Narrative

A Narrative of the Stories told about the Covenant of Sagehollow and its inhabitants.

(Spring) 1190 - The Breakout
The bandits under the command of the covenant heard tale that there was a game of football played in the nearby village of Stratford, this friendly game of football, as was tradition ended in only a few deaths. However due to the property damage that was caused during the game, including vast parts of the village market and the damage to saleable goods, caused the Sheriff of Nottingham; Robert Giscard to deploy solders under the command of his right hand man; Guy of Gisborne, to arrest those who took part in the game for interrupting the tax collection and property of the king.

Guy of Gisborne decided to utilise this moment to make his mark upon Sherwood and the surrounding lands by holding a mass execution of those responsible. Gosborne was given this right as the property damage had interrupted and robbed taxes to be paid to the king, as such was granted under law to conduct executions.

Gisbornes’ men arrested around twenty to thirty people and took them to the village of Lenton to be executed in a public display in five days time. Lenton, approximately a days march from Nottingham, was chosen variety of reasons; firstly being a days march from Nottingham it would dissuade an attempted jail break by the footballers families, secondly they could utilise a jail that Giscard has access too outside of the kings royal demesne.

Not wanting to lets this opportunity for covenfolk pass them bye, The Magi of Sagehollow decided they would subtlety rescue the prisoners within the jail and offer them employment as covenfolk at Sagehollow. The Covenant sent the magi; Arianwen, Ethel, Evelyn and Rian on the rescue mission and they were to be accompanied by the companion Little John and the grogs; Silk, Islwyn and Erik.

Heading off in the morning, the group decided to pass though Sherwood as quickly as possible so that they would have amply time to scope out the jail and do some reconnaissance within the village of Lenton. Walking though the Forrest, they headed towards the village of Lidby, Evelyn wanting to experience new things and meet new people was watched like a hawk by the others and Little John was tasked with making sure that the young and rather naive magna was kept within arms reach at all times.

Reaching the village of Lidby the group noticed that it was a small but rather prosperous village with a converted Mott and Bailey castle serving as a rather nice estate for the current forester-in-fee of the south-eastern part of Sherwood; Sir … who had his own personal retinue, (and one of a larger size than his apparent wealth would have suggested) act as the militia of the village. The group attracted the attention of the men and women of the village; as Arianwen was dressed as a noblewomen, Little John stood many feet above the tallest villager and Evelyn’s great beauty attracted and distracted many of the villagers. The group decided to pass though the village quickly, even though Evelyn wanted to stay and speak to the blacksmith of the village and meet new and interesting people, Little John was forced to pick the small magna up and carry her away from village before she caused a scene.

Heading away from Lidby the group headed towards to the village of Hockendale; a village which can only be described as a point on the map, neither particularly wealthy or poor, with a rather simple manor house nearby for the lord of the village (currently vacant). Again the group caught the attention of the villagers and eagerly pressed onwards towards the village of Ernehale. Ernehale was famed in the area for its bee hives and honey, it was a wealthy part of the kings royal demesne outside of Sherwood Forest however and was known for its production of high quality bee’s wax and mead made from the honey.

Just before arriving at Lenton, the group decided to split up; one group would go into the woods and locate the jail outside of the village and the other would head into the village to investigate and ambush the officers and guards in order to make the collection of the prisoners easier. The first group entering the woods consisted of Arianwen, Evelyn, Rian, Little John and Islwyn, this group attracted too much attention when going though the villages and would have caused issues if the guards had spotted them within the village, especially before and after a jail break.

Heading into the woods, the group took longer than expected to locate the jail, as the area they were walking though was not known to most of the group, in the end thanks to Arianwens Gyrfalcon Heartbeast, Little Johns knowledge of the area and Islwyns knowledge of woodland they managed to locate the jail in a few hours. The jail itself was a large L shaped building with the end of the smaller part of the L making up a stable, the wall along the lower part of the L also lead to an underground section supported by minor earthworks. Thanks to Arianwen scouting out the area in bird form, they discovered that other than the guards stationed at the three entrances (underground, main entrance and stable), there were two separate groups of guards who patrolled in a strange pattern meant to prevent people to guessing their rotation speeds. While Arianwen spied out the jail specifications, the guards noticed her in Gyrfalcon form and set a trap hoping to capture the valuable bird in order to sell to the nobility; as only Earls and Kings could own a Gyrfalcon due to their great worth and prestige.

While watching the jail, the ex-soldiers in the group; Little John and Islwyn, realized from the patrols and guards, that there would be a total of eighteen guards in the jail complex; six currently on guard, six resting off-duty inside and six sleeping for a later shift. With this information, the group returned into the woods and prepared a camp for the evening and then would meet up with the second group the next day. Setting up camp took longer than expected due to Islwyn and Little John trying to one up each other with how to set up a camp, while Rian growing tired of his two servants taking too long, decided to take matters into his own hands and correctly set up the camp himself.

Meanwhile in the village of Lenton; Ethel, Silk and Erik entered the village disguised as a merchant and his retinue (with Ethel using the  ‘Succubus Trick’  in order to turn herself temporarily into a man and act as Silks apprentice). Silk disguised himself as one of his usual disguises “Edward of Southampton” a reputable salt merchant who is currently down on hard times. Heading to the local pub, in order to see if any merchants were present in order to gather information, they ran into “Edwards” old acquaintance; Steve, a del boy-esqe merchant. While harmlessly chatting and gossiping about local news they discovered that Gisborne was preforming the execution to cement his authority after becoming Robert Giscards right hand man and prove that anyone who crossed him would dread the day.

Meanwhile Ethel started chatting up the local barmaid and realized from the lack of jailers in the pub, that they must be getting their ale from an alternative source. Thanks that the Barmaid (Alice), she discovered that the Jailers came from Nottingham and were not permitted to drink in the local bars during their tenure at the jail. After two weeks another group would arrive to replace them and the first group would head back to Nottingham to continue to serve under Giscard and Gisborne. Erik decided to chat with the Bar’s bouncers and spent the evening drink and gambling with them and gathering similar information to the others. The group then spent the rest of the evening at the pub, speaking with their various guests before retiring into their room for the evening.

While enjoying the evening in the pub, another guest arrived. He was a larger built man with a tonsure and dressed in a monks habit in his mid to late twenties. Quickly acting on the new guests presence, both Silk and Ethel spoke to the man and discovered that his name was Robert or Bob for short and was a Clerk from an Abbey at Derby. He was currently traveling down to Cambridge to deliver some books which had been requested from a patron. Though Silk, they managed to have a look at the books which the man was delivering and discovered that they were a collection of high quality tomes on a variety of subjects, including a good copy of St. Augustine's; ‘City of God’. Realizing this could be advantageous to the covenant they informed him of another collection of scholars who would happily converse and trade books with the abbey; Sagehollow. Speaking further with Bob they discovered that his intended client was a man called; Edward of Milton. Ethel’s knowledge of the Order of Hermes revealed that he was a member of the Order and leader of Scholi Pythagoras Covenant in Cambridge, before spending the remainder evening chatting to him and Steve.

The groups met up the following day outside of Lenton to discuss what they had discovered and started to plan how they would break the prisoners out of the jail. Working out that leading a rabble in the dark at night would only cause issues and possible capture, they decided to act early in the morning just after breakfast. To distract the guards and cause a scene Rian would summon a collection of wild Boars, which would either cause a large enough distraction or would cause the guards to try and hunt them. While Rian would remain nearby to summon more animals or provide further distraction if necessary. Meanwhile Arianwen in Gyrfalcon form would fly above the jail and provide look out and if necessary illusions to create extra distractions if further complications arose. Islwyn, Little John and Silk would remain nearby in the woods for once the prisoners were freed to collect them and to provide military back up if required. Ethel and Evelyn would head towards to eastern most side of the prison which didn't contain any windows that the guards could see though and would in Ethels case teleport inside of the jail and inform the prisoners of their escape, while Evelyn would bend the stone wall apart to create an entrance for them to escape though.

With this plan concocted, Rian summoned a total of five boars and then decided to assist them with making a further mess; by using some rego-herbam to open the door to the jail cellar, and asked the boars if they wanted to eat the supplies within. The alpha boar was also enchanted with  ‘Beast of Outlandish Size’  to make him more powerful and difficult to deal with. This worked with all of the guards distracted and humorously trying to work out how they were going to remove the boars from the cellar without of the guards getting killed, they also sounded their alarm as might have needed back up to deal with pigs. With this distraction, Ethel and Evelyn made their move and got over to the wall where Ethel teleported inside.

Inside the jail, Ethel discovered a large collection of prisoners; all male. Having been advised by the other magi, Ethel was under the appearance of the  ‘Succubus Trick’  and then spoke to the apparent leader of the prisoners; a bloke in his mid twenties who had big belly and seemingly had his nose broken a few times and were told that ‘he and his associates were Mighty Sorcerers’ and friends of Robin Hood and were going to spring them from the jail. At first they seemed hesitant, however realizing that there options were Death by Gisborne or Serving Sorcerers they decided at least for the moment to take the latter. At that point the wall split apart and revealed a smiling innocent looking Evelyn, with her beauty being a great motivator for the prisoners to leave they decided to join and escape.

Meanwhile in the sky, Arianwen discovered that a group of about a dozen horsemen coming from Lenton in the east (the side which contained the hole in the wall) in rather good gear, lead by a man in high quality chain mail and a warhorse and were charging down towards to jail. Logically working out that this would be Gisborne and his Knights, Arianwen conjured an illusion of a group of boars to scare the horses of Gisbornes armed retinue and by the team enough time to complete their mission. This gambit paid off and caused the retinue to be cautious, however the illusion was broken where a knight attempted lance a boar and it went straight though revealing it was an illusion to the cry of  ‘Witchcraft!’ , Gisborne shouted at his men their distraction and stupidity and charged back towards the jail, however Arianwen had been successful in keep them distracted.

The Prisoners followed Evelyn and Ethel back towards to the treeline and started to run off into the woods to hide before the guards at the jail managed to get their act together and deal with the boars. Not long afterwards Gisborne arrived, furious. As he immediately spotted the hole and rode over to the sergeant in-charge of the jail and berated him for his competence, before his discovered a note left on wall pinned by an arrow with a small pouch attached to it. The note stated the following; '' “Here is a payment for crimes these men have committed. Yours, Robin of Loxley – Loyal Servant of the King” '', within the pouch was a single silver piece. Gisborne's enraged shouting could be heard quite far away by Rian who watched the ordeal and managed to overhear what was happening with an amused look.

Deeper into the woods, the group stopped and the ex-prisoners wanted to know about who they were going to serve and would this endanger their immortal souls. Silk and Ethel explained that they would serve the “Good” mages of the Order of Hermes, who abided by laws and didn't consort with demons and that magic wasn't inherently evil, much like a hand wielding a sword, the sword itself is not evil if the hand is good. Moderately convinced they came to an agreement with the Magi and they would see how serving them was like after one year and those that wanted to leave and try and make a new life in somewhere else like Lancashire could. The magi agreed to these terms. The leader of the prisoners called himself Eddie and revealed he was a good brawler if they need of him, which was accepted. The Magi promised that the prisoners could keep the profession they had previously if they wanted to, if not they could easily find something they wanted to assist them with and look at training them.

Realizing that heading back though the villages they initially came though with individuals like Evelyn and Little John was foolish, as they were both extremely easy to remember, especially after the jail break and people would be looking for odd occurances, they instead decided to head back ignoring the villages, thanks to Silk and Islwyn they made it back to the covenant before Gisborne's men could organize a proper search due to the boars.

Once they returned, the Magi decided to deal with several other issues pertaining to Sagehollow. The first of this was the Council of Magi; it was decided that council would have three offices that would be filled. The first was Consul; which would run the administration of the Covenant and deal with its hermetic landscape and what issues would arrive from this. The Second was Praetor, who would organize the defense of the covenant, meet with its spymaster and making sure the grogs and other individuals were able to keep the magi and its interests safe. Finally the office of Tribune would not be held by any Magi and would instead he held by an elected Grog and would possess the power of Veto on any legislation put forward by the magi, on the grounds they explain their Veto while using it. This would improve the overall loyalty the grogs had to the mages as their voices would be heard by magi and held some real weight to it. Each of these offices would last for 1 year and would initially be un-elected, with each mage take the roll of of Praetor then immediately taking the role of Consul afterwards, before being allow a four year gap before needing to take over as Praetor once again. Once the initial infancy of the Covenant has been overcome the positions would then become elected by the Magi.

The second issue was that the covenant needed registering with the Mercere house in Coventry; Ethel decided that this was a task for her and would take Silk (who was eyed as being the covenants eventual Spymaster, as he would soon be making ageing rolls) due to his unique set of skills and various disguises. This adventure will be told soon….