Play@YSDC

Professor Garrett,After considerable study (made all the more difficult by the trying conditions of the cottage and the eccentricities of the Latin spelling and grammar), a story emerges… In 1099 Guy de Lancey, (‘[i]may his owne falchion be hys undoing[/i]’): Norman knight of ill-repute, famed for dark deeds carried out during the 1st Crusade, was exiled to the Marches and tasked with putting down the rebellious locals near what is now the village of Wergynstone. De Lancey arrived with his retinue, claiming the land for himself. He brutally slew the locals and looted the local church. Using unholy magic learned in the Middle East, he supposedly embarked on a bloody quest for immortality. The locals of the surrounding villages suffered Guy’s depredations for decades, until 1254, when a ‘cunning man’ by the name of Jack O’Kent was contacted by another local worthy, Barnabas Barneby. Remembering how, in early Christian times, St. Wergyn was supposed to have tricked the devil into trapping himself under a stone in the area of Wergynstone, the cunning man devised a ritual trap de Lancey, who by now spent weeks on end sleeping in his lair below the crypt of St. Wergyn’s church. One tome tells of how O’Kent somehow ringed the church with the four elements, namely: water, stone, fire and wind, thus ‘[i]buildinge ye walle around ye beaste[/i]’. Another book tells of how Barneby led his men in feverishly labouring to complete this task before de Lancey awoke. When completed, the ritual drained the evil man of his power and left de Lancey in a state of helpless, paralysed undeath. One 17th century writer, presumably a descendant of the original O’Kent, asks himself why they did not simply go down to slay the powerless knight? A feverish postscript adds that anyone attempting to enter his lair would be assailed by terrible phantoms and plagued with nightmares. Another goes on to write how he is content to leave de Lancey to lie helpless and maintain the boundary from thenceforth after making a similar excursion with '[i]ye trappyngs[/i]'. Perhaps the most pervading theme in all of these grimoires is the need to keep the ‘[i]walls secure and inviolate[/i]’, and, if they were to fail, to ‘[i]find and kille ye devile hys phantoms be dammed[/i]’.

Miss Knight,The ledgers tell the tale of how the villagers of Wergynstone supplied the O’Kent’s with food and necessary goods over the last few centuries, in payment for their ‘[i]continued watch over the devil.[/i]’ You also find a signed deed from 1786, from the then Squire Barneby, arranging for the continuation of the lease of de Lancey’s former land around the church to the O’Kent’s and their descendants, making special provision for the maintenance of ‘their humble cottage and watch house’. The most recent volume, presumably in the shaky hand of the recently departed inhabitant of the cottage, bemoans the growing disinterest of the local populace, who balk at payment for such ‘superstitious rubbish’. He writes of going without supplies for several days, and how it is only through his ‘magick’ that his house is standing at all. He was particularly alarmed by the death of the old Squire, writing that the new one ‘be a week man.’ He writes of the rerouting of Scheld Brook with particular mortification and notes in his penultimate entry: [i]‘my last breath will call to those hoo be destinned to help, them being them hoo Ive dreemd of[/i].’ And finally, in his last entry: ‘[i]Mark this, Miss Night, yoo must all go under the church and put Him down afore ye be crushed![/i]’

Success,Peering through the mist you notice a figure. Head cocked at an angle, this person appears to be regarding you somewhat quizzically.

Hard or extreme success,Why, it is none other than your recent companion, [b]Mr. Pritchard[/b]!

spot hid = 55%,[dice]0[/dice]

OOC,Spot Hidden roll (55% skill) outside the church: [dice]0[/dice]