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Word has reached us that the Imperial Governor of Vesper – a magnate who has ruled since the time of Cantabrigian – has been imprisoned on suspicion of corruption.
Inquisitors have discovered the man to be a cultists and demoniac in league with various seditious elements against Britannia and the High Lords.
Aria McCullough made the arrest.
Word has reached us that a group of demoniacs – fanatics and abhumans drawn from the lowest dregs of human civilization – stormed the Imperial Capitol and managed to penetrate the curtain wall of the Palace before being driven out.
Britannians are warned to report outsiders without delay.
My new pet and I have worked together before on UO Stratics Taverns and Tales. Now she will be assisting me in interviewing the various …personalities across our shard.
The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
It was a cold winter day as the Captain raced against the harsh wind through the woods of Britain. Despite the chill, beads of sweat were starting to form on his brow. Unarmed as he was, he seemed to be openly defying any would-be rioters. However, there were no troublemakers to be found this morning. That was fine with the captain as his eyes focused on the road ahead of him. Running was one activity that always helped him to think clearly and there was much to think about.
The past several weeks had weighed down heavily on his shoulders. The rumors about the involvement of his nephew in the massacre had swirled out of control. He felt that he no longer had the trust of the citizens nor the Royal Guard. Truly, many sympathized with him. Yet, there was often a hesitation to it. The actions of his nephew, regardless of the circumstances, had tainted him irrevocably.
“Aye, Jenkins, old chap! You know there is no going back from this,” he spoke out loud to himself.
Truth to be told, he knew this day was coming for some time now. But, he had grown so attached to the people and the kingdom that the desire to see things through had held him back from the inevitable. But, the needs of the kingdom are greater than any one man. His father had always taught him that. And, it was clear to him that the kingdom needed a new leader to step up from the ashes.
“Aye, Jenkins, old chap!” He muttered to himself again, “It is time to hang the boots! Perhaps, that sea adventure you always longed for…”
Event Notification:
Saturday, Feb 4th, 2:00 PM PST / 5:00 PM EST.
Location: The Great Hall of Castle Britannia.
Note: No monsters, no rewards.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Announcement:
Meet and Greet: 3:00 PM PST onwards.
Saturday, February 4th.
The horns of Castle Britannia blasted at the hour of midnight, summoning the able to her steps. It’s call reached out across the Plains of Avarice, and the Straits of Woe, beckoning the faithful to the Palace of the Immortal Lord British. And it was there, in the Great Hall we gathered, awaiting the physician and her promised panacea.
The withered demoniac elucidated on the Councilor’s condition, cackling as she described the cure. Charlotte was trapped, bound within her subconscious. Something inside her, something buried deep in that eternal nightmare, would not let her free.
Her pale form lay broken upon the altar. Wisps of black hair draped across her face. It was as though part of her soul had been torn free, leaving her a desiccated husk. To free her, we would have to force ourselves inside her. To reduce ourselves to our base elements, our Prima Materia, and penetrate the dreamscape of her sleeping mind.
There we would find her soul.
We appeared in a realm of shadow, the entropic black of night stretching as far as the eye could see. Yet it was as though we would see forever. The ground shifted beneath our feet, as though it were a living thing. Dead trees, painted in various hues, stretched upwards like skeletal claws out of the murk. The laughter of thirsting gods met our ears. What was this place? As we hoisted each other to our feet, and searched the horizon, a bed materialized before us. A hearth, a rug. All the accoutrements of a young girls bedchamber.
“Charlotte…!” a voice called out.
A young girl stood in our midst, smiling. Not the Charlotte we knew, but the Charlotte she had once been. A girl, whose eyes still burned with the life long since stolen from her corporeal form. She beamed up at us, and turned, springing off into the nightmare.
“Do we follow?” one asked. “Do we have a choice?”
We followed her through the dark, through the bleak oblivion that threatened to consume our minds. The ground seemed to shift beneath us, the pungent aroma of blood overpowering. Trees and flowers in a rainbow of color bled before us. As we descended further, black fire seemed to leap out to lick our boots. And it was then that we saw it, bloodied knitting needles, bits of flesh, bandages and severed hands. Severed hands, everywhere.
“Has anyone seen Charlotte with her gloves off?” “No.”
A scream. We turned. Charlotte was gone. We rushed forward to catch up to her, weapons drawn, words of magic on our lips. Would our spells succeed in a world without mana? Would our Gods answer our prayers in the subconscious of Charlotte’s shattered mind?
We surrounded her as something approached. We could hear it, and even the stalwart amongst us were overcome with a feeling of dread. Not our dread. We were in her mind, sharing her feelings. And then, she appeared. Aurora, Matriarch of House Christianson. Charlotte’s Grandmother. And every nightmarish ounce of dread the little girl felt, we too experienced as if it were out own.
The desiccated crone’s tongue hung from her mouth. An eye seemed to fall out if it’s socket. Wisps of hair stuck out at odd angles. Her nails, blooded, seemed more like claws. And she clutched the stump of a severed hand in her own. Her malevolence was directed towards Charlotte, who ducked behind us for protection.
“Come to Grandma.”
The scream overpowered us, the wail of a banshee as she launched herself at us. Not one, but seven. She came at us, hacking, slashing, stabbing and cutting our limbs. A demoniac, who in this hellish dreamscape had taken on the qualities of a Greater Daemon. We shoved back, and she came again, biting, clawing, attempting to get at Charlotte.
One shove the Crone to the ground, his hammer coming down on her head. It exploded in a wet splash of bone and matter. “Kill them.”
Our numbers crashed to the floor of the Great Hall, bits of armor and bloodied weapons splashing across the marble floor. Groaning, we pushed ourselves to our feet, and saw the malevolence in the physicians eyes, an amused cackle echoing from the crones throat.
“Again.”
The second night, we followed Charlotte again. Into the domain of her fears. We watched as she stood over the coffin of a young man, Michael. “Are you dead?” Into his bedchambers, where she discovered the fear of his marriage to another. “No!”
Michael, her sweetheart, her lover, appeared before us, bloated, fat and inhuman. A vile, gibbering reimagining of himself in life. And when he screamed, it brought all to their knees as he launched himself at Charlotte.
“Protect her.”
Michael’s bleeding corpse on the ground, he seemed to change, to become how he imagined him. We turned to Charlotte.
“We must return.”
“I can’t. I am being held.” She held up her wrists, as though to indicate shackles. And we watched in horror as her hair greyed, her skin sagged, and she became the same desiccated image we had fought the first night. She had become her grandmother.
We stood again before the dais. A third night. “Her mind has had all it can handle. Her body will die if her soul is not retrieved.”
We stood again in that black realm. Charlotte, the imagine of innocence, had become a hag, dark and full of hate. “You will die, unmourned, unremembered…!”
“It is an illusion,” one called. It was her, but not her. It was the future, what she would become, the image of hatred that Aurora had been. How we knew that, no one knew. Perhaps her own subconscious thoughts were seeping into our own.
We managed to subdue the hag, and at last, she became the High Councilor.
“I am being held,” she held up her wrists again. “Something is attempting to tug me into the dark. I don’t know what it is. I…”
“Then you’re just going to have to learn to fight it, now, won’t you?”
She nodded. “I am going to attempt to stop it.”
Terror in the Night – A Rat Race
EM Seppo
“Masster, the attack has failed! The wench was moved from her house and by the time we found her new location, the element of surprise was lost!”
Barely had he finished his sentence, the very earth around the rift gate shook.
“Why am I not surprised to hear but ill-news from you? Serves me right to take in a stray from a failed campaign!”
“But, fear not. If it is the dream world they choose to use to reach me, two can play the same game. After all, dreams can just as easily turn into nightmares!”
“And you, my pet.!”
A mutilated hand reached out of the rift and grabbed the pet’s hand. Falling to his knees, the pet shrieked as corruption and plague passed from hand to hand
“Perhaps, it is time for you to truly become my pet! Maybe you will serve me better as a rat than a human!”
Things to Come
EM Godiva
Judge Lilith Frost sat at her desk looking through a large stack of papers. She was pleased to see how many people were interested in being a part of the judicial system.
A Court Detective? Considering the corruption within the current regime, having an impartial investigator sounded like a fine idea.
The fact that the Captain of the Guard sits on the High Council is laughable at best. At worst it is a gross misuse of power, something which Judge Frost intended to fix. The claims of murder and forced entry at the hands of Town Guards have been ignored…until now.
“You will be judged.” Lilith thought calmly, looking down at the pile of complaints.
Mortimer munched noisily on a biscuit as he looked over his notes. Clearly, he was doing exactly what he was supposed to. If he wasn’t, The Time Lord would have surely stopped him.
Wouldn’t he?
Maybe this was a test.
Maybe The Time Lord wanted to see what this road led to.
No, The Time Lord knows all.
He is the past, present, and future.
I am doing exactly what I am supposed to.
We all are.
Aren’t we?
Mortimer contemplated this dizzying logic for a moment and sighed, brushing crumbs off his rotund belly and onto the floor, which was littered with papers.
He looked around for a moment before being consumed by how disgusted he was with himself. A failed time bender, he couldn’t even stop the New Year from coming to pass. The only thing he did succeed in was keeping up the glamour long enough to convince those people that he actually was The Time Lord.
He was sure The Time Lord would thank him for his efforts but, as usual, he was shunned by The Great One. Mortimer was equally certain that The Time Lord was just biding his time before punishing him, allowing him to stew.
“Perhaps being ignored is my punishment!” he thought proudly, a self-important grin creeping up his chubby cheeks.
“More likely…” he continued, his smile fading, “…he does not even notice me.”
“I do not matter.” Mortimer concluded darkly, stuffing another biscuit in his mouth.
The pet sat on the steps of what had now became a shrine. Time was drawing closer, he could feel it. Feeding off the chaos in the world, every passing day the portal between the two worlds became ever stronger. If he focused, he could almost see the outlines of the world on the other side. Soon, the master would be able to walk through the portal and enter this world. The very thought left him both terrified and elated.
“Intruders! Someone is trying to reach to us through the dream world,” his masters voice boomed through the portal.
“It is that wretched girl. The link must be broken!”
“Pet, tell me everything about the security in the castle!”
(Mid-season finale)
Event announcement:
Saturday, January 28th, 3:00 PM PST
Note: part of the event will occur in Felucca ruleset.
Atlantic Mage Tower Annex
Sea Witch Tavern
Hearthfire Village
Magincian Zokalo