Game-Summaries:9/6/2019 Recollections

Recollections by Cassio

Cassio Lista's report to House of Fire's Highest Liandrin

Report:

Brother in arms Ci came to Dereth, Ember, and myself with news and rumors of the appearance of a Codex 30 miles west of Shanju Keep. Even if just a rumor, an item of such power falling in the wrong hands would be devastating to the Magistery and her people. We set out at once.

The travel there was uneventful, and 30 miles east of Shanjiu Keep we came upon a hunters lodge of sorts. Dereth informed us the Lodge was owned by a local noble family the Atillars who had inherited it from some merchant family of some note years ago. A quick scan of the perimeter showed a small gathering or party of other noble lords local to the area. We quickly formed a retinue in the guise of another noble family led by Master Ci to gain entrance to this lodge. We approached and infiltrated their ranks with no problems. That being said, I have not felt such a perversion of magic emanating from that lodge since the the fall of Solace. Something was very wrong about this place and if the rumors were true about the codex, it was good of us to come and cleanse this once noble house.

In order to gain entrance to the party we had to say something along the lines of how charming the house was. After all of us had complimented the abode we gained entrance to the party itself. We introduced ourselves to the current heads of house Atillar; Maximus and Crassus. After introductions were made we went to work gathering information. It is sad to say that even with my formidable senses granted to me by House Fire, once inside the location of this evil was impossible to detect. For the most part we split up as there as most of the nobles and party goers were very......courteous? Enamored i think is the better term. When we regrouped we had learned the following:

• The Lodge was home to 6 houses. Atillar, Regyth, Cogswatch, deVries, Zevane, and one we could not recognize.
• With our recent run ins with house Zevane it was fortunate they were not in attendance. Our cover may have been blown once i removed his head from his shoulders.
• The peasants were there for a great hunt the next morning. The quarry was to be a majestic Unicorn apparently native to this region but never spotted. Every year they are unsuccessful but the hunt happens regardless.
• Many of the noblemen and woman blamed the Magistery for Solace's horrors and troubles despite the fact we were the only ones defending the town.
• This hunting lodge used to belong to a great merchant family known as the Milners. Some many years ago they ran afoul of a white dragon which seemed to erase the rest of their line. The Atillars came in shortly after and slew the white dragon mounting it's head in this very lodge. The evil did not permeate from this trophy.

The party winding down, I was able to interrogate Maximus one on one when she invited me to spend the night with her. The battle was hard fought, and i somehow lost all my arms and armor but it is good to know age has not caught up with my yet! Though once the moon hung in the middle of the sky everyone seemed to get up and return to the main hall regardless of their state of clothing. It would appear Ci had similar success interrogating Crassus, Ember and Garnet patrolled the halls, and Dereth was found looking very uncomfortable in a growing sea of naked bodies.

Much to my surprise it would appear our gracious hosts were in fact more cultists of a sort (why is it always cultists who are drawn to me.....Cassio Cultlista?) and needless to say they begun to perform some dark ritual involving the slaughter of many of their younger noblemen. Naturally we went to the bloody work of protecting the people to find that our hosts Maximus and Crassus were not the humans that they appeared but a succubus and incubus pair. Despite my lack of arms, holy righteousness was reigned down on the two and they fled post haste upon receiving my holy might.

In the aftermath, while we tended to the confused and naked patrons, we discovered an entrance to the basement of the lodge. The basement was in fact the source of this ever present evil. Piles upon piles of bodies discarded down there from what we can only imagine was past hunts. and through our search we discovered Inugs buried deep within the corpses. After inquiring with him about the location of master coin (of which he was the last person seen with master coin), Inugs began a frantic search through the bodies and viscera. Some searching later we discover a ledger of some familiarity. A journal that had apparently been with coin through his journeys and had absorbed enough energies that it mimicked the signature and power of that of a Codex.

My companions read through the pages and heard tale of Coin's journey through Mithaniel Marr, and while he bid us not come find him, he obviously does not understand what it means to be in the eternal order. I went to Avernus and back for highest Liandrin, Coin will be found and brought home safe and sound.

Also Master Ci now has a unicorn.

End Report.

Recollections by Ci

My order has existed for millennia. We have survived cataclysms, wars, inquisitions, purges, and pogroms. We believe in a higher truth, reflected as if through a mirror darkly, in the many faiths and beliefs of Terra. Some truths we know. Some truths we believe. Others are just hinted yet, and have yet to reveal themselves. These things we know: there is love, and it is the core of all life. There is hate, and it is the companion of death. Good, evil, law, and chaos are all in service of these two ideas: life and death. To love is to serve life, to hate is to serve death. Some serve one master or another without ever realizing it. They kill and destroy, deluded that their are serving some higher good, or worse yet themselves only. Others choose the darker path, because they would rather rule in death, than serve in life. We met just such a two in the perverted halls of Atillar Keep

For those of my order, in which love is service to life, the act of love is not to be feared or shamed. It is something as natural as breathing and walking, to be honored and shared with those who may benefit. For the creatures that played at being Maximus and Crassus Atillar, even the act of love was rooted in hate. They used the promise of it, and the act of it to steal life in a ceremony they called a Blood Orgy, designed to fuel their Wild Hunt. The perversion of their ceremony was not in the joining of bodies but in the twisting of that joining to serve hate and death. In a way, I pity them, for though they use sex as a tool, and skilled in the practice if it (to which I can attest), they can never enjoy it. Never truly know what it means to give yourself completely to the joining with another. never truly know love. Our sage told me these creatures are known as Succubi and Incubi and they come from some of the lower planes. I pity them though because they are truly lost. They can never know love, and so are doomed to forever serve death.

In the end, we could do nothing to help them. We could only drive them off (though I wonder if they had stayed if we could have defeated them). We could only hallow the ground they had cursed, and seize their land on behalf of Shanjiu and the Magistery. We also found the Codex for which we had been hunting, much too dangerous to use, in my opinion, but MUCH too dangerous to remain in the wild. It turns out the codex was merely a reflection of a true codex, Coin's Journal, somehow imbued with the power of the Codex Mortalis. the paths Master Coin and his Journal must have traveled must be dark indeed to have absorbed such power merely by chance, if chance indeed it was. But Inugs returned to us, for that we may give thanks! And we also found hope, as one often does when one brings love to conflict. We had saved the object of their hunt... an Elder Unicorn named Eternia, and she has pledged her help to Shanjiu should we require it.

There is still much we do not know. What did the creatures Attliar hope to achieve by Eternia's death? How complicit have the allied houses been in the plan, in particular, Baron Zevane. But the servants of death have been thwarted, a mysterious and dangerous artifact has been denied our enemies, and a great ally has been recruited to our cause. AS always I will continue the Study. I will follow the Path. I will still serve life. As we say in my order, though the Paths are Many, the Mountain is One. The Mountain will Come.