Belinda's Page

Well I'm not actually up to much at the moment. What with having a full time job and helping Roj out with the Forge. Sad, isn't it?! I've just bought a motorbike again, after not having one for about 3 years. May liven things up a bit.

For those of you who don't know, I like Motorhead a lot. This is the address of their official site, should you want to visit it. You can even leave a message for Lemmy on the bulletin board and he'll reply to it - what more can a girl ask for out of life?
Official Motorhead site

Treasure Trap

The last time I went trapping was Sunday 13th Dec 1999! I also attended the banquet on Saturday 19th Dec which was quite good. This year's banquet will be held on 18th December, at the New Gueston Hall, Avoncroft again.
I also went to the tavern night run by Rob Thompson and Tim Barrett on Saturday 20th March 1999. I npc'd Agnetha, the landlady of the Wizard's Rest hostelry. It was lots of fun and I got to threaten to throw the Baron de Belleme out if he couldn't behave better and then later grapple with him after he assaulted one of my patrons. This was before he died properly at long last. Good stuff, however nothing more recent.

Gathering stuff:

I managed to get to both Moot's and the Gathering this year and also to Two Shadows, "A Celebration of Samhain" at Bell's Farm (at the end of October, oddly enough). I missed the OGC as all the tickets had gone.

Two Shadows:
A most noteable evening for the Fellowship, and not in a good way.
While we were at Enoch Bohenan and Maeve Gunnarsdottir's wedding celebrations, being held at the Maar's Folly Inn on Skald, various ghosts took the opportunity to appear, as it was Samhain. One of them took us very much by surprise, as it was Myra, who had been left alive and well at the Temple the previous day. I was in another part of the building initially, when Krystal came to tell me that Lance's wife had arrived. I thought at first that she meant Myra had physically arrived or that she was mistaken, but she insisted that it was a ghost and that it was Lance's wife. I rushed off to find out what was going on, to find out that it was indeed Myra's ghost and that Lance had bolted when he had seen her. Cerila had followed him. Vlad had upset Myra, by telling her that she hadn't finished her penance yet and to get herself back to the library of souls where she belonged. Obviously she was very upset about this, and it took a while for us to get her to tell us what had happened.
She had been on top of the Temple with her guards, in the observatory, watching Lance ride off (as she often does, apparently) when a hunter (a kind of powerful, winged creature that serves the White Hand) swooped in and grabbed her. We're not sure if it did something to the guards, but it was in and out very quickly. It carried Myra off to the White Hand, who wanted to know where their cauldron was. Myra didn't know and she was killed. (We have heard since that similar attacks took place elsewhere too. They obviously really want it back). The Fellowship all tooled up and headed back to the ritual circle, some 40 miles away on the other side of the island. We wanted more information about what had happened and to see if there was anything we could do about it. All left except Bremmen, and Enoch and Maeve were to follow us later.
We did not catch up with Lance and Cerila as we thought we might. They had transported a short while ahead of us, and had gone to the Odinsheim circle, where they were not allowed to leave the circle because the city was under quarantine due to a plague. The guard we spoke to told us that they had transported off again, and thAat the name of the place started in "Silver". We presumed it to be the Silver Falls Circle, near out Temple. It wasn't.
After some fruitless investigations, Enoch performed a ritual to create an item that would assist us in tracking Lance.
We (Eithne, Kalaf, Cawd, Dareon, Krystal, Corad and Aelfric) left a few days after Enoch had concluded the ritual. We thought we were likely to be going to Silverdale which is a White Hand stronghold now. We followed the trail set out for us, which took us through Silver Falls circle to Mountains Gate. We headed north past Sla'hake and Joblec to the Slavic forest. We met a Huldra Folk by the name of Green Oak who traveled with us into the forest, where we encountered a number of fey creatures including Leshy sprites and Night Shade Hunters (a disturbing marriage of man and spider). We also saw the Leshy King Tunguska who was talking to his page Mimas, who many will know as Lance gave him sanctuary in the Temple when Queen Amalthea exiled him on pain of death. Mimas had found Lance and Cerila trapped somehow between transporting away from Odinsheim and their destination and had delivered Lance and Cerila to the King to give the queen as a gift, and so won his favour back into the Tunguska court, which is now reunited. Anyone meeting Mimas again should take the opportunity to execute him. We overheard King Tunguska and Mimas' conversation and so were able to find Lance and Cerila and eventually bring them back to the Temple. They were under the effects of some sort of magical poison which seemed designed to knock them out and that was their condition when we carried them home. We all give thanks to Lunas for their return.

The Fellowship had it's last adventure early in 1999, but here is a write-up from Eithne's point of view. Following it is a brief summary of the Star Chamber Council meeting that followed.
The adventure:
We set out early on a cold and mist-wreathed morning, Scarlett, Thornblade, Ruana, Enoch, Kalaf, Cal Thorn and I. We were supposed to be meeting Lance at the crossroads, where he would be able to give us information to help us rid our land of the poison that had been plaguing us for so long. We were beset upon almost straight away by villagers that Scarlett recognised from commanding the realm patrol. They were under some form of possession, Lunas save their souls. As we approached the crossroads we heard sounds of shouting and fighting and as we drew closer we saw strange men with black faces blocking our path. Behind them we could see Lance struggling with others. We were unable to deal with them in time to stop them taking Lance. They simply vanished with him.
It appeared that Lance hadn't been entirely truthful with us all regarding his intentions. Enoch told us how Lance had discovered that the Cult of Chaem, ancient enemies of ours, were behind the poisoning and that they needed to sacrifice the leader of the Fellowship for their full plans to come to fruition. Lance had allowed himself to be taken by them so that we could find their stronghold, and we had limited time to track him down. Enoch, in full knowledge of this, had an item with him on which he could concentrate and determine the direction in which Lance was, and so we began to track him.
There were many more distractions on the way, all of which we concluded were set by the Cult of Chaem to slow us down. These included more of the black faced men, who turned out to be some kind of automaton, and similar constructs of brown skin too. They were hard to fight, but we prevailed.
Eventually we came to a place where Enoch could no longer sense where Lance was, and after some discussion we decided that some part of the glacier in front of us must be an illusion. Enoch had warned us that the Cult of Chaem used illusions as a tactic. He had come prepared with a small vial of moon water, which was said to have the power to negate illusions. It did, and we were able to pass into a tunnel through the glacier. There we came across what appeared to be Lance's almost lifeless body in an inscribed circle, with his heart and a sacrificial knife beside him. Despite the best efforts of Thornblade's incantor magic, we could not revive him. However the illusion then disappeared, and we realised that they had delayed us once again and had got us to waste valuable healing powers too.
We pressed on, and after more fighting came to a real problem. There was some kind of gateway to get through that had a very nasty side effect if you didn't know the correct sequence. Ruana entered first, followed by all the others except Enoch and I. We were trying to fathom out the solution, so that at least one person would get through without dying. It seemed to inflict a fatal wound to anyone inside the gate if the wrong sequence was entered! At last Enoch decided that he had the answer, but only I was able to go through, as one person needed to stay behind to activate the gate. There was nothing Enoch or I could do to help the others, as we had no healing. I felt helpless. We were so close to the Cult's stronghold and we had taken so long we thought we may have been too late to save Lance, but I had to try.
I removed my own colours and put on a tabard from one of our enemies. Taking moonblade, the guardian amulet and an enchanted hammer, I went to the stronghold on my own. No one seemed puzzled as I approached the fortification. I took advantage of this to survey the situation. There were two demons standing guard, two cultists holding Lance down on an altar and a ritualist standing beside it. I moved in to position so that I could attack one of the demons before I was stopped and move myself into the corner so they could only fight me two at a time with reasonable effectiveness. It worked, and to my surprise I was able to beat them. Out of no-where came Cal Thorn, who it appeared was able to regenerate the wounds inflicted on him and then came to aid me. Finally there was just the ritualist left, who tried to threaten Lance's life if I came any closer to him. He was not a very good fighter, though he moved quickly. Eventually I was able to finish him off and went to see if Lance was alright. With my limited knowledge I decided that he was only unconscious and not dead. I carried him back to Enoch, where Cal Thorn had already gone. He was using his item to heal the others too. Scarlett, who was already healed by the time I got there, told me how Lunas had come to her in the guise of a silver wolf with green eyes as a vision while she lay dying and had saved her life. The others had similar tales to tell.
I left Lance with them and went back to the fortification. I took moonblade and with a mighty blow cleaved the altar in two. I then torched the place and the bodies in it. I rejoined the others, and when I did we discovered that the gate was not a threat any more. We set forth to the Cult's ritual circle, as apparently the poisoning was being done from there. All of the Cult had sacrificed themselves a long time ago, and were using their energy to fuel a ritual to rain poison on our lands. We had been unsuccesful in all our searching for the source because it was coming from the skies! We fought the possessed villagers guarding it and Cal Thorn conducted a hasty ritual to destroy the ritual circle and so the effect. It worked, which we were obviously all very pleased about, but I lost a perfectly good spear and other people their swords, as Cal had used them as a focus in the ritual. A small sacrifice to pay though.
We were then able to make the long journey home to the temple, with good news at last to give our people.

Star Chamber Council:
On arrival at the Hall of the Ancestors, I tried to find some of the other members of the Fellowship, to see that they had got their safely or to give them the good news of our success. I met up with Vengryn, who had also been out that day with others of our friends to try and restore the balance between Summer and Winter. Since the Summer Mage had been killed, the powers of Summer had been lost to us and the harsh winter had made the problem of the poisoned land and water supply even harder for the people to bear. They had been succesful too, and the balance was once again restored. Rakell is now the new Summer Mage. It appears that the Cult of Chaem had a hand in that problem too. About the time my group were destroying the ritual circle, the possession on the people that Vengryn's group had encountered fell, and they were able to succeed in their task. The villagers were able to return to their homes confused but unharmed.
I set about celebrating the day's successes, but was asked by Lance to represent the Fellowship in the Council Chamber, along with Dexter, as Lance was putting himself foreward for Chair of the Chamber. He was succesful, when eventually the business was concluded. There were a great many distractions to the procedings, with people bursting in to update us on events outside and other people appearing in the midst of us.
Of note to the Fellowship was a man no-one knew who came in to the room to speak with Lance. Lance had taken the position of Chair by this time, and as too many interruptions had taken place already he told the man that he would conclude the Council's business first and then see to his own afterwards. The man agreed to wait outside to speak to Lance. The next thing we knew of it was a while later when there was a message sent up to us that the man was getting annoyed at waiting and wanted to speak to Lance there and then. He claimed to be of the Fellowship of old and that his business was with us. Fearing that the man would hurt someone else on our account, we ran outside.
The man said he was the leader of the Black Wolves, a group he claimed used to be a part of the Fellowship. He also claimed that they would be rejoining us and that he would be our new leader. We objected to this, and he cast some kind of spell that pushed us all away from him except Lance and the Lady Luna. After a short time he disappeared and we were able to approach again. It seems that the creature took Lance's soul with him, and Lance lay dying (again). A healer that I do not know proclaimed that Lance needed a new soul or he would die. I offered mine. The offer was not taken up, as it appeared that our good friend, Bremman, from the Crimson Wolves had a family heirloom with a prophecy that was just what we needed. It was a sword that contained the soul of a Fellowship leader of old, that was supposed to be held for when it was needed again.
The incantors Vengrym and Scafloc went to look at this sword and to try and determine what the outcome would be if it was used. They took a long time doing so, or so it seemed, so I urged them to hurry up. They advised against using it or me giving up my soul for Lance. We got someone to ask Lance what he wanted to do. After a few questions they felt him slipping away from us, so we had to act quickly. Cal Thorn conducted another hasty ritual and the soul was transferred to Lance. He seemed OK, and still does.
Many of the other events of the evening, and in particular the actual council business, do not hold strongly in my mind, as these other events took precedence. One thing that I do recall quite vividly were the comments I heard Gunnar speak at the start of the evening regarding his feelings towards the Star Chamber Council. I have since passed these on the Lance, both as my group leader and Chair of the Council. I was very gladdened to hear Ruana's news that she and Kurt are to have a child. She had told me that she suspected she was pregnant previously, and knew for definite by then. Of course the curse of the unseelie fey later that night that all the Norscan firstborn will die did dampen our spirits somewhat.

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Last updated 7/12/99