Tales of Midgard

GM: James
Transcribed by: James
Date: February 23, 2020
In Game date: April 18, 2012
Episode: 30

Part 01: Fergus Mac Cormaic

After we had made it back to Jack Youngblood’s house with his comatose father and his wife, Abigail Youngblood we settled in to discuss strategy. We were in the middle of a heated debate with Jack, Abby, Craig Big Eagle, Leif Wotensen with some input from my fiance, Anna Maria Avila when the doorbell rang.

I am not sure who I expected to greet us at the door. But the last person I imagined was the Denarion Demon, Tenebriel. She assured us that she was just there to talk and we met with her in the back yard at a picnic table. David and I spoke to the demon at length over some tea and she revealed that she was in our debt for her rescue from Azael’s ritual to harness the power from the demon, Sebassis. In an effort to discharge that debt she was willing to offer us information on how to dispose of the power that was causing so much terror and strife in the whole region.

The demon suggested that the best place to do a ritual to dispose of the demonic power was the place where it originated. It took a moment for us to work out what she was saying but we realized that she meant the old wizard’s lab. Artemis Miller was Seattle’s first Wizard of the White Council in the area and he had specialized in magics dealing with demesnes. Jack and I had found his old lab and done a ritual on the Un-man there ending it as a threat.

As a side effect, all the energies the Un-man had absorbed over the course of its existence were released. For Jack this was a blessing. The Un-man had almost completely drained his mystic energy leaving him powerless. After the ritual Jack once again was in possession of his formidable magics.

Unfortunately he wasn’t the only one who regained his power. Casimir Sokolov, the Russian mobster and head of the The Sokolov Bratva, had gained his power back as well. As an agent of the Black God of Murder, Chernobog, he was a formidable foe and it took everything David and I had to end his reign of terror.

The Un-man had also been draining magic from the demon, Sebassis for years at a lab run by The Peter Kirk Syndicate. Trevor Radcliffe had been holding the demon, using its influence to further his business interests. David and I had defeated the demon, who had nearly been ready to escape his captivity, and banished it back to Hell. But its power had remained within the Un-man until it was released by Jack and I. There were several factions who wanted to capture that power and we were in a race to dispose of it before it ended up in the hands of a monster.

Tenebriel suggested we summon Sebassis itself, the power would be drawn to the demon naturally, and once it had absorbed it we would then banish it back to Hell. This seemed wildly dangerous to me. Tenebriel said that creating a demesne on the site of where its power had been released would provide an extra modicum of safety. With that she declared her debt repaid and she left us to deal with the issue.

Gods. What a mess.

Part 02: David Clay

Fergus, who was nearly exhausted from the running battles we had endured over the last few days, got some much needed sleep at Jack’s house while I did some investigation. My first stop was the site of the Radcliffe Lab in Bellevue where we had battled and defeated Sebassis. In the aftermath the entire building had collapsed onto the underground facility leaving a sinkhole. I was able to observe the site from a nearby restaurant that had a balcony for dining outdoors. The rest of the block was in the full bloom of spring with green and growing shrubs, grass and trees but the fenced off property was dead and lifeless. All the trees and grass were brown and obviously dead. Other than that there was nothing of note there.

I decided it was time to head to my second stop. I went to the site that Fergus had first met Lucy Smith-Einar when she was being forced by the ruthless Peter Kirk Syndicate to use her magic to clean up the messes created by the demon while he was being held in their lab. It was near Buel Hall on the campus of the University of Washington. The location was very similar to the lab I had just visited. All the grass and trees and other nature seemed to be dead and lifeless. As if some strange blight had destroyed it. Which I suppose was exactly was the case here.

As I approached the ring of dead trees and grass I noticed something odd. What was obviously a very old Norse sword was stabbed into the ground with a ancient crown hanging by the hilt. I also saw some flickering lights inside the darkened building. I moved to get a closer look when a mist started to form around me moving with some strange purpose. It coalesced into a skeletal form wearing Norse armor and a masked helmet. The spectral figure spoke in what I suspected Old Norse holding up its hand for me to stop. I tried to communicate in all the languages at my command but it simply stood its ground barring my passage.

I needed some help and I knew just who to call.

Part 03: Leif Wotensen

I haven’t been involved in this kind of crap for a few years now. I had promised my girlfriend, Emmie Mercer, that I was done with going on these “damn fool adventures”. But if this apparition was who I think it was I was responsible for it. I was the one who brought the damn Draugr from Jotunheim a few years ago. I had hoped that I had seen the last of the creature.

But I am not that lucky. Damn. It was Heidreck the Wise. Just as I feared. He stared at me with pure malice, knowing that I was a son of Odin. Heidreck had long hated Odin and would do anything in his power to destroy or hurt him. Including killing me. I spoke to him directly and he told me in an old Norse dialect that we could not pass. It seemed that Eric Laufey had summoned the creature and bound it to the perimeter of the Hall with instructions to not let anyone by him. I remembered the old tales about how Heidrick had rejected his father’s teachings going against all that was good a honorable about him. He was an oath-breaker, kinslayer and overall monster whose life was spent spilling blood and killing the innocent. I looked forward to bringing him to an end.

I cast a Rune of Fate on the sword and crown and learned that the blade was a potent bane for the spirit. It was being used along with the crown to force him to do guard duty. I explained to David that the blade could hurt the creature and he charged forward to grab the sword. As soon as he pulled it from the ground the Draugr attacked with his own spirit blade, rending a terrible wound in the golem’s clay body. I charged forward and snatched the crown up and placed it on my head. I used it, focusing my will on the monster and commanded it to stop. The Draugr wheeled on me with a curse and attacked me viciously, resisting my command. I could feel it fighting me both physically and mentally. My head felt like it was going to explode from the feedback as we had a contest of wills.

Heidrick charged toward me, grabbing my head in his spectral hands. His touch was like ice and frost formed on my head as I experienced a wicked case of brain-freeze. It was like a spike right into my brain. I screamed in agony and my whole body started to ice over. David attacked with the sword scoring a hit on the monster forcing it to release me. I gathered my wits and blasted it with Rune-cast lightning driving it back a bit. David caught my attention and stabbed the blade right into the Draugr’s center mass calling for me to finish it.

I cast the lightning rune again and hit the sword that was still in the middle of the creatures essence. The magic of the rune combined with the magical sword were too much for Heidrick. He screamed in agony and his form became blurry and finally dispersed. He wasn’t dead. I really wanted to finish him but I was not in any shape to do so. My whole body was trembling from the cold and I knew I was in no shape to continue. Emmie was going to kill me.

Part 04: Fergus Mac Cormaic

David got Lief back on his bike and sent him home to tend to his wounds. Meanwhile, Anna and I decided to head back to the Judd Creek Commune on Vashon Island with little Erin. Jack had assured me that the wards he had placed on the commune would be sufficient to protect her from any intruders. It felt good to get back home and I took a long shower. it had been a rough few days of constant fighting and I was pretty grimy. I used some of Gemtriax Theophania’s herbal soaps and they refreshed me both physically and spiritually. The black taint that I had picked up when we had interrupted Azael’s ritual in the demesne last night was washed away with the thorough cleansing.

When I got out of the shower I apologized to Anna for my behavior and explained to her about how the demon’s taint had left me irritable and I had taken it out on her. She accepted my apology and I could tell that she was simply glad to be back home. We discussed what to do next and I decided I was going to go to the site where David and I had first encountered the Demon. I convinced Gemtria to come with me to help me look over the area. She was an Animist and had a great deal of knowledge of the local plant life and the area in general. I was hoping she would be able to spot anything that was out of the ordinary on the site.

It took a while for me to locate the site of the encounter with the blackthorn tree but we got there without incident. I did notice we were being followed however. It spotted that ratty old tom cat named Kerouac as he trailed us. He sidled right up to me and looked me directly in the eyes. There was a great intelligence in his gaze and I nearly jumped out of my skin when he started talking to me in my head. Gem too from the way she jumped. I couldn’t believe it. I was speaking to a freaking house cat. WTF???

Kerouac explained in a thick New York accent that he was a Bast and he and his kind had been guardians going all the way back to the times of Ancient Egypt. I got the impression that he must be a lot older than any normal cat just based on his somewhat antiquated speech patterns. He used a lot of language and slang from the 50s which was just bizarre. He explained that he was here to protect my little daughter. Apparently she was something special. He would get no arguments from me. I just wondered how Anna would feel about it.

It was a good thing he had followed us too. He was the one who spotted the seedling blackthorn tree that was growing not far from where the one we had burned had been. I dug the seedling up and hoped it would be enough of a link for Jack and Abby to use in the ritual. We got back to the commune and I put the small tree in a pot while Gem introduced Kerouac to Anna. I kissed her on the head and then took the tree back to Jack’s house on Capitol Hill.

David was there too and he explained that he had gone to the location of Artemis Miller’s lab. It had sealed up with Earth Magic so it wasn’t easy to locate. The problem was that he had been followed. A large man wearing a trench coat and a turtleneck sweater trailed him in a jeep. David strongly suspected he was a Fomor minion and lead the man on a wild goose chase making several other stops to try and conceal the true location of the lab. It probably didn’t matter though. When Jack and I had first gone to the lab we had battled Fomor Minions there and at least one had gotten away. They likely already knew the location.

We had an impromptu war council with Jack, David, Abby, Craig and I all working out a strategy for how to proceed next. Jack explained that the main hurdle would be the blackthorn tree. The seedling just wasn’t mature enough to be a sufficient ritual link to Sebassis. As we discussed who we could use to protect us from a likely Fomor assault I had a idea about how we could get the tree we needed. I knew of a dryad named Máire who could grow the seedling into an adult tree with magics in a mere seconds. Problem was that she hated my guts. I might be able to persuade her to aid us if my cousin, Aonghas Mac Cormaic, spoke on my behalf.

I told my allies about her and Jack got really excited. He thought that was a great idea and suggested that David and I go to the NeverNever to enlist her aid while he and Craig and Abby prepared the demesne we would need for the ritual. I just hope this wasn’t a mistake. The Nevernever was a dangerous place. We would be lucky to get out of there alive.

END OF CHAPTER NINE

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