Gangs of Dublin Part 1

October 20, 2019 Gaming: TORG 1 Comments

Last week, the Irish Knights took charge of Dublin House. After hours of reading reports they finally settled in and in the morning, they were greeted with a bloodless corpse crucified across the street from their front door. It was a “special welcome” to the city. It is now hours later and the Knights have discovered the council room, a large room with a table that can seat sixteen people.

ACT 6: Gangs of Dublin:

The council table includes the three knights, Cheryl, Doctor MacReady, EMT Ryan, and Roland—the elven “bard” that Davey compulsively recruited just hours earlier. The scene opens with Roland explaining that he knows several kids like himself who have become storm knights and most of them are just drifting around. He boasts that he can have a new recruit in tow by tonight, and more to follow if they let him.

Roland is an interesting mix of Earth and Aysle, while he is an elf, ears and all. He is still wearing jeans and a leather jacket and a t-shirt with Iron Maiden on it. Roland promises to bring his friend back for an interview before nightfall and the Davey has Cheryl put it on their agenda.

Autopsy:

MacReady takes charge of the meeting. The dead body was a local, still core earth and all of his blood was drained from his femoral artery before he was nailed up. There are signs on his body of a longer-term bondage. The man was kept handcuffed and manacled for a least a few days and there are signs that he was worked over, only bruises though. So, whoever held him knew how to inflict pain but leave very little damage or trace. His skin is only broken by the nails and the cannula that was inserted into his femoral.

His pants only had a couple of crumbled euros in them, no wallet or ID of any sort. John Doe was on ice.

Ragnall: “Burn the corpse, I’ll do a service later, and throw the euros into the treasury.”

People around the table stare at the priest for a moment, and then simply wait for whatever else will come out of his mouth.

Davey: “Right…. So, we have a lot going on and we don’t know the terrain. Roland is getting more friends, we should probably think about more guards at some point, and maybe start learning our neighbors’ names. But after saying all of that I have to admit that I really want to drive back to Tara Hill, check out the castle—from a distance—and maybe check over that Roman standard.”

Still one more concern:

Cheryl sighs and opens up a notebook, she’ll be busy doing the day to day while the knights run around. She coughs politely and then mentions: “One of you needs to take the head of House.”

The three knights pause in standing and look at each other. And then agree that it will be discussed on the trip to Tara Hill.

Scene 2-The Grave.

The knights follow Ryan down into the parking garage at the side of the building. The massive underground structure is still mostly within the area of the Hardpoint. And their fleet of vehicles is not that bad. They have a fully stocked ambulance, 3 minivans, 4 jeeps, 2 large Humvees, and a handful of small lesser vehicles. Mostly Volvos and a VW Beetle. Ryan has gathered a bunch of mechanics tools from around the neighbor hood and a respectable array of toolboxes and benches take up several of the parking spaces. Either way there are hundreds of more parking spaces and this is only the lowest level.

Davey picks one of the mini-vans and after showing Ash and Ragnall how to open the doors and put on their seatbelts, the trio are back on the road. Driving out of Dublin.

Twenty minutes and thirty miles later they are parked beside the mound of stones at the parking lot beside Tara Hill. The pole with the solid gold Eagle is still standing over the mound.

Castle and the Grave:

The castle shimmered into reality as they closed the distance. Davey looked down to his wrist watch, 11:30am on the dot. The castle was a sprawling affair, with two sets of curtain walls and several large buildings surrounding a central keep. But the trio refuse to go up and check it out.

They stand in the carport, ignoring the massive ghost castle beside them. Davey is more interested in checking out the other cars in the port, a military truck that he is certain belongs to the House and was the last conveyance of the stormknights who died within. As he walks around the large stone mound, he finds several smaller mounds in the grass along the edge of the carport. These graves are older than the roman mound, which is only a week old and entirely made of stone and on the asphalt of the carport.

Davey: “Someone buried the knights, perhaps team 2 buried team 1 when they were out here. Hey the keys are still in the ignition for this truck!”

Ash, nodding: “Amazing that in a week no one has stolen this golden eagle.”

Ragnall: “Locals are scared of the castle, let alone of disturbing the dead. No one is dumb enough to take it.”

As Ragnall speaks, Ash climbs the mound and takes down the standard. Five pounds of gold IS five pounds after all. Even in Aysle that is a lot of money, and if it was brought out into Core Earth, a fortune.

Commune with Spirits.

Ragnall: “I’m going to see what spirits are lingering in the area, maybe get more information about the battle.” The priest settles on a boulder and starts his prayers, Davey wanders back and checks out the eagle, ash throws it into the back seat of the minivan as Ragnall opens his eyes.

Ragnall ends his prayer and opens his eyes to the spirit world super-imposed over the real. HE is surprised to find no lingering spirits around any of the graves but a number of animal spirits are lingering around in the brush beside them. The boldest is a fox spirit. Most of the spirits seems to be more concentrated on the road up to the castle. A number of fae and animal spirits are gathered, pixies and sprites forming the bulk.

Turning to look at the castle in the spirit realm he sees that multiple buildings all seem to stand in the same place and there is a sucking vortex of spiritual energy within the structure. It pulls at him even as he watches.

Ragnall: “Nothing lingers here, except up on the hill.” Ragnall sees two dark shapes step out shadow and work the lock on the main gate and then disappear into the courtyard. HE checks his eyes, rubbing them, and looks again… there is nothing moving by the gate and the doorway is closed.

A Sword:

Davey: “So, no linger dead then.” He points at the grave. Ragnall shakes his head and Davey climbs unto the mound and starts moving rocks.

Ash: “What are you doing?”

Davey: “Well if they buried Maximus with his sword… that’s a magic weapon, and we all agree my machetes are garbage. Rags says he isn’t lingering around all mad, he won’t miss the sword.”

Minutes later he has uncovered enough of the corpse to find that the sword is indeed on its chest. He retrieves the enchanted blade and then reburies the dead general.

They promptly climb back into the mini-van, the animal spirits fled the area as soon as the grave was opened. Ragnall releases his hold on the spell and climbs into the passenger seat of the van. The trip back to the house is just as quick and uneventful. Though they do note that in the day since they rode into Dublin more of the street and the people have turned toward Aysle. Every day more of core earth disappears, though to be honest Dublin has probably turned far slower than many other cities. Most instantly shift over when a new Stela is dropped.

In the House.

Returning to the house Ash hands the eagle to one of the Guarda and asks him to put it in the treasury. At this point the knights really believe that there is a room somewhere within the House that is just full of money and trinkets.

Cheryl appears within seconds of their arrival, and reports that there are no messages or calls. Davey dictates a message to her, to send to Argo. To let the elven mage know that Maximus is fully dead this time and in the ground. He then adds a note that they suspect that one of the four ancient Demon-Kings is responsible for the death, and that in fact 2 of them may have been spotted in the castle. The chances of the other 2 walking the world again seems high.

Ragnall: “That’s a bit of a jump. We don’t have much proof.”

Davey: “It is the most likely answer, and making plans accordingly just makes us better prepared.”

Ash: “Good idea, but doesn’t that mean that WE should also prepare and perhaps learn more about these… Demon Kings?”

Research Montage:

The Irish Knights retreat back to the library, again ignoring the streets of Dublin for now. They search through the library and pull up as many myths and legends as they can. Davey even takes a jaunt into the main office and uses the computer to look up Irish Myths on various sites. After all there has been some bled between Aysle and Core Earth. As much as Aysle is invading and rewriting Earth’s reality, Aysle itself is being adapted/changed/mutated to Earth’s ancient legends as well (and its not just the Aysle cosm but the others are also experiencing these issues).

The trio then come together during their dinner and discuss all of the things they have found.

Three of the demon kings are considered evil spirits with each of them aligned with a different aspect; Mind, Body, and Soul. The fourth king was a hero who gave his body to dark powers to “fight fire with fire.” They knew most of this from their previous research. But when they started adding in Tara Hill and trying to find commonalities within the four, that’s when things got a little more interesting.

All four have one thing in common. Looking deeper into the story of Nuada, the hero who became a demon to fight demons. They discover a thread that ALL of the Demon Kings started out as mortal men, and ascended to become demi-gods. Nuada used legends that were from thousands of years before his time to find a way to follow in their footsteps and ascend so that he could face them as an equal.

Tara Hill Connections:

Nauda was a high king when the 3 demon kings came back into the world. He was at the end of his service, about to be sacrificed when the war against the demons started. HE lost his arm and gained the silver one he is famous for, and then was voted to lead the people for a second 7 years. He ascended to godhood to fight the demons, and thus couldn’t be sacrificed at the end of his second term. He became a wandering hero.

Arawn’s cauldron, the source for his mastery of Death and of his army, were taken and imprisoned in Tara Hill.

Balor was cursed and fused to a demon in his original tale, and a wizard in Tara originally tried to save him and peel the demon from his flesh. It didn’t work.

Annwyn was supposedly captured and executed on Tara Hill before it was a castle, and the blood of a god blessed the Hill to always be blessed. Supposedly the whole hill is the caern raised over his body, and the doors in the side enter into his body.

Of course, all of these legends do NOT make a coherent timeline and contradict each other quite a bit. Especially as Annwyn and Balor seem to happen, and die, long before Nauda became king, so who did he really fight? If it was Arawn, then why isn’t Nauda named as the man who took the cauldron and locked it in the castle?

KMC Writes