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Late last week (Thursday June 5th) Guildmaster Connor requested a meeting with Angelica and myself.

We proceeded up to the Abby per his instructions and found him waiting on the upper floor.

We exchanged pleasantries for a bit, and then settled down to the business at hand.

A condensed version of the conversation follows:

I have a problem you see, I should rephrase that, I have a welcome problem. But I require more information before I can act on my suspicions. I must be careful with what I say, and I fear I will be putting your lives in danger by involving you. But you have assisted me in the past, and I'd hoped I could count on you again.

We of course agreed.

The good Guildmaster continues:

First I must ask that you keep what I say between us, exclusively for a time.

For the moment at least, I don't know if you recall the pillars. We had a rather nasty experience with the Lady of fire. Well she has returned and seems to be plotting something that could be unpleasant to me. I wish to let her continue thinking I am unaware. In order to do that, I must enlist your aid to be my eyes on a mission. The mission will be dangerous though I have confidence in your skills.

I have for quite some time had assistant in her organization reporting to me on their activities. I am unsure of her safety.

The mission is this: I have located a new entrance to the lady of Flame's lair, she is reluctant to open a door to her lair of course, if she showed her face upon the surface I would surely be there to greet her. But she is intending to move upon me, and indirectly, the throne, or perhaps directly, I haven't learned all I should. What I need to know is if she has learned of my assistant. I need you to enter the opening and search for any information that would indicate how safe my person on the inside is.

We were given some advice on what we were likely to encounter and advice to treat any encounter with the Lady of Flame with extreme caution.

We were transported to the portal that was located on the small island near Buccaner's den. and entered, Opposition consisted mostly of Coven scouts and protectors, neither seemed to do much damage but both took a fair amount to subdue. Toward the end was a coven of Sisters, and a few assistant pillars. The sisters were no more dangerous than normal, but caution should be exercised with the pillars as they are powerful mages. At the very last we encountered a Sister of the flame, At the time we assumed this was the Lady herself, that may or may not be the case, but in any event she was extremely dangerous and took a great deal of time and effort to subdue.

After searching the area a few things of special interest were found.

The first being a note:
On Claiming Connor - He will not join us willingly, so we must force him. The spell is a simple one. Only a Pillar may cast it, of course. The time of the spell will be revealed once the traitor is killed. Find her, kill her.

The second was the pillar of flame itself, seems to be an artifact granting a boost to mana similar in nature to the fountain now residing in lowest Covetuous.

The third was a Robe of the Pillar, doubtless it is normally reserved for ranking members of the Pillar itself, for now I have it.

---

A few days later (Monday June 9th) we were able to meet with Connor for a debriefing of how the mission went.

We showed him the note, robe, and the properties we found the pillar of flame to have, and discussed the peril his person was in.

He did not seem overly concerned about the spell they were working on, he seems sure it will be of little use against him.

He is concerned however about the safety of his person and said he would work on a spell to pull her to a place of safety, and that the preparations for said spell would take 3 days.

It was decided that his assistant would be able to safely hide at Angelica's house for a time, and she would be summoned to there.

He also asked us to put together a larger force of trusted people, to fill in on what has been happening and to go back and remove the Pillar of Flame and take it to Wind. It seems that "There is one place in our world that is a prison to mages, not all mages, but mages of certain background I, myself, cannot go there". Apparently the Lady's ability to come back to this world from the Abyss is linked to the pillar, so she will be forced to follow and thereby be trapped.

---

The next day we had a brief meeting with Connor and outlined the proposed team

He thought it seemed reasonable in size, and asked if it were possible he would like to meet with the members such as were available on Thursay. Unfortunately I neglected to get a time.

----

The first order of business was to spirit Connor's, umm, assistant from the coven ...

He cast a spell creating an odd summoning gate shortly thereafter Neria appeared from it.

She seemed, quiet and Connor says "I need you to free her from her prison, Woul one of you... *ahem* Cast a spell upon her?" We asked what spell and he replies "Flamestrike will do.", we glanced uneasily at each other before Cloudchaser complied and cast the spell. There was a puff of smoke and where Neia the human had been was now Neria the eagle.

A conversation ensued about his occasional use of creatures of the animal kingdom from time to time for various tasks.

For the most part the rest of the meeting confirmed the preparations that had been made and meeting time, there was some new information dealing with the specifics of tomorrows mission.

"You will be travelling, as before, to areas unexplored. We've no knowledge with any certainty what you will face, but you will be locating a device, and taking that device to the mage's prison. The device can be used to open a gate but not ordinary gates and not for ordinary travel, when activated, this object will allow you to open a gate and transport a magical device of your choosing it will sever that magic object's ties to its foundation and locate it to the device there it will be kept with the gate device."

We discussed various locations in and around wind that might be appropriate and determined that the best would be the park.

---

We met as arranged, and Connor advised that the Lady of Flame was aware of our intentions and that there would be stiff opposition. This did indeed turn out to be the case, after being transported to another realm we encounted, many foes, including, Coven scouts, Coven Guardians, Coven Protectors, Coven Knights, Coven Sisters, Coven Scurge (dragon), Coven Bracken (likewise a dragon), as well as several members of the Pillar hierarchy namely Apostles of the pillar, Hand's of the Pillar, and ultimately the Lady of Flame herself.

We battled long into the night, and though our foes were many by and large we had little difficulty in acquiring the "Temporal Gate Device".

As Guildmaster Connor directed, we used the device and were transported to the Wind Park, I know not if the device malfunctioned, or if it is mearly a side effect, but our arrival was met with many swirling misty forms of strange description. We subdued these and the device started to humm, first a platform appeared over the lake, and then the Pillar of Flame.

Let this be a lesson, never assume anything is over, as we stood at ease and relaxing the Lady of Flame appeared and the air filled with fiery columns and smoke.

This battle was much worse than any faced earlier and ultimately Cloudchaser, Angelica and Myself fell, fortunately Ciara and Malacin were able to finish her off and revive us.

If the summary of the battles is overly short, I apologize, I find this account of events already long, and in any case my skill at telling tales of battle is slim, at best. Perhaps on another day someone else who was there will recount them better.

Oh one final note, mages may wish to visit the pillar now and then, it has properties of some interest.

Edison

A very fine account, though it does highlight my horrid punctuation. On to matters of interest...

There is a tale to be told of mages and the city called Wind and Pillars and a great many things. I will be receiving an audience outside Empath Abby this evening at 7pm EST. We will be discussing past, present and future events. All who wish to attend are welcome.

I got a hold of a few screenshots Ciara managed to take, and made up a quick little web page.

Ill try to be there but I cannot make any promises.

I might be able to attend part of this but have to leave early. It's my Mom's birthday.

**Tries to think of what to get her**

So sorry I won't be able to attend, Guildmaster. My journeys have taken me far from being able to enter our fair World. Know my heart is with you all. Respectfully submitted by Angelica the absent Mage.

Meeting with Connor went well. We had a long discourse on issues like the Pillars, the Abyss and the Shadow people. Its going take some effort, from more than just myself alone, to share all Connor's knowledge.
For starters there is something important though.

Connor suspects that there are (or will be) gates between our world and the world of the abyss. These gates may be undetectable by magic or sight, but we may stumble upon them. Should you find one there is no telling what it will lead to. Investigate and REPORT the instance.

Connor was emphatic saying that we have to share such information with each other yo.

What else did he say? He said these portals are opened by members of the mage group the Seven Pillars. Not to be confused with the Coven Pillars or the Pillars of Corruption, the Seven Pillars were powerful female mages from days of old. They were distiguished in their obsession with the Abyss. They believed in free travel between the two worlds for all creatures. They used magic pillars to return to our world from their excursions in the Abyss, thus their name.

Connor talked about a lot of other things. But he suggested we read about the history of Wind. Should be in the Manual now right?

He also said that the Pillar of Fire that was moved to Wind was one of these pillars. The lady mage attached to it can not leave it for long. Wind was long ago turned into a prison for evil mages through a spell that Connor devised. It trapped all mages who entered and had previously lived there. The Seven Pillars were a group that had lived there and split off from the otherwise good mages in the past. Therefore Conner (who also used to live there) can not return or he will be trapped in Wind as well, but the mage connected with the Pillar of Fire is trapped and may be trying to widen a portal to the Abyss and bring more creatures through. We have certainly seen more nasty baddies there recently.

The other six pillars are a concern and may appear anywhere. The portals to the Abyss that they establish may not be visable or detectable, even by Connor. Thus the request that we investigate and share all information we gather. Connor suspects that their old plan to open permanent portals to the Abyss (and thus increase their power) may be revived. They were close to defeat when they opened such portals before. That was when Connor put the spell on Wind -- to keep that portal contained. It is not certain that the other six pillars were trapped there, however, so everyone should keep their eyes open!

Absolutely fascinating. All this new lore in Connor's hands, and I am loathe to admit that I was unable to attend.

It is a shame, really. Both the Library and myself could have benifited from such knowledge. My interest in the shard, moongates and dimensional travel is quite passionate, and I will double the research I am doing about the world at large.

Any comments or details specifically given would be useful, to transcribe to the library.

-M

*Covenant Atei*

I'm not sure if the current events involving the Angry Townspeople, their Prophet and the funky rats are connected to the Pillar of Fire, but Connor was very clear in telling us to report ANYTHING unusual.

Is it possible that the "Angry Ones" are coming from Wind? I thought Connor said that, once trapped there, they couldn't be released. However, if they found a way out, that might explain where they came from, and this Prophet could be another Pillar (shudders). Finally, the Rats might be from the same "wonderful" place that brought us some of the new, fun critters in Wind.

Food for thought, anyway...