Lord Channis Lauros Journal

The mouse trap

Looking a this hidden paradise full of legendary animals, huge, ancient and beautiful trees, listening to the muttering of a nearby water torrent, all in perfect harmony, my mind falls to the delusion that our problems belong to the past, that our cities shine in prosperity and peace, and our home has not been surrendered to the will of evil mages with obscure agendas. Unfortunately, the firm voice of the Great Druid awakes me from my dreams, and once again, I realize with horror, that we have probably unleashed upon us the anger of one of the most powerful beings on this realm. Get your tickets for a free mighty evil enemy (demi-god) that will vanquish you with a mere thought!!!! Don’t let it pass!! This is a one time FREE offer!!!! And it’s free!!!! Did I say it’s FREE??? All that is required is a bunch of morons without a pinch of common sense!!!!

Ok. I think it’s enough moaning like an unpaid bitch. What would think the future archaeologists that find my journal on my tomb? I’m not a coward. Just a stupid moron, but that does not make me a chicken dancer. What would people read on my graveyard?
“Here lies the psion who let an evil high priest (and 24 other clerics by the way) cast a “geas spell” on him and his party, on the solemn promise that the deal will be good for them.” (Note just to make matters worse: They were inside the shrine (The Jade Palace) of the ancient evil demi-god known as Khal-the-Drak, worshiped by this evil high priest, who happens to be FAMOUS for trickery and treason) It is almost a fact of no relevance that this demi-god is responsible, among other things of:
- Kidnap the goddess of Nature, torture her and steal her power. (Funny thing that this demigod did this BEFORE ascending to demigod status, when he was a just a mortal wizard)
- He is an ally of powerful demons, including a demon cambion, son of Grazzt, who is right now the king of Rjurik.
- He was responsible for the war between Rjurik and Heiloom.
- He was behind the ascension to greater god status of the God of the Undeads.
- In short, many of the realm disgraces happen because of his schemas.

We are so screwed.


I can hardly believe what we’ve done. We deserve to die for sure.

Ok, Khal the Drak. You won the first round, I give that to you.
Now it’s our turn to play.

The mouse trap explained

It is of utmost importance to annotate the sequence of events in order to illustrate how we ended up in this predicament. I’ll use the time here at the Druid Groove because we may never see the sunlight again, at least I want to organize my thoughts.

Everything started a week ago when we received the visit of the Scarlet Brotherhood. That same night, a group of monks (we don’t know their allegiance), attacked us in our own keep and let our friend the dwarf with a binding spell. We thought the high priest of the demi-god of magic could help us to remove this binding spell on our friend Ibizar, but we ended up with even more problems.

The high priest, whose name is Darn Trasilik, induced us to sign a blank magical contract, known as a “geas” spell, to help his god to do his bidding. I don’t know what strange power made me and some of my friends accept his deal, we didn’t listen the undeniable logic of our friend the rogue, we just let him cast a very powerful geas on ourselves and we were pleased for that. The high priest did this in form of a cooperative spell, so he received help to add more difficulties to our situation.

The exact wording for the geas spell was as follows:

1. The participants accept to permanently disband an ancient group of power to be mentioned at a later time and whose main agenda is to control the world fate.
2. The participants accept to return the power of the city to be designed at a later time to its rightful owner.

As we though the geas involved the Scarlet Brotherhood and the city of Rjurik, we agreed without suspicion. Unfortunately, the truth was an entirely different matter.

Our brand new “geas” missions are:
1. Permanently disjoint the Council of Druids.
2. Return to his rightful owner the city of Antaria.

¿?

The High priest told us he would send us some information to complete the tasks after two days. As a sign of trust, he asked the dwarf to follow him to the presence of his master (the famous ancient evil demi-god of mighty power) so he, in his infinite gloriousness, could remove the binding spell on master dwarf. Our friend Ibizar followed the high priest like a puppy following a sweet cookie.

Before leaving the hall, the high priest mentioned that he and HIS MASTER would feel PISSED if after helping the dwarf with the binding issue, we forget to honor our end of the bargain. The party swallowed hard and muttered a weak…”ok”.

The dwarf returned to the hall after some minutes, where we were still feeling miserably cheated and looking at each other with an awkward expression on our faces. The enchanter Malek noticed that a strange anti-magic-field emanated from master dwarf, but the high priest told us it was because of direct exposure to the power of a demigod. We took that for granted (fools). The high priest then teleported us to our home for free (so nice). Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the party asked the high priest to use his powerful magic to “protect” our keep from further intrusion. Darn Trasilisk promptly accepted our request (so nice).

The next day, the high priest arrived at our keep, accompanied with other spellcasters, to give us more details about the missions. He started with the first of them:

1. Permanently disjoint the council of druids, BY KILLING THE FIRST TREE CHOPPED BY MEN, which is located at the Holy Druid Groove. That will cause the council to disband because they cannot meet at any other place but around that holy tree. As a courtesy, he wanted to make our mission easier by giving us a pouch containing some strange POISON that we had to pour over the venerable tree in order to kill it.

He said he would give us details of the next mission after we complete this one. Then he left, leaving his minions in our home. The party remained silent for five minutes, and then hell unleashed. Our expressions were a resemblance of absolute despair and misery. We decided that we would never complete that mission because the druids were not our enemy. The fact that we were about to kill a venerable tree using a powerful poison was not even mentioned. Sigh…

Now we started our own quest, the quest to get rid of the incredible amount of spells we had on us without dying in the attempt. However, the incantation involving the geas spell was powerful enough to prevent those affected to take some actions that would otherwise affect our “mission”. Fortunately for us, some party members were smart enough to remain free of this malefic curse.

This is how Malek decided to cast a domination spell on Ibizar, in order to take the dwarf before the presence of the High Priest of Moradin at Mount Silvermane. The rest of us remained at our keep waiting.

The meeting between the dwarves and the mage are a secret to me, but basically the results are as follows:
- The dwarves can dispel the “geas” on the dwarf, but not on me or the priest of the sun.
- There is something strange in this plot because a god cannot interfere directly in mortal matters.

We noted this and the next step was to contact the druids in order to warn them of the danger represented by this evil demigod of magic. After a series of telepathic coordination I managed to contact Jaana and Eladan’s Party, the Fallen Leaves, to find if they could help us in reaching the Druid Groove and the Council of Druids.

When Jaana knew about the situation, she warned us that the druids could choose to kill us to avoid the problem. Malek and Ibizar, the last one now free from the geas spells, decided that it was better to polymorph the priest of the sun in a turtle and to dominate the psion. The geas spell on us was simply too dangerous.

Jaana’s magic helped to reach our destination and we found ourselves before the mighty Council of Druids trying to defend our position.

This is the part where I feel most embarrassment and I really prefer not to describe my feelings when meeting the druids, but I really need to say two things:

1. The druids think there is something strange in this plot.
2. They explained to us some details about this Khal-The-Drak and how he became demigod.

All I can say right now, before leaving the Druid Groove, is that we have won a powerful enemy, a demigod who imprisoned and tortured a goddess when he was just a mortal wizard. What could be his powers now that he is a demigod? Do we really stand a chance against this being? I don’t want to sound apocalyptic but I think our power is not even nearly close the power of a god.

The fact that the minions of Khal-The-Drak are right now at our keep placing “protective” spells on it simply means that we are HOMELESS. I wonder if there are still people on our keep who we can trust. I wonder if they are even alive. We are about to discover how “screwed” we are. I hope it’s not too late to fix this mess.