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Conn Haleck and
Hamish MacGregor were born in the year 93 BC, in that village, the MacHales
Kingdom, where Brian MacHale ruled as king. Vassily was born in 83 BC in
ancient Russia known as Sarmatia in those days.
Already at thirteen,
they have had to fight a neighbouring village that sought to destroy their
kin. They noticed that these neighbours were being helped by invisible
warriors and even though they weren’t supposed to take part in the fight
( they had no beards ), they fought these two invisible men and defeated
them.
They then went
to a nearby kingdom that was having trouble with their sheep that was being
stolen from them in great numbers. They followed the trail to a bear den
where a tragic death ocurred. After getting adequate equipment for entering
the cave they did so, and discovered the hiding place of two gigantic Cave
Trolls which they then proceeded to kill. There, Conn found a gleaming
dagger besides two ( supposedly ) human corpses.
Initiating a
quest to discover the reason behind those invisible men attacks, they went
south to Royal Tara, in Ulaid. There they met the High King Connor, ruler
of all Ulaid, as well as the Druid Mac Cu Roi. The characters then take
part in a competition, one who will prove who is the best warrior in all
the known lands, th Champion of the Realm.
The last test
was a race to retrieve a rare and exquisite flower from the top of a mountain
and all the characters are still taking part joined by Cuchulain, a famous
warrior. They all stopped as they saw a fire near the way, except Conn,
who continued to run. When at last Conn reached the flower, he saw a man
hovering at some distance from him with the flower; the Flying Sidhe warned
Conn not to get in the way of Cuchulain, who was the one and true Champion
of the Realm. Lugh ( Conn guessed this was Lugh, suspected father and protector
of Cuchulain ) then turned and was already leaving when Conn called him
traitorous, coward and honorless, namely because of what was happening
to them. Lugh then turned and threw the Gae Bolga, a spiked spear at Conn,
who was trespassed and pinned to the ground. Lugh said that if Cuchulain
would not get the flower, then no one was worthy of it and left ( with
his spear ).
Well, druid
Mac Cu Roi insisted that there were indeed honoured Sidhe and said he could
take them to a person that knew this rare breed. As they left eastbound,
they were Conn, Ewan, Hamish and Arwen and the druid. On the way, they
were attacked by savage picts but only the druid was hurt seriously and
had to be carried the rest of the way.
Continuing their
journey, they found themselves followed at night by a huge wolf with red,
gleaming eyes. The wolf did not attack, though, and only when persecuted
by Ewan did it fight back. On the shores to cross the channel, they were
again attacked by Deep Ones and a Son of Dagon, from whom they retained
an indestructible Trident and the Crown of the Deep.
Crossing the
Channel, they arrived at the great Allthing, where they were saluted by
Mannanan Mac Lyr and fifty other druids. They met also Finnegan, Morgan,
Alys and Rhiannon, other Sidhes and Legolas, an immortal newly arrived
from the East. Many of their questions were answered as Mannanan asked
for one night to think and come to knowledge.
On the next
morning, Mannanan told them that a group of Sidhes was responsible for
their troubles. There were three of them: Morgan, Alys and a Dougal MacToric,
as well as the other two Sidhes the characters had killed. To pay for the
deaths and damage caused, these Sidhes were ordered to pay to their village
a number of five sheep for each man killed in the wars. They found out
that this Dougal MacToric had the ability to turn into a giant wolf and
that what this group wanted was to evict the humans from the village. They
believed that a famous artifact, the Cauldron of ..., was buried inside
a mound deep under the village. They also mantained that they did it because
they were being driven out of their world by the humans and needed it to
fight the Fomori when the reat battle came to pass.
Mannanan did
not know, however, who or what or how the characters were the way they
were, but was going to try and discover anyhow. They finally asserted that
the characters were indeed resistant to the Sidhes magic, which explained
how they could have defeated any Sidhe. The Sidhe are capable of creating
around them a mana field, that is they are wild mana generators and can
cast any spell without much taxing their body and they recover from it
instantaneously. They tested the Crown and the Trident; they saw that the
Crown of the Deeps was able to call fish for transport ( Seahorses, Giant
Squids ) and for food; the Trident was indeed indestructible, invulnerable
to anything they could come up with.
After a couple of weeks with the
Sidhes, they realized they had indeed met the rotten apple in the basket
and enjoyed the company as Conn spent some time with Rhiannon. The fun
lasted little as Mannanan asked them to go search for a druid friend who
was supposed to have shown up for the meeting, but hadn’t. After two weeks
( training with Finnegan ), they departed in search for Elrond, in his
village of Imladris.