Heroes and Heroines Live Action Roleplay (Larp/LRP)

26 Cygria, 8976 Ta

Source: Marius The Magnificent

Marius’s Diary – Mission to the Haunted Hills

Day 1

Dear Pip Squeak.

Today Marius went on a mission.  After sitting on high alert for several days a message came through that we were urgently needed to stop some Darklanders from doing some unspeakable things somewhere in the Haunted Hills.

Although it was very hard to set off without giving my precious Pip Squeak a last moment of company with her beloved Marius, Wulfgar said that he would appreciate not to be left alone before the mission so unfortunately it was necessary to sacrifice the pleasure of your company to make sure he wasn’t scared.  (Actually he said “You, F*****g Mage, if you make a single move towards the door I will shove that staff up your **** and plant you in the field as a scarecrow.”)  I got the feeling that he didn’t like me very much, I don’t know why – maybe he has anger management issues.  Also doesn’t he know Marius is a Wizard now?

So with only a scarce dozen or so pastries and ancillary snacks we set from Orcsbane fort in the company of a very pleasant Air Mage called Grak.  Marius has to say that he felt very uncomfortable about the name of that fort, there are many fine upstanding Orcs in the Protectorate and I feel such a name propagates nasty stereotypes about Orcs within our society.  Marius hopes that the fort could be renamed to something more suitable, such as “Fort Marius’ Lightning”

Here we broke up into 3 groups.  In the first group were Aarp, nAarp, yArp, Zzazzi and Sweatpea – the Squogres who formed our rather noisy bridgehead and who were teleported first.  After many minutes of peace and quiet without the somewhat vivacious quintet, the scouting group of Wulfgar, Blackadder, and Piper, Lyra, with support from Wizards Kinnook, and Mia.

In the final and most important group was Coruben the Legionary, Mage Tenth, Mai’Shen, and of course Wizard Marius the Magnificent.

Against all odds, we arrived safely at our destination, and after thanking Grak for his excellent service (hardly surprising as he is of the school of Air) we discussed operations with a pair of Legion troopers who advised us on how not to attract trouble in the haunted hills, which mainly meant handing over many of our items to reduce the amount of power concentrated in one place.  Apparently many of the dangers in the haunted hills manifests around concentrations of power so we had to leave many valuable items behind, Probably these will next be seen up for sale in some shady pawn shop.  I did ask, but they felt that, despite Marius’ innate magnificent strength, it was okay for him to accompany the group.

Suitably trimmed down we proceeded and met several dangers before we discovered a portal guarded by an ancient construct.  The construct requested “Access Codes”.  Luckily we had found these “Access codes” in a document that Mai’Shen had translated and these allowed us through – one at a time.

Entering the portal we were sucked along a strange corridor that seemed to twist and turn beneath our feet.  Strange creatures gibbered and hooted and attacked us from out of the darkness.  I became aware that Lyra was just behind me and together we emerged in a most strange place – a corridor made solely of metal, the air still and comfortable, with none of the horrors of a forest or wilderness.  The corridors were very clean, although when Marius banged his staff against the walls or ceiling a strange skittering was heard.  The rest of the party had emerged in the same place and together we went to explore the area.  However we soon noticed something strange, the intense silence (apart from the squogres) that permeated this strange place.  It took some minutes, but we finally worked it out, there was no Kinook making his usual unholy racket.  It seems somehow he was left behind!

This good news aside we had an uneasy feeling, and sure enough we were soon attacked by some strange construct that was guarding the corridor, as well as by an Imp that had followed us through the portal.

Having solved these issues we set off.  The corridor carried on, and on, and on, curving slightly to the left, after much walking (Marius must have had to walk at least 100 meters!), along the way we were harassed by strange mechanical creatures that would approach us and for some of our number it would light up and emit a warning alarm which encouraged other creatures to attack us.  After battling our way through, we came to a wider plaza, in the centre of which was a Blue construct far bigger than any we had encountered so far.  As we approached it emitted a funny humming noise and them unleashed a terrific bolt of arcane energy of incredible proportions, then it moved towards us and attacked, using mighty blows and dispelling our enchantments with ease.  We struggled to stand before it’s awesome onslaught, even your wonderful Marius who was bravely at the front of the retreat.  In an effort to save us Coruben activated a property of his shield, and made himself the focus of the constructs bolts, while the rest of them mobbed the construct while Marius defended Mai’Shen in case any new attacks.

Finally the blue construct lay shattered on the floor while we tended to our wounds.  It is with great sadness we say that the brave Coruben had been slain, reduced in fact to nothing more than an ugly smear on the floor of this strange place.

Happily amongst our number we had the power to be able to recover his spirit and heal his body and soon he was on his feet, having sacrificed some of the strength of his spirit.  Celebrating this miracle, we pushed further and discovered a door, in front of which were some powerful wards.  This was a group of Triumvirate from Havedan, we negotiated (using actual words) our way in and they told us that they had been scrying stuff and their seers had seen that there was a device present in this “World between worlds”, that could save the world.

They had been looking for it, but without Marius they had had their butts kicked and the survivors were holed up with this really old bugger who looked like he would die any second.  They let us stay the night, which I guess was really nice but most of them were very rude about the whole thing.

Day 2:

Supplies low – 3 pastries and only two bags of ancillary snacks remain for Marius.

Well, my beloved, today was quite eventful.  We found out we were on “Nexus Station”, uncovered a plot by Enchanticans, disrupted their schemes (temporarily), got captured by agents of the Pale Duke (temporarily), and Marius died (temporarily). 

It started when the old Triumvirate bugger died in the morning, no surprise cause he was like REALLY OLD, not to mention ugly, it was probably a kindness really.  But that meant the wards went down so we had to find a new place.  We set off and were attacked by lots of things but beat them all up so I guess that was cool.  We were met by something called a Conduit which asked us lots of questions then went away, I’m sure no harm will come from it knowing our deepest fears.

As we went along Mai’Shen kept saying stuff like “This is Hab Center B” and “This is Warehouse C”.  Eventually we came to a place Mai’Shen called the “Power Plant” although Marius never saw any plants anywhere on the station.  Mai’Shen was very interested, maybe the fruit would replenish his spiritual power?  But the plant was guarded by another of the blue constructs.  At the same time a powerful imp, or something, attacked us, but luckily Marius used his new spell “Repulsion” that he has been learning to force the imp back into the blue construct that proceeded to beat it to death for us.  Happy days.

Deciding the construct was very powerful, we decided to leave the plant and went down a corridor, arriving at the “Security Centre”.  On the way the conduit attacked us and made Marius suffer immense pain, it was as if Marius had stepped, bare footed, on lego™ - needless to say quite crippling, how did it know that pain was Marius’ deepest fear (other than a lack of pastries).  Also it made Mia drown and did other nasty things.

Finally getting rid of the thing, we met at the security station a strange construct, it did not exist in the physical realm (any attempt to touch it failed – and believe me the squogres had great fun with that) but it could be seen and it spoke to us.

It was the assistant for the security centre, but it seemed to be having a problem and didn’t assist us in any way, rather it firstly inflicted great pain on us with the promise of letting us inside, then it didn’t let us in and instead made us appreciate its hideous art which it had painted of some old constructs.  Finally it wanted us to fight each other, when we refused it ordered its’ “art” to attack us, which they did.  A terrible battle ensued and poor Marius had to use up a valuable scroll to defeat these monsters, he also defeated one of the blue constructs all by himself while protecting Mai’Shen (okay, the squogres helped by beating it up really badly first).  At last all four constructs lay smashed by Marius and the others, and we were able to enter the security centre, after providing many elixirs and resurrecting Tenth, or maybe it was later he got himself squished, it was hard to tell.

Entering the security centre there were many flashing buttons, a tough battle of wits ensued to keep the squogres from pushing any of them.  Blackadder and Coruben fiddled with some wires or something and fixed the assistant which transformed into a giant paperclip that spoke to us.  ‘Clippy’ as we named him was suddenly very helpful and helped us understand many of the buttons and controld in the room.  One of these was something called a “View-Port” which was a wonderous “Port-al that allowed us to View things.” Through this Marius spied a trio of very evil characters, tho Enchaticans whom Marius recognised immediately recognised as Darius Ash-butt or something like that – he’s on the high council of Enchantica.  With him was a very surprising person – Sorceress Telwin.  Marius met her in the Iron League while negotiating the release of some protectorate rangers and Enchantican researchers who were claiming asylum.  She has a thing for Marius and sent me many love letters during the negotiations (honestly it was quite embarrassing), and even slew her Malinconian handler in an attempt to impress me.

With them was a necromancer from Malice who was called Kallus (Callus?) and they were discussing the charging of a device that could be used to make a sacrifice that they would use to “Open the Dark Sun, causing it’s borders to expand 1000 times and destroy the Protectorate, as well as weakening Malice and showing Malinconia the folly of her attempts to control Enchantica.  As long as the energy of the station remains constant.”

Marius managed to send a warning to Lady Foxglove, and to Pip Squeak, before we decided we had to stop this ourselves.  We found from Clippy that we could disrupt the power by damaging “Power Conduit A” which was in an area of “high Raid-e-a-shon”  If only we had known what this had meant for us when we had set out.  Findind the corridor (thanks to a map we had found) we encountered a necromancer wearing a strange helmet with a force of undead before us.  We pushed forward but started feeling sick and weakened by the Raid-e-a-shon and soon had to retreat, we couldn’t fight the undead and the Raid-e-a-shon at the same time.  However Clippy informed us we could vent the Raid-e-a-shon by pressing a button – on the other side of the undead of course.

Brave Marius had a plan, and shortly afterwards teleported past the undead and – alone in the soulless metal corridor – raced ahead to the button and pressed it, just as the Raid-e-a-shon over whelmed his poor body  and left him dead on the floor, having saved everyone else.

The venting worked, Raid-e-a-shon levels dropped and we defeated the undead, but “Blast Doors” started to close, sealing off the corridor, the Squogres Zzazzi, aArp, and nArp (or possibly it was nArp and yArp, or was it yArp and aArp?) grabbed Marius’ body – which had been raised as a Zombie – and got back to the group where Marius was resurrected, hooray for the squogres and hooray that Pip Squeak doesn’t need to be sad!

We made our way back and clippy told us we needed to shut off another conduit, luckily there was no more radiation.  We made our way there and encountered some representatives of the World Eater who were trying to help her, we fought them, Wulfgar was badly wounded so Marius cast Endurance on him, he didn’t like that and Marius ruined a perfectly good pair of underpants as a result.

Anyway we shut off the conduit and returned to the security centre for food and rest.  But then we found out that the Enchanticans were close to performing a ritual to open the dark sun, so we rushed to intercept them.  There we found them protected by wards, Sorceress Telwin looking as beautiful as ever, not that Marius cares.  She was flustered to see Marius there, but pretended not to have feeling for Marius by asking for him to be sacrificed first.  The wards around a strange creature dropped and it seemed to attract Marius towards it, the squogres using their strength to drag him away from it. The wards around Darius and Kallus also dropped and undead approached.  A terrible battle unfolded, the eye of terror causing particular havoc until finally nArp took care of it (or was it yArp?).  At the end of the battle Telwin and Darius had escaped, although we killed Kallus and took his head for later interrogation.  Also lots of us were also dead, Blackadder needing resurrection, and others needing elixers, but Marius was okay and even killed some things.

Anyway, exhausted we found a place to rest while Blackadder and Wulfgar set off to explore and track the Enchanticans (Wulfgar’s very grumpy but very brave, and Blackadder is just brave) but then as we lay there, drained of resources and badly wounded a group of from the White City burst in and accused us of stealing the dagger, which we totally hadn’t since Telwin had it and she got away.  Finally they believed us, mostly since we didn’t have the thing, but they did do us a small favour, Lyra had found a helmet and put it on, but it was cursed and she was embodied with a wraith or something like that.  They managed to exorcise it and she was quickly back to her bouncy playful self, chasing sticks or whatever it is werewolves like to do.

But the grumpy gits didn’t want to let us sleep that night, so we were kept up all night, which prevented us from replenishing our magical powers, only the lucky power users were able to replenish a small amount of their strength (except Mai’Shen who had some awesome tea which did meant he was fine).  This was bad as Marius had cast so many spells he was left with only a single level 4 spell and a smattering of level 0 and 1’s.

Day -3

Situation Dire - we are out of pastries and there is only fruit left in the way of food.

In the morning the White Dukes people disappeared, looking for the dagger and muttering about wanting to sacrifice the good sphere to stop the end of the world, but Blackadder had found a scroll with information in it about how the sacrifice needed to not only be powerful, but to mean something to the sacrifice – so that plan is doomed to failure (unless they persuade Mai’Shen to do it, because he loves the good sphere so much he doesn’t even like to kick necromancers when they are down).  Their wards soon dropped and we had to move, first stop the armoury.  On the way we were attacked by some strange creatures, thankfully they were very squishy and easily defeated, it seems that the larger creatures had been killed by the venting of the raid-e-a-shon earlier.  Only a strange flying beast that shot out a found black bile caused any real mischief, almost carrying off Mia, though we got her back with only 2 broken legs.

Inside the armoury we found all sorts of wonderous items, some staffs that had a large store of Mana to allow Marius to cast many lightning bolts, a dagger that allowed Marius to shoot his bolts really quickly, and some other stuff less important because it didn’t let anyone shoot any bolts (although Blackadder did pick up a strange crossbow like device without the cross part.)  We then ran for the exit portal that was pointed to the Haunted Hills (having determined the one that pointed to Ai’Chen was under water – could this be the cause of the strange glowing whirlpool seen be fishermen?).

Emerging into the fresh air of Eden, we faced several strange denzines of the locale, including a prismatic elemental who Marius slew single handed while defending Mai’Shen from harm, firing lightning bolt after lightning bolt from the dagger and staffs – oh Lord Artimus would have been so proud.  Although Mai’Shen was helping keep Marius alive, so I guess all is fair.

We finally killed them all, but a even at this last hurdle tragedy struck as Piper was slain by one of the creatures, thankfully we were able to bring her back to us, which was lucky since there was a long walk home and so it was good she could walk herself.

At last we managed to get back, and hooray for us.  We didn’t stop Enchantica, didn’t get the artifact, didn’t rescue the mistwalkers (who escaped on their own) but we did get loot and warn the protectorate of the coming invasion.  A victory I guess?

An amazing adventure, with spaceships, cutting edge effects, amazing monsters, and a gripping story.  As always a huge thank you to the incredible monster crew who but in a massive amount of work and killed no less than 5 different characters (and one of us twice, but I agreed with Coruben that I wouldn’t let anyone know it was him so I’m not going to say who it was).

Thanks Dave for a true epic!