The+Truth+of+Guy+and+the+Magisterium

__The Visitors__ Upon the wall sliding back, we saw 5 beings, all humanoid, yet none human and each different from the others. They were not immediately hostile, and spoke Common, unlike the orcs. We also held off attacking and questioned them. Over the next day or three we learned a lot of information as follows: Humans are only one of many good races out there. The 5 were an elf, a dwarf, a gnome, a halfling, and an Aasimar. Their human psionicist didn't survive entering the barrier. They gave me a detect good spell and each of them radiated good, the aasimar very strongly. There are many lands and races and gods and history is thousands and thousands of years old. We are trapped in a small bubble of the world that is controlled by Guy. Their group had been sent into Guy's area to destroy his protective barrier over the land, which would allow the gods to come and pronounce judgment on him. Many such groups had been sent, but this group had no information on other groups. They entered the barrier where time stopped, and the next time Guy expanded the barrier, they were inside it. The came here, to the ruins of an old dwarven city they knew about, to hole up while they studied what they found here and prepared to try to take down the barrier. They were sent by the council of deities. Evidently all the deities were included, since all want Guy to fail and be punished, but the evil ones sent whole legions of orcs and other monsters for an addional purpose. They wish to exterminate all the people here so that when the barrier is removed, the evil races will have already claimed the whole land. At first, they weren't going to let us go, for fear of being discovered, but they couldn't really do that, it would be evil. Cue and Gorlon both seemed completely taken in by their information and goals, and vowed to do whatever they could to help, but their help was turned down for now. Still, they asked us lots of questions of the Magisterium, Guy, and we gave them the various diaries, journals, maps, etc at our disposal so they could plan what to do. In addition, they went back with us to the blocked up room. We opened it to find an undead, a ghoul. They explained what that was and how long it must have been there and they also killed it. Behind it were the tombs of 3 dwarven heroes, which the dwarf said we were free to loot since their souls had long departed back into the earth.

__The Truth about Guy and the Magisterium__ Guy is not a god, he is a very powerful magician who is trying to achieve godhood. When he was ready, he created a barrier keeping divine powers out. His goal is at least partly to encase three sets of ancient temples in this area. The first set are the 5 pyramids in Vivik, which he now controls. The second set, located between the continents, were evidently sunk into the sea before Guy's barrier expanded to cover them. To our knowledge he hasn't found them yet. The third set should now be inside the barrier, to the far south of the other continent. Again, to our knowledge, Guy hasn't found them yet, especially with the loss of the southern expedition to the orcs. His exact plans aren't known, but he has expanded the barrier from time to time gaining more land. With each expansion, people as well as land pass under Guy's barrier, and expeditions are sent to exterminate all the former inhabitants, whoever they may be, and then live in their cities and towns which Guy has "supplied". For this reason, any who see the "evil dark men" who had to be exterminated must themselves be killed for they surely see that many were good people living their lives on their land before they came under Guy's control. Since Guy isn't a deity, after death our souls are lost, since no deity exists to accept them and they can't get outside the barrier. This waste of power was solved by Guy, his ritual wands trap those souls and they can then be used to create magic items or maybe even to feed the power of the barrier. We are slaves to an evil deity for our whole lives, only to die and have our souls empower the further enslavement of future generations. Nice.

__The Dwarven City, Temple Pyramids and Ancient History__ The Creator set up a pantheon of dragon dieties long ago. During the long ages after that, the Creator wasn't seen or active or something. The Ancient Deities ruled but slowly a destructive influence appeared first in the Underdark, then occasionally appeared above ground, destroying everything. It corrupted the ancient Temple Pyramids, the northern ones (Vivik) dedicated to the Good deities, the central ones to Neutral, and the Southern ones to Evil. The Creator came back and sacked the Ancient Deities, imprisoning them somewhere, and created three pantheons to replace them. They are the northern (Norse), the Southern (AD&D), and Eastern (Chinese) pantheons. Each was given an area to control and each pantheon wasn't to interfere in the other areas. Our area is part of the southern area. At some ancient time the dwarven city here, the last of it's kind, was invaded by the Destruction. Every other dwarven city had already fallen, and so this one apparently sealed itself off, with the Destruction/Desecration inside. It seems to have worked, since the influence died off soon afterwards, but it may still be alive, trapped in an ancient city under our noses. Yeah, let's dig it up at level 2 and see if we can cleanse it! Anyway, that's why so many passages were collapsed and buried: they were all trapped to do so long ago. Several large rooms exist yet on the other side of the sliding wall, and we were given a tour, including one statue of a new deity raised by the Creator and added to this pantheon not so long ago. All passages ended in massive collapses.

__Heading Home, and the Rainy Season__ We left the mine and met back with Mayfin at the nearby town. With so much going on, we decided to push through the night to get back to Burgy by dawn. During the night we were attacked by an unnaturally large wolf leading a pack of alpha-males. While Mayfin held off the leader, the rest of us tried to fend off the pack. It was slow-going; the pack members were larger than most wolves and took several blows each to kill. Finally all were dead except for the leader, who had taken a number of strong blows from Mayfin and was still only slightly wounded. Mayfin wisely confused it with a fog and ventriloquism and we quickly formed a plan of gluing it down with tanglefoot bags and then shooting it full of arrows. Five tanglefoot bags later, the plan worked, though we were running short on arrows before it finally died. We suspect druidic magic had enhanced the leader, who had then dined on his master (based on remains found in his stomach.) We skinned them all for a trophy and to furnish our new warehouse rooms. Cue says it will take him a month of Mending spells to repair all the arrow holes in that pelt!

The rains began, and we all settled down to indoor activities. Cue and Mayfin forged weapons and tools for ourselves and the needs of the town. Gorlon mostly tended sick and wounded animals and helped birth the season's lambs. All were shown Burgy's hidden library of history, and we all read deep into the nights on forbidden materials, seeking answers to all the inconsistancies in Guy's teachings. Finally all the strange names and places began to fit into a coherent history of this area. The horror of the Blights, the heroism of the Grey Warders, the wonder of strange yet friendly races all fill our minds and imaginations.

On top of all of this, we are suddenly confronted with a surprising problem: Turkey's spirit, trapped under Guy's bubble with nowhere to go, has returned to us.