From tbutler@birch.net Wed Apr 18 19:33:46 2001 Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 16:12:14 -0500 From: Travis Butler To: Philip J. Moyer Subject: Re: [Amber/UnS] Potential Corrine-Trumps of the new folks On 4/18/01 at 2:15 AM, pmoyer@jurai.net (Philip J. Moyer) wrote: > [[Suggestions and stuff appreciated -- PJM]] > > CORRINE TRUMPS FOR UNICORN NO SEISHI > > (this is operating under the assumption that the trump descriptions > given on the New Generation pages are all Fuyutsuki, Miki, or Mutsumi > trumps... Corrine still makes trumps regularly, though not as often as > she'd LIKE to, but they would all be done in her style, not other > people's.) > > Beowulf Kohl: > > Approaching the viewer through a jungle forest, emerging into a > clearing where a picnic spread has been placed over a selection of > ruins, clad in his usual exploring getup (brown fedora, tan suit, > glasses, bag and whip), looking somewhat surprised but pleased at the > spread before him. > > Sigil would be a whip encircling an open book with mysterious runes on > the page. Well, I kind of liked the trump desc. up on the page, but this also works. :) Though he really doesn't wear the fedora unless he *has* to. :) BTW, you should probably see the log of the ruins session; has some interesting bits. > Shinobu Minor (Adult): > > http://www.fybishounen.net/himikoden/imari/ep305.jpg > > A six foot tall woman in a chainmail bikini; she has a well muscled > body and is carrying a double-bladed axe. Her eyes are a vivid green > and her hair is blue; it goes down nearly to her butt. She's either > serious or grinning, perhaps even a little saucily, as her sword (or > axe) is stuck into the carcass of an enemy she's just slain. (or use > the costume Imari's wearing -- I'm good either way) > > Sigil: [] This... still sort of boggles me. Bey really needs to get caught up on what's happened to Jacqui; there's a couple of very important bits in the prophecies she did for Odin. o.o Log from the ruins: Windir> Lily says, "Okay, when last we played, you were up in a building observing one of the bands of beastment." Windir> MEN Windir> Devan the Horrible says, "I grabbed mine on...last wednesday. 20.99. c.c" Windir> Moriya says, "Basement." Windir> Jacqueline says, "who knows, maybe it was a Beastment." Windir> There's about 40 or so goblin slave diggers, 10 or so beastmen, and one guy in red armor. Windir> Lily says, "OOC Beastmen" Windir> There's about ten bands like this scattered all over the ruins. Windir> Beowulf nods. "OOC Have I watched 'em long enough to get an idea of their work patterns? I.e. working in shifts, rotating breaks, etc.?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC They seem to work on the 'make the slaves dig until they collapse' principle." Windir> Lily says, "OOC Other than the fact that each band is working a different place, this whole thing seems rather poorly organized." Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Ah. Does it look like there'd be a chance to take one of the red-armor boys alone?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC They seem to all generally mill about near each other, at least while they're working; getting any of them alone will be fairly difficult." Windir> Lily says, "OOC although each of the bands is out of sight of the others." Windir> Beowulf OOCly nods. All right, then, time for plan B. Windir> Beowulf turns to Lily. "You know, searching this place would be a fair amount of work, even with all of these folks in the way... right?" Windir> Lily nods. "Yes. Are you thinking of watching them for a while and seeing if they find anything?" Windir> Beowulf says, "But you know, here we have an entire workforce ready for use..." Windir> Beowulf says, "Not exactly." He smiles. Windir> Beowulf says, "They look like they could use some competent leadership, yes? Suppose we sneak back out, and I walk into the camp openly, presenting myself as a wandering scholar with some interest in these ruins." Windir> Mitsune grins. "Letting other people work is always good." Windir> Beowulf says, "Set myself up as their expert, get to involve them all in the search, and hopefully even intercept what we're looking for before they even see it." Windir> Beowulf asks, "Meanwhile... Mitsune, how'd you feel like doing a little hide-and-seek?" Windir> Mitsune says, "Sure. What am I looking for?" Windir> Beowulf asks, "Draw off individuals and/or groups, leading them into pit traps, that sort of thing?" Windir> Lily frowns. "They've been attacking and killing the locals; they might decide you'd make a better stew than a consultant." Windir> Mitsune says, "They look stupid and easy to manipulate to me." Windir> Beowulf says, "Well, I can approach one of the groups out of sight of the others; hopefully, we can take care of that one group and not alert the others if it goes bad." Windir> Beowulf asks, "As a backup... Lily, how hard would it be for you to mind-control one of the red-armor fellows if you were sitting on my shoulder in cat-form while we're talking? Without the others noticing?" Windir> Lily says, "It depends on how strong his mind is." Windir> Lily says, "Give me a minute, I'll try a spell to gauge his mental strength." Windir> Beowulf nods. Windir> Lily spends a few minutes casting a spell, then concentrates for a while. Windir> Lily announces, "His armor provides some defense, but his mind isn't very strong. I could probably batter my way into it fairly quickly." Windir> Beowulf keeps an eye on her to make sure she's OK. Windir> Lily says, "If I can make eye contact with him, I can give it a try." Windir> Beowulf nods. "All right, then... suppose we sneak out, then approach his group openly and give this a try." Windir> Lily nods Windir> Lily turns into a cat. Windir> Mitsune says, "I'll go play with the others. Scream if you need me." Windir> Mitsune turns into a fox and slips off. Windir> Lily hops up onto your shoulders. Windir> Beowulf sneaks back outside the building and back out to the jungle. Windir> Sneak, sneak, there. Windir> Beowulf stops for a moment inside the edge of the jungle. "Lily? How good are you at disguise magic?" Windir> Lily meows at you. Windir> Then she presses a paw to your neck and mind-speaks, "I am okay at it. Would you like a disguise?" Windir> Beowulf nods. "I was thinking of an older man, blond hair turning to white... name of Rene Belloch." He smiles. Windir> She spends about an hour casting a spell. Blink, you're disguised exactly as you desired. Windir> Beowulf nods, and moves through the jungle until he's in a position to walk out and meet the one group without the others' seeing. Windir> You approach the group. Some of the beastmen and the man in the red armor turn and look at you. Windir> Beowulf walks out, looks around at the clearing, and blinks. "Huh. I dang well didn't expect this." He goes over to talk to the group. "My, but yer busy fellers. What'cha up to?" Windir> The beastmen simply stare at you in a sort of utter disbelief. Windir> The man in red armor bellows, "WHO DO YOU SERVE?" Windir> Beowulf says, "Serve? Sonny, I don't serve no one. I just like studyin' ruins, heard they had a nice set here. Didn't expect ta see no one else lookin', though." Windir> "THOSE WHO WILL NOT BOW DOWN BEFORE KHORNE MUST BE DESTROYED!" Windir> Lily shifts on your shoulders, trying to get a glimpse of the armored man's eyes. Windir> Beowulf blinks. "Khorne? Who's he?" Windir> Beowulf shifts slightly to give Lily a better shot. Windir> "HE IS THE GREAT LORD OF BLOODSHED! ALL WHO WILL NOT KILL FOR HIM MUST DIE FOR HIM! WILL YOU KILL FOR KHORNE?" Windir> Beowulf says, "Well, sonny, don't believe much in killin', but I'd be happy ta help ya explore this place. Looks might' interestin'." Windir> He shouts, "THEN YOU MUST PERISH!!!!" He draws his sword and charges at you, as do the beastmen. The goblin slaves just keep working. Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC Drat. And here I was trying so hard to be reasonable... ^_^" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Unfortunately, you're dealing with deranged worshippers of a war god :)" Windir> Beowulf first uses the whip to disarm the leader. Windir> Beowulf then tries to catch as many of the beastmen as he can and knock them off their feet. Windir> Your whip cracks and knocks his sword away. Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC With one sweep of the whip." Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC Before turning back to leader-guy." Windir> And then you slap down four of the beastmen. Windir> They're moving in closer. Going to backpedal? Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC What's his armor look like?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Full body plate." Windir> Lily says, "OOC Protects his whole body pretty well." Windir> Beowulf backpedals to keep a range on the beastmen, and tries to knock more of 'em down while keeping the leader from getting too close. Windir> Lily begins casting something. Windir> You keep backing up. Pretty soon you've knocked out all the beastmen with your whip's stunning abilities. The leader, however, seems to have tough enough armor to largely ignore that. Windir> Lily continues casting. Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC What's the design of his helmet look like? Something that can be yanked off?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC You can try. It doesn't look to be latched on." Windir> Beowulf uses the whip to try and pull the leader's armor off. Windir> Beowulf says, "Er, helmet off." Windir> The whip cracks. You pull his armor off. He looks vaguely human, but his hair looks metallic, he has a third eye, and what looks like a tentacle coming out of one ear. Windir> He shouts, "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" And redoubles his rush at you. Windir> Pull his HELMET OFF. Windir> Beowulf uses the whip to trip him up as he backpedals. Windir> You trip him; he falls, and by the time he gets up, you have more space. He begins shouting really, really loudly. You can hear the sound of running feet coming from the direction of some of the other dig sites. Windir> Lily finishes her spell, and unleashes a spray of colored lights in the warrior's face. He staggers about, confused. Windir> Beowulf keeps his distance, whipping the leader in the head and trying to maneuver them back towards the jungle's edge. Windir> Lots of shouts of 'Blood for the Blood God!!!' echo about the ruins. Windir> After the third whack, the leader collapses. Windir> Several more of the groups come into sight, but you easily flee into the jungle. Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC how close is the leader to the edge of the jungle?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Not very close when you knock him out." Windir> Lily says, "OOC THough you could easily run and grab him and take him with you." Windir> Beowulf quickly runs, grabs the leader, and carries him back to the edge of the jungle with them. Windir> Beowulf gives the leader another knock on the head to keep him unconscious. Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC any signs of pursuit into the jungle?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Sounds like they're chasing after you." Windir> Beowulf hmms, and looks for a good place to hide while they mind-interrogate the leader. Windir> You spend a while running about hiding. Eventually, you find a cave to hide in. Windir> Beowulf asks Lily to try to read the guy's mind, while he keeps watch inside the entrance to the cave. Windir> Lily turns back to human Windir> Lily lays her hands on his forehead and concentrates for a while. Windir> Lily finally takes her hand off his forehead. "What a freak." Windir> Lily says, "His name is Bonecrusher. He thinks of himself as a 'Champion of Khorne', who he believes is a 'God of Chaos'" Windir> Lily says, "Apparently, Khorne sent him into 'The Blood Labryinth of Khorne', which turned him into this twisted thing and gave him the power to walk through shadow." Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC Sounds like the Logrus. o.o" Windir> Beowulf asks, "What was he looking for?" Windir> Lily says, "It struck me as some sort of weird cross between the Logrus and the Pattern...it was a tunnel, like the Logrus, but unlike the real logrus, you didn't need shapeshifting to survive it." Windir> Lily says, "You just had to be good at killing things." Windir> Beowulf blinks. "Odd. I wonder what it could be, then?" Windir> Lily says, "Khorne sent him here along with the other bands to find three vases buried here." Windir> Beowulf whew's. "Good; they still think the vases are here, then, and aren't looking beyond. I was hoping that'd be the case." Windir> Lily says, "He seemed rather disgruntled about being sent to dig instead of kill." Windir> Lily says, "We're basically dealing with a very large number of homocidal maniacs." Windir> Beowulf says, "Ah. Joy. Well, won't feel any particular compunction about killing 'em, then." Windir> Beowulf asks, "Were they supposed to be reporting in at any given time?" Windir> Beowulf asks, "Especially reporting in using Trump, or anything similar?" Windir> Lily says, "They wre just supposed to bring the vases when they finish. They don't have any trumps or other way to communicate cross-shadow." Windir> Beowulf says, "Also good." Windir> Beowulf asks, "They know much of anything else about Khorne?" Windir> Lily says, "He looks like this." Windir> Lily casts a simple spell and an image of a huge guy in blood red armor appears Windir> A very tiny Champion, about 1/40th his size appears next to him to indicate scale. Windir> Beowulf hmmms. "Not the fellow I remember from back at Panopticon, then. " Windir> Lily says, "And they think he's a God; if they kill enough people, he'll be free to get loose and help them kill, kill, kill...blah, blah, kill, blah." Windir> Beowulf says, "Unless he was a better shapeshifter than I was thinking... hmmm." Windir> Lily says, "Well, it would be pretty easy for a good shapeshifter to change his appearance a lot." Windir> Beowulf asks, "Anything else useful you can pull out of his head?" Windir> Lily says, "His home shadow seems to be ruled by an empire known simply as 'The Empire'. " Windir> Lily laughs. Windir> Beowulf hmms. "Not very helpful, is he? They must have fairly good security procedures." Windir> Lily says, "The Empire seems to be vaguely Germanic" Windir> Lily says, "It's rulled by someone named 'Karl Franz von Schleswig-Holstein'" Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Name ring any bells?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC IT's a shadow youhave some vague awareness of it. The inhabitants are locked in combat with strange monsters who invade constantly from another shadow through portals at the north and south poles." Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Hm. Didn't seem like anything important?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC It has yet to be studied much. The emperors of it derive their claims to rule from descent from Sigmar Heidenhammer, who led a famous war against the portal creatures and had a magic hammer." Windir> Beowulf OOCly hehs. Windir> Lucien OOC thought John typed "descent from Sledge Hammer" there Windir> Beowulf asks, "Hm." He passes the information along to Lily. "Empire ruled by a hammer, perhaps?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC That would be ammusing." Windir> Lily nods. "Hmm. That could be it." Windir> Beowulf says, "Anyway... if there's nothing more useful we can gain from this chap, how much mental control d'you think you could establish on him? Enough to brainwash him and send him back out to wipe out as many of his fellows as he can? He ought to like that, if he's hung up on blood." Windir> Lily grins. Windir> Lily says, "Yep. Pretty easy to do so." Windir> Lily reprograms him and sends him out to rampage. Windir> Beowulf checks around the cave to make sure no one's following, then moves out himself. Windir> Lily follows you. Windir> Beowulf says, "Let's see... probably have to take a look at the clearing to see how many people are following. Our best bet is probably to try and take 'em on one group at a time... the beastmen don't seem to be much threat." Windir> Beowulf asks, "Oh, did our fellow have anything of interest on the beastmen?" Windir> As you head out of the cave, you can hear lots of movement in various directions; sounds like they're wandering the woods looking for you. Windir> Beowulf finds cover, and tries to estimate their movement patterns from the sounds. "Lily? Would you be better off in human form or feline?" Windir> Lily says, "I think I will let you carry me, since I will be casting spells instead of going hand to hand." Windir> Lily goes cat again and hops up on your shoulders. Windir> Beowulf nods. Windir> You eventually hunt down and deal with all of them; in the woods, your vastly superior warfare means they have no real chance against you. Windir> Since they can't bring their numbers to bear fast enough. Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC Including the goblins, or were they left back at the site? Also, I assume Mitsune took care of a few of 'em. :)" Windir> Lily says, "OOC The goblins are all still digging, as they don't know what's going on." Windir> Lily says, "OOC And are slaves rather than fanatical Khorne worshippers." Windir> Beowulf heads back to the clearing. Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC What's the situation back there?" Windir> The slaves are all still hard at work on digging at various sites. Windir> Off in the distance, you hear an explosion. Windir> Beowulf walks up to one of the goblins, and... blinks. What direction was the explosion in? Windir> The slaves look up at you, then keep working. Windir> Beowulf runs back to the building and climbs up to the observation post, to see what happened. Windir> Exploding turtles are running about one of the dig areas. Goblins are running away from them yelping. Windir> Jacqueline says, "OOCly Kaolla Su is attacking with her mecha-tamagos :)" Windir> Beowulf blinks. "All right, what is Mitsune up to now?" Windir> Beowulf goes down and heads over to that dig site, stopping a safe distance away. Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Can I tell anything more about what's going on from closer?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Yes, you can tell that lots of exploding turtles are chasing everyone around :)" Windir> Eventually, all the goblins there flee into the woods, and the turtles begin wandering around, bumping into things and exploding. Windir> Beowulf asks, "Lily, can you do something to hold them without them exploding? And possibly tell where they came from?" Windir> Beowulf uses his spectacles to take a closer look at them, magic analysis. Windir> Looks like larger versions of Tama-chan. Windir> Except for the exploding part. Windir> Mitsune now emerges, picking up one of the turtles and hugging it, then putting it back down. Windir> She turns and waves up at you. Windir> Beowulf says, "Ah. Hello; I take it you had fun?" He smiles. Windir> Beowulf goes down and asks Lily to read one of the goblin's minds. Windir> Mitsune grins. "Lots of fun." Windir> Lily goes and reads a goblin's mind. Windir> Beowulf says, "How nasty a folk are they? I'm thinking we could get them to help with the search, then send them back to help the villagers if they can be trusted." Windir> Lily says, "Their culture is rather warlike, but they've been slaves long enough they've had all the spirit knocked out of them." Windir> Beowulf asks, "Hm. Think they'd respond well to good treatment?" Windir> Lily says, "After being ruled by blood thirsty maniacs, I think so." Windir> Beowulf nods. "All right, then... let's organize the search, give 'em some good food, and see if we can prepare 'em." Windir> Lily asks, "OOC Okay, what are you looking for?" Windir> Beowulf OOCly hmmms. Windir> Beowulf sets the goblins to carefully digging around the spot where he found the vases -- showing them how to dig properly -- sets another couple of groups to digging in areas that look interesting, and starts searching himself for the town library. Windir> Potemkin falls asleep. Windir> Several days of work follow, during which you dig, dig, dig, and find the town library and start dig, dig, digging there. Windir> Three days of digging follows. You manage to dig up the library, but almost everything has crumbled. You do find a single scrollcase sealed shut with a waxen seal which appears to be intact. Windir> Beowulf examines the scrollcase carefully, including the seal, with the spectacles and magic analysis. Windir> Lots o' magic on it. Windir> No other powers. Windir> Beowulf hands it to Lily. "Oh, dear sorceress, what do you make of this?" He smiles and bows to her. Windir> Lily takes the scroll and studies it for a while. "Very nicely made wards on this. If improperly unravelled, the sun goes nova and bakes all life from this planet." Windir> Beowulf says, "Um, yes." He blinks. "Someone wanted to protect this very badly." Windir> Lily says, "Plus preservative magics to make it last." Windir> Beowulf smiles. "That much I can be grateful for." Windir> Lily says, "It may simply be an elaborate death trap, but..." Windir> Lily says, "Give me a day or so. Mitsune, you get to help." Windir> Mitsune nods and joins her. Windir> Beowulf nods, and keeps watch. Windir> A day goes by as they slowly pick the wards off it, using Lily's spell analysis computer to assist in the proper weavings. Windir> Beowulf asks, "Is there anything I can do (or make) to help you with this sort of thing?" Windir> Lily says, "We need to make sure there aren't any sudden explosions, earthquakes, and other things that could hamper our spell weaving." Windir> Beowulf nods. Windir> The contents of the scroll case turns out to be two rolled up scrolls. Windir> One of them shows pictures of ten rings. You recognize one of them as Tirthos. Windir> There's little Sidar labels all over them. Windir> Beowulf blinks. "Well, well, well." Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Any of 'em bear resemblance to the lion-self-swallowing ring we saw on Nanami's desk?" Windir> The other shows one of the nine with dozens of lines running off it to various small clusters of Sidar runes which are connected by various lines. Windir> Lily says, "OOC Yep. They all have the lion swallowing tail motif except for one of them, which is a plain golden band." Windir> Lily says, "OOC But with different styles of lions and gems in their eyes." Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC One Ring to Rule them All... o.O" Windir> Moriya OOCly says, "Master Lion Spikard, I wager." Windir> Devan the Horrible stares at Beowulf OOCly. o.o Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC How much of the Sidar runes can I recognize?" Windir> Devan the Horrible OOCly says, "Nine rings for Mortal Men Doomed to Die... One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne, In the land of Mordor... where the shadows lie..." Windir> Motoko says, "OOC: Onion ring to rule them all, onion ring to find them. Onion ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them." Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC And what does the ring by itself look like? Any analogies I can make to Tirthos' design?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC You can recognize the word for spikard a lot, and a handful of other words. Three of the Spikards on the ten spikard chart have the word 'Fire', three have 'Air', and three have 'Water' associated with them." Windir> Lily says, "OOC The ring which is by itself is set with a sapphire, and looking carefully, the lion looks a little fishy." Windir> Lily says, "OOC It has the word for 'water' by it." Windir> Lily says, "OOC And so do about half the clusters of runes its connected to." Windir> Beowulf OOCly nods. Hmmmm. Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Did we find anything digging in the site where I found the vases?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC You find a lot more miscellaneous urns, vases, pottery shards, etc, none of which turn out to have anything very useful." Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Anything that might be the 'keys' mentioned in the translated vase message?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Not unless pottery shards count." Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC Dang. :p Found a couple of useful documents, but not what we came here for. :(" Windir> Beowulf OOCly ding's. Windir> Beowulf asks, "Lily, how far back can you run a Mirror of Temporal Scrying?" Windir> Lily says, "It depends on how long I take casting the spell. " Windir> Beowulf nods. Windir> Lily says, "I can make one which will go back up to a year in about 4 hours." Windir> Lily says, "About the biggest one possible would go up to a thousand years." Windir> Beowulf asks, "How long would it take you to cast that one? And would it help any to limit the area?" Windir> Lily says, "It would take me about two weeks to cast that one." Windir> Lily says, "And unfortunately, limiting the area doesn't help much." Windir> Beowulf says, "Two weeks... drat." Windir> Beowulf spends an hour or so resetting the timeflow. Windir> Beowulf asks, "I'd really like to see them being buried... I've reset the timeflow so the two weeks would pass in an Amber second; would you mind, Lily?" Windir> Beowulf smiles ruefully. "I know I've asked a lot of you this trip; I'll try to make it up to you when we get back." Windir> Lily says, "I don't mind." Windir> You spend two weeks while Lily casts the spell and Mitsune teaches the goblins to perform the musical 'Cats' Windir> Jacqueline says, "OOCly shoulda taught them 'Cabaret'" Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC Oh, Cats fits Mitsune better. ^_^" Windir> Jacqueline says, "OOCly I dunno, something about transvestite goblins is catchy....." Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC And who knows, it may smooth their way into this shadow's society. :)" Windir> Lily then activates the temporal scan. "How far back do we want to jump to start our scanning?" Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC When I arrived here, when does it look like it was last disturbed? When it was buried?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Hard to be sure, but you'd guess this ruin is 3-500 years old." Windir> Beowulf says, "Let's start about 100 years ago, then." Windir> She activates the spell, and you start watching the site in the mirror. Time flows backwards through a cycle of seasons; pretty much nothing comes by but animals. Scanning backwards is slow and tedious. Finally, the ruins start looking less ruined. Windir> And then the ground level starts to recede. Windir> Beowulf keeps an occasional eye on the surroundings to make sure they aren't interrupted. Windir> Finally, you can see the city, devastated by fire, fairly recently abandoned. Scanning the fireplace where the vases were found reveals they aren't there. Windir> Beowulf blinks. "Hm. That is interesting." Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC The ground wasn't disturbed in all that time?" Windir> Mitsune blinks. "Weird." Windir> Lily says, "OOC Yearly floods slowly covered the site with dirt in some areas." Windir> Lily says, "OOC But the site was undisturbed so far as you could tell since that time, up to your 100 year ago starting point." Windir> Beowulf OOCly nods. "Hmmmmm." Windir> Beowulf asks, "Can we scan forward from that 100 year starting point we used?" Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Could I notice any pattern to the floods that covered the fireplace with dirt? As in, guess where that dirt came from?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Yes, you could." Windir> Lily says, "OOC The dirt seems to have very slowly over many years washed in from the nearby river." Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Hmmmm. And what lies upstream on the river?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC You have impression the whole ruin floods a few inches deep several times a year during the winter." Windir> Lily says, "OOC Forest." Windir> Lily begins scanning forward from the hundred years ago point. Windir> Hours of watching mother nature and the occassional deer pass. Windir> Then, one day, there's a flicker of a person. Lily zooms back and views it more slowly. Windir> Beowulf blinks. Windir> A dark skinned man with pale hair, dressed in dark red robes, walks up and looks aroudn the area. Windir> He's fairly old; perhaps in his sixties or seventies. Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC Oh, boy." Windir> Then he gestures at the ground and rips it open with dozens of black tendrils. Windir> Having dug his way down to the fireplace, he then puts the three vases there, then whips the tendrils about, and the ground is as if it had never been disturbed. Windir> He then waves directly at you, gives you a thumbs up, and extends black tendrils off across the ruins. They start to pull him forward and he fades from sight. Windir> Beowulf just shakes his head. Windir> Lily says, "..." Windir> Mitsune boggles. Windir> Lily says, "Well, that was the Keeper of the Logrus." Windir> Beowulf says, "...oh." Windir> Beowulf says, "Oh, dear." Stronger curse words seem a bit inadequate at the moment. Windir> Lily scans a bit further ahead, showing this happened about three days before your expedition arrived at the site. Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC Nothing in the vases when he buried 'em, right?" Windir> Lily says, "OOC Looked like just ashes in them." Windir> Beowulf says, "Well, I suppose this about wraps things up here." He sets the timeflow back to normal. Windir> Lily nods Windir> Mitsune says, "Where to next?" Windir> Beowulf asks, "OOC How long will it take to get the goblins to the nearest village?" Windir> Beowulf says, "I think we need to talk to Anthy and Nanami first... and then perhaps talk to the Keeper of the Logrus." Windir> Lily says, "OOC Just a few hours." Windir> Lily nods. Windir> Beowulf asks, "Oh, while I'm thinking about it... how hard would it be to rack the spell you used to isolate Tirthos?" Windir> Beowulf says, "I'm thinking if we do find another one, we might not have as much time to isolate it before we leave." Windir> Lily nods Windir> Lily says, "A magical sinkhole takes about four hours to rack; I'll do tha tnow." Windir> Beowulf nods. "Do you want another spell rack just for that, or rather put it on one of your existing ones?" Windir> Lily says, "I'll just put it on my existing one." Windir> Lily says, "OOC And I think we'll cut here as it's 1 AM." Windir> Jacqueline asks, "cool. what's the day count for Herr Wulf und Lucy?" Windir> Jacqueline says, "hm. herrrr.. o/~ Lucien in the sky - with diamonds! o/~" Windir> Beowulf OOCly nods. "After we get the goblins settled in, I'll try calling Nanami and see if she can arrange a meeting with her and Anthy." Windir> Beowulf says, "OOC As it seems both may have something to contribute." Windir> Lily says, "OOC It's day 17." Travis Butler tbutler@tfs.net ...Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.