A knock at the door

brotor:

brotor after changing into better clothes steps out of lionshold. guibourg on the watchtower tells him of the tracks he has seen at the northern edge of the forest. he makes his way there and starts following those tracks which are pretty obvious to follow since the man seemed to keep falling down. after a few minutes of rough treking brotor decides to go back to lionshold if he wants to continue he will need to get some proper equipement and a horse.

roland:
roland picks up the sword and examines it. it feels very cold as though it absorbs the heat from his hand which are getting numb.
intriged he starts examining every details on the swords looking for runes or gems that could explain if a curse had been laid upon the sword. the sword suddently became lighter and lighter. roland tries to let go of the sword but his fingers are too numb to respond he hadn t even realize how numb they had become.
he start panicking and calls out for help. as the other lions appear to help him the sword falls through his hands and clatters to the ground.

"Let no one touch that sword! A powerfull curse has been set upon it, and we cannot afford to let this illness spread amongst our ranks. Nonetheless, I do not think that sickness is the key to the mystery. Every time this man is cured, a new disease bursts and aggravates him. There is more to it than meets the eye."

Sir Darius gazed at the window, in the distance he saw Brotor backtracking to Lionshold.

"We need to find out where this man is from. I need volunteers. Prepare the horses, gear yourselves. This is going to be a harsh journey."

Never being one to miss out on potential battle, Bear shouts" Volunteer? Danger? I don't even know what's going on, but I'm always down for adventure! Especially when magic swords are involved."

Descending from the watch tower, Guibourg quickly assigns men-at-arms to hold the fort while the main contingent is away.
There will be unknown perils ahead. Better get started on the preparations, he thought, as he gathered up his equipment and got armored up.
On the main court, other Lions were silently doing the same, even Brotor - though he did it while scratching himself.

Sire Auguste se tenant quelque peu en retrait a été interpellé par l'émois qui entourait l'étrange vieil homme malade. Sous sa toge rouge a capuche l'inquisiteur avait un sourir en coin teinté d'un rictus méprisant envers le medecin du collège face a l'echec évident du "docteur" pour guérir son patient.

Voyant l'air ébailli et paniqué de Roland devant la mysterieuse épée au sol, Sire Auguste se déplace pour voir ce dont il retourne éxactement. Apres avoir retiré son gant il éfleure la lame sombre du bout des doigts prenant soin de ne point s'y coupé. Puis, il jeta un regard intence sur les écritures qui y étaient gravées...

Soudain, il eu une projection mentale des pires tourments démoniaques. Cette visison désarsonna quelque peu Sire Auguste mais se dernier se resaisit et dit:

- Cette arme n'est clairement démoniaque et l'homme qui la transportait doit surement l'etre aussi..


Sans faire ni une ni deux il se dirigea vers le vieil homme malade poussant par le fait meme le medecin du college royal. L'inquisiteur retire sa capuche pour mieux examiner le pestiféré. Celui-ci semblait bel et bien humain et ne présentait que les symptomes classiques lié a sa maladie en apparence... Cependant, en s'approchant des yeux du malade il y avait quelque chose de pas naturel... une présence malsaine qui s'apparentait a ce qui entourait la sombre épée....

- Il y a une sombre présence démoniaque en cet homme et c'est ce qui provoque la pestilance...


Sire Auguste agit donc en conséquence et sort un parchemin d'éxorcisme de Saint-Lucius et une croix. Puis en pointant la croix vers le vieil homme il commança a récité les littanies de purification...

auguste:

the inquisitor chanted his prayers. he threw masses of holy water on the old man. put his cross on his forehead and gather all of his faith in the one true god.

" through the power of the almigthy is banish you demon!!!" he said.

for a brief moment the candles in the room flickered. it seemend to have worked.

then a coughing fit took hold of the old man and the doctor came to his aid.

" stop this foolishness!! there must be a rational explaination to this illness and someone please close that window it s getting drafty in here.""

expeditionary force:

sir darius, sir guibourg , sir bear and brotor had finished preparing their horses and supplies.

" anyone still wants to come for now is the time, we are leaving?" darius said.

Pas vraiment surpris par l'échec de l'inquisiteur Auguste, vus qu'une manus dei et un paladin de St-Vorador, on également échoué dans la guérison de cet individu. Parcontre, tout semble partir de cette épée et Xathor, s'empara d'un drap pour ramasser celle-ci sans lui toucher.

- Je vais resté pour prendre soin du malade et ne pas contaminé tout le monde. De plus, il est de mon devoir, en tant que agent de l'inquisition, de m'assurer que cette épée ne corrompe pas d'autres âmes, dit Xathor, s'adressa au maitre des lieux et à Dame Laikas chercha leur approbation à propos de la lame damnée.

- Je vais quand même vous laissez ma merveilleuse apprentie pour la quest. Je crois qu'elle appréciera l'expérience que cela va lui apporter.

Ragnar came running, his gear half on him and half in his hands, screaming ''Wait for me! Wait for me!'' Taking a few seconds to catch his breath he saluted the knights and volunteered to accompany Sir Darius and the others on their quest.

"Lions, march out!"

expeditionary force:

the group of lions marched out of lionshold and started to follow the trail left by the old man. luckly for them the tracks were obvious even to the untrained eye since the man was half crawling and stumbling most of the way.

the group followed the tracks for a few hours. until they came to a small settlement that wasn t on any of their map. these thing were common since maps were notoriously unreliable and that such settlement tended to pop out anywhere.

xathor:

xathor picked up the sword with a cloth and put it on a table. the cold from the blade still managed to cut through the fabric but much less than with his bare hands.
he started to look at it to try and make sense of this weapon. it cuts well, like a well taken care for sword. it felt well balanced when he had it in his hands. it dindn t have much adornement but a few symbols etched into the gard that seemed to have faded to chicken scratch through the years.

as he looked at the sword it did something strange. first it seemed like it was lacking substance and becoming see through. instanly after that it flattened on the table and disapeared underneath where it clattered to the ground.

"Let's make a stop here and question the villagers, they might be able to tell us where the man was from. I'll take care of the horses while you guys go around the village."

"Agreed Sir Darius, allow me." Bear said as he dismounted from his horse and made his way through the village entrance to the nearest group of filthy peasants.

"Greeting peasants. We are Knights journeying from yonder Lionshold on a quest of great import. Pray tell, have ye heard tell of a black-clad, malady stricken, stranger carrying a long sinister blade who was supposed to have passed this way? We have been following his trail for some time now and it seems that it cuts through your humble village."

Bear makes sure to observe the villagers demeanor as carefully as possible, in case they were attempting to hide something from him, or otherwise distract him from his noble quest.

Je m'approche de Xathor pour l'aider à comprendre le mystère de l'épée...Je tente de recopier les symboles de l'épée pour faire des recherches.

bear:

as you shout your intention towards the camp that looks empty you start to wonder where all the people are when one of the door opens.

a very large man comes in your direction he is almost 7 feet tall and has arms like tree trunks.

you instintivly go for your sword when you notice two things. he seem to be smiling and happy to see you and that he has a yellowish complexion. as he comes nearer you smell a strong odor of urine coming from him.

he then spoke in a weak but deep voice:
"welcome , i am oleg and this is our logging camp for this winter. we have seen the man you spoke of. he stubbled into camp yesterday we fed him and took care of him but he was set to going to lionshold. so we pointed him in the right direction.
this morning we woke up and everyone in camp is sick please help us!!!"

as he spoke other men came into view they all looked terrible. some had boils across their body other ozing soars many were coughing and other stumbled around with soiled breaches...

cassandre:

cassandre tried to decipher the characters enscrible on the guard of the sword. a process that was very arduous considering the state of the blade and the fact that if she stared at the blade too long it would disapear through the table and she would have to pick it up again.

there seemed to be roughly a dozen character but only the three in the middle were still legible so she copied it and went to the archive to verify the symbols.

after a few hours of research she found the symbols were ancient runes and that they spelled :

AP C

...

As Sir Darius makes his way back to his men, he sees the giant adress Sir Bear with despair. Unsure if his powers can be of any use here, he walks up to the man and tries to cure him.

"I'll at least try to ease your pain."

"Beware Sir Darius," Bear warned as he saw his lieutenant approaching, "This man, as well as his fellows, seem to have a similar sickness to the man Laikas is caring for at home. We should keep our distance so as not to contract any illness." Then turning to the burly man in front of him Bear said "By which I mean no disrespect good sir," hoping not to have offended the man "but if we too become sick, then we will not be able to find a cure."

Turning again to Sir Darius, Bear said calmly "This matter is clearly much more widespread than we could have expected. It is now safe to assume that additional villages in the area are also infected with a similar disease. I suggest that we send a scout to Lionshold to inform the other knights as to the situation, and to request that Lady Laikas dispatch healers to the various communities that are within a days reach of Lionshold. In the mean time, we should continue to follow the trail left by the stranger before the coming snows make it too difficult to make out. Our scout would have to return to the Hold and back swiftly enough so that the trail has not been covered by the time he gets back to this village." Furrowing his brow for a moment, he asks "What are your orders Lieutenant?".

"Your words are wise Sir Bear, I alone could not, by any means, cure all of them. I shall send someone back to Lionshold. Any volunteer?"

"In the meantime, I cannot stand by and watch as those men are dying. It is in Lion's nature to help those in need. As I do my best to ease their pain, please resume the search for the trail before it goes cold."

Back at Lionshold Roland was pacing around in his quarters, making sure to avoid contact with other people as much as possible.
Frustrated and feeling unproductive he finally resolved to continue studying the Cursed Sword, and joined Cassandre in the observation of the black iron blade.

expeditionary force:

a young man stepped forward, an enourmous rash covered half his body and said:

" if my lords would lend me a horse i would galdly go to lionshold"

" this man is trustworthy i pledge this on the honor of our camp." then said oleg

darius then put his hands on the man and recited a few prayers to st-vorador. the man went for bad to good in no time and the rash had disappeared. darius felling exausted told the man to take one of their horse they would make due.

oleg then said to the assembled lions:

" the man you talk about came from the montain to the west you should be able to find his trail from here"

roland:

roland had been looking at the sword for some time. he looked at it from all angles and still nothing new could he gleam from it.

"time to try sonmething else then" did he mumur to himself.

P.S. the lionshold quest is harder than the expeditionnary force quest so good luck.

Xathor informe Roland about the rune and the mysterious power of the sword.

- Cassandre Roland maybe if we don't look directly the sword, maybe it will keep is normal form. Cassandre do you have a mirror ? And also, I wanna check in the library if we have a old lions tale, who speak about a curse blade ..... the long night and the deamon are approching .

"Let's make haste and resume our march immediatly. Those prayers drained my force, I am still able to ride but will need to lay back a bit. Sir Bear, Sir Guibourg, please assume command for now."

"Understood Lieutenant - Lions saddle up and move out!" Bear shouted as he prepared to mount up. Looking to the skies and worrying about the snows he asks Guibourg "Sir Guibourg, I fear that the oncoming snows may make keeping on the trail difficult. Do you, in your boundless wisdom, have any ideas as to how we should proceed?".

xathor had a mirror fetches by sone servants and decided to go down to the archives to look upon what is known of cursed blades.

he quickly tumbs through what information are available but there seems to be many cursed blades around but none seem to fit the descriptions. he then goes to see the archivist to look for more answers.

the archivist answer:" i m sorry we do not have more information on cursed blades than this, but we do not have a large library like in illiaca. has for information about the longest night and deamons associated with it i would go to sir cynan i beleive he is in possesions of the fisrt tale.

as for newer information i know many things have happened in the recent year but the knight are terrible at keeping written records you should ask them personaly."
a little disapointed he went back to the others. the servant were finishing to instal a mirror from a wardrobe beside the table with the sword.

when they removed the cloth protecting the glass thing went from strange to downright bizarre.

the sword on the table disapeared leaving only it s shadow and a shadowless sword appeared in the mirror...

Reacting quickly and on instinct Roland Immediately put the mirror reflective face down on the table next to the sword, hiding the reflection from everyone.
Sweat beading across his brow, he shared his budding suspicions with Cassandre and Xathor:
"I just had a very bad feeling that whoever's reflection crosses that of the blade might be cut.
I think we need to bring the mirror to another reflecting surface, like a pool of calm water
- and then hopefully we can retrieve it from the bottom of the reflecting pool."

expeditionary force:

as guibourg silently pondered the ramification of the next legs of their journey the group set off from the camp.

they traveled to the nearby mountain following the trail they beleived the old man had took. the days was getting along and it is at sunset that they came to a large crevise in the flank of the mountain.

from their vantage point they could see that at the bottom of the crevise lay a large circle of stone. they were clearly man made since their positioning was at the corners of the compass and strange runes covered the stones.

the stones have been there a long time since someone had the idea of building a small house in the center of the circle. the day is fading and the temperature is droping.

roland

as he put the mirror down and started to explain his theory to his fellow comrades he didn t notice the blade reapearing instantly the moment the mirror was down.

nonetheless he had the servants bring him a tub of water to make a reflecting pool. he put the table at an angle in order to see the blade in the reflection of the tub.

it took a few moments for the water to still but once the water stettled the blade disapeared leaving it s shadow behind and a shadowless blade appearded on the reflection.

roland quicky reached for the hilt of the sword in the water but grasped a handfull of water. the water disturbed, the blade reapearded on the table.