Hel report 29/01/112
Griffinwold company:
Pthr Capt Helyanwe commanding
Gd Sgt Ivan Romanov
Gd Cpl Gerrard Knight
Patrol:
Wdn Lt Magma 2IC
Paladin Archer
HW Barel
HW Archibald
Marshal Bartholemew
Rose
Humacti Redferne & Apprentice
To Over-Captain Jameson
For the record, I will reiterate the details of our discussion about the patrol on Sunday 29 January in writing. I briefed the assigned patrol at Griffin Keep, also taking along Sergeant Romanov, and Corporal Knight as requested. We took FRAN to outside Little Britton and walked the short distance to Langhurst. We found Humacti Redferne and his apprentice at the village, following up undead sightings.
After confirming with the headman, no further villagers had entered the woods, I left Marshal Bartholemew speaking to the surviving woodsman whilst I went on into the Longwood to check for tracks.
The tracks I found at the forest edge crossroads were real enough and worrying similar to those of the soul catcher/gruffalo killed a year or so ago.
I returned to the patrol to advise of my findings and hear of theirs. Barel advised us she had heard the Gamesmaster's voice saying he was nearby. The villagers, or at least their children, had identified the creature as being the 'grusolog' which supposedly killed liars. Apparently this is what the villagers had been teaching their children about to get them to behave.
Humacti Redferne briefed us on the lich Kaltash who was said to be in the area. The local villagers had been having dreams/nightmares of hordes of undead coming from the forest and there was mention of a local temple with a nearby graveyard. If Humacti Redferne hasn't already arranged for this to be consecrated, I would suggest this is made a high priority. In fact, we should probably ensure all the graveyards in the Griffinwold area are checked, given the Gamesmaster's predelicition for necromancers.
As we proceeded through the wood, we encountered a group of skeletons which turned out to be illusionary - they vanished when struck leaving no tracks. At this point Humacti Redferne began to hallucinate, seeing the rest of the patrol group as undead - to his credit, rather than attacking foolishly he separated from us. This illusion/hallucination spread across the rest of the group, and I will confess it was a disconcerting experience but I am familiar enough with the Gamesmaster to pay it little attention. Other patrol members experienced individual illusions/hallucinations of friends in danger or similar.
After we had entered some distance into the wood only encountering these illusions, we finally came across a real creature - apparently this 'grusolog.' In appearance it was almost identical to the gruffalo but it was considerably weaker and a relatively minor threat.
We reached the bowl shaped depression and found an obsidian orb in the centre, which matched the one in Barel's vision. An Archon turned up (allegedly possessing a willing justice priest) and claimed to be the one who had rescued Barel from her previous vision. He told us his deity, Raziel?, wanted to help us and advised we would need to go into orb, which was some kind of shadow realm, and destroy the copy of the orb we would find within in order to be able to destroy this orb.
Lt Magma struck the orb and vanished. The Archon explained touching it would take us within and clearly a blow counted. I quickly arranged for rest of patrol to follow and was the fifth person through, sending Gerrard, Archer and Ivan directly after Lt Magma to secure the area on the other side before the more fragile members of the patrol arrived.
We appeared in the midst of a battle. I saw a small group surrounded by others, who were wielding powers of chaos and anarchy. Lt Magma and the others had already taken the side of the defenders and, once the battle was over, he advised he and Gerrard had both arrived within their defensive ring.
The defenders identified themselves as the 'Rebellion' and their opponents as the 'Horde.' Some interesting reactions to names and preliminary guess this place was mirror to our Barony based on dream/nightmare versions where counterparts had chosen differently.
Among leaders of enemy (The Horde) were vampires of Nab McFeegle and Lomax, also Archer as anti-paladin.
High Wizard Barel again heard the Gamesmaster's voice and he told her there were two 'races' within the orb; one of good people and the others evil, and by destroying the orb we would be committing genocide. Aside from my duty to protect our Barony/Kingdom citizens over these strangers, I did point out it wasn't possible to commit genocide on imaginary people.
Humacti Redferne consecrated the bodies of the fallen and we fought our way to resistance's camp through mirror-Archer and some others.
Although those we travelled with had been friendly (probably due to our having saved their lives) those at the camp were initially hostile to Rose (cf. Dark Rose) and Archer. I did not reveal our true identities to the active commander of the camp - Hedge (cf. Frostwolves) and instead explain we were travelling with the Humacti to fight the 'Horde' and consecrate the fallen.
I agreed to assist them in a planned attack on Kaltash who was preparing to carry out a major necromantic ritual on the far side of the forest, presuming this was part of the Gamesmaster's plan with the orb. We suspect he was planning to create large numbers of undead within the orb which would become real once they left it.
We fought more of the Horde as we travelled back through to our arrival point. The Gamesmaster turned up towards end of the fight - bringing mirror-Caled back to life to fight again and then as death knight. Gerrard was mouthy at the Gamesmaster who killed Barel.
Using either a casting I have not seen before or an innate ability, he threw us into nightmares. High Wizard Archibald came around first and cleared the rest of our minds: we believe approximately 2 or 3 minutes had passed. Upon regained awareness, I saw a woman in a purple dress and sunglasses (alleged this Melody reported previously) was arguing with the Gamesmaster. The discussion appeared to revolve around her having been his wife but not now.
Turning his attention back to the patrol, a rapier appeared in his hands which he claimed to be Chance. When asked how he had acquired it, he told us he had brainwashed the Bladesinger assigned to protect Pathfinder Dem to remove the sword (he alleged s/he was the child Dem fathered in Bader aged to adulthood, possibly on the plane of shadow).
Apparently satisfied the Gamesmaster left and Rose began to resurrect Barel with Melody's assistance (there was some discussion about soul fragments which they could probably explain better). We then stopped for our priests to regain power and the Gamesmaster turned up again. Despite having just been resurrected, Barel decided to be special which the Gamesmaster took out on Gerrard, but then reversed (someone will need to check if Gerrard actually died, I think it unlikely the Gamesmaster could/would have resurrected him but we know he can heal). In an effort to distract his attention from our less stable patrol members, Redferne drew the Gamesmaster into a philosophical discussion about necromancy.
We faced a few small groups, some claiming to be mercenaries, clearly just intended to delay us before ve finally pushed through out of the forest. The final group we faced including two death knights, a banshee (although I did not hear any screams), and a lich (presumably Kaltash) who was audibly performing a ritual with the Gamesmaster's assistance.
I got Redferne to push through to the lich as we hit their line but was not able to keep track of his battle as there were several human cultists to deal with.
I refused to fight the Gamesmaster (I know he would only retribute blows) and surprisingly he walked away. Unfortunately treating him like a small child having a tantrum and ignoring him completely is unlikely to work in the long run - although he did apologise for striking me later in the battle.
We destroyed the cultists and other unliving whilst Redferne battled the lich. The Gamesmaster killed one of the cultists himself, although I am not sure what they did to annoy him. The Gamesmaster was collecting blood for the ritual (those selections I heard were 'holy man' - I believe from Redferne or Archer; 'immortal' - from myself and 'innocent' - which he tried to collect from Rose, I am unsure if he succeeded). He was unable to get to the orb before we destroyed it.
As the orb-plane disintergrated, the Gamesmaster challenged Barel for the return of her soul. He will have a box delivered to her, a week from that conversation, and if she returns it to him within a further week unopened he will return her soul. He gave assurances the box will not force her or others to open it, nothing inside the box will cause harm and none of his followers will open the box. I appreciate Lt Magma and others' thoughts in seeking clarifications and, despite not knowing the way the Gamesmaster works, they probably did more good than harm but they did cause the Gamesmaster GM to close some loopholes we could have exploited. He implicitly stated the box is not the same as the one which contained the 7 Deadly Sins but did suggest it would affect Barel's behaviour.
We found ourselves back in the Griffinwold outside Langhurst and the Gamesmaster did not follow.
Personnel evaluations:
Lt Magma - vast improvement on previous behaviour. useful castings - si
Sgt Romanov - solid fighter as always
Cpl Knight - some issues in mouthing off at GM but within patrol solid fighter etc
Points to note:
GM aware of connection with Barel (dreams). She should be kept somewhere secure.
Melody confirm GM not lying about having reclaimed Chance from Pthr Dem
Should speak to Redferne re Kaltash - GM ensured he was destroyed so will have returned to phylactery - can we warn Bader as GM may have smuggled phylactery through?
Send Pthr at first light into Longwood to check for orb
Speak to ToJ about Archon (Kushiel?)