Session Forty-Five: The Monk's Tale

Early the next morning, the company departs Noyon and travels to Summersfall Fort. Following the telltale footprints they discovered previously, they enter the ruins to search. Almost immediately, Sir Henri, Sir Jean-Marc, and Renee feel their old injures begin to itch most fearsomely. The itching grows stronger the deeper they descend into the subterranean levels of the fortress, and soon they find themselves in a long abandoned dungeon.

They enter a large chamber, which features a cistern of murky water and several small cells. They note that one cell, in a far corner, has a glimmer of light shining out beneath its door. After carefully searching the rest of the dungeon, Sir Jean-Marc strides to this last door. The rest of the company array themselves behind him, providing coverage and support with their ranged weapons.

He finds himself at the threshold of a cell. A small, forge-like stove, which seems to have once been used to heat up torture implements, casts a fitful light about the chamber. A thick book with yellow pages rests open on a nearby table.

Seated on the floor beside the bed, manacled to the wall by a chain affixed around his leg, is a hunched man in faded yellow robes. At last, the company gazes upon the mysterious monk who has been the architect of their misfortunes for so long.

With tranquil and pragmatic fury, Sir Henri takes up the book from the table and hurls it onto the coals in the stove.

“No!” shouts the monk. “You can’t!”

The book does not burn. If anything, it smothers the fire. Sir Henri realizes that the monk was not shouting to him to prevent him from destroying the book, but to warn him that nothing he could do would affect the book.

The monk, startled out of his silence, begins to weep and lament his misfortunes. He says that he has tried burning the book, throwing it away, burying it, hurling it into the River Brienne, all to no avail. The book always returns to him, undamaged and unchanged, apart from the wishes he has made with it. Always he is forced to go eastward, along the Brienne, for reasons he does not understand.

When the monk raises his face to the light, Sir Henri sees that he is a young man, his face careworn from sorrow and tears. He says that he knows that they have been following him, and that he knows he must pay for his crimes. He tells them that, if they decide his punishment should be death, he accepts it. He will do whatever it takes, suffer any fate, if only his nightmare will come to an end.

When Sir Henri asks for his name, the monk introduces himself as Geoffrey of Marseille.

The Monk, At Last

The Monk’s Tale

The rest of the company, seeing that the monk is not an immediate threat, stands down. Several of them come into his small cell to better speak with him. He willingly answers all questions, and explains what has befallen him.

He was on the western coast of Brienne, having recently taken up holy orders. He wandered the countryside, seeking to aid the downtrodden and the poor, and privately wished that he could do more to help. His private wishes soon attracted the attention of the Lady of the Lake, who appeared to him one evening while he was at prayers.

The Lady was a vision of loveliness, clad in a gold gown with long, flowing hair of the same color. She told Geoffrey that she had heard his heart’s desire and promised to give him a gift that he might accomplish it. She gave to him the book, and told him that any wish he wrote in the book would come true. Geoffrey, grateful and overawed, took the book without hesitation, and thanked her for her generosity.

Geoffrey began granting wishes, having people write in the book, or writing for them when he found they were not literate. Some compulsion caused him to tear the wishes out of the book and give them, as keepsakes, to those who had asked for help. For a time, he was pleased at the good work he did, and was happy that he could do something to better the world.

Then, it all began to go wrong. Each night when Geoffrey went to bed, he found that his sleep was haunted by horrible nightmares. In them, he saw how the wishes he granted were turned and twisted, causing more harm than good. Worse, he somehow knew that these nightmares were true, and not merely the manifestation of his exhausted mind.

By day, he sought to use the book better, entreating the Lady to help him and trying to write his wishes as clearly and as simply as possible. The nightmares only continued, and the horrors that the wishes brought grew even worse. By then, he found that some invisible, irresistible force was drawing him eastward across Carcassonne, and he could not stop or turn aside for very long. He prayed to the Lady to allow him to go back and undo what he had wrought.

Shortly thereafter, Geoffrey began to dream of several people following in his wake, who set right what he had put wrong and also put down all other manner of Chaos and evil besides. He knew that they were the company, that they were following him, and that they wound one day catch up with him. On the one hand, he feared that they might do so, but on the other, he hoped that they would catch him quickly, so that they could put an end to his misdeeds.

Geoffrey said that he had grown so tired of the book and of his cursed duty that he, with great effort, came to Summersfall Fort and chained himself in its dungeon. He hoped that being physically restrained would keep him in one place long enough for the company to reach him. And now they had.

Geoffrey of Marseille, the Wandering Monk

The Book of Wishes

Sir Henri asks if Geoffrey had written any wishes for himself in the book. Geoffrey says that he had written two. Sir Henri pulls the still cool book out of the stove, opens it, and calls Pierre over to look through the pages. They find that the first two pages of the book are intact. Several leaves beneath these are ragged and torn, their corners and edges marked by wishes and then removed. The remainder of the book is undamaged and blank.

The first wish is as follows: Great Lady, I, Geoffrey of Marseille, am your humble servant. It is my sole desire to serve you, and to share your gift with as many as I can. My only wish is that I be granted the ability to help others according to your desires.

Geoffrey's First Wish

The second wish, written in a much shakier hand, is as follows: LADY! PLEASE HAVE MERCY UPON YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT! I BEG YOU, PLEASE—IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY—SEND SOMEONE TO RELIEVE ME OF THIS MISERABLE BURDEN.

Geoffrey's Second Wish

After Pierre reads these wishes aloud, the company pauses for a moment to discuss their implications. Sabina and Garnier opine that Geoffrey’s first wish is very easy to manipulate and, viewed in that light, is uniquely horrifying. Others recognize the second message as the one that Renee was dream writing back at Castle Carcassonne. There is general agreement that the Lady who appeared to Geoffrey was not the true one (black haired, with a blue gown), but their mysterious antagonist/benefactor (yellow hair, yellow gown), in disguise.

The company tells Geoffrey, as gently as he can, that he is not really at fault, but that he was duped and manipulated by one of the Ruinous Powers. Geoffrey, aghast, shrinks against the wall and asks what will happen now.

To which Sir Henri replies, “first, we destroy this book!”

Realizing that, while the book itself seems proof against fire, the wishes within were not. Sir Henri makes to tear the first of Geoffrey’s wishes out of the book. He pauses for a moment—but only a moment—when he hears a voice in his mind tell him that he could do so much good if he kept the book for himself. Sir Henri scoffs at it, tears out the first page, and pitches it into the stove. It immediately bursts into flame.

As he prepares to do the same to the second wish, Renee is overwhelmed by a compulsion to take the book from Sir Henri and keep it safe. She is rattled out of this compulsion by a firm, but gentle gauntlet swipe from Sir Henri. A moment later, the crumpled up page containing the second wish is consigned to flames.

Sir Jean-Marc, moved by the monk’s suffering as well as his own, calls out to the empty air, taunting their benefactor and telling him that he has no power over the company any longer. This is met by a distant chuckle that comes from nowhere and everywhere. Sir Jean-Marc, enraged by this mocker, calls out the Ruinous Power, demanding that he show himself and prepare for a fight. For answer, there is a loud, disembodied cackle.

Then the book, still In Sir Henri’s hands, grows suddenly very warm. Sir Henri hurls it into the far corner of the cell. Everyone watches in aw as the book flashes into yellow flames and is entirely consumed, washing the chamber in intense heat. Not even the merest fleck of ash is left behind.

Satisfied that the curse is, at last, broken, Sir Henri swigs his mace at Geoffrey’s chain, shattering the links. Geoffrey, now freed, arises in wonder.

But before he can ask the question clearly forming on his lips…

Quorzan the Apostate, Chaos Dwarf, Servant of Tzeentch

Qorzan the Apostate

A flash of purple light erupts in the dungeon’s main chamber. A Chaos dwarf, covered in blasphemous tattoos and garbed in tattered red robes, levitates over the cistern. The dwarf is surrounded by a nimbus of purple light that shapes itself into writhing, seeking tentacles.

The dwarf announces that he is Qorzan the Apostate, and that he has, at last, discovered the hiding place of the High Priest of the Cult of the Stranger. He says that it does not matter that the rest of the cult is in residence—he will kill them all and end their interference in his great work.

As Qorzan uses Chaos magic to tear open two portals in reality, Garnier cheekily asks if he spells his name with a “K” or a “Q.” Garnier gets no answer.

From one portal steps out a cohort of beastmen led by a minotaur. From the comes a cohort of beastmen led by a centigor. Qorzan commands them to attack and destroy their foes in the name of Chaos Undivided.

The battle rages across the dungeon. Magnus and Sir Henri close with the centigor as quickly as they can, preventing it from charging and bringing its demilance to bear against them. Several mighty blows from both men bring the centigor crashing to the ground.

Maurice fires an arrow laced with manticore poison at the minotaur. It strikes true, but as the minotaur is many times the size of a normal man, it seems to be slow in taking effect. The minotaur grows steadily more lethargic as the fight continues, but it is still strong enough to ignore several hits from Sir Jean-Marc. With a bellow, the minotaur catches Sir Jean-Marc in its horns and hurls him across the room.

Several of the company fire ranged weapons at Qorzan, only for his aura of tentacles to catch many of their projectiles and redirect them at their companions. Seeing this, Maurice fires the arrow granted to him by the Lady. One of Qorzan’s tentacles catches it, only to be dispelled by the arrow’s holy power. The arrow flies true, hitting and badly wounding Qorzan.

Renee hurls her net at Qorzan. The net is either too large or too heavy for the tentacles to manage, and so it completely engulfs him, its weight dragging him down into the cistern.

Sabina throws aside her empty, smoking pistols and leaps, screaming, at Qorzan. She clears the lip of the cistern, knots her fingers into the stiff cords of the net, and lets gravity do the rest. She and the Chaos dwarf plunge into the icy waters of the cistern, clawing at one another and trying to keep their heads above water. 

The Centigor, Enraged