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[Bedwyr]

Garath's easy smile never changed, nor did his eyes narrow (storytellers learn very early to control their faces) but his concern was rising.  He and Wendella had made it out of town well enough, and once her shaking at such a close brush with magic and inquisitors had subsided he had taken full advantage of the human life-affirming instinct that came into play after reminders of mortality...And just as well, for if they had arrived earlier, he might have missed another blatant use of magic to get into the castle.

How many spellcasters were there here?  There was something odd about the place, he was not feeling drained as he should by the magic he had used, after all, but could that account for so many?  Garath thought not.  Not with such obvious magical use in an area patrolled by the Inquisition.  That betokened stupidity, inexperience, and ignorance, all of which made it unlikely that these other mages had discovered this locale intentionally.

Which meant something was drawing them here.  And he had a good guess that the "something" was in that castle, or perhaps under it.

Garath liked playing with other people's minds.

He did not like his mind being played with.

"I think we'll need the shelter of the castle later, but let's wait long enough for whoever that was to get well away from us.  And I know just the thing to pass the time..."

The former barmaid had a hesitant look, and started a little as Garath touched her again.  He was clearly more than he seemed, and had already paid her more than a month's wage...And he could make her feel very, very, very good when he chose, but he had tastes that were...She had never...

But when she looked into his eyes, saw she had really no choice at all.

[Zakilevo]

(18)

The fortress was indeed big, too big for his torch to brighten even the entrance hall. It was probably bigger in its glory days but now it was nothing more than a crumbling ruin with some kind of magic working in the area. As Astalos walked through the halls and hallways of the fortress, he felt something was leading him.

After five minutes of walking, he found stairs leading to lower levels. He hesitated for a second but decided to see what is inside.

When he reached the end of the stairs, he found a long hallway. The torch was too dim to show him the end of the hallway so he decided to use Blinding Light to see the lay out of the place. The spell allowed him to see the whole hallway for a brief second and he managed to catch a glimpse of where he was going.

Past the long hallway, he found spiral stairs which descended farther down. It was too strange. Why would someone build a fortress like this. The structure was big and simple unlike other fortresses which were more complicated to confused enemies. Putting questions aside, he took the stairs and went down.

The stairs ended after a couple thousand steps and at the last step, there was a ladder attached. The ladder was going through a tiny hole at the top of a dome like structure..

Through the hole, Astalos managed to reach what seemed like the very bottom of the fortress. It was a tiny room with the dome sealing, with runic words carved on the dome to an alter on the floor. On the alter there was a red book, glowing and calling.

[Zakilevo]

A glowing red book filled with pictures of naked women?! What kind of evil magic is this!

[Ironsun]

Saniel was quite sure that he wasn't alone in this castle. He ended Cloaking Shadows and casted Ignite in order to light one of the old torches in the hallway. However, there was no trace to be found of the stranger on the ground floor ... and no gold either. The young spellcaster was about to give up, when he finally found some stairs leading down. He was a little afraid to go down there, but he did come this far and refused to go away without some answeres, or some gold at least.

So, Saniel made his way down to the basement and was very suprised to find a tiny room in bright light ... and he wasn't alone. There was  the man from the "Salty Mug" and a mysteriuos book, obviously of magical origin. The young spellcaster frowned. Now he finally found a treasure in this damned castle and there already was somebody there.

Saniel spoke in a soft and calm voice and tried to be as friendly as possible. "Ähm ... Good afternoon, Master.  This is quite an extraordinary place, don't you think. Perhaps I can be of any  assistance?."

[OOC: Completing these actions would result in the following changes:

    1.80 concentration expended
    2.25 energy expended
    1 XP in Harm gained
    2 XP in Fire gained]

[Tom]

When he reached the end of the stairs, he found a long hallway. The torch was too dim to show him the end of the hallway so he decided to use Blinding Light to see the lay out of the place. The spell allowed him to see the whole hallway for a brief second and he managed to catch a glimpse of where he was going.

Cursing, Astalos remembered the spell details - it was to blind someone, not to provide illumination. It took a while until he could see again. Some days he wished spells were more flexible, but he didn't feel like using spontaneous magic at this point.

[Tom]

Ignite

In the second round of spell acceptance, we'll probably reject this one with a request to make clear whether it is to burn someone or to ignite something, which should be Create/Fire instead.

[Nathan]

Kalan awoke from his sleep. His head was thumping, his throat was dry and his leg still ached from falling from the wall. But he hadn't forgotten his task: get as far away from the town as possible before some Templars came for his head. Without much of a second thought, he decided to head off for the fort he had seen the night before, hoping it would be a place of shelter until he could return to help the other magicians taken by the Templars - it was his fault those other two in the bar had been taken, so he was going to rescue them... eventually... maybe...

He was still a good mile away from the fortress, but he could clearly see the entrance from here along with something in front of it. It looked heavily armoured, much like those Templars were. Not wanting to risk running into them again in case, Kalan made his way to the western side of the fortress to look for a way in. He spotted one, the wall was crumbling away and looked as though he might be able to climb up if only he could get high enough to reach the caps where bricks had fallen away. A ladder was out of the question, but perhaps he didn't need one. Kalan took a seed that had fallen from a nearby tree and planted it in the ground at the base of the wall. He stepped back a metre or so and then cast Nature's bounty.

The seed grew into a large tree, just tall enough for Kalan to reach to where the wall was crumbling. He climbed up, slipped through the gap in the wall and found himself on a large balcony. With only one door off, Kalan head towards it and whatever it was that awaited him inside.

---

OOC:

Completing these actions has resulted in the following changes:

    * 1.20 concentration expended
    * 6.00 energy expended
    * 1 XP in Change gained
    * 6 XP in Earth gained

Nobody thought to stumble across Kalan on their way to the fortress? Boo!

Also, Steam Punk in SpellMaster? Not sure if I like the idea of mechanical warriors guarding old castles, doesn't seem to fit for me. Unless of course it's not mechanical, but just a suit of armour held together by magic.

[Zakilevo]

In the second round of spell acceptance, we'll probably reject this one with a request to make clear whether it is to burn someone or to ignite something, which should be Create/Fire instead.

Now you mention it, it doesn't make sense lol. It should really be create/fire. The problem with that would be, creating fire beside someone who hurt the person?

P.S so spells are not so flexible huh. That sucks.

[Tom]

Now you mention it, it doesn't make sense lol. It should really be create/fire. The problem with that would be, creating fire beside someone who hurt the person?

P.S so spells are not so flexible huh. That sucks.

No, create would not harm, at least not reliably.

And yes, spells are inflexible. There should be a reason for using spontaneous magic or rituals. :-)

[Zakilevo]

Spontaneous sucks. Period. Never worked so well for me.

[Tom]

Spontaneous sucks. Period. Never worked so well for me.

You need to limit it to within your abilities. The fewer shifts there are, the closer it'll be to what you imagined. Whoever completes it can't just have it do whatever.

[Zakilevo]

(19)

"Ahm ... Good afternoon, Master. This is quite an extraordinary place, don't you think. Perhaps I can be of any assistance?."

"Hmm.. you are from the inn, are you not?"

While Astalos was thinking about the purpose of the book, a stranger came down from the ladder. Astalos recognized the face from the inn. He must have followed him all the way here.

Astalos turned away from the book to talk to the person. But even before he lifted one of his foot, the book started to glow brighter... as if it was waiting for two people to enter the room. The carved runic words started to glow as if they were reacting to the book. When the light from the book met the ladder, the ladder turned into dust.

Astalos quickly realized something has gone horribly wrong. As the ladder disappeared quickly, the entrance to the upper levels closed as well.

Astalos's eyes turned away from the closed entrance to see the book. The book was floating in the mid air, still glowing brighter than anything in the room.

"It seems we are trapped here. We need to find a way out before we run out of air to breathe. I will study the runic words on the walls. Why don't you try finding a way to escape from this place? Just do not touch the book. If it is a book of summoning, we will have to deal with something ugly in this tight place."

Astalos gathered his energy to cast Read Languages. It will not tell him anything about the power of the words themselves but it will allow him to read what they mean at least as people of the old used runic words to communicate.

[Ironsun]

Saniel frowned.  He refused to die in this rotten cellar. If he was going to pass away, at least he wanted to do so as a rich man.

"Alright. I'll lhave a look around. "

The walls were carved with runes, painted with black and red colour. The young spellcaster touched the runes in order to find any mechanism or trap doors, but there was nothing to be found ... and it was getting quite  heavy to breath in the meanwhile.

" By the way,  I'm Saniel Leavey.  May I ask your name,  good Sir?"

[Zakilevo]

(20)

"Call me Astalos."

The spell allow him to read the meaning of the runes. The book was a result of some kind of a ritual. The runes described the ritual in details. How much liters of blood, grams of bones, and gems.

The runes carved in the walls were nothing more than description of the ritual. The ones with magic were carved on the alter and the book itself. Each page of the book was made from powdered gems with special spells. The book itself was dipped into a pool of blood for a month to contain enough life energy to sustain itself. All this for what?

[Ironsun]

Saniel decided to take a closer look on the book itself and casted Read Languages. Although the air was getting thin, he spent some time to read the first pages aloud.

"In the name of Xalanthos, the three horned god
in the name of Ubikaar, the winged warrior
in the name of Baal, the dark one
in the name of Pasanthos, the noble
and in the name of Rhiannon, the great

We summon you, Nasathor, fallen Avatar of Toog, heir of Ubikaar and leader of
the nine tribes. By the might of the Five we call you and by the might of the
Five we hereby are banning you, binding your soul, weaving your essence into
this very book. Arrise, old one and merge with the blood of your kin."

Saniel skipped some parts of the text, trying to find the purpose of the ritual.

"By the might of your master, the ancient Toog himself, we condemn you to stay
in this book until you have learned your lesson. Your essence shall be bound to
the very words of your crime's tale and you shall have ages to think about your
errors. Suffer, immortal one. Suffer and learn. This is the price for betraying
the Order Of The Five."

The young spellcaster paused for a moment. "Splendid.", he said. "Now we are trapped in a room with some kind of ancient criminlal. But WHY exactly was this
damn book - or whatever this really is - activated now? There has to be some clue!" Saniel kept searching and found some relevant information on the last page.

"And thus shall your sentence be completed after the age of dragons
and you will be released by two spellbinders of our order. Our will and their
mercy will free you and allow you to enter the realm of the ancient once again"

"Damn it! I'm not a member of any order whatsoever." Saniel sighed. "But perhaps we are able to release this ... ähm ... Avatar, or whatever it is. Are you by any change schooled in the art of ritul magic, Astalos? My father taught me one thing or two. Perhaps freeing this prisoner will allow us to free ourselves. And ... perhaps we should hurry the air is getting really thin. We won't have longer then one or two hours."

Saniel didn't exactly sound very happy about this idea, but this was the only one he had, and he desperatly wished to leave this place alive after all.

[OOC:  Completing these actions has resulted in the following changes:

    0.67 concentration expended
    0.86 energy expended]