From: Karl Thiebolt <karlt@qwest.net> To: Gaming Group Date: Saturday, April 21, 2001 12:19 AM Subject: Assembled in the Guildhall

A half an hour ago you were relaxing in the comfort of The Book Wyrm, polishing off mugs of cider and re-reading the letters from Uncle Max which were delivered to you a little earlier. As you watched Laurelyn dramatically flirt with a couple of Third Year students (with constant looks back to see if she was getting any reaction), you contemplated ordering another round of drinks.

Suddenly, the air was filled with the most profound noise. It was the Guildhall bells. Not the sweet-voiced bells that ring out important events and announce the initiation of new Guildmembers, but the great Tunkel gongs, which are so deep-toned and loud that they are felt in the chest rather than heard with the ears. The low notes repeated for nearly a minute. Then came another impressive sound.... the fast beating of the great War Drums, only struck when the Guild marches to war!

The drums would sound for hours, but it didn't take more than a few seconds for every person in the pub to be on their feet, flying down the road towards the bridge and the Guild beyond. Even the publican -- a retired Adventurer, like so many in this town -- dropped his bar towel and ran out with the crowd, not even bothering to lock up.

It probably only took you 15 minutes to make the normally 30 minute walk to the Guild. It sits, as it has for centuries, on a natural stone ridge which rises up out of the grasslands. The structure is enormous.... not as vertically imposing as Castle Chilton, but broad and strong. The complex is surrounded by 30-foot-thick granite walls. Outside the walls are the non-essential warehouses, as well as a small community of individuals who make their livings providing services to the Guild.

Once through the main gate, your gaze is drawn to the Guildhall, an vast structure made of blue slate, in the general likeness of a great temple or church. A huge crowd mills around outside. The front entrance to the hall consists of two ENORMOUS doors, crafted of gilt bronze by a Dwarvish craftsman as a gift for the Guild's services to his people in the Wizard Wars. The scenes detailed on it show a great battlefield, with thousands of orcs on the left side, and thousands of dwarves on the right side, and a group of Guild members framed between the groups at the top, their divine mandate indicated by the angels flying above their heads.

It is said these doors are only opened on two occasions... when an Apprentice is elevated to Journeyman, he or she is led through the doors to be presented to the Guild Membership, to the peals of the Guildhall bells.... and when a fallen Guildmember is brought back to be buried in the catacombs beneath the hall, the casket is carried through the doors. All other times the doors remain closed and locked.

Back to the situation. It has been nearly an hour since the gongs began to ring out, and not only has every member present in Seagate arrived, but a sizable number of retired guildmembers have as well. All told, there are nearly 1200 people waiting in the great courtyard. The normal doors, which flank the front entrance, swing wide and the crowd files in.

Standing at the dais at the front of the hall are 5 of the 6 members of the Guild Council. (Wegan the Inscrutable has been missing for several years.) As soon as the crowd is assembled and seated, 4 of the members sit down at the High Table, and Kali the Nameless (Chairman Pro Tem & Mistress of Naming Magic) begins to address the audience.

"Thank you for coming so quickly, and demonstrating that all those years of training were not completely forgotten."

"Let me start off by explaining what has happened, and why your Guild needs you this day."

"Almost exactly a month ago, there was a break-in in the vaults beneath the Guild -- vaults in which we store the magical resources we have collected for over a thousand years. The would-be burglars weren't very successful, they were discovered and killed before they were able to achieve what they wanted."

"Or so we thought. Investigation by Guild Security turned up a lot of puzzling clues. The apparent ringleader was a Mind Wizard by the name of Timothy Lane, who had used his position in the Guild to place his fellow thieves in positions within the Residential staff. He also had other compatriots that he helped place, but we didn't know about them at first. Tim was a loner, but he was noted for being particularly lazy -- it's odd that he would be motivated enough to organize such an assault, when it seems so out of character."

"The night of the burglary saw his second group manifest. When it became clear that there was something happening in the catacombs, a cry went up for Guild Security. Less than HALF of them assembled. Later we discovered the bodies of the missing Guardsmen. There was another odd thing about the bodies... all appeared to have been dead for many weeks, yet they had all been seen on their posts less than 24 hours before."

"It was only after the late Graf Grendel von Gracht interrogated the dead men, was it revealed that they had been killed by doppelgangers, who had ambushed them and then assumed their forms and duties. We have no idea what part they played, aside from allowing Tim and his friends to reach the catacombs without interferance."

"Another mystery... the gang didn't bother to try to get into the Inner Sanctum... where most of the relics from the Wizard Wars are kept. Instead they started in the scroll room -- turning it upside down, but not taking anything. Next they entered the alchemical vault. Again, they took nothing... but this time they were thorough, shattering potion bottles and knocking so many reagents down that the floor started to fizz and emit poisonous vapors."

"It was while they were in the middle of this rampage that Security found them. In the ensuing battle, it became clear that the burlars were fighting to the death, and our people were forced to kill them in order to survive themselves."

"So. Nothing stolen. About a million gold pieces worth of potions all mixed together on the floor (doing Goddess alone knows what to the carpet!). We lost most of the scroll room -- an unidentified person set fire to the parchments during the battle."

"After the battle we discovered something else odd. One of the items in the alchemical vault is the Sedgemoor Cauldron. This item only sees use every two or three centuries -- it consumes great amounts of mana, and so it only gets requisitioned when the Guild goes to war -- its power is the ability to make an almost endless number of Healing Potions. It is sacred to Dagda, and his likeness appears on the sides."

"The investigation showed that Timothy had attempted to cast Dispel Magic on the Cauldron, and when that failed he attempted to desecrate it with black magic. When that ALSO failed, he resorted to trying to break it with a mace. This WAS somewhat sucessful, as he had cracked and bent it considerably before his work was interrupted by the arrival of the guards."

"The Cauldron is sufficiently damaged that it may take a lifetime to repair."

"Was this the whole point of this exercise? To destroy a magical item that hasn't seen use in 230 years? Why?"

"The other shoe dropped less than 24 hours later. As you may have heard by now, the Dark Circle was discovered in the heart of the Artusian Hills, southwest of Carzala. The name comes from the fact that within the boundaries of the Circle, the sun never directly shines... it seems hidden by clouds, and the land is in perpetual twilight. Our seers tell us that the effect is Necromantic in nature. Even at the time the Circle was first discovered, it was growing at a rapid pace."

"To tell you about that discovery, I'd like to introduce the Guild Warmaster, Sir Albert Bonnedenson."

Sir Albert steps to the stage. A Carzalan noble -- tall, grey haired, and with a remarkable beak nose -- he has served in armies in several wars. He teaches Military Science at the Guild College.

"Thank you, Guildmistress Kali."

"Over the next two weeks we began to understand what the Dark Circle was. It was a massive necromantic spell with a sole purpose... to raise an army of the undead. Whenever the Circle passed over unhallowed burial sites, the dark magics within it caused the dead to rise, and join in the evil procession. As the Circle expanded out of the wilderness, and started to engulf small nomad communities upon the Sweet Riding, the size of the undead army started to multiply rapidly. The more undead that were created, the more living creatures they were able to kill and add to the retinue."

"As we assayed our first warriors and clerics, we discovered to our sadness that undead within the Circle were much stronger than usual... they appeared to be at least twice as physically stong as the normal magical skeleton, and our clerics tell us that they were almost as hard as wraiths to turn."

"Undead outside of the Circle had no such benefits."

"Observation of their tactics revealed how their strategy was laid out. Far in advance of the Dark Circle is the Undead Army. The Undead Army is concentrated in a ring around the outside of the Circle. When the ring of undead comes in contact with a town or another military force, the undead concentrate at the point of contact, leaving the sides less defended."

"When they successfully engulf a community, they proceed to desecrate the local temples and graveyards. Once this has happened, the Dark Circle expands outward to encompass their new holdings."

"It turns out that many of the living creatures trapped within the ring are as yet unharmed. There aren't enough undead yet to adequately patrol. One of our pixie scouts has told us that there are "officers" remaining back within the safety of the darkness. We believe these "officers" may be wraiths or worse -- but she told us that there weren't very many of them, so as the army increases they will no doubt experience Command and Control problems."

"We cannot, under any circumstances, allow this Dark Circle to consume the larger communities of Carzala. There are nearly 140,000 people living within the Duchy, who would become troops for whatever master these... "things" ... serve."

"And so we are going to stop them. Let me tell you how..."

"For the last two weeks the Duke has been fortifying a wall across the plain south of Carzala. Behind it he has his enormous army, nearly 20,000 men. Between the fortifications and the warriors, the undead are going to be decimated if they choose to impale themselves in a head-on attack up the valley."

"If they try to swing to the north to flank the Duke, they will find that the Druids of Slippery Rock have destroyed Arn's Ferry, and there won't be any further travel that direction without losing troops to the fast moving (and deep) waters of the Sweetwater. Beyond that are the forested hills of the East Warding, where the very trees answer to the Druids' call."

"Because the Undead Army doesn't "think" very well, you might think of it as behaving like some great single monster... perhaps like those "pudding" monsters we used to hear about in the Isles. I am sure that the army will test both the center and right flanks... and the pain it recieves will cause it to snap to the left and try to flank that way."

"But to the left is the Rithe Regar and the Fastness of Girwyllan, neither of which this army will be able to traverse. There are only two places where the undead will be able to enter Carzala... the bridge at Regar's Keep, and the bridge at Southgate."

"It is our intention to use nearly 150 Knights and Rangers assigned to Regar's Keep to render the bridge there completely useless... and thereby force the undead northward to Southgate. We've dug up the cemetary in Southgate, and moved the dead into the mountains of the Fastness. Our clerics have "desanctified" the temples there, so that they are no longer able to be desecrated."

"We intend to open the city gates and bridge and allow the undead to pass through, so that we can be certain that we have all of the surviving undead moving towards us in one group. This means that they MUST get to Seagate to use the bridge there if they want to capture the Church and Graveyard there, and if they want to move into the Baronies."

"And Seagate is going to be one big trap!"

"On the forward lines, south of the Guild Headquarters, we'll station our magical adepts, and some of our paladins. The wizards and sorcerors will summon every spell of mass destruction they can muster... doing as much damage as they can to the army while it's all massed together. The paladins will serve as bodyguards, preventing the undead from approaching the spellcasters."

"After the tide begins to turn, the spellcasters and paladins will withdraw to the Guild and secure it, and ride out the passage of the undead."

"As soon as that happens, we'll send riders to notify the rear elements. The next thing we're going to do is try to attrition off as many of the undead as we can by drawing them into small battles in the tight streets approaching the bridge."

"Again, as the tide of the battle turns, we'll withdraw these troops north into the city. With any luck, we'll have reduced the undead significantly at this point. We'll appear to rout... leaving the bridge unprotected, and luring the undead to follow us toward the city centre and the Church."

"Which is where we hit them with the coup de grace. All of our clerics, the monks, and any paladins or other troops not previously allocated will be waiting to turn the surviving undead back to just plain dead."

"I understand that the Order of St Michael have removed "The Sword" from the Sanctuary, and are preparing to use it if necessary."

"And while we're cleaning up in Seagate, the adepts and Paladins will head back south and see of they can kill some of the "officers" which must be close by."

"Assuming the Dark Circle breaks when it hits Carzala, the Duke will spring forward with that army of his and clean a swath right through to the center of the Circle -- and deal with who (or what)ever's responsible.

"All right, I need all Masters to meet with Kali up here on the dais. ALL Journeymen are to gather by discipline in the great Courtyard and receive your orders from your senior members. All retired and reserve Guildmembers are to meet with Jeremiah Hornsfell over by the Armory -- and would all Apprentices please gather in front of the dormitory to recieve orders from Mistress Thunderfoot."

"You have your assignments...... NOW MOVE!!!!"

(Briefing continues with Cathrin Thunderfoot immediately afterwards.... I'll write that up tomorrow.... <yawn!> KtG)