(the rest pt 2)
Author: Torin
May the eight, nine-hundred and sixty-ninth year:
Place/Gathering Discovered: Monk's Keep in Elemirre Date: unknown Transcribed by: Xerox, placed in by Clorneth I think I have the circle of confinement problem licked. We can link as many magical circle as we want together to form one gigantic circle. As long as there is one circle of protection spells involved in the creation of the circle of confinement, the power of that spell would spread through the circle. I think we will even be able to use Gerald�s spell cord. So some or all of the spellweavers would be able to cast their circle spell. The ends of their circle would be tied or lined to the other, forming one huge circle. Each link must be spelled together. �These spelled combined� I command: confine!� should world quite nicely for this effect. The circle of confinement must be properly placed before the two ends of the circle of confinement are linked. In this instance, the person who created the first section and the last section must make the link to concert. �these spelles combine. This circle defined!� will do. I should mention that while the prohibition against conversing with one another is lifting during this portion of the ritual, the prohibition against placement is not. Linking the beginning and the end of the circle of confinement is tricky. I recommend having the same spellcaster cast the first and the last portions of the circle fo confinement. It would be much simpler Things to remember in creation a circle of confinement: it must be a large enough circle to contain all of the other element of the ritual. This means a circle of protection or greater circle of protection for myself and the magical circle that will surround the astral anchoring point. June the third, nine-hundred and seventy-first years: One first practice run of creating a circle of confinement was a mixed success. After running thought the purification right without a hitch, the spellwavers began to formt he circle. We had a horrible start. Gridnal, the mage who would cast the first and last portions of the circle accidentally stepped on Tira�a foot. There was burst of energy and both of them fell dead. Shammer went to see if they were o.k. and consequently fell dead. Unable to speak, I was unable to give proper direction. Finally some servant-boy wandered in and removed the bodies. The spellwavers began casting their circles. The first cast his spell. The second cast his spell and linked it the first and so on. Llira and Jouin did a wonderful job at finishing the circle, considering the weren�t really prepared to do so. Their voiced sounded as one and they tied the knot without touching. Looking at our work, our circle of confinement was smaller than intended. Had this been a real attempt, we would have never have fit the circle around the other element of the ritual. Still, to have complete the circle at all was a major accomplishment. Still haven�t heard from any of the mercenaries I have sent missive to. This would ritual is going to be moot if we cannon find a warrior skilled enough to take down Nemese. I don�t want to face Nemesis without someone beside me. I am still working on how to get Myria out of the circle surrounding the astral anchor before Nemesis has a change to tear her apart. SO far our only plan is to have her attempted to jump the circles, but should she trip or get killed in the attempt, we could end up disrupting ALL the circles we placed around the astral anchor. Not that we have figured out how to set up the circle of protection around the astral anchor yet. So far, we can only get up one� Myria only has the spell once. I don�t know what it is about a magical Focus that causes circle of healing to be disrupted should they be crossed. It sort of makes the spell useless. I asked Myria what we needed a circle of healing for anyways. She asked me if I knew another ways of anchoring one�s own astral cord. I consented the point sagely, despite the fact I had no idea what she was talking about. June the fifth, nine-hundred and seventy-third year: Everyone here at Monk�s Keep is getting along pretty well. The mages and healers have been doing a wonderful job keeping the peasant happy and healthy. I have no idea what Nemesis has been up to these day. After killing most of the orcs in Fenmere, maybe it decide it was time for a vacation. On a somewhat disappointing note, the warrior we had hired to participate in the ritual has turned up missing and presumed dead. I don�t know how we are going to find anyone else who would fight a Demon Prince for as reasonable a fee. Myria things she has a solution to the circle of protection around the astral anchor problem. She seems to think that she can carry a dead mage into the circle while is astral, and have the circle of healing bring life back to the mage without disrupting the circle of healing. I asked her if a mage can cast a circle of protection from with a circle of healing. She said as long as they don�t mess with any other circles that is should be ok. I asked her how to get the mages out. She hadn�t thought of that. I told her that was her problem. Mryia is still working at beefing up the defense around the astral anchor. Gerald is working with the spellweavers. Hopefully Mryia will have figured out a solution by the time I find someone else dumb enough to fight Nemesis September the Thirteenth, nine-hundred and seventy-third year: I don�t know what went wrong. Myris�a still fuming. We started that ritual one time� 4 o�clock sharp. We did lose of the spellweavers in the purification ritual due to the sixty second time limit, but that was not hard to world around. Our warriors was just going to have to work a little extra-hard. We never even got that far. Since we had two other mage who were not part of the ritual available, we figured we could lay three circle of protection around the circle of healing Myria was using for an astral anchor. Myria created the circle of healing and gave us the go ahead signal. The two mage were slain while Myria asked for a divine favor to become astral. A minute later, Mryia appear inside the circle of healing and she was angry. She just stormed off. Fortunately Gerald and I were able to end the ritual without causing any more deaths. September the Fifteenth, nine-hundred and seventy-third year: Mryia came to bed last night with a look of disgust on her face. I asked her what was wrong. She said she made a mistake. My wife admitting to an error is truly a momentous occasion. I summoned light and asked her what the mistake was. She said she had made a mistake in the mathematic. She said the psychic location of Nemesis� entry into the realms would be 90 degrees to the right of the east (not to the left of the west). Said something about multiplying by negative one. (How can an amount be negative, anyways!). She said we can try against next year. I asked her how long a body can be dead before it has to be raided. She said usually before the end of the day, but here at Monk�s Keep, bodies could lie for years and still be raised. She asked me why. I didn�t tell her, but I am pretty sure that those two mages who killed themselves to participate in the spell will stay fresh in the cellers. No need to feed them this way� September the Thirteenth, nine-hundred and seventy-fourth year: We got a little farther this year. I had one of the severnt -boys begin up the two dead mages from last year, telling them to be careful not to touch the necklace they wore. The spellwavers are getting good at this. We lost no one in the purification ritual. We decided to reorder the ritual a bit. After purification, Myria would create her astral anchor and help get those magical circle of protection up. This worked well. Myria created circle of healing. She then reached out as far as she could wihtoug leaving the circles of protection, one has to work from the outside in. She mad certain that this circle crossed into the focus. She then went and retrieved the first of the dead mages. When he revived inside Myris�a circle of healing, she let him go and became non-astral. He carefully removed the necklace and placed it on the ground. He created one circle of protection, close to Mryia circle of protection. Then he picked up the necklace and dropped dead. I smiled at that point. I was wondering how Myria was going to kill a mage without bring any weapons along that would disrupt her circle of healing.. Having a mage who had cast immunity to poison on himself wear a cured item was a stroke of brilliance. The cursed item would not harm the mage until he let go of it and touched it again. It was a great idea. She carried the dead mage outside the circle of healing and picked up the next one. This mage attempted to do the same ting the first mage did, but acciently touched the pervious mage�s circle of protection� canceling them both. I was worried at this point� but Gerald pointed at Grindal, who was not participation this time around due to a bad cold. Grindal had smiled and then killed himself with a dagger. It didn�t take long to figure out what Grindal was attempting, so I motion a servant boy to remove the dagger from the mage and watched. How was Grindal going to be able to replace two circle of protection, when he only has a spell memorized once? Having three circle of protection was important, or the placement of the circles would be all wrong. I was also wondering how Grindal would kill himself without a weapon or cured item in his possession. Grindal carefully inscribe the first circle of protection. Then, he pulled a scroll from his pouch and cast another scroll of protection from the scroll! I didn�t know Grindal had any magical scrolls.. he should have mention it to me. I�ll have to have a talk with him. In any event, Gridal finished the third circle of protection and proceeded to shoot himself with a magic missile. I didn�t know magic missile could not break a magical circle of healing. Damn. It�s time like these that I wish I had more formal training. In any case, it was my turn to finally do something. I had created greater circle of protection opposite all other existing circles, running thought the focus. Simple, really. Using the greater circle of protection as opposed to a lesser circle gave me three advantage: one, I can cast spells out of it; Two. I can reenter the circle should I be force to leave. Three, unless Myria and Grindal really messed up, it should be able to stand up to whatever Nemesis can throw against it. The warriors who was to fight Nemesis took his place just outside my circle. The warrior was look a bit worried. We had not told him ahead of time that he wasn�t going to be able to bring his magical sword with him. Beside his own weapon, he carried a dagger for Myria and one for myself. None of the spellcasters were allowed to bring weapons through with them during the purification site, so the warrior had to carry them all. The spellweavers now could create the circle of confinement. Once the circle was complete, the spellweavers took their positions outside the circle. None of them were further than one foot from the edge of the circle, and one of them were within an arm�s reach of anyone else. One of the spellweavers actually had to drop out at this point, as there was not enough room around the circle for him to join. This whole spellweaving business has me somewhat confused. After preparing a rudimentary scroll, each of the spellweavers would chant the verbal component of a spell they all knew. This would affect those inside the circle of confinement in a particular way. Most of the enchantment protected the warrior in some way. A few weakened Nemesis. I wondered briefly which defense we had lost with the lost of that spellweaver. The spellweaver were Gerals�s responsibility. As the highest-ranked spellcaster among the spellweaver, he would have to initiate the chanting. I watched him place his specially prepared scroll behind him and being chanteing the words of protection from enchanted being spells. I noticed the spellweaver to his right to do the same and so on. Gerald seemed concerned at that time. After all that chant had begun, Myria (who was astral but still visible due to her proximity to the Focus) picked up Nemesis� astral cord in her hand and began to follow. She would never tell me what happened to her during the astral voyage. I would never tell anyone what happened to me in the Abyss, so I figure that we�re even on that score at least. To her credit, she brought Nemesis back with her. This was a rather trying time during the ritual. Myria�s and Nemesis� astral forms were both within he circle of healing. Once Myria let go of Nemesis, it would become non-astral and its weapons would break the circle of healing. Myria would become non-astral a moment later and completely at Nemesis� mercy. Nemesis ended up swinging at Myria�s leg with his poisoned weapon. Myria died as she tried to jump the circle of protection and ended up disrupting them all! The warrior moved in to engage Nemesis, who fired two magic missiles at him. The missiles did not seem to have any affect. The battle continued. The warrior�s weapons, even though they were not magical, were affecting Nemesis. The spellweaving must be working. I was watching for an opportune moment to unleash a magic missile. It was then when Nemesis connected to the warrior�s leg with the diseased sword it carried. The warrior tried to stop Nemesis there and then, but thirty second later the warrior was dead. Nemesis now looked to me. None of the circle of protection we had set up had ended up affecting Nemesis at all. Nemesis cast a disrupt magic circle spell and I felt the circle around me weakened. I fire my magic missile at it and was shocked to discover it had bothered to cast a protecting from magic missile on it. Nemesis burst past the magic circle, disrupting it in the process. I could see that this effort had cast it. Even thought the Demon Prince has certain innate magical resistance and that my circle had just undergone the effect of the circle nullification spell. I was still shocked to find out that Nemesis could bust thought it. I pulled out the scroll with truename on it. I was going to use this in combination with the banish conjured being spell to send Nemesis away forever. Now I rushed to do what the mages before me did when Nemesis was first unleaded upon the world. I bade it by its name to leave us alone. Normally a Demon Prince could just brush aside a truename spell once. Maybe even twice. However, disrupting my greater circle of protection took just about everything Nemesis had. With a look of hatred on its face, it succumbed to the spell. I had left the circle of confinement, disrupting it as I crossed it. Nemesis, free to leave then departed Monk�s Keep and vowed to return in one year. All in all, not to discouraging for our first real attempt to banish the bastard. September the fifteen, nine-hundred and seventy-fourth year: What went wrong? Well, that mage who was left out was the one who would have been chanting the cure disease chant. I guess I can see why the warrior died as he did. I�m pretty sure that if Myria hadn�t died as she did and Nemesis had been forced to burst through all of those circle of protection, it would never had been able to disrupt the greater circle. As it turned out, the warrior was unrevivifiable. We gave him a proper burial. September the thirteenth, nine-hundred and seventy fifth year: The mercenary we fired turned out to be a klutz. Before Myria even left, the dolt wandered outside the circle of confinement, disrupting it. I figure what was it. Nemesis would come and wipe us out. Even with his truename. I couldn�t stop him when he was a full strength. Oddly enough, Nemesis did not come. I�ll consider myself lucky. December the twelfth, nine-hundred and seventy-sixth year: Gerald died today. Ithoug the old coot was immortal! He must have live well into his hundred (although he never did tell us his age). I am fifty-one myself, and I think Gerald was odler than that when I met him while I was still apprenticed to Jarek! I�ll miss him. Gerald the younger will take his place as the initiator on the spellweaving circle. I hope he can live up to what Gerald has left him. He�s got some pretty old shoes to fill. After his burning, Myria and I sat down and shared some wine. She told me it was the same sequestered by the Mages� Guild. I told her that the wine was problem a lot more expensive now that it was then. and she laughed. Gods, I love to see her laugh. There was a time after her astral journey that I didn�t think she would, anymore. I have decided to wait a couple of years before oru next attempt. Nemesis haven�t attacked us yet and my guess is that it won�t. I think I scared it like no other mortal has. I have its truename and even that little tiny bit of knowledge is dangerous to it somehow. I wish I could feel better about that, but I can�t. September the thirteenth, nine-hundred and seventy-ninth year: I hope I don�t run out of pages in this journal. It wouldn�t seem right to start a new one. I read it entirely before I write any entry now. It keeps me in touch with the past, so to speak. I fear I am running out of time. When I started all of this, it occurred to me that I might fall if I made a mistake. It didn�t occur to me that I might fall simply because there wheren�t enough years in my lifespan to complete my task. By the gods! I�m fifty-four. Mages have retired at my age! I am thinking about leaving Nemesis�s truename with Gerald the younger, but I am hesitant. However Jarek got its truename, I will never know. But that little piece of knowledge has resulted in decade of misery. Should I die suddenly, I fear there will be no one who can stop Nemesis. Myria assures me I have plenty of time left, but she�s been wrong before� although it is awfully hard to get her to admit it! In any event, the banishment ritual failed again this year. Nemesis pulled a few more surprises. Seems that the circle of confinement will not stop Nemesis� magic missiles. The spellweaver are vulnerable to these attacks. Nemesis took out the one who was chanting the enfeeble being chant. The warrior didn�t have a chance. Among other things, Nemesis is a Demon and cannon be harmed under normal circumstances without a magical or enchanted weapon. Myria was able to get away this time, however. So Nemesis wasn�t able to get through my greater circle of protection. He was weak enough disrupting the three circles of protection we had set up around the astral anchor that I was able to send him away with it name again. I don�t know how much long I can get away with the maneuver. I am think this is why Nemesis hasn�t been bothering us in the time between summoning� he�s looking for a way to stop me from using its name to bind it. Myria says not to worry� to a Demon or anyone else for that matter� there is no escaping the name one is given. I hope she�s right. September the fourteenth, nine hundred and eighty-fifth year: Failed again. This time it was our fault. We miscast sever of the circle surrendering the astral anchor. Nemesis had enough power to pull a new trick. It reached through the circle of confinement and cut down one of the spellweaver. I could tell that doing so cost it, but the damage was done. Before the warrior could react, Nemesis punched through eh circle of confinement again and took out another spellweaver. Then it shot two more magic missiles and killed two more spellweaver. Down four spellweavers, the warriors was no match of Nemesis. I think that Nemesis realized that it had to eliminate the spellweaver before it has a change against the warrior. It always seems to try and pick fof the spellweaver who allows Nemesis to be hit by non-magical weapons. I am working on a new idea as far as this goes. September the twelfth, nine-hundred and ninety-second year: SUCCESS! Sweet success. A whole lifetime of pursuit has come to an end! Thank the Gods! It is really a shame Myria and I are so old� I can only image the part we�d have thrown if we were twety-seven instead of sixty-seven years old. Myria is smiling at me, but she�s still painting at this stupid journal. Whats the point?! Nemesis is gone for a thought and one years! I�ll be long dead. Myria says that in her last communion with her god that she was given a glance of the future. Most of the banners she saw were new, a few she recognized. All of them were bowing to Nemesis. All of them bore the mark of its faithful. All bout nobility ware their subjects on these who had no land to call their own. The peasants, landless mages and healers, a few mercenaries, and the subjects of the nobility who had turned against them watch as each bowed in turn to the might of the Demon Prince. She says that it is for these people that I write this journal. So let me describe what happened. The rite of purification went without mishap. Myria and the few extra mages where able to place their circle of protection around the astral anchor. The circle of confinement was cast successfully and there were room for all eleven spellweavers. When Nemesis came this time, we had a surprise wait for it. While Myria was astrally projecting herself to summon Nemesis, I had a brilliant notion. I left my greater circle and approached the warrior. I asked him for one of his weapons, which I laid in front of me. I had a few scrolls on me and a few items as well. I used a combine scroll with the spells repair weapon and magic missile. The result: a temporarily enchanted weapon. I will do more research on this development late, but my guess that a weapon echangted in this manner will last until sunset and then become non-magical once again. The weapon may or may not be destroyed in the process� I really don�t know. In any case, after bursting through the three circle of protection Nemesis had only enough power to kill on of the spellweaver. As usual it chose the one that made him vulnerable to normal weapons. When the warrior approached him with the newly enchanted steel� Nemesis panicked. Nemesis tried everything: blindness, magic missiles, cuts to the head, shots to the limb, poison, disease� even possession. The spellweavers were up to the task and protect the warrior. The warrior cut Nemesis down and suddenly I realized that I was my turn. Nemesis had been cut down before. In far off kingdoms, great knight armed with enchanted blades where often able to bring down the Demon Prince. Nemesis� essence would leak from that shell and inhabit another. In this way was Nemesis immortal and unstoppable. Here inside the circle of confinement, the essence which is Nemesis could not escape. It drifted within the circle, helpless as I bent to sending it home. Hoping that it would work (since the only time I tired it before, I had failed�) I used the truename spell in combination with the banish conjured being spell. By its name I sent it screaming back to the abyss from whence it came. The party is still going on outside� the spellweavers are all drunk. Now I have to decide. Should I leave the name, the truename, of Nemesis here in the journal so that those who follow may also use it against it? If I do, what if someone irresponsible (like myself, back when I was younger) gets a hold of the truename and uses it to free Nemesis from his banishment? What I think I will do is hide everything all over Monk�s Keep and its environs. Not merely hide it in space, but it time as well. When the hours come when Nemeiss once again walks the land� when the leaders of the Realms are unable or unwilling to stop its evil� the weapons I have used against Nemesis shall arise again for those brave enough to find them Magical scrolls, items, even Gerald�s spell cord� everything. As far as Nemesis� truename is concerned� I realized there is no worry. Any mage worth his spells know how they can obtain it when the time comes. The answer is within these very pages! Know this: When Nemesis walks the world again, so shall I, if in spirit only. Until we meet again for the first time, my friends� farewell. |
Created by Clorneth (Katy Crumb) at 03-31-17 09:18 PM
Last Modified by Clorneth (Katy Crumb) at 03-31-17 09:18 PM