General Information/Events/Confronting Gharvsmin

From Westaven

On October 1, 985, after apprehending the bandits during the "The Piercy Bandits Incident", the law man of the local town, Bailiff Tuckson, decided to honor the demands of the local disciple of Gharv named Gharvsmin. The old priest's speech to the town demanded his Master be paid a blood sacrifice:

Oh, ye people of the world! Ye farmers and framers and scrabblers! Ye who love! This is the voice of Gharv. Gharv the God-Slayer, Gharv the Blood Boiler, Gharv the Devourer of Light! Pay your due: give me my rite. Have I not granted you peace and spared your children? Have I not stayed my rotten fingers from your grain? Have not my putrid minions bitten little and stolen few? Now pay your due, people of the world. Pay your due! When ye have but dogs and fowl to offer up, Gharv takes what meager sacrifices ye pay. When ye ignore the divine by your warm hearths, Gharv is patient. Now, though, have ye propitious offerings indeed! These murderers who lust after blood shall feed Gharv with their blood. This is the ancient hunger that must needs feeding. Pay your due, people, while ye can. Bow to me, while ye still have knees. Thus is the warning voice of Gharv.

While many of the townspeople laughed and mocked him, and while the bailiff claimed no authority over this matter, eventually the youngest of the bandits, Tormby, was handed over.

Unfortunately for Gharvsmin, Eaidig, Yule, Davlin, and Heron had witnessed the event. When the old priest hexed the boy and lead him away, these men pursued. Most of the men believed the boy to be largely innocent of his crimes, having been corrupted by their ringleader, "Tubby". (Especially Yule, who admitted to sympathy for the boy's position, he himself having once been on the "wrong path.")

The party tracked Gharvsmin and his sacrificial lamb to the ruins of Gharv's isolated temple some four miles north of Piercy. The priest met the travelers and initially believed them pilgrims to Gharv's decrepit temple--obviously a rare occurrence in the modern day. But the overjoyed old priest eventually was transfixed, shocked, for he exclaimed in terror that Eaidig would be his death, and he fled to his underground lair below the ruins.

Eventually Gharvsmin's utterance materialized, for the group pursued, invaded the crypt, and--in a battle involving an unnatural darkness, wolfhounds, and much violence--Gharvsmin was indeed slain by Eaidig's sword. Unfortunately, the boy Tormby was also killed, for while still suffering the mind-control of the priest he attacked Heron and was stabbed. Hence, this mission resulted in failure.