Notes on the Making/Remaking of a Ritual Circle

Sapphire Kel'Neth

This follows on from Floris Brands 'shutting down' of the Bristol Ritual circle at the end of On ritual circles and their foundation - Number One

Report on the events of the opening of the Bristol Ritual Circle - Autumn 1099.

Due to the bad weather on our arrival we made our way to the nearby waystation, where we were provided with food and drink. As the evening progressed there were a number of attacks by people who were out to kill people in Hunter's tabards. I took part in the capture of a number of these people and was surprised at how easily that they admitted to being hired to kill off the Hunters. One very frank man admitted to being "thugs and murderers" as he did not believe that he had enough skills to be called an assassin. All of these thugs had potions that could not be identified, but were assumed to be poisons given the nature of their mission. (I must say that I was surprised given the size of the gathering that no one there had admitted to have knowledge of poisons or potions.)

They were said to have been hired from nearby towns by someone called Em. They also admitted that a large group of people was due to arrive about midnight. Forewarned, the Harts kept a watch.

Later that evening an individual by the name of Mad Bill arrived with a number of his men. He challenged one of the Harts to a duel and invoked an item that kept everyone about 20 feet away from him apart from the gentleman he was fighting. Having been informed by Hugo that this man was wanted for treason, for the kidnapping of the Queen and his men were outside of the exclusion zone. The Harts decided that they would arrest them while their boss was busy, but were too slow. Mad Bill having won his duel, turned to leave taking his men with him. There was then a short fight in the woods in which I found out later that Mad Bill had escaped. However a number of his men were captured or killed.

One other thing of note was that a number of individuals seemed to be talking to themselves when I questioned a number of visiting Bears about it, he said he was talking to Lasha. It was not until later that I found this out to be true when talking to a number of people about it. It seems that Lasha's spirit was able to leave his body and as he had promised the Harts he would be at the ritual circle opening he was there.

The rest of the evening seemed to progress quietly and I retired to my bed, however during the night the hut was raided while those still awake went for a short patrol round the area. Numerous simple items were taken and a vapour poison left that fell all but Jac and Hunter who had remained outside to watch. During the attempt to rescue those dying, several black clad spell casters attacked and were driven off. None of those who were poisoned died.

The next morning Elkantar of the Mages' Guild arrived bring the 7 new stones needed for the ritual circle opening. However things had not gone smoothly and one of the stones had been broken in transport.

After some discussion it was suggested that some of the stones from the original circle might have survived and so two search parties were sent out to comb the area. After the party I was with, had done an unsuccessful sweep of the area around the ritual circle, I went back to the old ritual circle itself to have one last look around the study of the blast pattern. I stopped to talk to Lasha who seemed to think a stone was nearby and he suggested an area that he thought the stone might be in. After scraping the soil off the likely spot we found nothing and Elkantar was persuaded to see if he could detect any signs of magic. After he came up with the same location as Lasha, we dug deeper down into the earth and we found the stone, as we carefully lifted it out of the ground, a skull was found buried beneath it. We replaced the stone while Tiberius was fetched to check if the stone was the correct stone needed. When it was found suitable for the purpose it was fetched up once more and the body underneath was examined.

When the ritual circle had been closed by Floris Brand after the undead attacks in Bristol, it had been blown up, it was thought that the body we had found belonged to an unfortunate ritualist who had been using the circle at the time and had been killed by the rock.

While I had spent the morning dealing with the ritual stone, the other team had found a cave that was associated with a white rabbit, that a few people had said they had seen the night before. This cave, though guarded by a demon, turned out to hold the Sword of Ages.
As the ritual team got themselves prepared for their big moment, I joined a team that was to stand some distance away from the circle in case things went wrong as what they were trying to do was quite dangerous.
The Ritual went well, Lasha appeared to every one and was used to invoke fire as the element the circle was based on. Every one seemed happy and the Fire mage was of the opinion that the circle would be settled within a couple of hours. HRH Cadarn made a successful trip using it and everyone went off to celebrate.
However about an hour later the circle flared and we found ourselves in the Summerlands facing what looked like a number of undead.

The Summerlands that was once a place full of life was now full of unliving. Some of the Unliving Lords were prepared to talk, but others just attacked. Three died during this time; Dermont of the Offshore Revenue and Meg of Bacchus both got separated from the main group, then Edward Charenten died at the hands of a vampire, I believe, when he was beguiled, subdued then dropped for some reason while being brought to safety.
After discussion and a number of attacks it was decided that we would head for the ritual circle and attempt to transport home. However to our dismay we found that there was not trace of the ritual circle. Again after some discussion it was decided to head back to the hut we had left as it was a better place to defend. The ritual team found a ritual stone and Elkentar could sense a connection to the others and so it was that a team was sent out to collect them.

While the team was out, a Liche Lord Carrion's minion turned up to find out what we were doing there and a deal was cut with him, that if his undead did not attack the group, we would not attack them.
When the team came back it turned out that that had cut a deal with another Liche lord Filth, who was at war with the one whose minions we had seen. They had been given a dagger with which they had to kill 100 undead of the one we had dealt with to get the 3rd ritual stone. As the one we had dealt with didn't seem to agree with his minions we had yet more attacks the Harts set about enthusiastically killing the undead.
It seems that Harts battle tactics have improved over the last year as they held a line when they were told and didn't charge straight it most of the time. The healers had also improved and were good at checking those wounded and paralyzed, apparently at one time they had lost people through negligence, but seemed to have learnt that lesson. The command kept every one informed of the events happening and made sure that all the non-harts were not missing.

It took the Elkentar about an hour to attune to the location of the next stone and he informed us that it was about 4 miles away heading towards us. It was sensibly decided to wait for it to come to us. After about an hour we started getting more attacks and I was seriously injured by a group of undead. A healer with some immunity to normal weapons healed me and held off the undead long enough for me to get to my feet and head back to our line, which by now had a bigger problem to deal with. An undead winged lizard of sorts which was causing pattern corruption to those who were hit by it. In the end it was defeated and a 4th stone was found inside it.

We headed back to the hut to recover and heal ourselves up to find it had been transformed in to a corrupted form. This caused fear for a small number of people, but incantors and healers could not go near it because it made them feel really ill, most off them were already suffering for being on a plane so near that of the plane of unlife.
So every one mingled out in the cold, with no place of refuge, considering the next move when Liche Lord Filth appeared asking for his dagger to see if we had completed our side of the bargain. This done the dagger was handed over and he dismissed the unliving presence from the hut and granted us protection till dawn.
Come dawn, having rested we dealt with a few more attacks and headed towards the ritual circle, where we ended in a running battle. A lot of the rest is a haze as I was again seriously injured, it seems that I was captured and held prisoner along with Tiberius and a couple of others. It seems that a deal was struck for our rescue and for us to remove ourselves from the summerlands.

We were allowed to escape the Summerlands only after the Harts agreed to leave an item to help one Lord against another. In a smart move they left their Chalice of healing as it would pattern correct those it was used against and it would return to the hand of the White Lady if the person carrying it used a weapon.
It was agreed that the un dead would perform the ritual to get us home and I believe that this is why the rift is still open. The Liche Lord left a number of people with the impression he intended to use it to invade Albion once he has beaten his neighbour, Lord Carrion.