Day 15th of Harvest Tide, the year of our Lady 1542 After Gilles

While exploring the literary world of our forefathers the Bretonni in the Royal Archives, I stumbled by chance (or was it the hand of the Lady?) on a travel account of Lord Erick de Bastonne, brother of Guiverch le Breton, the reputed father of Gilles le Breton! Most of the pages were burned and decayed beyond recognition but I managed to transcribe some of the last few pages, even though they were yellowed and the ink had been faded by the hand of time. Here follows an entry that immediately caught my attention as if the Lady had illuminated it herself!

“My brother is dead, slain by the very arrow that was destined for me. Why did he catch it for me, only to leave in much sorrow and shame? My heart saddens at the thought that his spirit will never reach the green grasslands of Bastonne: we cannot take his body with us. Last night she visited me again and told me to head home: soon the country would need my sword, she prophesied. Being grateful for her divine assistance in building, I build to her a shrine of stone and marble, which are found abundant here. Underneath the stone floor will my brother’s body rest until the end of time; may his spirit think kindly of me. Time to leave these lands, back to Bretonnia, to inform young lord Gilles he’ll become the next Duke of Bastonne.”

The last pages were the account of him sailing home. Few years later the Orc storm hit our fair lands as the lady had foretold. Do I dare to call her openly the Lady? The King has granted me a summoning: tomorrow I will present my case.

Day 16th of Harvest Tide, the year of our Lady 1542 After Gilles

 The King has granted me permission to organise an expedition to the land. I studied the descriptions of the mountains and forests according to the account of Lord Erick. I determined to an acceptable margin of error that the land described is the province of Lumbria. The precise location will be harder to find as the records are vague and useless in the field. The first entry of interest is […]

Day 7th of Chill Month, year of our Lady 1542 After Gilles

 I have arrived in the province of Lumbria after two months of hard travel through mud and snow, rain and wind, by sail and horse. This land is mostly uninhabited and devoid of life. In the distance I’ve seen a few structures which I’ll examine more in the coming months: may be they will shed more light on where the chapel and the tomb lie. We have made camp near some foothills. The servants are […]

Day 23rd of Plough Tide, year of our Lady 1543 After Gilles

 It’s been nigh on a year now and still the excavations at the sites named previously are fruitless. Beginning to lose hope and letter from the Court says that our beloved King grows weary of pumping money into what seems a bottomless well. Troubled news from Bretonnia: the King feels a storm coming; he notified us and soon would need all possible means to fund his army. He threatens to cut funds if the expedition doesn’t turn something up in the near months. Maybe those […]

Day 5th of Lady’s Month, year of our Lady 1543 After Gilles

 How could I have been so foolish? The distances are in old Bretonni measurements: a one is not a yard as we count this day but in horse steps, almost three yards. This resulted in moving the camp a few miles more towards the North Star. This field looks promising: it is a grassy feature with long green grasses covering the earth. Some strokes of grass are darker than others which means the undergrowth has been disturbed. Lady Tiriana informed me of a strong magical presence here, related to the source of power of the Lady but more raw and primitive. Tomorrow we’ll start digging […]

Day 7th of Lady’s Month, year of our Lady 1543 After Gilles

 Success! Today we uncovered the first stones of what seems to be what used to be a pavement. Some are decorated with the markings of a nicely cut Dragon Rampant, the ages-long heraldry of the Dukes of Bastonne. They lie some feet beneath the earth, covered with dark sand. The stones are weathered and decayed by the passage of time. My guess is that we have uncovered the pavement of the temple itself. We are going to dig around the pavement now, hoping to find the altar or shrine to this ancient Lady figure.

Day 24th of Lady’s Month, year of our Lady 1543 After Gilles

 
Lady above! What first appeared as a pavement of stone on the floor of the shrine is several yards wide and even longer! It even seems statues have decorated the way along the pavement as we found pedestals in perfect intervals alongside the pavement. Of the statues no trace. The pavement seems to run in the direction of a hill, maybe at the top lies the shrine. Excavations start tomorrow […]