Vardian Log #4: The Lost Lab

Season: Summer 1199

The Players:

Angus						Magus		(Don)
Aquilonius					Magus		(Shannon)
Carlo						Grog
Demorar						Magus		(Billy)
Durus						Magus		(Eric)
Meles						Magus		(Dave)
Myrta						Warrior		(Dave)
Tiro						Magus		(Chris)

**
** From the Diary of Aquilonius

I never thought that it would be a Bonisagus magus who would show me
a new method for dealing with problems, but it was.  Through his
rash actions, Angus has shown me that by causing two evil-hearted
people to come into conflict with each other, rational people can
only win.

Before coming to Vardian's Tomb, I steeled myself for the internal
conflicts that I had heard of.  I had decided that it would be worth
it, to have access both to the wonderful labs here, and to be
able to take quick jaunts up to Rome above, and speak with the
Mundanes.

But, some of the magi at this Covenant just seem to go beyond all bounds
of normalcy.  When we chanced Vardian's Stand last year, Durus, a fellow
Ex Miscellanea magi, showed me that he was not above lying and
manipulation.  Earlier this year, when Angus briefly helped the magi who
had gone to Verdi to recover Ferramentum's vis detector, he showed his
contempt for others when he almost killed Diavoli with a Perdo Corporem
spell.  Two bad apples in our Covenant's tree, and they have brought
about a new way of thinking for me.

It began simply enough.  Tiro and I were taking a walk around the caverns,
chatting, and I came upon some of Durus' damned mushrooms.  Now I admit, it
was a bit childish, but I reached down to destroy them, quickly intoning
the spell that I had created just for that purpose.  I was truly amazed
when the mushrooms bounced my spell.  The mushrooms had Parma Magicas, and
my first, somewhat irrational, thought was that Durus was breeding
mushrooms specifically designed to foil me.  I went into something of a
rage, and when my vision finally cleared again, there were pieces of
crushed mushrooms all over the cavern.  With Tiro along, the story soon
became known throughout the entire Covenant.

The next thing I knew, Durus was claiming that the Parma-ed mushrooms
were indeed his doing.  I was still somewhat annoyed, but finally
decided to go back to my lab work.  Then, a few days later, a grog
disappeared.

In Vardian's Tomb, missing grogs occur with some frequency, due to the
hundreds of miles of passages all around us.  However, this was not your
usual disappearance.  The other grogs who had been with Carlo insisted
that he had been picked up and carried away by a wave.  Being a friend of
most of the grogs, including Carlo, I quickly volunteered to go out and
seek him.  Durus insisted that Carlo was a friend of his too, and went
along to spite me, no doubt.  Tiro quickly joined as us well, looking for
the latest gossip, as usual, while Angus came along hoping to kill
something.  On our way out, we grabbed Myrta, a warrior newly arrived at
the Covenant, just in case we needed physical power on this expedition.

Setting out, we soon came upon the small stagnant pond where Carlo had
disappeared.  It looked utterly normal, and definitely didn't try to
grab any of us.  Angus decided to destroy it, just to be on the safe
side, and started Perdo-ing the pond.  Some others thought this a poor
idea, and within a few seconds, a magical war was centered around the
water, as Perdo and Creo spells were quickly cast.

Finally, the bickering fools came to their senses, we determined that
the pond was just a pond, and we journeyed in the direction that Carlo
had apparently been borne by the water.  A short distance down the
passage, we found Carlo's bloated and dead body.  I was a bit upset.
The deceiver Durus showed fake remorse at this time as well.  Myrta
hefted the body, and we continued on, hoping to come face-to-face
with what had murdered our grog.

A short while later, we came to a cavern with no unblocked exits.  As
we began to search around, hoping to find the murderous beast, Angus
once again showed his lack of regard for others and destroyed Carlo's
body.  We were all quick shocked when Angus began to scrape it into
an envelope, explaining that it would be much easier to carry in this
form.

I am not sure if Durus was actually showing rare kindness, or simply wanted
to continue his charade of having befriended Carlo.  In any case, he
challenged Angus to Certamen, saying that if he won, Angus would never
Perdo anything without his direct permission, unless it was a direct
threat to Angus' life.  Angus began to carefully contemplate his 
conditions.

Meanwhile, Myrta had been snooping around the cavern, ignoring
this "wizard stuff," looking for the thing which had killed Carlo.
And he found it.  As Durus and Angus faced each other, considering
their impending Certamen, Myrta and I found myself in a desperate
battle for our lives with a humanoid looking creature which seemed
to be composed entirely of water.  Myrta seemed quite afraid of it,
and I suddenly found myself facing it with my great sword instead
of my spells.

Angus, who had been carefully comtemplating his conditions for the
Certamen finally took notice of our battle, and while I held it off was
able to nearly destroy it with Perdo Aquam spells.  Unfortunately, the
creature of water was able to turn into a stream of water and flee us.

And we returned to waiting for Angus for his decisions.  And we waited.
Finally, Durus gave Angus a five minute time limit, which Angus
acknowledged.  Five minutes later, Angus still was pretending to
consider his conditions, and Durus took matters into his own hands.

**
** From The Peripheral Code of the Order of Hermes

938th year of Aries.  Certamen is to be respected as a means of settling
disputes decisively.  In certamen, the challenger must first choose and
state the technique to be used, and the defender must then choose the
form.  Any magus refusing to engage in Certamen or refusing to abide by
the results of Certamen is betraying the spirit of the code and is to be
punished.  Those who refuse to accept Certamen challenges, therefore, or
refuse to abide by the decision of a Certamen may suffer more violent
coercion by the offended magus and shall be punished by their Tribunal.

**
** From the Diary of Aquilonius

Durus had decided that Angus was avoiding the Certamen all together,
and decided to coerce Angus more violentally.  He cast a Crystal
Dart at Angus, proclaiming that he would continue to throw spells
until Angus gave his conditions, and thus accepted the Certamen.

Angus turned around, and with a quick gesture of his hands, and
several rapidly intoned words crushed Durus' heart.  We looked on
in shock once again, as Angus proclaimed that his action was in
self defense.  He said that he thought that he would be killed
if Durus continued to throw spells such as the one which had
bounced off his Parma.  Tiro and I quickly decided that the time
had come to return to the Covenant.  With what seemed a smirk,
Angus disintigrated Durus' body, and scooped the askes up into
another container, setting them next to Carlo's remains.

I can not say that I am too saddened by Durus' death, and he had
shown in the past how untrustworthy he was.  And, as I mentioned
before, this has brought me to a new way of thinking.  Through
no doing of my own, two evil-hearted people, Angus and Durus
fought.  The result was quite pleasant, in that one of them was
removed.  If this could be repeated many times, I think that
the world would be a much better place.

After these events, we returned to the Covenant, and at once called upon
Demorar to make a decision in this matter.  Some in the Covenant wanted
Angus destroyed at once, for killing another Magus, while some (myself
included, but that was due to me dislike of Durus) thought that he was
utterly justified.

**
** From the Code of Hermes

I will not slay nor attempt to slay any member of the Order, except in
justly executed and formally declared Wizard's War.

**
** From the Diary of Aquilonius

After hours of arguing and giving testimony, Demorar finally made his
decision.  He decided that both parties had shown poor judgement, but
that Angus had indeed killed another magus, and he issued a judgement
that was truly the equivalent of death for Angus.  He proclaimed that
the Perdo part of Angus' gift would be destroyed.  Angus at once
declared that he wished to appeal this matter to Magvillus, the Domus
Magnus of House Quaesitor.

After much debating, however, we finally decided that we must deal with
the present problem first, for this was still one more murderous creature
roaming our caverns.  And careful deliberation, we decided that Angus
would be allowed to go along with us, despite his questionable future
because he had been quite useful when combatting the creature before.
Our brave warrior, Myrta did not wish to accompany us, however.  He
had apparently gained a great fear of water which he was unable to
break.  I have heard that he has not again drunk water to this day,
and his constantly inebriated state seems to hold up that claim.

Just as we were about the leave the Covenant, Meles joined us.  The
Criamon had heard what had happened and thought it all sounded quite
interesting, and wanted to join us.  Numbering one less, we set out
to finish dealing with this disturbing problem.

We rapidly returned to the Cavern where we had fought the creature
before, and began to destroy the rocks which blocked the passage
through which it had escaped.  After we had finally cleared the way,
we began to use Intellego spells, and once again tracked the creature,
until we finally came to it's lair.  We found a large cavern with one
wall collapsed.  Beyond the collapsed wall was what had to be the
Sanctum of a wizard.

We walked in through what had been a wall of this laboratory, and began
to look around.  The lab looked like it had been abandoned for over
a hundred years, and we all assumed that the wizard must be long dead.
We were quite happy to see that several of the books had survived the
ages.

Across the lab from the wall that we had entered through was a door,
and we were preparing to investigate through it when the water beast
suddenly attacked again, coming from where it had been hidden, in a crack
in the wall.

Like all battles, the next few minutes were chaotic.  Spells began to fly.
The crack through which entered was quickly sealed, so that it could
not escape.  Meles cast a Mentem spell at it, to make it afraid of me
(Tiro and I were both quite near the beast).  Tiro and Meles both
cast spells to make themselves look like me, hoping that the beast would
thus fear all of us.  Angus began casting Perdo Aquam spells at it.

Suddenly the beast threw itself at Tiro, forming into a puddle around
his legs, and slowly creeping up them.  Tiro led out a scream, and we
all heard bones break, as the beast moved upwards.  Tiro was barely
moving, and I threw myself at the creature, hoping desperately that
Meles' spell had indeed worked.

I let out a sight of relief as the creature flowed away from me.  I
heard yet another Perdo Aquam from behind me, and the beast finally
died.

Tiro was badly hurt, but we were still determined to quickly finish
ransacking this lab before we left.  Beyond the door, we found another
cavern, with a well in the middle.  A little bit of experimentation showed
us that the water from the well could grant a temprary Parma Magica of the
fourth rank.  No doubt, the water creature had somehow caried some of this
water forth, thus explaining the puzzling mushrooms.

Moving through the lab, we found a number of items of value, including
a small silver block with a gem on it, five surviving books, three of
which were magical, a cloak, some rat bones and a silver chain.  We
also collected the remains of the creature, which were no doubt vis.
However, something was causing our Intellego spells to fail badly,
and we could not tell what exactly was magical and what was not.
We finally left, deciding to experiment with these items in more
familiar territory.

Just as we left, Angus began fooling around with the silver box.
Suddenly, he dissapeared, causing the box which he had been holding
to fall to the ground.  As we investigated the box, we saw that the
gem which had been on it was gone.  Quite bizarre.  Many of us
thought Angus dead, and counted it as one problem solved.

However, before we had returned to the Covenant, Angus returned.
It seemed that the box was a magical device, and he had been in
it.  The gem was apparently a "key" to get in, and it disappeared
when one was inside.

Within the box had been a magus' body (from which we duly collected
vis) and a diary which told us the story of the magus who had owned
the lab, and of the mysterious box which we had found there.

The box was called the "Little House of Tranquil Dwelling," and it
was a very powerful magic item which the magus had enchanted.  When
someone touched the gem, it shrunk that person down, and transported
him into the box.  This effect lasted until Sunset, unless a pawn of
vis was expended, in which case it would last for a Moon.  Certain
magics inside the box kept the air fresh, and allowed anyone inside
to see out.  Finally, the House had powerful spells cast upon it
which befuddled Intellego spells.  The purpose of the box was to
hide from a Wizard's War.

The magus who made it had apparently been one of those who had
accompanied Flambeau.  He had had a falling out with one of his
peers, and used his box to go into hiding.  The other magus had
discovered the box, and burying it.  The magus inside the House
had been killed, because he had no where to go out to when he
was supposed to exit the box.

After our return to the Covenant, inspection of some of our other
treasures gave us some more information on our recent adventure.
One of the non-magical books told how to create an Ashai, which
was the water creature that we had fought.  It was apparently
a guardian beast, and when the wall had fallen, it had decided
that it must guard the entire caverns.  

The three magical books were all traps, while the other non-magical
book was a tome on Hermetic History, telling of Flambeau's attack
on the hedge wizards here.  
ïAfter discussion, we decided that the House was the joint property
of Tiro, Angus and myself.  We diced to see in whom's Sanctum it
would be stored.  I won, and it currently is sitting in my sanctum.

With this matter dealt with, a large number of us went off to
Magvillus, to speak for or against Angus.  After hearing us, the
magi decided that Angus was guilty of little more than bad judgement,
and punished him to be haunted by Durus' ghost for the rest of his
days.  I thought the punishment a bit easy, but I suppose that I can't
expect to remove all of the bad people from the Covenant in one day.

Nearly a season was wasted in going to Magvillus and back which irks
me no end.  Back to my studying.  I'm working on a new spell which
will increase my skill with my blade, so that next time I don't have
to simply hold a beast off while Angus kills it.