Return to Erness Marr 1106

A couple of years ago the combined armies went on a trip to the ruins of the ancient city of Erness Marr in Albion and its legendary libraries to try find information on how to deal with the Blood Queen (See Foreboding 1104) . The information raid went well despite the Blood Queen's best efforts and those of the local cannibals but it was a very scary place and casualties were high so most of those present swore never to go there again. So, naturally, when the Celestial College of Earthly Studies thought it would be a really good idea to see what other information could be found in the library everyone available joined them but with some serious misgivings.

The mercenary camp had delegations from the Lion Azure, Merchant Militia, Talastri, as well as members of the Silver Oak and the ex-95th of Foot. The Hei Ravni part of the camp also had significant numbers from all their groups.

Our previous experience of Erness Marr meant most of us were very cautious, especially when it came to travelling down the paths and especially so at night. It wasn't enough. Casualties were very high once more including some very high ranking members of the Lions and Wolves. Serin, the Taliaster of the Fir Cruthen, died on the Friday night but that appears to have been something more intentional and there was a lot of discussion amongst the camps. The cannibals were being less cautious than expected and were attacking camps in what seemed like attempts to catch people they could eat.

There were rabbits every where and they didn't seem to be scared of the cannibals, probably as the cannibals didn't see them as suitable to eat. Just behind the Talastri tents was a tree shaped like a leaping rabbit that always seemed to have rabbits near it and where they gathered every evening.

Apparently Brother Gabriel has completely turned against everyone. He captured some Lion ritualists and forced them to perform a ritual to create an item so he can possess people by sight. The ritualists were then left alone with their minds confused in Erness Marr to survive as best they could, most didn't survive the cannibals.

On the Saturday night there was an unexpected guest in the Hei Ravni camp - a vampire promising very loudly that they only had twenty-four hours to live because they had insulted him.

In the morning we found a lot of crystals in the camps which we didn't know what to do with. We gradually heard that they seemed to be linked to the cannibals and were causing trouble in various of the faction camps - people were behaving strangely around them and the more crystals that were around the more erratic the behaviour. Apparently some people had amassed large numbers of the crystals. The Jhereg camp was quarantined for a while due to the chaotic behaviour there.

That morning was our first encounter with the Soul Eater, a being that was following the cannibal attacks and taking the souls of those that were dying from the cannibals attacks. Apparently he could be hurt if attacked by the right weapon at the right time but that wasn't much of a help when you didn't have the right weapon available. It wasn't long before we'd all decided that the best way to deal with him was to not be in the same place. Well pretty much all of us anyway, Ushi decided to stand up to him at one point and took a lot of pain for his troubles, Coll of the Merchant Militia decided to act as a decoy in the Steppe Alliance camp and also took a lot of pain.

The Silver Oak were being hunted by the hounds of the Winter Court who decided to curl up in the Silver Oak's tent to wait for them. Of course nobody in the camp had any idea who they were but eventually this led to all kinds of chaos, lots of running away, screams, and bloodshed.

King Sharka and the ogres of the ex-95th of Foot got themselves into a lot of trouble and found themselves on trial in the Lions and Vipers camp on the same day. The charges were dropped in the Lion camp and in the Viper camp they finally agreed not to use the name of the 95th.

The cannibals stole a box from the Steppe's library which caused a lot of trouble and had a lot of us wandering around trying to find it for them.

There was a lot of discussion about the unborn or the non-born, some sort of being that was trapped in one of the ritual circles of the city. It seemed that there had been many circles linked by a series of crystal orbs, which the crystals that were causing all the trouble may have been part of, but that there was still the master left intact. Many people thought it would be a good idea to destroy the last orb to release this being while others thought it would be better to leave it alone with the being trapped.

In the end the decision was made to leave the orb alone and some of the factions went after the cannibals which led to a long-running battle. Reports are sketchy about what happened during the battle but rumour has it that Sigurd of the Wolves broke the final orb and it ended with a lot of rapid packing and running away and the rather messy end of Erness Marr in a plume of dust and smoke as it fell into the Earth.