Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan)

by Langland, J.

  "I know, I know, I don't know where the foul beings went. I don't know why I am still alive! I suspect that it is so they can sacrifice me later! You must beware lest they sacrifice you to."

  Egads, this guy had some imagination. It was no wonder he fainted. Tom also had to admit, that if he really were Edwyrd, and had just walked into as strange a situation as had existed this morning, he'd be half tempted to believe the priest. He looked up at where the braziers were. "Then do you deny summoning a demon?"

  Verigas followed Edwyrd's eyes to the braziers. His eyes began to fill with tears. "No, no, I admit to a small Conjury. I was just trying to summon a first order demon that occasionally runs some small errands for me. Unfortunately, it all went wrong this time. I don't know how or why but my spell was usurped by a greater demon for its evil machinations."

  "Hmmm, well it seems to me that if you're going to go around conjuring demons, you get what you deserve." Edwyrd stated looking the priest in the eyes. After all, he did admit to being a slave owner.

  The priest sniffed sadly, "I know, I know, Tiernon has shown me the errors of my ways. If I get out of this alive, I'll never summon another demon again."

  "Well, that seems pretty reasonable." At least some of the crazies could be scared into good behavior, thought Edwyrd. "I know if I'd been through a similar experience I wouldn't want to.

  "So what do you do in this city anyway? When you're not conjuring demons."

  The priest did a slight double take at the change of topic. "Uhhm, I'm the head priest of the God Tiernon here in Gizzor Del. I know the Duke. I can assure you, that if you free me, I'll be able to provide you with the full protection of the church and the Duke's men. Your cousin's friends won't be able to retaliate."

  "Hmm, but you said," Edwyrd paused for dramatic effect, "that they had a greater demon. If that's true, what sort of protection are the church and the Duke's soldiers? After all, you are the high priest and they captured you."

  The priest started getting teary eyed again. "I know, I know, but we must try, we can't all be vanquished by the evil machinations of wizards and their demons. We must try and fight for our lives and our city."

  The guy, Edwyrd thought, was at least not the total coward he'd seemed earlier. He at least seemed sincere in trying to stand up against what he perceived as a threat. He'd been cowering earlier, but given the circumstances, that could probably be understood. It was sad, of course, that he had to be scared into believing all this. Edwyrd felt rather depressed that he had to scare the guy so bad, but he didn't know what he could have done differently.

  Knock, knock....knock....knock, knock. Came the prearranged signal at the door that the others were back. Edwyrd quickly replaced the gag on the cleric. He gave the man a slightly apologetic smile as he did so. He then stood up and walked carefully over to the door to unbar it. He opened the door and stepped aside as Jenn hurried in, followed by Gastropé and Rupert.

  None of the three seemed to be carrying much in the way of supplies. "Any luck?" Edwyrd asked.

  "Well, I found a sage who had a semi-reliable map." Jenn answered. "It looks like we need to head northeast from here."

  "Over a sea," Rupert chimed in.

  "A sea?" Edwyrd asked uncertainly.

  "Yes," said Jenn, "it appears that we need to cross a small sea to a port called Hoggensforth. From there it’s only a bit over a week’s ride to Freehold."

  "How are we going to cross the sea?" Edwyrd asked, getting nervous about the answer.

  "By boat of course," Jenn answered somewhat condescendingly.

  "Yes, but can we afford that? I don't have any money." Edwyrd was actually more concerned about being trapped on in close quarters with a bunch of people when he might lose control at any moment.

  "That's where I came in," spoke up Gastropé. "We went to the harbormaster and found a ship going to Hoggensforth. After a lot of persuasion on my part," Gastrope' said with a proud smile, "I was able to get us a discount rate."

  "A discount rate," Edwyrd asked suspiciously.

  "Well," Jenn said sourly, "it seems there's a slight problem with pirates on this sea. By convincing the ship's master that he'd have three combat trained wizards on board, he was able to make a deal that we could afford." She looked pointedly at Gastropé with a frown on her face.

  "Oh." Edwyrd said, then his brows furrowed. "Three wizards?"

  "Well," Gastropé said depreciatingly, "I did have to exaggerate a little."

  "A little?" Jenn asked, obviously annoyed. "I am not combat trained, and I doubt you exactly are either." Gastropé sniffed at this. "And Rupert doesn't even count as a wizard, he's just a very junior student at best. Besides who would even take a little kid seriously as a wizard anyway?"

  "We don't have to tell them which three of us are wizards." Gastropé returned. "We can just let them assume that Edwyrd is the third wizard."

  "Oh, yeah, and what if we run into pirates?" Jenn asked angrily.

  "We improvise." Gastropé threw his hands above his head. "Trust me, it'll work if you don't lose your calm."

  "They'll expect him to be able to cast spells or something if it comes to a fight. I mean..." she suddenly turned her attention to Edwyrd. "What exactly do you do for a living anyway?" she asked.

  "Uhm," Edwyrd was taken unprepared. He thought quickly, trying to come up with a plausible job for an Astlanian. Something he could be sure they had. What was it Rupert had said earlier about Tom? "I'm a, uh, animage."

  "An animage?" Jenn seemed taken aback. She blinked a couple of times. "Really? Why didn't you say so earlier." Her eyes narrowed slightly, suddenly, and her head tilted. "Really?" she repeated.

  Crap, what have I got myself into, thought Edwyrd, he didn't even know what an animage was. All he could do to salvage the situation was to try and carry the bluff through. He noted out of the corner of his eye that Rupert was grimacing. "Yeah, really. I mean, I'm not the greatest, but I get by." That sure sounded stupid Edwyrd thought even as he said it.

  "Hmm," Jenn acted as if she wasn't sure. "Well then, we should talk sometime, I'd be very interested in trading some theories of mine with you. Get your perspective on some healing issues."

  "Yeah, sounds good." Edwyrd said, almost out of the corner of his mouth, trying to keeps his smile from looking too fake.

  "Ok," Jenn said turning back to Gastropé, "then at least it wasn't a total lie. We've got three mana wielders at least." The tone of her voice was such that Edwyrd could tell she wasn't totally convinced. He was going to have to ask Rupert exactly what one of these animage guys was, so he wouldn't say anything too terribly out of place.

  "Fine, so," Gastropé said, seemingly happy that the matter was apparently resolved, "we need to get ready to go. The ship leaves with the second tide, this afternoon."

  "Second tide?" Edwyrd asked, he didn't know much about tides and such, but that didn't sound quite right.

  "Yeah, second tide." Gastropé repeated, both him and Jenn were looking at him as if they couldn't understand his confusion. Edwyrd decided he'd better shut up, before he gave himself completely away.

  "Sounds good. Uh, what do we do with the priest?" Edwyrd asked. Gastropé and Jenn both paused in thought. That changed the subject, apparently.

  "I don't know. We can't leave him tied up forever." Jenn said after a moment of deliberation.

  "Well, we could just put him to sleep for a long time so that we'll be long gone when he wakes up." The priest meanwhile was looking at them all with really large eyes. Obviously concerned about his own fate.

  "Yeah, and I could bind him magically, so that after the duration of the spell, he would be free to leave," Jenn added. "OK, let's do both."

  "Well, let's get ready, we only have two hours before the boat leaves and there are a couple of other things we should get before we leave." Gastropé said.

  Astlanian Calendar

  Uropian and Anuropian Cycles

  Astlan has two moons. The larger-appearing moon is Uropia an
d the smaller is Anuropia. Uropia represents the feminine aspect of nature and Anuropia the masculine.

  Both moons are actually the same size, (balancing male and female), but Anuropia is farther away and thus appears smaller. Both moons have synchronous periods of revolution, although Anuropia's is one half that of Uropia.

  Thus, for every 2 months of Uropia, Anuropia has one. Each month of Uropia has a name but Anuropian months are not named, as a whole, rather the quarters of the Anuropian month are named. The five Anuropian months correspond to the five seasons. The logic behind this comes from the Anuropian phases.

  Having two moons does make for interesting tidal pattern as well as other Ropian based effects (as the joint moon cycles are called). However, unusual moon effects are further complicated by Anuropia's unorthodox behavior. Uropia revolves in the plane of the ecliptic (it follows the same path as Fierd, the sun). Anuropia, however, in a manner that some would insist is completely masculine in its contradictory behavior, has somehow managed to achieve a polar orbit (it traverses the sky north to south and south to north, passing over the poles), much to the consternation of more than one sage. This orbit is also perpendicular to the motion of Astlan about Fierd. The polar orbit of Anuropia, combined with the more stable motion of Uropia is what drives the Ropian cycles, the months and the seasons.

  Months of the Year

  There are ten Uropian months and thus five Anuropian months (thus 5 seasons). Each Anuropian month is divided into quarters indicating the moon's current position in the sky. Each Anuropian quarter is 20 days long (thus a month and season are 80 days long), and each Uropian month is 40 days long. There are thus 400 days in one year.

  Fortunately, the Fierdal year also happens to correspond to the same length of time, approximately. Slight differences in Ropian and Fierdal cycles result in leap years every 5th year, and to keep the calendars in balance, these leap years require 1 day to be added the calendar every five years to keep the cycles of the moons in line with the cycles of the sun. This leap day always occurs between the 20th and the 1st quarter-month. It also has its own day of the week so as not to throw off the other days of the week.

  Aspects of the Months

  The combination of the two moons' phases gives rise to the various aspects of the months. The Aspects are combinations of the negative and positive phases of the moons and the masculine, feminine combination of the moons.

  Phases of the Moons

  Ultimately it is the phases of the two moons that drive the entire life cycle of Astlan.

  Uropia: Uropia has four phases: Submissive (when it is between Fierd and Astlan, thus unlit); Ascendant (moving towards Dominant); Dominant (on the other side of Astlan from Fierd, full moon); and Descendent (moving away from Dominant, towards submissive). Further, when Uropia is visible in the day sky, it is said to be in its Negative Aspect and when it is visible at night, it is in its Positive Aspect.

  Anuropia: The polar orbit of Anuropia gives it very unusual behavior. For one-half of its month it traverses over the northern hemisphere, and the other half it traverses over the southern hemisphere. When in one hemisphere, it is not visible from the other. If Anuropia is traversing the opposite hemisphere and not visible, then Uropia is the only moon present, this period of time has a Feminine Aspect. When both moons are visible in the sky (not necessarily at the same time, e.g. one could be up in day and the other at night) that period of time has a Masculine Aspect.

  What one actually sees with Anuropia's motion (in the northern hemisphere) is that after a period of forty days of absence, Anuropia appears upon the daytime horizon. At this point, it is between Astlan and Fierd and thus is unlit by Fierd and is in its Submissive phase. On this first night, due to the rotation of Astlan, Anuropia (unlit however) appears to walk along the horizon from East to West. On each successive day it traverses the sky farther and farther North (and becoming fuller), until eventually it reaches the North Pole where it does not traverse the sky at all. This motion, from South to North over a period of 20 days is called retrograde motion. When Anuropia is in retrograde and simultaneously visible during the day, (which is always the case, due to the orbit, retrograde and Anuropia's daytime presence always occur together) this is its Negative Aspect (like Uropia’s Negative Aspect). When it reaches the North Pole, Anuropia is now in its Ascendant Phase (and half of it is lit up by Fierd).

  Upon reaching the Pole, for a few days, it appears to never set (since being at the north pole it is visible to people on both the night side and the day side). After reaching the North Pole, it then begins to progress over the night sky North to South. While it traverses from the North to the South, it is in is in its Positive Aspect (it's in the night sky where moons have power, and it's no longer moving retrograde). As it nears the horizon of the night sky, it becomes fuller and fuller until it is Dominant at the equator.

  After it falls below the equator, once again the Aspects of the Months are Feminine, as Anuropia moves in its Descendent state moving towards Submissive when it will dare to climb into Uropia's sky, forty days after disappearing. Naturally, if one lives south of the equator, things are simply reversed.

  Astlanian Calendar

  Qtr Month

  Uropian Month

  Anuropian Qtr-Month

  Astrological Influence

  Uropian Polarity

  Uropian Phase

  Masc/ Fem (NH)

  Season (NH) Anuropian Month

  Season (SH) Anuropian Month

  Element

  Anuropian Polarity

  1

  Infiernan

  Volcus

  Fire

  Pos

  Neg

  Des/ Sub

  Masc

  End Harvest

  Spring

  2

  Phoen

  Fire

  Pos

  Pos

  Asc/ Dom

  Fem

  Begin Hearth

  Spring

  3

  Chrysan

  Labyrin

  Earth

  Neg

  Pos

  Des/ Sub

  Fem

  Hearth

  End Spring

  4

  Grub

  Earth

  Neg

  Neg

  Asc/ Dom

  Masc

  Hearth

  Begin Summer

  5

  Hydran

  Waven

  Water

  Pos

  Neg

  Des/ Sub

  Masc

  End Hearth

  Summer

  6

  Seamonth

  Water

  Pos

  Pos

  Asc/ Dom

  Fem

  Start Winter

  Summer

  7

  Vacuan

  Nilis

  Air

  Neg

  Pos

  Des/ Sub

  Fem

  Winter

  End Summer

  8

  Mantican

  Air

  Neg

  Neg

  Asc/ Dom

  Masc

  Winter

  Begin Harvest

  9

  Animan

  Angelios

  Spirit

  Pos

  Neg

  Des/ Sub

  Masc

  End Winter

  Harvest

  10

  Titius

  Spirit

  Pos

  Pos

  Asc/ Dom

  Fem

  Start Spring

  Harvest

  11

  Fluan

  Damia

  Water

  Neg

  Pos

  Des/ Sub

  Fem

  Spring

  End Harvest

  12

  Remorth

  Water

  Neg

&nb
sp; Neg

  Asc/ Dom

  Masc

  Spring

  Begin Winter

  13

  Arian

  Gryphos

  Air

  Pos

  Neg

  Des/ Sub

  Masc

  End Spring

  Winter

  14

  Cyclos

  Air

  Pos

  Pos

  Asc/ Dom

  Fem

  Start Summer

  Winter

  15

  Moltan

  Electh

  Fire

  Neg

  Pos

  Des/ Sub

  Fem

  Summer

  End Winter

  16

  Demoni

  Fire

  Neg

  Neg

  Asc/ Dom

  Masc

  Summer

  Begin Sustenance

  17

  Palean

  Mon

  Earth

  Pos

  Neg

  Des/ Sub

  Masc

  End Summer

  Sustenance

  18

  Foundate

  Earth

  Pos

  Pos

  Asc/ Dom

  Fem

  Begin Harvest

  Sustenance

  19

  Necran

  Nieron

  Spirit

  Neg

  Pos

  Des/ Sub

  Fem

  Harvest

  End Sustenance

  20

  Morthus

  Spirit

  Neg

  Neg

  Asc/ Dom

  Masc

  Harvest

  Start Spring

  Example of weekly calendar for the Uropian month of Infiernan, which has two Anuropian months, Vulcus and Phoen. Infiernon is the first month of the year on the above calendar.

  Anuropian Qtr-Month

  Uropia's Phase

  Uropian Month of Infiernan

  Vulcus

  Descendant

  1. Fierday

  2. Desday

  3. Anday

  4. Suday

  5. Restday