BrokenCircles/Timeline

Here follows an only-vaguely-complete timeline of events currently deemed relevant to the plot. If anyone notices any mistakes or omissions, feel free to point them out.

• Late afternoon, Moon's Day the 2nd of Descending Air, Realm Year 767.\\

Swift Indigo, wife of Swift Autumn and mother of Swift Hawk, dies after complaining of chest pains, despite her husband's best efforts and prayers to save her. In the ensuing months, Autumn lapses into a deep depression and ceases teaching his son properly.

• Dawn, Sun's Day the 1st of Ascending Wood, Realm Year 768.\\

Last tribute of food left for the Thousand Claw tribe by the village of Horizon's Shield is claimed, and a small pouch of Seven Bounties Paste ingredients is left in return.

• Sunset, Saturn's Day the 14th of Resplendent Wood, Realm Year 768.\\

Last successful appeasement ritual performed before the Willow Trinity by Swift Autumn.

• A hour before dawn, Jupiter's Day the 26th of Resplendent Wood, Realm Year 768.\\

The village elder Swift Autumn passes away peacefully in his sleep, leaving his only son Swift Hawk to assume responsibility for the village's dealings with the Willow Trinity.

• Sunset, Saturn's Day the 7th of Descending Wood, Realm Year 768.\\

Swift Hawk blunders through the Willow Trinity's appeasement ritual, spilling the Maiden Tea after foolishly offering it to the Mother aspect, burning improperly mixed incense, and chanting numerous phrases of Old Realm in incorrect orders and with dubious inflections that alter the entire meaning of the ritual. Greatly angered, the Trinity withdraws the river's water from the crop fields and chases Hawk from their domain. Subsequent attempts to contact them by the villagers are ignored.

Session 1 begins, Saturday 19th July 2003.

• Shortly before sunset, Saturn's Day the 28th of Descending Wood, Realm Year 768.\\

Darius, Coven and Tarazed are met outside Horizon's Shield by Rain, a mysterious desert hermit who has been staying at the village during the past week, apparently waiting for them. After some discussion of the present situation, they move their possessions into the old scavenger barn in the centre of the village. Coven speaks with Swift Hawk, who agrees to teach her the recipe for Seven Bounties Paste if they survive 'til morning.

• Sunset, Saturn's Day the 28th of Descending Wood, Realm Year 768.\\

While travelling his circuit, Immaculate Ledaal Sinic of the Second Coil, follower of Mela, Petitioner of Clouds Accordant to the Call of Battle, spots a creature watching him from the shadows behind some rocks. Though it is the size of a small horse, and appears a vicious admixture of crab, scorpion and snake aspects, it does not attack - and instead dashes toward the village of Horizon's Shield.

Correctly guessing the creature is a Sandswimmer, a vicious desert predator known to prey upon humans, and assuming that the lives of villagers may be under threat, Sinic spurs his horse forward in pursuit, but has to halt abruptly as the creature effortlessly leaps the palisade outside the village.\\

Discussion ensues between Sinic, Darius, Coven, Tarazed and Rain - whose companion Mirage is the Sandswimmer in question - all of whom were taking a walk along the palisade.\\ After some time, Darius and Sinic give each other their word not to fight each other until the village's troubles are resolved, and Sinic settles into an unoccupied patch of floorspace inside the barn. Coven utilises All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight upon the group and informs them they are all the same, but her words remain largely unacknowledged.

Brass Wren, one of the older villagers, comes out to speak to the Circle, appearing quite fearful of Darius, respectful of Sinic and relatively at ease with the rest of them. He seems to blame Swift Hawk for all the village's troubles, and only half-jokingly suggests they leave him outside as the tribute for the barbarians. After doing what he can to assist the Circle, he returns home to bolt the door shut and ready himself for the seemingly inevitable troubles the night will bring. The Circle leave several sacks of rocks and dirt outside the gates so it appears from a distance that the tribute is present, and then get some sleep while Mirage keeps watch.

• Shortly before dawn, Sun's Day the 1st of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

Mirage wakens Rain and the rest of the Circle before leading them to the gates. Around fifty axe-and-bow-wielding barbarians and a dozen centipede beastmen, all in light armour, are approaching from the east. The Circle steps outside the gates to stand behind the false tribute and negotiate, and two centipede-women step forward while the rest of the horde take up positions nearby. They seem to swiftly notice by scent that the sacks contain no food, and talks only go downhill from there. Tarazed announces that the Southern kingdoms, of which he is apparently a khan, are in alliance with the Realm and intend to civilise these lands, at which point the horde attacks.

A volley of flaming arrows are loosed into the village, but the archers' attentions are rapidly diverted by Mirage, who manages to tear and sting his way through one group of them before the sight of a monster amidst them and their compatriots being eviscerated by a swarm of obsidian butterflies sent forth by Coven convinces them to flee. A few of the remaining axemen consider fighting on for a moment, but a flurry of chakrams hurled by Sinic discourages them enough to flee. All the while, the centipede-women fight bravely despite losing hope of survival, but even those not sliced in two by Darius are quickly worn down by the rest of the group, and Tarazed mercilessly crushes the life from the last of them with his bare hands.

Minor fire damage has been done to the Amaranth and Worthy family residences, but the villagers seem to have dealt with it admirably. Reactions to the Circle's success in battle vary, but even those obviously terrified of their protectors are grateful they were there. The rest of the morning is taken up with collecting the bodies of the fallen and burning them; little of value is found among their possessions, the pouch of Seven Bounties Paste ingredients they would have left having been destroyed by Coven's Death of Obsidian Butterflies spell.

Sobriety asks Coven if she can play with Rain and Tarazed, and Coven passes on the offer of healing to them. Hesitantly, Rain agrees to go first, and is somewhat disquieted when the 10-legged demon insect leaps through the flesh of his chest with a splash and begins knitting his broken ribs together. Tarazed nearly backs out, but bravely accepts, and Sobriety leaps out of Rain's shoulder and through his face, displacing his flesh momentarily in truly disturbing fashion, healing the cut on his forehead and then drinking all the alcohol in his system before dropping out, chirping in a decidedly giggly fashion.

Coven speaks further with Swift Hawk, from whom she learns that the barbarians live amidst some ruins a few miles to the east, and that Horizon's Shield was built upon the site of a ruined First Age fortress - everything of value was scavenged long ago, but the village remained occupied by those scavengers who felt they could make a reasonable life there, mainly those of Realm peasant stock. She also learns of the appeasement ritual and of the Willow Trinity, and concocts numerous offerings, incenses and talismans that will please them so that she can attract their attention.

• Shortly before sunset, Sun's Day the 1st of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

The Circle approach the three willow trees along the riverside north of the village, and Coven makes her offerings to the spirits while viewing the area with sorcerer-sight. The goddesses' faces can be seen regarding her from within the trees, and their voices echo within the wind as they address the group. Tarazed finds himself negotiating a settlement and fills the air with white-gold light, his totemic falcon flaring upward into his anima as he uses his persuasion charms to convince the spirits to strike a bargain with them. The Trinity goddesses are delighted when he offers to kill the 'false goddess' of the eastern barbarians, and all three manifest from the river-water to swear an oath with the Circle - in return for the death of the false goddess, they will aid the village once again.

• Sunset, Sun's Day the 1st of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

Coven sets up a ritual space within the barn and begins summoning one of the Erymanthoi blood-apes, a demon of the first circle, while Darius watches with interest and guards the door to prevent interruptions. Meanwhile, Tarazed calls upon the Amaranth family residence to check they were not unduly distressed by the fire that morning, and finds that beautiful, young Amaranth River is so distressed by the whole affair that he has to borrow Sinic's horse and take her for a ride along the riverside.

Sinic and Rain ride upon Mirage's back toward the ruins to the east, scouting out the area and hunting for more food along the way. Cresting the last rise on their journey, they see that the ruins are within a vast depression surrounded by hills, which seems far more fertile than the surrounding badlands, especially around the sizeable lake in the southwest of the depression. Near the center of the depression is what appears to be a fallen and shattered tower of jet-black stone, some three hundred yards to a side and nine hundred yards long, though it seems to have sunk at least one hundred yards into the ground.

The bulk of the barbarian tribe seems to have set itself upon a roughly square area of raised ground, which might correspond to the location of the tower's foundations. However, a number of the tribe have scattered themselves throughout the ruins, and some of the two-dozen centipede beastmen Sinic and Rain spotted seem to have taken up residences inside some of the fallen tower's corridors. Many of the corridors have collapsed, however, and some of the stonework even seemed to have been melted and fused together in places.

A short way beyond the eastern end of the tower, the blunt end of a huge stone spike seemingly interwoven with a lattice of metal appeared have been driven into the ground, and around a dozen relatively fresh bodies could be seen impaled atop it. After focusing his Air Dragon's Sight upon them carefully, Sinic concludes that the bodies were almost certainly among the barbarians that fled during the attack earlier. Despite the gruesome display, however, the barbarian tribe seems relatively complacent and content to go about its business as usual, at least until Rain accidentally kicks a rock down the hill toward the camp, and the scouts are forced to flee to avoid detection.

• Midnight, Sun's Day the 1st of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

After successfully binding the Erymanthus for a year and a day's service, Coven collects up her ritual materials and packs them away carefully. Sinic looks for his horse, and eventually sees Tarazed returning with a dreamy-eyed River, who slinks back to her home after casting him a longing glance. The scouts report their findings, and the Circle commences further tactical discussion inside the barn.

Session 1 ends.

Session 2 begins, Sunday 7th September 2003.

• Predawn hours, Moon's Day the 2nd of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

The Circle's talks continue, until they eventually decide upon a plan of action - to go openly to the barbarian camp and challenge the goddess to single combat with Darius, hoping to install themselves as the new gods of the tribe. As the Circle is settling down for the night, however, Coven notices a small chameleon dashing through a hole in the barn's roof and sends her new Erymanthus bounding up into the rafters and through the roof in chase.

Both the lizard and the blood-ape move with seemingly impossible speed as they race across the village grounds, heading northeast, until the lizard abruptly changes direction, flicks a pebble with its tail to provide a distraction, and vanishes into a rather desiccated bush. The blood-ape is easily fooled by this tactic, and subsequent attempts to pick up the trail are unsuccessful. Rain and Mirage survey the perimeter of the village but notice no lizards behaving oddly, and Tarazed reassures those villagers awoken by the disturbance.

• Dawn, Moon's Day the 2nd of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

The Circle awaken unharmed, make their preparations and set out for the barbarian camp. Mirage happily and relentlessly points out every gecko within a mile to Rain, but none of them are behaving oddly, and a number of them wind up as the sandswimmer's breakfast.

As the group approach the camp, they are spotted by the tribe's lookouts, who signal down into the camp - though nothing noticeable results from this process, and the lookouts simply watch warily as the Circle crests the rise and descends into the ruin-filled depression.

Coven finds herself momentarily assailed by a vision, an out of body experience of sorts, and becomes unresponsive for a short while - coming back round to find Rain is having a conversation with Sobriety (poking out the back of her head) about her being "Up there" and "Back soon."

Some two-hundred men, women and children are assembled in the encampment, and they part to reveal a line of a dozen centipede-men and women waiting to speak with the Circle. Far above them, silhouetted by the morning sun atop one of the ruined tower segments, is a huge and menacing figure with countless clawed limbs - Celerity Thousand-Claw, the tribe's 'false goddess'.

After letting Tarazed finish his spiel, which didn't appear to surprise anyone who could understand it, one of the beastwomen signals to Celerity, and she leaps from the tower, but rather than plummeting to her doom she swoops gracefully downward in the form of a small desert hawk. Transforming back into her immense hybrid war-form as she lands, she towers over the group as she speaks, though her words seem more endowed with rationality and calm than her fierce appearance would suggest.

Coven utilises All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight to scrutinise Celerity's aura, which proves more difficult to discern than the familiar Solar essences of her companions. From what she can glean, however, it appears that Celerity's power is not much greater than hers or Darius', and rooted entirely in shapeshifting. She does not appear to have any magics active upon her, though the Essence of the demesne in which they stand can be seen flowing into her, coloured with the power of worship.

She agrees to face Darius in combat, but proposes that if the Circle should win the fight, they become guardians of the tribe and look out for its best interests. Rain proposes that if she can set such conditions, so can they, and they ask that if she triumphs, she will protect the village as her own. Celerity agrees, and tells Tarazed that he will sanctify the terms, which he does. As runes calling the heavens to witness their oath flare through Tarazed's anima, Sinic deftly removes his hand from the pact before he is bound, leaving none but Coven any the wiser.

Satisfied, Celerity turns back to the ruined tower and begins to climb a rope ladder up the side of it, clearly expecting Darius to follow. He does, followed by Coven and Tarazed, who watch the proceedings with baited breath.

Celerity waits patiently while Darius limbers up and readies himself, performing the Increasing Strength Exercise and then dropping into the Fivefold Bulwark Stance, Essence already beginning to shimmer through Darius' anima. Celerity on the other hand simply stretches, flexes thirty or so of her silver-clawed arms, adjusts her piecemeal armour, and looks expectantly at Darius.

He begins with a few tentative attacks, nothing too daring, and Celerity knocks aside his axe in each occasion - making only token attempts at penetrating Darius' defenses in turn. Darius begins to feel somewhat uncomfortable and reluctant at having to fight her, as she is obviously not really trying to hurt him... but as these feelings become evident to her, Celerity steps up her attacks somewhat.

As the duel begins to speed up, it seems that the two are fairly well-matched in power, with only a bare handful of blows landing on either side - though Darius' strikes are far more telling when they do land, and as he begins to exert his powers to enhance his blows further, Celerity's begins to find herself more definitely on the losing side. She only makes a few Essence-fuelled attacks of her own, and while her ability to lengthen her claws and grow extra joints in limbs to evade Darius' parries is impressive, it proves to no avail - and certainly not worth the amount of Essence she wastes in trying such tactics.

In the end, heavily wounded and almost entirely out of Essence, Celerity breaks off from the combat and makes a run for the nearest edge of the tower - heading straight for Tarazed, who is standing by the ladder they all came up. As he moves to intercept her, she lashes out with several limbs and sends him tumbling back - and off the edge, where he only just manages to grab hold of the rope ladder in time to avoid falling to his death.

Darius is hot on Celerity's many heels with another axe blow, but as it is about to land, she suddenly seems to implode, her body mass shrinking down into the form of a centipede - still a couple of feet long, but small enough to evade his strike and scuttle down the side of the tower and into its darkened corridors. Tarazed sees her going in, but quickly loses sight of her, and Coven orders her Blood-Ape in after her.

Below, the barbarians have seen their goddess flee, and as Darius stands victorious on the edge of the tower, they - after a moment's hesitation - raise their weapons and cheer. Darius and Coven descend to relax and recover Essence, Coven discusses the towers and the tribe with a beastwoman. Sobriety is allowed to 'play' with Darius' injuries, and while she does heal him completely in the end, she inflicts a good deal of extra pain along the way, and ends up leaving numerous bone shavings outside of Darius rather than try sticking them back. Somewhat embarrassed, the demon insect slinks off to sober up a few barbarians, and then dematerialises to sleep off the alcohol and recover her Essence.

As with Coven earlier, Darius finds himself caught up in a vision of times long past, though only a couple of the tribesmen notice his absent look, and don't dare comment. He and Coven discuss what they have seen, and then move to investigate the northernmost tower segment - which is almost completely overgrown with vines. As they get close, the vines begin to stir, and suddenly lash out with blade-like leaves and strangling coils - though Coven manages to see them in time to dodge, and Darius' skin of sorcerous bronze metal is unharmed, it is clear that further investigation would be somewhat troublesome. When asked why they didn't warn them, the beastmen simply and apologetically explained that Celerity had always said it was a place sacred to the gods, and that they had assumed that other gods would recognise the threat.

Meanwhile, Rain, Sinic and Tarazed venture into the fallen tower's corridors in search of the errant Lunar. The glow of Rain's anima reflects off veins of gold inlaid into the polished black stone, wall carvings depicting countless events filled with both men and more draconic figures standing side by side. Of course, these wall carvings are now their floor and ceiling instead, and the change of orientation coupled with already-unsettling angles of Dragon King architecture makes navigation a little confusing and uncomfortable.

The three spend some time exploring, searching for any sign of Celerity, but to no avail - though they do discover a few other oddities on their travels. Some of the crystal wall (now ceiling) panels are still present, and some of those are still emitting an eerie red glow - and on the wall (ex-floor) near any such light grows a carpet of fine, tough grass. They also find one of the panels displaying a glowing pictogram which, when touched, changes to display a differently positioned one - and while pressing elsewhere on the panel merely resets it, pressing the second pictogram brings light to all that level's panels and bathes the area in red light.

Sinic finds himself feeling somewhat unwell, with a growing headache, while the light is switched on. Rain feels fine, though at one point in their explorations he suddenly hears screaming, and the tower shakes beneath his feet - though a moment later it is as if nothing has happened. Tarazed has neither an illness nor a delusional episode to his name, and so has to content himself with showing off his athletic abilities as they move down a couple of levels. Much to Rain and Sinic's continuing disappointment, he once again fails to plummet to his death, and instead looks infuriatingly stylish.

• Afternoon, Moon's Day the 2nd of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

Eventually, the intrepid explorers decide to call it a day and make their way out of the tower. Some time later, the Blood-Ape follows them out, having finally tired of crashing randomly from room to room.

The tribe wishes to know what titles it should use to address its new gods, and Tarazed happily obliges - after learning their language in no more than an hour, he sets to work restructuring their entire belief system to accommodate the Circle. With Coven's aid and a few suggestions from Rain, he also works in a few ideas about worshipping the Willow Trinity as well, and starts working on the idea of helping protect the village and aiding in farming rather than extorting tribute from them.

While Tarazed tries to tear down and rebuild the tribe's entire way of life, Coven and Rain ride Mirage back to the village so that Coven can use her alchemy kit to analyse a sample from the vines that attacked her earlier. The rest of the group remains behind, spending their time recuperating, exploring, and learning of the tribe they've acquired.

Session 2 ends.

Session 3 begins, Sunday 26th October 2003.

• Late afternoon, Moon's Day the 2nd of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

Rain, Coven and Sinic arrive back in the village barn to pack up their gear. However, as they're packing, they note that a small origami fox has been left in each of the Circle's members' beds, and that Rain's bed has an iron-shod staff of an identical make to his mentor's hidden underneath it.

BrokenCircles/OrigamiFoxNotes

Understandably, this evokes their curiosity. Coven shifts her perceptions with Ten Magistrate Eyes and All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, but finds no trace of anyone or anything entering or leaving the barn except them - though there are fingerprints on the foxes, and the ink on the writing within them is still relatively fresh. Rain utilises the Unshakeable Bloodhound Technique, and while he cannot exactly smell anything, his now-magical intuition tells him that there is a trail that can be followed, and that it leads into the rafters and stops. After Rain conveys the presumed position of the purveyor of origami with a hand-gesture, Sinic and Coven leap into the rafters to investigate, but sense nothing - only Rain seems to be able to note anything is present there.

After a moment, he senses that it has dropped from the rafters and vanished - after moving toward him. Somewhat unnerved, he concentrates harder, and realises that the not-quite-scent is now dwelling in his clothes. Even so, Coven still cannot see anything with her Sorcerer's Sight, until a moment later… when their discussions are making it plain that they think the intruder is some pet of River's, and the intruder opts to rectify this by stepping into plain sight, materialising out of Rain.

Dressed in comfortable, plain grey but extremely well-tailored and expensive-looking travelling clothes, the fox-featured young woman before them seems to be torn between being amused and affronted. Introducing herself as Inari, she happily admits that she knows who they are, though she's known Rain the longest, and that he makes great gecko stew. She is, apparently, a messenger from River, "whose business is not our business, but our business is his," or somesuch. She also warns Sinic - and by extension, everyone else - that Three-Devils Mehadi is leading the Wyld Hunt team investigating their activities in Horizon, and that they'll be arriving in no more than a day or so.

Coven is only half-listening at this point, though, for while she still - infuriatingly - can't see any evidence of Inari using Essence, she canBrokenCircles/I> see that there's a lot of power crammed into her soul, and in the short moments before Inari says she'll pop by for lunch sometime and vanishes again, she manages to figure out at least one of the things that makes Inari's soul rather more odd than any mortal's.

There's a storm-serpent living in it. Not possessing her, just shacked up inside her soul. This is deeply odd for a great many reasons, not least of which is that fact that even the most powerful storm-serpent, born of a truly great storm, will never live longer than the storm that birthed it. Unless, it seems, it hides inside a pretty green-eyed redhead.

With the news of a Wyld Hunt 'fast response team' on its way, the three warn the villagers not to try anything and tell them to send the Hunt straight to the barbarian encampment, then make haste back to the encampment themselves to discuss plans.

• Early evening, Moon's Day the 2nd of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

In varying states of alarm, the group discusses its options for dealing with the Hunt over bowls of spicy gazelle stew prepared by the Thousand-Claw tribe for them. Rain considers how to adapt the recipe for gecko stew, and resolves to try it at some point. Eventually, they decide on their plans of action.

Darius begins to break the fused portions of the lift shaft debris, and with the aid of Tarazed and several tribesmen shifting the rubble out of the way, starts to make good progress downward. After a couple of hours, he and Tarazed begin to tire, and Rain takes up Darius' axe in their stead - showing considerably less finesse, but a good deal more endurance.

Coven has the barbarians use the rubble to fortify sections of the ruins, to provide cover for archers and thus enable the tribe to lay down supporting fire.

Sinic amuses himself by hacking through the carnivorous blade vines that have overtaken one of the northernmost tower segments, until he has cut a considerable swathe through the central lift tube's vines… when an alarmed and upset-sounding old man shouts "Stopit!" Discussion ensues, and it is discovered that the tribe's shaman - who went missing around five years ago - has been living happily inside the overgrown area all this time, apparently talking to the tribe in their dreams and somehow observing everyone's movements. He is quite clearly deranged, and doesn't really seem to have a point to make, just an urge to ramble on and point his vine-wrapped arms at people while staring wildly at them with his deep, solid jade-green eyes.

For the second time in one day, Coven discovers someone whose abilities are outside of her frame of reference, for the poor chap seems to be focusing a good deal of Essence into himself - and is seemingly able to actively channel some of it, though his control is unrefined. After a few moment's consideration, and consultation with a couple of tribesmen, she concludes that the shaman's abilities are due to power questing in the Wyld rather than some mystical property of the overgrown tower segment.

After a short discussion, the Circle sends him packing back into the overgrown area to try and convince the vines not to attack them, having threatened to just cut their way in if he doesn't.

Meanwhile, Rain can see what looks like it might be a door in the side of the shaft, and increases his pace to clear a way to it. Once he has cleared enough space, Sinic comes to examine the doorway, but the lack of any opening mechanism proves something of a problem. After some time experimenting with Coven on hand to provide feedback on how the door's Essence flows respond to Sinic's various tactics, he manages to fool the gesture-recognition system into opening.

Explorations occupy most of the rest of the night, as the Circle moves from room to room, via air ducts where necessary, discovering a series of remarkably intact rooms, seemingly untouched since the First Age. The uppermost floor seems to be living quarters, mostly for Dragon Kings but a couple of rooms seem more 'human' in their arrangements.

The next level has only a mazelike series of coloured crystal screens dividing each section up, and sets of stairs leading down to the next level. The next level is a foyer of sorts, or perhaps a defensive emplacement, with a defensible low wall or desk running across the room. It divides the stairs into the level from the stairs down to the next level, and there is no opening for the lift on this level or the one below.

The fourth level's three rooms are each hearthstone chambers, but insufficient Essence is being focused into any of them to form a complete stone. Instead, the rooms are bathed in greenish light emanating from an erratic spinning point of partially calcified Essence above the central dais. Every few minutes, vines surge outward from the dais in a burst of unnatural growth, only to wither and dry up as they find nothing to nourish them - the floors of the rooms are covered with the desiccated husks from a thousand repetitions of this cycle. Everyone save Tarazed finds themselves deeply uncomfortable in these unstable rooms, their skin crawling and their stomachs queasy. Strangely, Tarazed finds it rather invigorating.

The fifth and presumably final level, from where the air ducts seem to be obtaining their supply of fresh air, is not arranged in the same trinary fashion as the rest. Instead, it is a vast hexagonal room some 260 yards across, and 20 yards high, with a series of 10 yard high walls dividing everything into 20 yard wide hexagonal rooms, typically with between one and three wall sections missing - which thus turns the entire room into a vast maze. In three of the corners on the outer edge are what appear to be huge sets of double doors, formed of pale stone, inlaid with orichalcum decoration and mounted in elaborately carved doorframes depicting ferocious draconic guardians.

The environment of the maze itself is perhaps even more interesting, however, as it is all lit by banks of ceiling-mounted sun crystals that bring it to a perpetual twilight, and all the sounds of a jungle's fauna at dusk echo throughout it. Gazing across the maze from above reveals why, for perhaps a quarter of the maze's 'rooms' are occupied by what appear to be no less than segments of tropical jungle. An incredibly wide variety of trees and other plants poke above the walls, and signs of life and movement can be seen in many of them, although there is no traffic between rooms.

Using the Unshakeable Bloodhound Technique, Rain is certain that Celerity has spent a great deal of time in the maze, and is almost certainly hiding down there somewhere... though he would have to drop into the maze and start at the lift shaft to pick up her trail and track her effectively. As with almost everything else in the tower and its surrounds, unfamiliar magics permeate everything down here, each segment of maze shining brightly in Coven's All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight.

• A couple of hours past midnight, Moon's Day the 2nd of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

The Circle call a halt to their explorations, wanting to be fully rested by dawn, in case the Hunt should arrive.

• A couple of hours after dawn, Mars' Day the 3rd of Ascending Fire, Realm Year 768.\\

Having risen early to resume preparing for the Hunt's inevitable arrival, the Circle have ensured that the tribe's archers are ready to rain down arrows from the towers at all times, and that everything is as secure as they can make it as they wait. They do not have to wait long, for in the distance the telltale dust cloud of a Stormwind Rider's vortex can be seen; within minutes of first sightings, it is at the village of Horizon's Shield.

Half an hour later, the sorcerous dust devil resumes movement and heads toward the barbarian encampment, setting down on a hilltop. The three Dragon-Bloods prepare themselves, utterly confident in their abilities, for they have never failed before, and are led by a mighty champion - Three-Devils Mehadi himself.

Posturing ensues. Then insults. Then, finally, combat.

Godun is first to fall, the death of a thousand cuts laden with sandswimmer venom proving too much for him. Catala lasts far longer, but the sorcerer is finally chased down by Tarazed and Coven's blood-ape, and the mighty Eclipse brawler holds him in place while the demon tears into him. Mehadi is last to fall, of course, and nearly takes Darius and Rain with him, but it is not to be.

And so it came to pass that the infamous Wyld Hunt fast-response team of Three-Devils Mehadi, Tepet Catala, and Ragara Godun fell to Horizon Circle, with only a dozen dead barbarians to their name, and those only from Catala's elemental lens-boosted lightning blasts.

<i>Session 3 ends.</i>