Welcome to Dublin House

ACT V Scene 2:

Having made the decision that they would move on to take over Dublin House, the Irish Knights have decided to actually relax. Take time to destress and heal up.

It was a tranquil three days, where they lazed about Argo’s house, drinking brandy and telling stories of the various missions they had before they became a team. Even Argo finally began to mend, regaining some of his lost weight and the gloom lifting from his shoulder.

Only one event marred the three-day peace.

Two days before the replacements arrived, there was a surge through the aether of magic. Ash was staggered from his feet, waves of euphoria surging through his elven body, the same occurred to Argo. Raw magic flowed in their veins. Even Ragnall, irascible as he is and prone to ignore his senses, was hit with this wave of magic. Though in his case it triggered panic and the need to run.

Davey, being of Core Earth, was oblivious to this surge in magic.

Replacements:

The day finally came with the arrival of the replacements and the three Irish Knights eyed them dispassionately… measuring them and finding them wanting, but they said nothing as Argo welcomed them to Donegal House.

The new trio was led by a core earther named George Shaw, the woman to his left was also named Shaw, Alison, but she had changed to the Aysle Cosm. She was dressed in white robes and carried a holy symbol devoted to the light. On the right side of George was a walking tank. A dwarf in dragon warrior, encased in magically empowered armor and carrying huge double-bladed axes. Covered head to toe in steel they didn’t realize she was a woman until she was introduced as “Charm” and said her hellos.

[The three new characters were meant to be a joke on the three characters leaving Donegal… and during the game they created a scene where they lined up on either side of Argo’s desk and checked them over. Charm is a heavily armored killing machine, whereas Ash is a very nimble killing machine. Ragnall is in dirty brown robes and is a priest, but he is foul mouthed and angry and old, whereas Alison is young, pretty, and wears white robes. Both are great healers. Davey and George are just core earthers trying to keep things on track, this is also where I tried to set Davey up as a leader of the group…]

Moving On:

Supplied with horses and gear, extra food, the Irish knights set out from Donegal and quickly run across the lands they have already traveled. Passing the same villages and fields where they fought the ghost legion of Rome.

It’s not until their second day on the road that they finally come to new territory. The once sprawling town of Omagh has fully gone over to Aysle. Now none of the buildings are higher than three stories and everything is timber framed and thatch roofed. This is the city that first reported the sighting of the Fomori.

At this point they are a mere 91 miles from Tara Hill and 126 from Dublin House.

3 days later they are camped within sight of the Hill. And the next morning they approach, no ghost castle sits atop the hill this morning. Instead the hill is a long low mound, lozenge shaped. A road winds up the side of the hill to the top, where ruins of the ancient hold are open for tourists. Or at least they were when this was still Core Earth. They arrive at a small carport, the asphalt is still black and several cars are still parked, defying the change of Cosm. Someone has raised a large mound of stone covering half of the parking lot, and atop this caern is a long pole with a gold eagle on top. A Roman Standard.

Ignore the Hook.

The carport entrance requires that the trio leave the road they are currently on, but Dublin is only 25 miles down the road, and they want to push on. The glimmer of gold is not enough to lure them away from the task before them. They single-mindedly continue down the road.

Dublin appears on the horizon as they continue and it continues to grow and grow as they get closer. Much of the city has resisted changing to the Cosm, but the outer edges are farms and Tudor houses, with a few throwbacks to the Viking era. The River Liffe cuts the city in two, north and south and the Dublin house sits in the southern half of the city. In a weird dichotomy, the north of the river is 80% Aysle, whereas in the south it is still 80% Earth.

The mixture on the streets is bizarre. As they ride horses into the city they see other riders like themselves, but there are also large number of people riding bikes and even some still running cars.

Dublin House

The house is still core earth, a massive brick building standing over seven stories high. It is one corner of a large city block that includes a bunch of university buildings and there is still a sign declaring this building as Computer Labs for the Poly-Tech University.

Whatever is keeping the building and most of the block core earth apparently ends near the top of the building. As a massive and ridiculous observatory/ telescope appears cobbled onto the brick façade. A carport is off to the left side of the building, and the trio debate whether they should walk the horses into there or if they should find a way to hobble them here, before the front door.

The decision is made for them as the front doors open and two men in Guarda uniforms step out and ask for the reins to the horses. A young woman stands in the doorway and greets them, “Please come in, Sean and Patrick will tend your mounts.”

Introductions:

The main hall is a large marble floored affair, with a bank of elevators in the back, doorways in both side walls, and a large information desk dominating the center of the room. Electric lights are still running and air conditioning is moving the air. 5 people stand in the room, four men and the woman who greeted them.

She is dressed in a smart business suit, with a knee length skirt. She gives them a salute, with a half-smile that says she finds the gesture a little silly. Two of the men in the room are also wearing Guarda uniforms, with rifles strapped across their chest. The other two men are wearing military fatigues, but also white lab coats over them.

Cheryl: “My name is Cheryl O’Mara, I am your… assistant, Seneschal… I keep everything running for you guys. Day to day as it were. These men,” gesturing to the Guarda, “Are foot soldiers, Matt and Erik, you met Sean and Patrick. There are two more on the grounds, Brian and Luke. This is Ryan O’Shaughnessy, EMT and combat medic, and this is Doctor Alexander MacReady. We are your staff.”

Daunting, to say the Least:

Ragnall: “Nine… Nine people in this whole building. Storm Knights?”

Cheryl: “Not a one left. But the Guarda and Ryan have trained to function while disconnected and are fully Delphi briefed and approved.”

Ragnall throws his hands in the air and starts a long tirade of cursing as he paces the room. Davey shakes his head and steps forward to try and smooth things over.

Davey: “We know the last master of the house screwed things up but not this bad… I’m sure that the Guarda and medics will be fine, a great start. We also have other obvious advantages…” the last a solicitation for Cheryl to fill in that blank.

Cheryl: “Oh yes! As you can see, we have power. This building contains a hardpoint, we have perfect Earth conditions on this floor and the next two above and below, then it starts to mix out for the next three floors before the top floor is fully in Aysle. We have our own gas pump, which we can nurse for quite a while and have several vehicles within the protection of the hardpoint. We have a decent armory and most of the local population seems to like us. Though things change north of the river.”

Smoothing things over, and excellent at her Job:

Cheryl continues: “We have a gym, a kitchen, freezers, a park in the middle of the quad between us and the other buildings, and there is an annex building that is mostly in Cosm, therein we have a library, an alchemy lab, and a Church to the Light.”

Cheryl removes three folders from the information desk, handing one of each of them. They contain full staff lists, and full inventories of all supplies and assets. She also snags a bottle of Jamison from behind the desk and hands it to Ragnall.

The old priest stops mid-rant and eyes the bottle with fondness and then gives the young woman a smile. He pulls the top and starts drinking.

Ash: “Easy Ragnall. We still have work to do today.”

Ragnall: “This little lady has everything running smoothly, I believe I will be moving my bags into the Church, hopefully it has a rectory?” Cheryl nods. “Good. You, Guarda, take me to the rectory.”

He toddles off with a Guarda in tow. Cheryl then gestures in a different direction and Ash and Dave follow her.

Paperwork:

Cheryl leads them into a large office, the walls covered in book shelves but the desk sports a computer and modern convivences. Two leather chairs face the desk and a long coach is off to the side. Cheryl gestures for one of them to take the seat behind the desk while she places herself into one of the two chairs facing the desk.

Davey steps behind the desk and Ash sets down beside Cheryl. The desk is covered in a number of neat folders, all marked with dates and titles. There are also two ledgers, one counting members of the household the other merely a calendar with number codes written on each line. Davey looks through all the paperwork and sighs.

Cheryl: “All of the reports are in chronological order, oldest on the top. The staff list is mostly a list of the dead and those that fled, you already know the 9 members, so that can be put off. The calendar is a log of the appearances of the castle on the Hill. It’s time it appears, duration, and which castle appears. There seem to be variations.”

Davey: “Wow. You are remarkable and making this very easy. I guess I should probably use the sat-phone to inform the other houses that we’ve arrived.”

Ash: “Let me see the calendar, if you’re going to use the communication magic.”

The castle pattern:

As Davey makes his six phone calls, Ash looks over the calendar.

It seems every four days the duration of the castle appearance ticks up several minutes. The amount of extra time is also ticking up. On day 110, the castle went from minutes of duration to 4 hours. As such first team was sent to check it.

On day 118, the castle stayed up for a full 24 hours, this was the first time it was “occupied,” against better judgement a second team was sent to investigate. Castle disappeared and did not reappear on schedule.

Day 120, Castle came back and lasted for over 36 hours. The notes switch to a new hand, Cheryl’s.

Ash: “What happened to the first team?”

Cheryl stand, leaning over the desk she riffles through the folders and pulls out the report, hands it over to Ash.

First Excursion:

The master of the house sent 3 Storm Knights and 6 soldiers into the Castle. They were charged to only spend a couple hours within, no matter what. To speed up their journey they took a truck from the carpool and raced out there.

A full day later only one Knight returned, insane. The place was grandiose, more a fantasy than a real castle. Marble and crystal everywhere, and it was filled with screaming ghosts. They were incoherent, and after a time the Knights had relaxed around them. The ghosts seemed to be mere recordings of past events. They just went through the same motions. But they were from different times and places and they overlapped each other making it a mess, a babble.

If they concentrated, they could actually learn about past events, you merely needed to drown out the other images and concentrate on only one. It quickly became apparent that some of the shots were actually trying to educate them and make them run away. After that they discovered that some thing lurked among the ghosts, and it would drag stray men off into the past, their screams and ghosts adding to the collective. After that it was a mad scramble to find their way out. Evidence the Fae were feeding off these past images.

Other Reports.

Ash finished reading the report, and Davey finished his phone calls. They quickly shared information between them. Then Davey grabbed another report off the table. After reading thru it quickly he chuckled.

Davey: “This report is a little lighter than yours. It appears to be about US. Well it mentions a bunch of dead fae found in the Guinness Warehouse.”

He picks up the next one, the precursor to the 24-hour Castle. A man with no face appears among the farms west of Dublin. The farmers flee into Dublin bringing the report. Is it a mask, a weird hood, a helm… no one is clear by what they mean by “faceless man.” This man enters the castle and it becomes solid, quite real.

Next report is just a phone call log from the idiots in Bangor about the giant showing up and sitting on the docks.

Second Excursion to the Castle:

The next report is the one that basically ended Dublin house, the nail that spelled their doom.

Four knights and another 6 soldiers were sent into the castle. This left only the master and the insane knight in the House. There is nothing stated about what happened in the castle, the report jumps to only two of the knights coming back from the castle. Heavily wounded they were pursued by the faceless man and 8 black knights. The faceless man road on a huge wagon, drawn by black beasts. The knights slaughtered any men who got in their way and then threw the bodies into the back of the wagon, where they were fed into a great black cauldron.

The Wagon stopped before the House, and the Faceless man came in, he slaughtered everyone who didn’t hide or flee the building.

There are new notes in Cheryl’s hand added to the report. She relates how and where she hid with the Medics. And then the lack of bodies in the House, just the trail of blood as the dead were dragged out of the building.

The second amendment follows the Cauldron all the way to Wales where the faceless man has since set up a kingdom.

Taking a Break.

The Irish Knights had most of this knowledge, at least minus the key details before they arrived. Everything left on the desk is in Cheryl’s hand alone and relates the events of the Second Guest to the Castle and everything that has happened since letter was sent to Donegal.

At this point Cheryl leaves the room, she has some things to take care of and she leaves them to reading the reports of the last 10 days. And also at this point we’ll be pausing this narrative. This part of the game was a LOT of information for the players to absorb and I know I’m just conveying it in short bursts. A lot of the interactions are made short in these posts, but most of this post was nearly 3 hours of gaming… and I still have over three pages of notes to turn into story.

Next week we’ll get the final reports and also start some of the action and troubles in Dublin.