Asterisks and Obelisks

Dear Father Philip

Thank you for the information regarding the Obelisk of Osiris, it is an ancient magic that I will hopefully be able to study one day if I’m lucky, I shall indeed seek out Sir Quixis, as he has been an honourable companion, and entreaty him to visit with your blessing, hopefully CrIsis might make it at the same time, as that would make for an excellent picture opportunity to show the public those who support CrIsis.

A quick update is due too, we have sorted out or legal issues here, even though I was a bit dubious about them, and the focused limelight here is a bit uncomfortable as well. It seems to have affected Overkill adversely, and has wound him up tight, I will try to make something for him to relax him a little as like most dwarfs doesn’t seem overly fond of Herbal Teas. Master Azariel has taken to being ground leader with trepidation as we are a very headstrong group, but seems to be coping with it better now that he knows that as a group we will gripe and fight over pretty much anything, and that is no reflection of his leadership skills. Master Asher has been entertaining us with stories as well, and seems to be good at it, maybe I will be able to get him to tell some stories for the younger generation, as some of the older stories do get yawn inducing once you have heard them a few times. Brother Xerx’ses is also coming along nicely, he has a sharp mind and strong moral fibre and I believe would be a big asset to the church, he has agreed to lead a group or two in storytelling and prayer, I believe it is close to the time for me to approach him about about making his bond to the church more binding and becoming a priest, as he would be a great diplomat to the Baalgor Wastelands, and getting him used to church politics would be helpful for him to figure us shorties thoughts and ideas.

But in the morning of the ninth of Ra, whilst I was saying my morning prayers I saw a raven attack a dove and force it to the ground, things would have been even grimmer for the dove if a horse wandering down the path where they landed hadn’t disturbed the raven with a loud whinnying snort, the raven immediately took to the air cawing and screeching.

The horse nudged the bloodied dove gently and licked it, the dove showed great endurance and got to its feet and ruffled its feathers a few times, and then took off in the direction of the raven, and the horse continued on its way. While I was pondering this strange happenstance the dark clouds covered the sun and everything went an eerie shadowed purple, as if evening had come early in the morning. I went in the back of the tent and peered around the curtain and standing there was Master Azariel, and he was talking to a guard and asking him to arrest someone in a fairly agitated state. When he pointed up the road I had a quick look, and saw a group of people, nay not people, monsters, led by an incredibly good looking woman who looked a bit like Azariel (She was an elf too). She seemed to sense me looking and turned back and looked at me, and it was like looking into the face of evil, my stomach turned and my hand involuntarily went to Oathbringer, who was strangely silent. She reached down to the ground and picked up a black feather and continued on her way, her evil compatriots laughing and following her. When Azariel went back into the tent he looked angry, confused, and sad, but mostly angry, and I noticed on his cloak a small white feather, undoubtedly stuck to it from when he was tending to his doves this morning.
Somehow I had a feeling that those people where incredibly bad news.

It was then decided that Lady Caminata and I would head off to the hotel to see if we could secure some rooms as Asher needed peace and quiet for his magical preparations, and the hotel has stone walls, which might be needed because apparently these preparations can be . . explosive. We had a nice peaceful walk down to the hotel, Caminata eyes darting left and right and her nose twitching and her tail swishing in excitement, (she tends to go around in wolf form, thankfully most of the people here are townies and don’t have much of an idea what a wolf looks like) until we got to The Raj Taj Madras or whatever it was called. It was indeed big and fancy, and the security guards looked competent, but somehow I preferred our tent, even if it was right next to a den of evil. As I approached a guard immediately came up to me and announced that dogs aren’t allowed in the hotel, giving the impression that a vagabond like me wasn’t welcome. It was annoying, but my main worry was that Caminata would bite his condescending face off for calling her a dog, but thankfully she took it in stride, I did try to talk my way in but the Druid got sick of waiting and transformed back into her normal self, mentioned that we were from CrIsis and that we were here to talk to Helara, when she said that I groaned, the last person I wanted to see was ms Hoppner, but 5 minutes later we were in the lobby, talking to not just ms Hoppner but the manager as well and we secured some rooms for 3 or 4 days for a ludicrous amount of money. Ms Hoppner. certainly bulldozes her way over pretty much any obstacles, so I thought I would put her investigative nose on the scent of that *evil* group we saw earlier, saying that there was likely to be great rivalry between us, and she got the message.

We eventually headed back to the tent, gave our news of the hotel to the others and got back to what we had been doing, for me that was praying, and preparing myself for some sermons in the poorer parts of town, and hopefully Xerx’ses would join in.

Later that afternoon, after hearing what sounded to be rolling thunder on a beautiful sunny day I checked out the front, and a band of Knights Errant was stopping out the front, and their leader was Sir Quixis. He was leading this band of knights and had joined in the competitions to help us, as if he or any of his won the Lung he would hand it over. We had a happy little reunion but he was busy and eventually continued on his way, but the meeting made me much happier as we had more people to help if we got into trouble.

The next day Xerx’ses and I went out shopping to get something to set the Magical Gems of Fire Resistance that Asher created placed into, I found a excellent bracelet with an inscription that the proprietor of the place assured me meant Crisis in a strange tongue, or if translated exactly meant danger and opportunity mixed together, it looked pretty awesome. So I said yes, and voila, and new bracelet for me. The next few days were mostly looking at the sights of Lopania full of people from all over the world, and giving little sermons here and there to give the followers of light a morale boost, not that they really need it as the moods are generally good, and the people are happy. There are the odd fights of course, but that’s what happens when you mix different cultures in close areas, but I never saw anything more significant than a bloody nose.

I also got to do some funny pictures of Crisis, my favourite one is Xerx’ses holding Overkill up to the sky, both gazing off into the future, and another of Xerx’ses holding Caminata in the form of a little pocket puppy.
We came across the people who got Azariel so agitated again and they tried to bait us into a fight, which we mostly ignored. The signing up process went well, nothing interefered with us, I half expected to be arrested by Captain Douchebag, but it looks like the Empress has him well heeled. Azariel also hired a group of mercenaries to keep an eye on us and on the whole have been very discreet, which is good.

However on the night of the 24th, when Overkill came stumbling back to the tent he seemed to be in very good spirits for the day that it was, for 1 year ago his daughter had been sacrificed to the dark gods, and at first I thought that he had went out to drink to forget, but after hearing what happened he hadn’t even remembered, Xerx’ses did what I only thought about and punched Overkill full in the groin, and he deserved it, but that is only my opinion, I really have no idea how dwarves carry on behind closed doors but that seemed appropriate.

The days counted down until the handover day arrived, we did our daily works and that evening headed off to see the Empress to hand over the torch, when we got to the tower the guard that tried to extort money from me was still there, which was surprising, and we were led to the second or third level to meet the Empress, which when looking back at it was a little off as well, as the Empress would be at the top of the tower, we got taken to her room, were she was sitting waiting for us, things still looked a little off but this was the tower, she asked for the torch and I hesitantly passed it over feeling something was amiss, and Xerx’ses said what was on everyone’s mind and asked her to light the torch, which she did, but it didn’t sing to our Crisis rings to light them up as well. The Empresses face took on an ugly look of scorn, and gestured for her friends to attack, the guards suddenly looked a whole lot more demonic as they charged, we struggled to get our weapons out, and from where Caminata was behind me I started to hear a loud grumbling that was only getting louder, but as 3 evil minions had descended on me had had no time to look, I evaded the stab of the smaller leather clad figure to my right and just jumped back out of the way as his huge friend almost cut me in half with his huge evil looking blade, as the blade plowed into the floor I called upon the mysteries of Isis and touched the hilt of its sword, turning it temporarily into a holy weapon. The Demonic creature screamed as if burned and dropped the blade to the ground as holy light surrounded it, I noticed that Overkill had lost one of his swords and worse still, it had landed in an enemies magic circle, so again I whispered a prayer to Isis, and used her power to fling the weapon back to Overkill, I heard a noise behind me and I swore, I had forgotten about the 3rd guy who had attack me, but the growl I had heard earlier turned into a roar, and I stood momentarily still as a Giant Bear engulfed it in a bear hug, I heard noises like you hear when a child grabs a handful of wet clay and squeezes it hard so the clay oozes out between his fingers. I was still staring at the bear when it turned and cast a spell into the enemy formation, suddenly I could hear this happy flute and drum music, and my feet started tapping to the beat involuntarily and I turn and stared again, truly flabbergasted as the enemy join hands and started dancing, this didn’t stop the rest of Crisis, Azariel, Asher and Xerx’ses all seemed to be in the middle of Casting powerful magic, and Xerx’ses made a hooking a ripping gesture, and the Fake Empress screamed, and then was cut off short as he ripped the life from her. She dropped to the ground like a marionette with cut strings, and then slowly turned into . . . A changeling, this seemed to effect Brother Xerx’ses greatly but I know not why, maybe he will confide in us later about it, but the disturbance had alerted the real guards, who then turned up, the remaining evil minions surrendered and the bribed guards were arrested, we then had a real group of guards escort us to the highest levels where with little ceremony handed the torch over to the Empress, Asher bowed deeply towards his new benefactor and they had a little chat, then the Empress congratulated us on a job well done and gave her best for the upcoming events.

Written on the morning of the 29th of Ra by Indaris Excellar

Raven Attack by Gregorio Borgia.