You may have noticed that in the last few logs I've divided events by date. This is because I can't always accurately track events during a session, therefore I use the session logs to place things into the correct time frame and to correct errors such as 11 hours passing instead of the actual 35 that did pass.
The session log also only reflects what happens from the player perspective - there are often other events happening involving the other NPC's that the players may never become aware of - these are generally reflected in the diary of the appropriate NPC(s) [when I've written them ].
Charity is the first to recover and decides to bring up the pattern to scry through the door. It takes her much longer than usual and makes her headache worse - but ultimately she gets nowhere - the interferance from the Fount is too great.
By this point most of the others have recovered so she decides to open the doors. As the righthand door swings open two figures hove into view - one in a late 18th Grenadiers Uniform, with additional Silver Rose Motif and the second in a early style medieval unifom with a plumed collar made from what appear to be peacock feathers.
The first she just about recognises from his trump - it's Corwin. The second she hasn't a clue about. With a little prompting Corwin introduces the second figure as Quatzoquatl, the Serpent.
There's a brief exchange between Corwin and the Serpent, after which Corwin takes Cordelia aside to talk to her for a few minutes, after which he disappears. Meanwhile the Serpent, Charity,Allagahn, and Isla have reached the other end of the Gallery, and Alfred has wizard locked the enrty doors.
The Serpent, Charity, Allagahn, and Isla enter the Fount chamber and then have to wait for Cordelia and Alfred to arrive. The serpent tells Cordelia to wait at the base of the steps to the Fount and remove her sword and pack. She hands these to Charity.
He then begins the ritual, enscribing runes on the floor in much the same order as Sorcha did at the Unicorn Grove. Once the warding net has formed he instructs Cordelia to mount steps and enter the fount. She hesitates at the top of the stairs, then steps into the energy stream. She's flung about, eventually hanging motionless in the stream about 50m above their heads. She appears to be unconscious.
The serpent then begins the main part of the ritual. He walks clockwise, anticlockwise, clockwise, clockwise, anticlockwise, clockwise around the fount reciting a set of phrases. He then stands and begins the final set. As he does so the energy stream begins to darken and shrink. By the time he's halfway through the set the stream is deepest black and only reaches half way to the ceiling, some 150m away. It continues to shrink with each word that's spoken.
As he speaks the last word there's a sort of eruption of powers, wind, lightening, rain, ice, sand, stone, and finally a huge fireball. As the fireball clears a huge bird, its head touching the ceiling stands on the fount, Cordelia easily laying below its huge taloned feet.
The Phoenix greets everyone and thanks its brother for his work. He seems to know that his presence signifies a state of events have been reached. He indicates that he has work to do, spreads his wings and leaves through the roof. The serpent has a few words with Charity before it also leaves.
Charity retrieves the unconscious Cordelia from the fount. She looks dead, but Orac determines she is infact alive. Charity Trumps Deirdre and passes Cordelia to her.
The party then make their way back to the entrance hall. Charity then receives a Trump call from Merlin. Apartenlty his troops are in combat with any army of demons advancing on Ygg, is there any way she can help?
Ending the call she selects her Ygg trump, opens a gate and sends, Alfred and Allagahn through to take a look. They can't see anything immediately but decide to talk to Ygg and scan the surrounding shadows respectively. Charity closes the gate and says she'll ring back.
Allagahn finds nothing in is scan and decides to test the Gaus rifle whilst waiting for Alfred to finish talking to Ygg. It doesn't work very well. He thinks he may need to adjust it for the shadow he's in.
Charity re-establishes the trump gate and Allagahn retrives Alfred from his tree hugging.
With no evidence of a rampaging army they decide to try and retrive the Book of Selheim. Isla prepares an invisibility spell to Alfred's specification, Allagahn tweaks the Gaus rifle so it works, and Charity does a preliminary Pattern seach to get a better location for the book.
Once Isla completes her spell, casting it on Allagahn, he sets off based on Charity's description of the location of the book. He finds he has to open doors to enter and exit guard rooms pre and post each stair case, all of which slows him down. He descends two floors before he encounters any guard rooms that are occupied, and adopts as quick an entry and exit as possible strategy. Two more floors and he passes the main exit unaware of that is where it is, descending three more floors before he realises he's gone wrong. He retraces his path to find a group of demons surrounding the door to the main entrance hall. With only a few seconds remaining on the invisibility spell, he shoots his way into the entrance hall and out into the courtyard. resistance is still disorganised and he makes it about 70% the way across to courtyard, before he's forced to shoot more demons. Unfortunately he hasn't eyes in the back of his head and is hit by a fireball spell, knocking out the flight capability of his armour which hasn't fully recovered yet. He shoots his way into the Keep's Manor House, avoiding another fireball. He makes the first floor landing, and shoots several more demons ascending the stairs, as he crosses the gallery. Picking the first door, he takes a large demon by surprise, knocking it back into the room. It recovers quickly and throws him across the room. He attempts to shoot it, eventually managing to score a decent hit. Enraged the demon leaps across the room at him, he manages to get two more telling hits, one as its in the air and the other as it crashes into him, rendering him unconscious.
Back in the entrance hall the others are begining to worry about the amount of time it's taking Allagahn. Alfred thinks he hears the sound of approaching feet and redies himself to open the door - the freds ready balls of abyssal energy to deal with any persuers Allagahn may have. When the door is flung open Alfred is sent flying, and the freds throw their energy balls obliterating part of the door way and the demon responsible for opening the door. Alfred chucks his racked fireball into the room and the fred's finish off the immediate threat. Charity activates the trump of the Keep entrace and they all exit the Keep.
It's pretty quite outside and the cool air is refreshing. Four guards realising the threat close on the emerged party as the main gates swing open. Charity draws Cordelia's sword and charges two of them. She's surprised at how much better it cuts than her old sword that Allagahn borrowed. As the gates open and demons swarm out Isla unleashes a lighting bolt temporarily clearing the gateway. The two freds take out the other two demons.
The party charge towards the gatehosue, Isla throwing a fireball to clear a route towards the Manor house. As Charity attempts to decide whether they can make it, resistance is being organised immediately in front of it, demons emerge from the Keep gatehouse. The freds move in to cover their retreat. Charity decides they don't have enough combat firepower to reach the manor house and orders a retreat. Once outside she pulls out the trump sketch of Elysium she made and activates it. They all return to the Fortress. She estimates they've been gone about 35 hours.
Whilst the other head for the Great hall and sleep, Charity pulls Deirdre's trump and goes to visit Cordelia. There's no change in her condition. Exhausted she decides to make use of one of the condo's other rooms.
Alfred wakes first and descends to the GreatHall. No one else is about. After about an hour Isla arrives followed by Sorcha. He relates what happened to Cordelia. He's surprised by Sorcha's reaction - he forgets she doesn't have the same view of Cordelia he does.
With no Cordelia, there's no fresh breakfast. Alfred heads off in search of some - after all there is an army being fed 24 hours a day. He returns bearing plates of food for the others. Isla adds the last of the wood to the fire.
Charity wakes in the comfort of the condo and checks on Cordelia before searching out breakfast. There's no change - she's still unconscious.
Whilst eating breakfast she gets a trump call. as she flips through her deck attempting to find out who it is, Fiona establishes the call. She asks for and gets updates on the events at the Keep and events involving Brand. Based on this information sshe removes the trump block at Carnelian. She also informs Charity that Benedict has gone to Ygg as requested.
It's dark, warm, humid, and difficult to breath, when Allagahn eventually comes to. He works out his dificulty in moving or breathing is caused by the fact he appears to be burried under a pile of shale. He's also not wearing his armour.
It takes him about 3 hours and a great deal of effort to dig himself out. Very tired he manages to shadow walk a short distance where he falls into a fitful sleep for a couple of hours. Woken by the cold he shadow walks again acquiring the means to pay for a bath, meal, and room for the night when he gets to the inn.
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