyed Magus (Shannon Appel) Berengarius of Criamon Chicken Magus (Eric Rowe) Frangere of Tremere Fighter Magus (Eric Fulton) Larissa of Mercere Messenger Maga (Kevin Wong) Risus of Criamon Confused Magus (Dave Woo) Viator of Jerbiton Nice Magus (Dave Pickering) Xanti Ex. Misc. Shaman Magus (John Tomasetti) Aubrin of Merinita Elder Magus Drake of Bjornaer Elder Magus Aitor Basque Grog Francis French Grog Hufar Moorish Grog Jean-Claude French Grog Julian French Grog Michelle French Grog Roger-Tien French Grog Steven Crusader Groga Torp Faerie Grog Vicent French Grog Mud Men Dirty Faeries White Lions Stone Statues Gamemaster: Chris Van Horn - * - Other Records as recorded by Lucindia the Seneschal June 14, 1216 Larissa of Mercere, a non-gifted redcap, has arrived at Prospectus Locus petitioning for membership. She has been asked to remain a week before a vote is taken. - * - Albus' Dialogues June 16, 1216 Late Evening Back at home. Sad to say the homecoming was most annoying. Tried to enter the covenant proper and rebounded as if off an invisible wall. It took me a minute to realize, but it seems the Aegis is repelling me. I was able to toss the amulets through but still couldn't pass through myself. On a scale of 1 to 10 I rate it as very annoying. Hopefully all will be well when I participate in the ritual again this winter. Until then, well. I've taken up quarters with Fabricarious outside the Aegis. In these less than ideal conditions I shall begin Tara's second season of instructions tomorrow. Fabricarious is a very gracious host. - * - Drake's Diary 17 June, 1216 AD It seems that young Berengarius has a temper, as he exhibited upon my lion statue this morning. I was happily studying it, trying to delve into its deepest mysteries, when he suddenly presented himself in my courtyard and began attacking the lion with a maul. After taking notes for a while, I of course decided to help and soon we had smashed my lion in two. I suppose that will probably end my study of it, alas. When he was done, Berengarius explained that the lion had trampled his chicken coop and killed his chickens in the night, and then he went and got that Ex. Misc. to assure himself that his chickens were avenged. Note to myself: prepare to fastcast if Berengarius gets mad at self. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "He is a mighty cock, no chicken at all." | | -Viator, on Berengarius | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ - * - Aubrin's Memoirs June 18, 1216 It seems that this lion will be no end of troubles, for when we woke this morning we found that it had reconstituted itself, and this time had crawled up atop our faerie tower. There is an interesting addenda as well, though, for when Risus saw the lion crouched atop the tower, he suddenly recognized it, and said he had seen it atop our tower in the faerie regio that he visited last year, which was no doubt a reflection of our tower in ancient times. I now suspect the lion may be Mercurian. We have had the lion broken apart again and scattered, and we will watch those pieces tonight, so that we may learn more of its regenerative powers and of its locomotion, and also ensure that it does not kill any more pets... or grogs, or magi, I suppose +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "I don't have the heart to tell him I keep destroying | | his shit and reforming a lion every night." | | -Viator, on practical jokes | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ - * - Aubrin's Memoirs June 18, 1216 Much later, in fact it's probably June 19 by now though I don't know for sure. I was awoken just a short time ago by screams and shouts coming from the garden, and when I ran down there I was much surprised to see Berengarius leading an attack upon the now-animate lion. He was yelling and screaming about vengeance for his dead chickens, and there were a number of grogs attacking the beast, and even Frangere was in their swinging at the beast. It seemed to be to no avail, however, for whenever the greatest blows struck the beast blue sparks would shield it, and then it would be unhurt. Fortunately, Michelle had the sense to call the grogs off just as I arrived, realized that the lion was only striking out in defense. Vicent was hurt, but the rest of the grogs seemed all right. I had the grogs form a line before me, then I threw a pilum of flame at the lion, and I am pleased to say that that hurt it. The lion panicked and fled into my tower, and I eventually had to cast spells to determine it had fled into the basement. I saw nothing at first glance, so I have decided to block the entrance to the cellar until morning, then we can deal with the beast when it is inanimate once more. - * - Aubrin's Memoirs June 19, 1216 The day has been vastly more busy than I could have expected, and I have discovered new secrets of the covenant where I have dwelled for seventy-five years. It began this morning when we went down to the cellar of our grand tower to find our missing lion and remarkably discovered it was not in there! Torp tracked it to what looked like a solid wall, and I soon discovered that the wall was magical and only those strong in magic could pass. Berengarius and I went through the wall and we found a secret room filled with mud, and no sooner had we entered then mud men burst up from the dirty pool and tried to drag us down. I quickly spelled my way to freedom, and then had to help Berengarius out as well. With a little research I discovered that mundanes could be helped through the wall by a sufficiently Vimish magus, and so I prepared a force of warriors to burst through the wall and face these foes hidden deep within the bowels of our covenant. In three waves we went in, eight warriors leading the way, then myself, Berengarius, Risus and Frangere. A melee erupted, my grogs and the mud men sparred, and I even slew one with a pilum of flame. Soon they were in full retreat, dropping beneath the surface of the mud. I tried to harden the mud with flames then, but soon found it was very deepq and that we stood atop some type of platform with stairs going down and deep and viscous mud filling the whole area. I had by this time realized that the mud men were faeries, though a particularly traitorous breed, and so I opted to talk to them. As with so many faeries, these were lost in their past, and they blamed us for killing their mud god. I have heard rumor of such a being beneath a church in Mantiun, and I tried to explain that we had not been here when Mantiun was founded six hundred years before, but the mud men were obstinate. I finally decided to call a conference outside, so that we could discuss the mud men situation beyond their hearing, whether to kill them or let them go. With the help of the magi we all moved back beyond the magical wall. When we returned a few minutes later to offer some sort of truce, the mud men attacked us again, this time from ambush. It was a very grave mistake on their part, and soon mud men parts were flying in all directions. They were dagnerous foes, I must admit, and Jean-Claude and Julian came very close to choking to death upon gullets of mud, but in the end the mud men were once more in full retreat. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "That was an error, bag of money." | | -Viator, on Hermetic economics | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Viator had ceased to be amused by their antics by this time, and so he set up a pair of wardings, one approximately 9 paces away from us to keep the mud men in, and another 7 paces away to keep them out. The fleeing mud men were caught between the two circles, and they faced us with a new desperation. That was when they showed their last trick, flowing together to form one great mud man. They tried to burst through Viator's inner ward then, to wreck vengeance upon us, but they failed for they still were too weak. I had ceased to be amused by the mud men's antics by this time too, and so I flamed the giant man of mud into little bits of hardened dirt. At least three mud men got away in the all the chaos, but by my estimation nine of the murderous little faeries met their doom. We spent several hours clearing out mud after that and found the lion statue buried deep beneath. The mud men had declared that they were imprisoning it, as if we cared, but that was not all, for two more lion statues also were hidden there. So then there were three. There was all manner of other interesting material in the room, much of which we will have to investigate at a future time. An iron door stands on the opposite side, but it is magic and locked, so we choose not to mess with it yet. We also found a statue of a bull with a wound, from which scorpions and snakes seemed to swarm; a painting of a warrior with a spear; the broken wing of an eagle; and a stone map of a city near an island, with tower, roads, and statues all mapped--clearly a map of our covenant far in the past. There was also a stairway leading down to another room, but the room it opened onto was tiny and knee-deep in water. Finally, the magical wall through which we had entered had some manner of magical wardings upon it--intended to keep certain magical beings without, it seems. By this time Berengarius was howling again about wanting to kill the lion, only demanding to slay one of the three I should note, and I decided to call a council meeting, for I had grown wary, fearing that the statues might be a result of Mercurian magic, and perhaps part of what keeps the faerie regio atop our covenant warded. Everyone was at the council but Forticulus and Albus, the first because he is still away at Interritus, the second because he can not enter the covenant. There was some discussion about whether to move the council meeting to Albus, but eventually he gave his sigil to Fabricarious to end the whole discussion. Since Berengarius has finished his study of Arabic things, we welcomed him as a full member, and then turned to the more important issue, regarding the lions. Berengarius suggested destroying one, but there was no second on this issue. Viator suggested imprisoning them while Drake finishes studying them, and this was accepted. I have assigned Lucindia to deal with this trivial matter of imprisoning the statues. There was one last issue, most peculiar, which is Lorum suggested that each magi be required to keep a pet. This issue was defeated, but only because I broke the tie as elder of the covenant. - * - Other Records as recorded by Lucindia the Seneschal June 22, 1216 By councilic vote, Larissa of Mercere is now an associate member of Prospectus Locus. - * - Aubrin's Memoirs June 28, 1216 After over a week of trials and tribulations, Drake has finally managed to pin down the lions. They were most annoying at first, eating away at iron bindings and destroying other traps we set for them, but we eventually discovered that they seemed unable to get out of water, the only exception being that when we put all three together in the Roman Bath they were able to escape. Now, however, we have the three lions seperated and immersed in water, and they seem unable to move. Drake seems to be very much enjoying himself, doing his researches out in the Bath House. I fear he may ask to move his labs there permanently.