WELCOME TO MY DOMAIN

 Present:

• Abellinut "Able" Ugwistan, 31, Moor Arian Fighter from Septum - Jeff
• Aulius "Owl" Lucius Decanter, 25, Polytheistic Fighter from Gades - Jamie
• MARMALADE: Elia Ildaria, 24, Basque Pagan Barbarian from Gasteiz  - Richard
• Luigi Abundus Bertolini, 23, Roman Nicene Priest from Ravenna - Chris
• MARMALADE: Merkel, 24, Vandal Arian Temple-fighter from Gades - Kevin
• Vanker Polyester, 22, Vandal Pagan Rogue from Gades - Shane
• Velito Rosso, 24, Roman Nicene Barbarian from Venice - Darryl
• Victor Koshenko, 24, Alan Arian Thief from Gades - Ian

By Jeff

Dusk was fast approaching as Velito and Able peered down into the dark shaft that slipped into the depths below Geryon Sepulchre Island. They considered the option of scrambling down and hunting down the mysterious large creature that had been spotted twice now. The same creature which had thrown the huge spear at Merkel. Mysterious rattling noise occasionally echoed up from below.

"Best wait for morning" suggested Velito nervously.
"Yeah, that'll be best" agreed Able, nodding wisely.

Victor joined them as they pulled back, and they all retreated to the temporary shelter erected over one of the old stone walled building ruins and joined the rest of the party. Owl had revived from his previous comatose state and was looking around in surprise.

"Are we on Geryon Sepulchre Island?" he asked.

Dark clouds overhead

Sister Justina had just finished her Control Weather supplication and was looking suspiciously up at the dark clouds overhead. 

"Demonic forces oppose us" she muttered.
"God must trust us to deal with this ourselves" she reluctantly concluded.

Luigi and Sister Justina set about supplicating for Cures on the injured, Owl and Vanka, while lots were cast as to who would stand watch for the night. Owl drew first watch and settled down near the entrance of the shelter once his Cure had been granted. Able and Victor drew the midnight watch, while Velito took the dawn watch.

A few hours later, with the soft sounds of sleep filling the shelter, Owl's sharp ears picked out a strange shuffling/slithering noise from over near Victor's bed. Not having heard anything like it before, Owl leapt up and rushed over towards Victor, his small flickering lantern held forward and his sword clutched tightly in his right hand.

"'Ware" Owl yelled, having spotted some form of snake like creature slithering down the stone wall towards Victor's head. Owl ferociously swung his sword at the thing, hitting it dead centre and shattering it into pieces. Pieces of hard white material exploded from out and rained down onto Victor.

"What the hell?" muttered Victor, startled awake by the yelling and falling pieces of debris.

The spine-snakes

It turned out to be made of bone. Some form of articulated snake-like bone creature with nasty evil looking spikes of teeth in a clearly discernible head. Slightly less than a meter long, it had a vaguely familiar look.

"Does that look like a human spine to you?" Luigi asked rhetorically.

At this point everyone had been awakened by the commotion, except ....

"Bzzzzzzzzz" snored Velito from the corner.
"How didn't he wake up?" wondered Owl.
"Sliiiish sliiiiish" sounded from the stone wall.

Two more of the spine-snakes were slithering down the walls towards Merkle and Vanker. Merkle was prone and sprawled on the ground, as though his soul was absent, and his body was unattended. Oh right, it was! A defenceless target for the cowardly spine-snake, shame.

Owl and Able stepped forward and intercepted the cowardly spine-snake, while Vanker attempted to Dodge his attacker, supported by Luigi who stepped forward to assist.

A ferocious battle eventuated with screaming, yelling, and wild sword swinging, which fortunately woke Velito just as a third additional spine-snake launched itself at him from above. Engaging his Dodge ability, Velito managed to avoid his attacker, while Able destroyed the cowardly spine-snake and Owl was bitten by the other one. The thing clamped its jaws down on Owl's arm and its two bone spikes penetrated into his flesh and locked on.  

"Arrggghhhh" screamed Owl.
"Arrggghhhh" echoed Velito.

Throbbing wounds

When the battle was over, both Owl and Velito were found to have received nasty bite wounds, with rapidly reddening pustules developing around the puncture marks.

"Urrggghhhh" moaned Owl, "It's throbbing horribly"
"Urrggghhhh" echoed Velito, "No, no, mine's throbbing more horribly"

Sister Justina whipped out her holy water and applied it liberally to Owl's wound, while Luigi whipped out his honey infused holy water and applied it to Velito's.

"Arrggghhhh" screamed Owl as the holy water bubbled and hissed across his flesh.
"Hmmm", mused Luigi to himself, "That's mighty strange"
"Thank you, Mary Holy Mama of God, thank you" chanted Velito as the throbbing slowly faded over the next hour as Owl and Sister Justina concluded their initial supplication.

Velito's wound was still looking red and sore though, so Owl spent another hour in prayerful supplication, which did the trick. And just like that, Velito went back to sleep! For a few hours anyway. Able woke him after the end of the second watch, and Velito took over until morning. The rest of the night passed peacefully.

Sometime during the night the dark clouds overhead let go, and a thunderous downpour drenched the area. Thunder and lightning crashed continuously overhead. Torrents of water sheeted off out temporary sail roof, and rivulets of water ran down the inside of the old stone walls and onto the ground. 

By morning, the weather had calmed, and the rain had stopped. The dark clouds were still present though, and they still swirled unnaturally, centred directly over the island.

Victor and Owl went looking for any tracks that the slithering spine-snakes might have made. Despite their different findings and disagreements, they concluded that the creatures had emerged from the shaft during the night, and their source was definitely below.

While Velito and Able organised some ropes off the boat and anchored them to the rocks near the descending shaft, Sister Justina and Luigi offered yet another round of prayerful supplication on behalf of Owl's wounds of the night before. In fact, they both exhausted all their supplication opportunities. 

[The Divine Powers only tolerate a limited quantity of prayerful supplication in any particular time period, measured in-game by the Magic Points skill. When you have used all your magic points, you are unable to perform any more magic until your points are replenished. To replenish your points, you must undertake a period of peaceful rest, normally twelve hours, and you will recover D4 points. This process can be uncomfortably slow, so there is an accelerated method utilising the magic-user's "grape" or the priest's holy wafer (or similar), and a Transfer process where one Supplicant of the same Divine Power can Transfer points to another. 

In this current eighth century game, the predominant magic is divine, i.e. prayers granted by the Divine Powers, Gods if you will.

A person (NPC or PC) who prays to a Divine Power is called a "Supplicant".

CHOICE: The Supplicant must decide which Divine Power to worship. This is a conscious decision. Children default to their mother's choice (at birth). 

Choice can be made at any time after puberty, but it involves a one-hour dedication ceremony (put on by the local church/temple) which culminates in a three-step professing of their choice.

The available Divine Powers align with the beliefs of the time including the One God of the Christians (Nicene or Arian), the assorted Saints of the Christians, the One God of the Jews, and the pantheon of Gods of the Romans and other Pagans, and NONE.

NONE is a valid choice, but consciously choosing NONE results in the chooser becoming an Infernal (arcane magic-user). Children born to mothers who have chosen NONE are Imps.

The Supplicants exercise their divine magic ability through CONTACT with their God.

There are three states of Contact:

QUIESCENT - in this state, there is no communication to or from the Supplicant.
This is the default state.

OPEN - this opens the mind of the supplicant and allows the Divine Power to initiate communications. When this communication happens, there is a "Divine interruption" and the Supplicant's event-handler switches into CONTACT state.

CONTACT - this allows two-way communication between the Divine Power and the Supplicant. All conversation is done by intense conscious thought. It can be voiced out-loud (thickos do it this way), but the reply is not heard by anyone but the Supplicant. The Supplicant always has control and can terminate communications at any time and drop out into the QUIESCENT state.

It is during CONTACT that the Supplicant communicates their desired spell effect to the Divine Power, uses their Magic Divine skill to determine if successful, and if so, the Divine Power will grant the appropriate effect. This CONTACT takes one hour, with the success roll being made at the end of the hour.

During CONTACT, the Supplicant is in direct communication with their chosen Divine Power and thus in a somewhat euphoric state. Their body takes on a kind of euphoric holiness, manifested by a glimpse of Divinity within their eyes and observed by others as a "happy glow".]

With the ropes securely fixed to rocks above the shaft and running down into the darkness below, the party carefully descended into the depths. Able took the lead, with Owl, Vanker, Victor, Velito, Luigi, and Sister Justina following one after the other. Almost immediately, Able noticed that the surfaces of the shaft were covered in a wet, slimy liquid that made it all very slippery. The dim light from the flickering candle-lanterns suggested that the slimy liquid was probably red in colour.

"Ewwww" squealed Owl, "I hope this isn't blood"

"Sssshhhh" whispered Able, "What's that noise?"

A now familiar shuffling/slithering noise rattled from just ahead, and a spine-snake dropped off the ceiling of the shaft straight down towards Able, its jaw spread wide and it's two fangs heading for his face.

"Crunnnnch" echoed up the shaft as Able's sword swung dextrously into the snake and smashed it into pieces.

"Ummmm" warned Owl, "More ahead"

"Down" yelled Vanker from the middle of the group.

Able and Owl immediately ducked low as Vanker fired at the first of two more spine-snakes that were slithering along the walls of the shaft towards us. The arrow embedded itself into the snake's head and was immediately followed by Able's sword. The snake shattered and dropped off the wall, but the second one was then right on top of us. But both Able and Owl were able to strike it, and it too shattered and dropped off the wall to rattle down into the darkness below.

Pausing for a moment, but hearing nothing, we started back down.

After descending about ten meters the shaft opened up into a large rocky cave, steamy hot, covered in the red slime, and filled with the strong stench of brimstone. A deep rumble and faint red glow issued from far down a tunnel that run out from the far side of the cave, and two human skeletons lay on the floor of the cave off to the left. Neither had a spine.

The glow of fire ahead

"Nooo" moaned Luigi, "God preserve us. It's the second death. The lake of fire"

"Owwww" complained Owl, "these old bites are throbbing painfully again"

"Owwww" echoed Velito, "I'm sure mine are worse"

Suddenly, a sharp pain stabbed into everyone's head and a deep angry voice spoke.

"WHO DARES ENTER MY DOMAIN?
IDENTIFY YOURSELVES"

[In fact, only those who failed their saving throw against arcane magic heard that booming threatening message. Which was everyone, except for Owl and Vanker. They both heard a different message!
They both heard "WELCOME TO MY DOMAIN. COME FRIENDS"]

"I am Abellinut" stated Able boldly, "Who are you?"

"GERYON" boomed the response. 

"Oh no" groaned Luigi, "Geryon, the three-bodied Giant, the strongest of all men, the spear thrower, the cattle herder. We are doomed"
"Not me" exclaimed Velito, "I'll stay back here. You deal with him"

"But wait .... Heracles killed him!" exclaimed Luigi, "It must be a trick"

Despite various grumblings and much nervousness, we all moved forward into the wide tunnel ahead, Vanker and Owl striding boldly at the fore. The tunnel went on for some hundreds of meters ahead, the strong stench of brimstone increasing with each step. The heat was also increasing, and it was becoming more difficult to breathe with every step. Owl and Velito particularly were wheezing and gasping, their old wounds aching painfully.

At the front, Vanker and Owl could see a figure silhouetted by the red glow at the end of the tunnel. It was tall, much taller than a man, and carried a long spear in each hand. More spears were silhouetted above its head, probably strapped to its back. Vanker and Owl both hear a load soothing voice booming "STEP FORWARD FRIEND, INTO THE EMBRACE OF GERYON"

"I'll take care of this" states Owl, and strides forward towards the figure, Vanker right beside him.
The rest hesitantly move slowly forward also. The figure could be seen striding forward towards us. The gap was closing rapidly, and Velito began muttering to himself.

"No, no, this is wrong" he moaned quietly. "Mama preserve us. It's a time to retreat"

Geryon revealed

Then the dim light from Owl's lantern illuminated the figure. Tall indeed, and perhaps still a man, although dubious that it was "alive". It stood twice the height of Able, half skeletal with flesh hanging from it like slabs of cut meat and dripping red-stained pus from every piece. Each arm held a giant spear, and another eight were indeed strapped across its back.

"WELCOME FRIENDS, BRING FORTH THE SACRIFICES" heard Vanker and Owl.

"It says it's OK to proceed" translated Vanker.

Velito grabbed Luigi, turned, and dragged him back down the tunnel towards the larger cave. Victor and Sister Justina rapidly followed them, both muttering and moaning quietly to themselves.

Vanker, Owl, and Able were the only ones left in front of the creature, Able clutching his sword nervously in his sweaty grip and looking up at the giant in front of them.

"FETCH YOUR OTHER FRIENDS" Geryon's voice boomed.
"Um, they have gone" noted Vanker.
"I WILL SHOW THEM" 

Geryon drew back an arm and hurled one of his spears down the tunnel. It shot over Ables head like a thunderbolt, sped down the tunnel in a low arc, and shattered the tunnel wall beside Victor's head. Victor squealed, ducked and sprinted off into the cave, ducking around the corner and cowering on the floor.

Velito and Sister Justina, hauling Luigi along, hurried after Velito, their heads low and extremely fearful of a spear in the back. Fortunately, the second spear also missed, chipping rock of the tunnel wall just beside Sister Justina, and thudding across the floor of the cave ahead. Victor leapt over the spear as it skidded across the floor and raced up the exit tunnel, leaving Sister Justina, Velito, and Luigi crouching in the cave away from the tunnel.

"What do you want demon?" yelled Velito from around the corner.

There was no reply from Geryon, he was busy talking to Able.

"FRIEND, YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN YOUR OTHER TWO FRIENDS" Geryon invited.
"Who are you though" asked Able.

"I AM GOD HERE IN MY DOMAIN"

Geryon paused and hurled another spear down the tunnel. Velito had pulled a net from his backpack and laced it up over the tunnel entrance. Then he, Sister Justina, and Luigi had made a break for the entrance shaft. The net was only partially successful though. The spear ripped through the net, deflected away from Velito, and thudded into Luigi's back. The net had slowed the spear somewhat, and although Luigi was injured, he was also propelled into the shaft, and he scrambled away up towards the surface.

"THEY ARE GONE NOW" Geryon told Able, Owl, and Vanker.

"GO, DESTROY THE BOAT, BRING THEM BACK"

"Yes, yes" replied Vanker, "Can you gift us with some power to help us in this mission?"

"MY POWER IS OVER THE STORMS BUT TAKE THIS" he boomed.

Sparks burst from Vanker's fingers

Reaching forward, Geryon laid his hands on Vanker's head and with a crackling of power, pulses of light travelled down the giant's arms and into Vanker. Vanker's arms rose to the horizontal, sparks bursting off his fingers, his eyes rolled up and pinpricks of light flashed across the whites of his eyes.

"YOU MAY NOW CALL LIGHTNING" Geryon noted, "ONCE A DAY."
"Did you want our companions in particular?" asked Vanker, grateful for the bestowal of power.
"THE MORE THE MERRIER" Geryon replied.

"What about me?" queried Owl eagerly, "I'll need something to help our efforts too"

Reaching forward, Geryon laid his hands on Owl's head and with a crackling of power, pulses of light travelled down the giant's arms and into Owl. Owl's muscles twitched as pulses of light flashed down his limbs, lingering at his fingertips.

"YOU MAY NOW REMOVE SPINAL COLUMNS AND FORM MINIONS" Geryon noted,
"ONCE A DAY, WHEN SUCESSFULLY ATTACKING."

Able wisely didn't say anything, and then we all hurried off out of the tunnel to "go get the others"

After climbing to the top of the entrance shaft, we hurried over to where the rest of the party were loading everything onto the boat and preparing to depart.

Vanker pondered on the wisdom of destroying the boat with his new lightning power, to appease Geryon. As he pondered the thought, he heard "YES, JUST DO IT" echo inside his head.

"Oh crap" he muttered.

Sister Justina saw us coming and intercepted us with her cross held out in front of her.
"Your eyes are glowing!" she exclaimed fearfully, "Did you deal with the demon?"

Owl's and Vanker's eyes were glowing!
Not as in projecting a beam of light glowing, more of a happy excited euphoric glowing. 
In fact, just like a priest in CONTACT with their Divine Power!

A hasty departure from the island

"Um" stuttered Owl, "hardly a deal. More of a discussion, to allow us to escape!"

"Let's get out of here" exclaimed Vanker, "He might come up again!"

That was enough motivation, and everyone clambered onto the boat. Velito pushed us off and we rowed madly back towards town.