The Riddle

Summary

Adventure: The Riddle
GM: Lisa
Season: Spring 803 WK

Party

Mission: Finding a missing manuscript for 'M' on Plane: 'Bond' Earth
Original scribe notes: Media:Snsp0302.zip

Scribe Notes

These are the certified true and correct scribe notes for the adventure, as written by: 
Venerable Father Broc von Hecklyn  	 	 
For the period 30th Frost to 8th Seedtime 803

Prologue

Noon 30th Frost 803 (Alusia)

The wet, cold and generally nasty day wasn’t getting any better as the constant flood of ‘good and upstanding’ townsfolk continued into my room at the Church of St Eustace in Seagate.

All these good people with so much sin to confess, I was still astounded by it all. If it hadn’t been for my aching headache ¹ from the binge drinking the night before with that party in the Green Dragon I would have got up and left but it was easier staying put and listening without the need for movement.

Several times during the morning I’d had to excuse myself to the gardrobe so as to make myself more comfortable after the nights excesses. I vowed never to drink dwarven Rot Gut ale followed by Fenargh Brandy again. Well not in the company of dwarves and a few orcs anyway.

A knock on the door while I was listening to Miller Sveltston broke me from the stupor that had developed over the past 20 minutes of listening to how much he loved his pets over and above his wife in a ‘very special’ way. Looking up I saw my acolyte Ga’Venton motioning at the small window beside the door. I realised that something of great import must have happened, as I was never to be disturbed while in ‘confessional.’ I quickly stopped the Miller and told him his penance ² and he left expounding profuse thanks, vowing to all he can for his marriage and his good wife.

Once he had exited Ga’Venton came in and told me “A runner from the guild just passed by saying that the ‘Mad Mechanician’ Mortimer had returned to the guild unexpectedly and needed some help in an urgent task”.

I had spoken to him of Mortimer’s repute as a scholar of great experience and my wish to meet him. He is renowned as a great sage and good man so I would be furthering my work on Gabriel’s behalf by enjoying a sojourn with him as well as my ability as a religious scholar of history and literature.

I asked Ga’Venton to excuse me to the waiting petitioners and I grabbed my warm cloak and headed up to the Guild with haste. I saw a few others heading in the same general direction but also under heavy cloaks to keep out the cold and light drizzle of the day so I failed to recognise anyone on route to the large imposing edifice by the river which is known as the Seagate Adventurers Guild (SAG). It’s also known as ‘The Guild’ in the surrounding area due to its fearsome reputation or perhaps the fearsome reputations of its members.

1. I know I could have healed it but they say suffering is good for the soul and it gave me something to help look miserable and down trodden which is better for my supplicant than me smiling and looking happy when they are so down.

2. He was to sell all his animals to the church and to spend more time with his wife. He was to just talk with her some more. (She had visited me some days before and told me of her concerns and how she’d do anything to save their marriage)

Chapter 1:

1pm 30thFrost 803 (Alusia)

I passed through the guarded gates of the guild and asked the door warden where Mortimer was meeting to organise a ‘party’. He indicated meeting room 2 at the far end of the corridor. I entered the deeply shadowed and irregular shaped room; there I saw a few other adventurers including a few familiar faces.

Already gathered in this warm and cosy room (with dark & shadowed corners were:

Thoric Farsearcher, a Dwarf male, renowned for his mattocks and thick accent
Faith, an Elven female E&E, short in height but big in notoriety
Clarissa, an Elven female Air mage, a lady of known good character
Thaeuss, an Elven male Binder, a fellow adventurer I know well
Dawn, a Human female Air mage, a young lady of repute if not renown
Kayseri a Human female Illusionist, as well as her small ‘dog called ‘Spot’
Mortimer, a Hobbit male Warlock, a mechanician of some note.

(There are more detailed physical descriptions can be found in the Endnotes section)

I bowed upon entering and introduced myself to the assembled mob and I then asked Mortimer to join him in whatever endeavour he had need of a group. He acquiesced, indicated a seat for me and then started on his story.

Other introductions were made, including Kayseri’s small dog-like creature of the beagle variety. Faith commented “was it like an Alpaca?” several of us looked on in askance at this being a real word until Mortimer said; “it’s like an ugly sheep” ³ . The others were ‘enlightened’ with the range of warnings to do with Thaeuss ⁴, his special abilities, equipment & golem assistants, the rest of us seem quite pedestrian in contrast.

Mortimer has been asked by an off plane ‘source’ called ‘M’ to assist in the recovery of a manuscript that had significance to the plane he was on, called ‘Earth’. Mortimer had an established relationship with this ‘M’ who worked for a guild called MI-6 and they had called in a favour for past assistance. The letter read:

 3. We do worry at this time that Mortimer classifies barnyard animals by their attractiveness.  

 4. Don’t pick up his amulet when it drops, do pick up the sapphire or was it the other way around?

The Note to Mortimer

To: Operative Graves
Re: Research Mission 
We believe that your unique abilities will assist us in the location of a manuscript that
may be of grave importance to our world. Please assemble a suitable group of specialists
and report to Headquarters as soon as possible. Skills needed may include puzzle solving,
research abilities, information gathering from civilians, and some mode of
transport and infiltration abilities. Please wear your existing garments, as we believe
they will be more suitable than our current trends.   M

Guild notes in relation to this manuscript are:

The Guild can confirm that suitable payment has been lodged (to the amount of 2 large gold ingots), and that the bearer of the message was genuine. His additional verbal comment was to the effect that they were calling in a favour. He also brought a fragment of a manuscript that has been left with the Guild for further investigation. The value of the ingots has been assessed as being 40,000sp.

A low, raspy cough from the far corner emanated at this point announcing a Guild security member, he stepped from the shadows dressed in customary all black garb, appearing dull, gaunt and seemingly distracted. He identified himself merely as “Geoffrey” and asked that we formally designate party members before going any further, he then returned to the shadows for the rest of our discussions.

After a brief discussion we proceeded.

Military Scientist was the first discussion with 3 possible of Mortimer, Faith and Thaeuss. Each of which have their strengths, Faith’s being in mass battles, Mortimer’s in sieges and Thaeuss’s in small unit tactics. After a discussion we voted Faith in as the Military Scientist when in mass battles with her 2iC ⁵ being Thaeuss who would control any smaller battles. In the event of us conducting, being involved in a siege we’d of course defer to Mortimer’s experience.

The issue of who would be scribe was next. Clarissa volunteered that she herself was in arrears of several sets of scribe notes and would not be a good choice. Then a long silence reigned in the room and people started studying their navel fluff in order to avoiding looking at others. The silence grew more uncomfortable but then Thoric started speaking in his heavily accented speech. I feared he would agree to be scribe which meant that we might all have mangled unintelligible dwarven gibberish ⁶ to read later, so I got in first, volunteered and was voted in without resistance for this thankless group task.

The thorniest issue of all was the Party Leader voting which came last. While it is usually highly contested and sought after it seemed we had an unusual group of retiring, standoffish guild members. Several of us thought Mortimer would be a great leader due to his breadth of experience and knowledge of where we were headed, however he declined to volunteer himself.

Clarissa whom had been with Thaeuss and I on my last three ‘missions’ did in the end put herself forward as she correctly recollected that I had led one and Thaeuss had led the other. It seemed only fair that she should lead this one to round out the three missions.

We expounded on how the Party Leader does in fact seem to be a figurehead rather than a true leader at times due to the often democratic decision making processes that are common in guild parties. While there were some with reservations of being lead by one of the ‘young, new’ crop of adventurers it was soon smoothed over and Clarissa was voted in as our Party Leader.

 5. 2nd in Command 

 6. I’m sure it would have been perfectly good to other linguistically challenged non-inflective people who don’t communicate via written form.

With these petty administrative tasks completed we then undertook a short and brief examination of the piece of manuscript, which read as follows:

The Manuscript

‘Neare a tree by a river there’s a hole in the
ground where an olde man of Aran goes around and
his mind is a beacon in the veil of the night. 
He is the peacemaker.  Do not let him pass 
beyond the veil. Ware the fey, they are’

I examined the manuscript after others had looked at it, Thaeuss defining it as partially magical due to his innate magical talent for seeing such things. I looked at it and quickly assessed there was an embossing on the paper itself that I saw to be depicting a flying winged figure (possibly angelic) carrying a heraldic banner of some sort. I also used my ability to examine runes, symbols and writings to conclude that this manuscript details some sort of prophecy. It was specifically a prophesy of doom but I couldn’t assess who or what’s doom.

Others then looked more closely at the manuscript but could ascertain no further information. Thaeuss turned himself into one of his small rag and string golems and then started to interrogate the letter itself though an ability to speak with writings? ⁷

7. I did think he was being very rude to the poor manuscript and wasn’t at all polite to such a nicely worded document.

We all listened in some fascination to his interrogation of the poor manuscript and we couldn’t help ourselves from interjecting in the conversation when he was asking

Thaeuss:  	“Did you see who wrote on you”? 
Manuscript:   “No I don’t have any eyes” 
Some of the party,  “Yes you do, ten ‘I’s’ in fact” followed by much laughter.

A number of other questions were asked of the manuscript but failed to produce anything more of substance or significance to us. He did get the following information though:

The letter is very old
It had been reused many times
A being identified as the archangel Gabriel is depicted
It was written in the blood of some as yet undetermined creature

After all this had been done we decided to leave in 4 hours by meeting back here at the guild as the note to Mortimer did stress the need for urgency. We all left, completed our various travelling preparations ⁸ and returned to the guild by 4pm.

8.   I asked Ga’Venton to look after my supplicants as well as my home here in Seagate. Also to pass on missives to my wife in Eastern Gracht

We all rendezvoused at the appointed time back at the guild dressed in our travelling attire and we proceeded to portal up to the castle of Countess Anastasia in Borovia. Mortimer went a few minutes in advance to ask permission, pass on courtesies and to generally speed our passage. We exited the portal in an unusual looking bedroom in the castle and then passed onto another room at Mortimer’s direction.

This new room was different in that the scenery depicted in the windows didn’t resemble Borovia by any means but we were told by Mortimer that it was a scene from the plane we are going to / now on and we had already passed through the portal.

Earth

A voice in the distance shouted “Hello, is anyone there” and we hurried down some stairs into a large room where we were introduced to James Martin, an agent of M's and a member of MI-6. He was almost shouting when he said “HOW ARE YOU” and several other sentences.

We managed to get across that we were in fact not deaf and could speak normally so the conversation then continued. We are to see the “boffin” in the morning to discuss the issue of the manuscript and in the meantime we are to make ourselves at home here in Kree’s ⁹ ‘penthouse apartment’.

The night passes painfully for some while Faith almost gets ‘el-ectric-ified’ when she pours some wine over a rope leading between a ‘jug’ and the wall mounted ‘mana conduit’, she is ably joined by Thoric in this endeavour much to Mortimer’s chagrin.

The ‘lady’ Faith also shuts herself in the safe of cold specifically trying to find out about the light therein. She also soon after seeing them ‘borrows’ James’s ‘Triggering card’ ¹⁰ and his speak to others device ¹¹ but later has to return these when he notices them missing.

 9. Count Kree of Borovia, he is a renowned guild member and warrior of repute. 
 10. It is some sort of device for inserting in small holes, which then triggers the doors and deactivates whatever security measures. 
 11. A small folding box he speaks into apparently hearing the response of others at the same time as he speaks to them – most ingenious.

Also Thaeuss in his ‘being helpful to the Air Mages persona’ manages by way of his magic to open a portal to the outside world via the wall of the ‘penthouse apartment’. This sets off a rather loud noise that emanates throughout the residence causing us discomfort and James to run over to a wall and look at some lit up panels on a larger panel. We inquire as to what’s causing the noise and he responds with “someone has penetrated the perimeter security measures of this abode”, we all start to prepare for the expected assault in our usual ways (magic) but are unable to do so due to the distraction of the very loud noise.

Thaeuss at this time comes over and asks what’s happening exactly, James explains that the penetration is in the dining room north window, at which point he turns around and sees Thaeuss standing there holding something vaguely window like.

Thaeuss says “this one?” 
James nods in disbelief and asks “Why? How?”

The response is “to provide fresh air and an egress for the Air mages to fly out, Oh and I used my magic to do this!” <Thaeuss was smiling as he said this> – thinking he had been a clever binder (we all know this to be an oxymoron in almost all cases – perhaps he is the exception to the rule)

James asks in a remarkably calm voice that he should replace it forthwith, which will then hopefully enable the reset of the alarm system, which he temporarily mutes by way of pressing some of the panels.

James also states in a slightly calmer albeit higher toned voice that “there is a roof door for those who need to fly and I’ll show it to all once the window is replaced”. The window is replaced, the alarm reset and the roof exit is shown to those enquiring.

James comes to the kitchen, in one long swig finishes off some of the wine named champagne and then goes to pull out his speak to other device. Well he tries to but it’s at this point that he discovers it (along with his ‘triggering-card’) missing. Faith pipes up and says she has them and returns it and his ‘triggering card’ to a now chary looking James. He uses the device and asks for some more ‘protection’ ¹² and some food as well. He’s informed they will be there shortly and he emits a small sigh of apparent relief, barely heard by any but those of us with trained hearing abilities.

Meanwhile young Kayseri goes exploring the local areas while unseen and we lose her for a while somewhere in this large tower we are in. She finds many other floors in this tower some 32 in fact by the count of the numbers on the panel in the elevating room. Most look like the one we are on and it is all well lit and warm. She returns in the elevating box when several of James’s fellow workers bringing food in boxes, which turn out to be delicious ‘pizza’. NB: I must make some of this upon my return to the guild; the hobbits would just love it!

I find a ‘closet’ full of Kree’s ‘local’ clothes, which are about my size, and I spend the next while getting dressed in various garb which is very different from my Alusian attire, and no real place for my sword and crossbow to comfortably be hidden.

But he has a range of great accessories and so I grab myself some sunglasses (‘Oakleys’) and a long leather jacket. I also ‘borrow’ two bags, a small (Backpack) easy to carry one for bits and pieces, as well as a large bag for all my Alusian gear which I can’t wear here on “earth’ as it’s a bit obvious and out of place judging by the pictures in the ‘magazines’ I have looked at.

I’ll now wear a dark suit, black shirt, black leather shoes and a dark tie and carry a pair of sunglasses with me at all times while here on ‘Earth’.

We also indulge in some ale and wine imbibing while staring at a wall depicting some local ‘troubadour’ tales titled “Die hard”, “Die harder”, “Die hard with a vengeance” ¹³, “Terminator”, “Terminator II” and “Ever After”. Mortimer calls this last one a ‘chick flick’. Roger the other protection lad watches it with us!

Actions undertaken, decided or being cogitated over:

To wait for the boffin to tell us what they want us to do and how we can help them as it would be a waste of effort to start undertaking research or planning not knowing what we are to do.

12. We aren’t sure if it’s protection for us against the outside world, for him against us or as a buffer to stop anything ‘unfortunate happening’ to/for/by/because of us. 

13. We note that people in these tales don’t die easily as the hero doesn’t die no matter what ‘weapons’ are fired at him while others called ‘innocent bystanders’ or ‘fellow actors’ die as soon as one is fired in their general direction.   The explosion’s, which kill and maim many others, have no affect on the Hero.

Chapter 2

3am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

The various members of our ‘party’ amuse themselves in a variety of ways. While there is a number of beds (some large enough to accommodate 3 persons) very few of these are used. Some of them are being used to store / rest our heavy armour and weapons upon and only Faith seems to be using a pillowcase.

Thoric is in a deep slumber, slumped over a low table in the main room. The noises emanating from him are reminiscent of distant thunderclouds but the ‘volume’ of the ‘troubadour’ tales is increased until it becomes bearable.

Several members are asking James about local customs and he describes crossing roads as its very dangerous here with the speeding metal boxes and lots of people. Apparently you have to wait till you see a green man before crossing the road, and if you see a red man you should wait until a green one comes along.¹⁴

I find Kree’s library in another room, which contains a small number of books, but in a different printing style to Alusian type. The print is all smaller and quite uniform and the books are all ‘hardbacks’. Very few appear to have been read but one ‘Sun Tsu’s – The Art of War’ seems well read and I start reading this book. There is a great variety here including several ‘cookbooks’ and I take one of these to read on our journey as well as a few other tomes of various types. ¹⁵

There is a discussion about the killer metal golem’s in the ‘Terminator’ series of tales; Thaeuss would like some for him and his protection . The wee small hours pass for us and James and one of his fellows keep a watch , mainly on us. ¹⁷ We fail to keep a real watch ourselves as we are lulled into a false sense of security or are drunk, engrossed in books, disturbed by watching the troubadour tales or by visiting various types of mental torture upon James and Roger.

¹⁴ Also what different signs mean – Kayseri has discovered that signs here differentiate ‘garderobe’s’.   The males use a door, which has a picture of a figure not wearing a dress while the females would use the facility, which has a figure wearing a dress. 
¹⁵  Lots of cooking books are in evidence here!  Perhaps Kree cannot cook?    Also guide books to distant realms like ‘Tuscany’, which seems quite similar to Mordeaux and other areas.    The Paper the books are written in seems hardier than Alusian paper and it shines.  The pictures are brightly coloured and seem almost life like. 
¹⁶ We are glad that these golems would be very difficult to make as in the hands of some deranged megalomaniac (present company exempted) they would be nasty adversaries. 
¹⁷ The watch appears to be on us rather than watching for intruders.   James and his companion take turns wandering the apartment checking on our whereabouts and various activities.   I see James taking notes occasionally on one of his ‘Spiral bound notebooks’, no doubt for inclusion in notes on various SAG personalties and abilities.

730am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

Some of us had dozed off and we now awake to different sounds and smells.

A strong scent of ‘coffee’ from a shop called ‘Starbucks’ pervades the apartment and I quickly get in and snatch 2 while continuing my perusal of Kree’s books. I dispose of them in short order and find my senses more alert as a result.

I ask James if we have any more and he shows me how to grind and make coffee, which I do in large quantities for all and sundry – mainly me! Apparently my eyes have grown in size and I have become slightly agitated or ‘hyper’ from the coffee, but hey I feel great after very little sleep. ¹⁸

James is worried that it would be an effort if we were to travel across London to meet the boffin so he requests that the boffin comes here. To fill in the time we all discuss with James & Roger the logistics of supplying such a large city with food, political relations of the various nations etc. He provides us with a map of the world and shows us also a globe depicting the various countries. This keeps us amused some time and I take the maps once we have finished looking at them. Thoric wakes and decides to bathe, James show him the bath/shower and leaves him to it.

¹⁸ Must procure some supplies of this ‘coffee’ for when we return to Alusia.   It would have great use and I know of so many people who would desire it.

830am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

There is a chiming sound, the front door opens and in comes 2 rather large ‘protection’ chaps in dark sombre clothes with bulges under their armpits. Following behind them comes a small, frail looking old human female apparently of some 70 years of age with unnaturally curly grey hair and a small black bag. She says good morning and James invites her in for a cup of tea, motioning the ‘protection’ to wait outside the door and guard it against any intruders.

She sits down, looks around going oh dear, ummm, and other similar sounds. She explains that she has read reports of guild members’ activities here on ‘Earth’ on M’s behalf but had never seen Elves, before. We now note Thoric’s absence and Mortimer quickly surmises his whereabouts in the shower/bath. He says he’ll get Thoric ‘out here’, he then moves away from the direction of the bathroom and pushes a tap in the kitchen.

At this point there’s a loud dwarvish scream from the bathroom and Thoric emerges dripping wet but very red from apparent heat. Luckily he’s wearing a towel as he emerges and states, “what just happened” or words to that affect. He looks around quickly and notices our new company, we all look at him with our ’The important person we need to talk to is here, so stop bathing and get out here look’ and he says ‘I’ll be out momentarily’.

The ‘boffin’ introduces herself as ‘Lorraine’ and she speaks with a lyrical accent she identifies as ‘Irish’, we introduce ourselves to her and ask her to continue illuminating us as to what has happened here to promote the idea of hiring a party from the SAG to ‘m’ and also what is required of us now that we are here on ‘Earth’.

The piece of manuscript was found inside an old book that was being catalogued as part of a collection that had been donated to the ‘Crown” (AKA The Royal Heritage Society) by the estate of the 13th Earl of Yorkshire. The book was found in his library, hidden after apparently having slipped down the back of the shelves. The book was identified as a monastic tome probably from the nearby Monastery at Rievaulx (in Yorkshire). This Monastery and Abbey has been in disuse for some several hundred years (back to A.D 1500’s) since the time when the church disagreed with the King’s laws and voiced the opinion, at which time the King declared them ‘outlaw’ ordering their destruction.

The tome upon investigation by Lorraine was found to be a book of prophesies from several hundred years ago. The unusual thing was it’s uncanny accuracy in that it foretold a number of events with exacting precision. The book was written in Latin , while the piece of manuscript that fell out was written in English but both were of the same hand.

The paper of the manuscript piece was dated as being from 1592 some 410 years ago and the writing dates from that time. However the style of the language, grammar and sentence construction is relatively modern and estimated as being used in the last 50 years or thereabouts.

Apparently Lorraine along with 4 other researchers from ‘Housden Manor’ had a good look at the book and took some notes and she arranged for it to be locked up safely in the vaults of the Bank of England for the night once they had examined it for just one day. The book was gone when they returned in the morning and they can find no way for it to have been stolen from the vault.

The funny thing she says is that for some strange reason only herself and M can remember anything about the book as the other 4 researchers can’t unless reminded of the book persistently and even then they can’t remember anything in it. Even if constantly reminded of it the individuals seem to be recollecting less and less information as the days go by. We ponder this as she continues.

They have found one other piece of writing in the collection near the place last occupied by the book, it is written in the same handwriting and has been dated around 1700 . This reads as follows.

The latest Manuscript Piece # 2

‘In the land where horses born with eagle wings 
And honeybees have lost their stings 
There’s singing forever 
Lion’s den with fallow deer 
And rivers made from wine so clear 
How on and on forever 
Dragons fly like sparrows through the air 
And baby lambs where Samson dares 
To go on and on and on on on  
My fairie king can see things 
He rules the air and turns the tides 
That is not there for you and me 
He guides the winds 
My fairie king can do right and nothing wrong 

Then came man to savage in the night 
To run like thieves and to kill the knives 
To take away the power from the magic hand 
To bring about the ruin to the Promised Land 
Someone has drained the colour from my wings 
Broken my fairie circle ring and shamed the king in all his pride

We ask what they actually want us to do and she replies “We have bought you here because you are still strong in a magical sense where as most of the magic has gone from Earth. Most people don’t believe in magic anymore but we feel there is some fairie magic going on here and wish you to find out what is happening and make contact with the Fairie court to establish communication on our behalf”.

We ask her about herself and use our magical abilities to divine more of her, she has an old charm given to her by her great grandmother. Upon investigation we see the charm is magical in fact and gives the wearer protection of some sort against as yet to be determined beings, individuals or forces. At this point we take a serious pause and then take action based on the knowledge and information we have just discovered through our various endeavours.

I am to ward the apartment from outside magical influences, Mortimer & Thaeuss will take her through the portal to Borovia so they can divinate her on our world and Dawn will undertake one of her feathery astrology readings asking “Where is the most likely place we can make contact with the fairie court”. The rest of the party will continue fact-finding and whatever else until our actions are completed.

The results of these actions are as follows

The amulet is protection vs Fey & Fairie magic and it prevents her from being touched by the fey and partially disguises the wearer’s aura.
The astrology reading indicates 14 mounds around a circle
The warding goes well but takes twice as long as expected due to interruptions.
Mortimer and Thaeuss discover she has some small trace of blood not human and define it as fairie blood.

Mortimer makes the connection and propounds to her that her great grandmother ‘had the sight’. She is astonished at his perception of this but agrees that she did. We illuminate her on her heritage being part fairie and she seems happy with this. Further investigation reveals she has been in an area of magical affect but due to the amulet the magic failed to take on her and she suffered no effects. The Borovia group then returns to the apartment and we cogitate on future actions once all is done there that could be done in the short time we had available.

Actions undertaken, decided or being cogitated over:

Lorraine will undertake research references to the isle of Arun, which she thinks is off the west coast of Ireland (her home country) and other such references in these manuscripts.
If a few of us who are skilled in ‘research’ techniques could visit the libraries or similar places here we could perhaps discover some more information.
Fairie mounds will be investigated as well as stone circles here in England as well as Ireland, Scotland and Wales
Investigation of the vault the book was taken to, to see if it is merely magically hidden but still there in the vault
Visiting the manor house (including a search of it) and perhaps speaking to the previous owners of the ‘book’ or Manor house may be productive via various means we have available
Visiting and ‘searching’ the ruined monastery for more clues and information
Visiting Aran and undertaking some research on relevant sites there would be of use to us.
Possible links to the ‘olde man’ not actually being a person but rather a location or geographical feature related to ‘Aran’ in some way.

Chapter 3

10am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

We ask Lorraine and James that they begin their investigations immediately and they agree, they excuse themselves to another room and start to use a ‘Laptop’, which they connect to the wall by a small ‘cable’. We ask what they are doing and they say we are going to ‘surf the net’ to see what information we can find for you all on the subjects you have asked about.

They do this for a short while and then return to us all with a great number of pages , containing concise information on a number of topics we asked after including: Aran; the olde man of Aran; Fairie stories; Stone Circles: Fairie king and a number of other short words or descriptions.

Once this is done Lorraine says that she has to leave and return to work. She takes her leave and we thank her for her help and invaluable information on the book, the research and her time. She leaves accompanied by her 2 ‘minders’. We all then sit down in chairs or on the floor as we are wont to do and we then start to read through the plethora of information and discuss what we read.

Findings and Details discovered.

It comes to light that there are several isles named or similar to Aran. The one northernmost is Arranmore and by itself off the coast of a ‘County Donegal’. While south off the coast of ‘County Galway’ are the Aran Islands named in order of size Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inishmeer.
The Abbey in Rievaulx is now a ruin after some monetary problems and then a later disagreement between the church and the King of England.
Numerous tales of ‘The peacemaker’ including ones from ‘America’
‘Films’ titled ‘The man of Aran’ and ‘The Peacemaker’
Clarissa upon reading a section connected with Prophesy asked, “did Jesus, OJ Simpson and Nostradamus ever adventure together?” We quickly pointed out that they were all alive in different time periods and so this could not have happened.
Details of stones circles on the Aran Islands
Ancient Celtic folklore regarding Fairies and what to do and no do with them.
Details of Rievaulx Abbey and it’s history

The hours pass as we pore over the screeds of information and soon rumblings are heard emanating from our stomachs. I ask James if he could get us some food and he says “of course! I’ll be back in a short while”. He returns in a short while carrying several ‘plastic’ bags, which says ‘KFC’ on then. He explains that this is fried chicken made in a Kentucky fashion. We all dig in to these delicious morsels as well as a lot of fruit he managed to ‘pick up’ for us.

We discuss the ‘jaunt’ to the vault and who should go to investigate the last known place where the book was seen and potential scene of the crime. Thaeuss is nominated due to his ability to talk with objects, Mortimer will go due to his DA ability and I am nominated for my spiritual aspect! We will also take along Dawn’s glove, which enable the wearer to DA objects as well. James asks that we dress less conspicuously, perhaps in some of the attire in the ‘wardrobes’ here in the apartment. We dress in Dark suits and grab some dark ‘sunglasses’ while others continue reading.

At 2pm James thinks now is a better time for us to visit the ‘vault’ is here as it’s now after regular business hours and there will be less people to observe our activities. James has a car bought to the front of the building. We three along with James and 2 other ‘minders’ descend in the ‘floating box’ down to street level and then have to pass through an immense rush of people on the ‘pavement’ just outside the door to our tower. We enter a large black car, which he calls a ‘limousine’ and it starts moving though roads choked with other cars.

We arrive at the ‘Bank of England’, which is a great imposing stone structure in the busy ‘Financial heart’ of London and we pass through its doors on the basis of the credentials given us by James and MI-6. Our cover story already proffered by James is that we are a ‘technical’ team from overseas bought here to investigate the disappearance of the book from the vault. We pass through many security measures involving several people, keys, ‘hand scans, and ‘retinal scans’ of the eyes.

We enter the vault and start our investigation: We can detect a very faint trace of magic but little else is evident in terms of detectable magic in this cold cage of iron and other assorted metals. Thaeuss floats above the ground very subtly and does his transform into a clay golem with the ability to speak to objects. He questions the drawer, it remembers being empty, then being opened, something heavy being placed in it and then being opened again. The ‘surveillance cameras’ in this room didn’t witness the last opening apparently so we request to see the tapes for ourselves .

Mortimer when he undertakes his divination / Detect Aura in the area gets a surprising and unusual reading. He gets a sense of spicy scented flowers just for a moment; he likens it to a sense of carnal desire, somewhat lustful in nature. This concludes our physical investigation and we return to the apartment.

Meantime the rest have finished reading and since Dawn found references to snakes in the ground (which one of the ‘minders’ connects to and says that could be the ‘Tube’) they want to go see ‘the Tube’. Some more protection is arranged and 4 more ‘minders’ arrive in short order to accompany the group consisting of Thoric, Clarissa, Dawn, Kayseri and Faith. Some better attire in terms of suitable clothing is found for the ladies and a ‘child’s poncho’ is put over Faith’s back to cover her weapons.

They take a short journey from the tower through the crowds of people that are of all types, sorts and colours. They have never seen so many people in one place and they are glad that the 4 ‘Minders’ are along to form a ‘flying wedge ahead of the group to make the passage through the crowds easier.

They enter one ‘Tube’ stations and descend into the depths on moving stairs. They then travel underground in very crowded carriages via the metal worm termed an underground train to another station nearby. Kayseri along the way is ‘picking up ‘ a few things as she goes along. Once they reach the other station they again get up to the surface by way of the moving stairs and walk back to the tower taking some 20 minutes to walk through the crowds.

Once we are all back at the apartment we review what has happened and what we have found out. We decide we have nothing to lose by travelling to Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire to continue our paths of investigation. We discuss a number of travel options such as by train, vehicle, helicopter, plane and flying. We decide upon flying and prepare for immediate departure. James call ‘control’ and informs then of our plans, he asks at our suggestion for some of his ‘people’ in Yorkshire to rendezvous with us at Selby and we ill proceed from there. James and Roger will accompany us.

We all change and pack where appropriate and go to the roof. There we quickly explain to James & Roger the basics of flying and we also undertake becoming invisible or Unseen so as to not cause consternation in those who may see us in flight. We will fly up to the clouds hidden from sight and once above the cloud they become visible for our flight of some 4 hours to York. If we see any planes we are to dive below the clouds to avoid being seen .

We all take off around 5pm leaving J&R with Mortimer who is acting as instructor and rearguard. He tells them to” think of flying and jump into the air, the magic will do the rest”. He turns them invisible and jumps into the air in the form of a little white owl.

They after a short pause jump in the air and Mortimer can see them flying up to the clouds and he follows. Once we are all ‘together’ in the same airspace Mortimer then flys around so that we can all see each other We all note their wide staring eyes that are looking in disbelief at us and themselves flying as we are unaided by any technology . We should arrive at York around 9pm at night, once it is dark and we are to be met by James’s associates and some ‘transport’.

We fly in a ‘loose’ formation so as to cater for the protection and well being of inexperienced flyers. We tend to keep each other in sight and a wary eye on J&R. Dawn, Clarissa and Mortimer who are the best flyers are charged with keeping us all together and avoiding any unpleasant aerial ‘experiences’.

Actions undertaken, decided or being cogitated over:

We have completed our physical investigation of the Vault (exc TV Tapes)
We will visit the Aran Island after the abbey (providing we find no other logical destination once our abbey investigations are complete.
Based on the research undertaken thus far we shall concentrate our efforts in the Aran Islands off Galway rather than Arranmore the island off Donegal in Ireland. (However we don’t dismiss this as a possibility either).
The sites of ancient Celts at Dun Aengus and other related sites such as the 7 pairs of stones or mounds will be investigated .
There’s a very small, very old church there, which I would like to look at.
We have flown to York in Yorkshire on our way to the Manor house where the book was discovered and close to Rievaulx Abbey

Chapter 4

10am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

Dawn and I undertake the task of navigating us to York using the canal network (until dark) and then the motorway network. The Motorway network is quite well lit by light hanging from large poles as well as the constant lights emanating from the fast moving ‘cars & trucks’ below us. Faith descends to the level of the ‘vehicles’ and with some manoeuvring to avoid signs and poles etc she lands on the roof of a truck and ‘rests’ for a while as it travels along the motorway. We don’t worry about Faith too much as she has the ability to find us again. She rejoins us after a while and we continue on uneventfully to York.

We spot ‘York’ up ahead and confirm we should land near the well-lit tower or castle and near the large cathedral. We pass over the area and James spots the ‘train station’ where his ‘associates’ will be meeting us. Nearby is a park and we all go to land there. We all get down and land safely except Dawn who unfortunately hurts her shoulder when she disagrees with a tree as to where it should aesthetically be in the park. James and Roger land well after we explain to them about the effects of the ‘feather fall’ spell we had previously cast upon them.

We all proceed toward the nearby train station; once we are there James goes inside and says we have some time before the train with his ‘associates’ will arrive. He goes to ring his ‘associates’ but can’t find his phone. Faith then scrambles closer and suggests he looks again. He then finds it and makes the call confirming they will be on the correct train.

Mortimer suggests a nearby pub and we go there and sample some local beverages. Thaeuss and I find the wine is quite good and Faith consumes her body weight in beer. We don’t have time to finish the bottle of wine before we leave so I put it in my pocket when we leave for later consumption. James reminds us of our cover stories and to try and hide the fact of our magic use from others who won’t be quite as comfortable with the idea as Roger or himself are growing to be.

On our short travel on foot between the park and the station we notice a few people looking at us and as we pass some are heard to mutter under their breath (or so they assume) “bunch of tourerrists ”. They avoid eye contact with us in the main and we pass by.

At 945pm we enter the large ‘old-ish ’ train station and head for the train now there and specifically the carriage towards the rear where two people are waiting for us. James goes and meets them and they hustle us upon the metal carriage of the train. We take seats and examine our new companions.

One is a tall middle-aged human male some 6’ 3’ in height and with a ‘lanky’ appearance but a slightly protruding belly. His clothing style is nothing to speak of since it is mismatched, crumpled and unkempt. His bespectacled face is pale, pasty and covered with a scruffy beard and matted black hair. And he smells slightly of damp and odour perhaps suggesting deficient sanitary habits as well.

The other is a short apparently middle-aged human female some 5’5” in height who appears to be quite ‘plump’ or ‘heavy’. Her clothing consisting of knitted top, ugly skirt, scuffed plain black bag and ‘sensible’ flat black shoes mark her as another anti-fashion victim as none are matched or even try to act in concert to enhance her appearance in any way. She too has spectacles and her mousy brown hair is pulled back away from her face in a ‘bun’ revealing sharp blue eyes behind the lenses and a pale and pasty appearance similar to the males.

James speaks; “ This is Algenon Brown and Jane Hennessey, they are scholars and academic specialising in antiquities and languages. They were present on the day of the theft”. “As you know I am James, a security specialist along with (he points to Roger) Roger over there, and these (pointing at us) are specialist ‘Insurance Investigators’ we have called in to help answer questions about the theft”.

We introduce ourselves and then settle back into our seats for what we are told is a 25-minute journey in this noisy contrivance. Mortimer and Thaeuss start up a conversation in Elvish and soon notice Jane ‘appearing not to listen in’ on their conversation. They ask her if she can understand them and she replies “of course! My French is a bit rusty but I can follow what you are saying easily”.

They try a few other languages from Alusia and she seems able to follow them all but says “You must be speaking in sub dialects that I’m not very familiar with but I can generally understand you”. I join the conversation and make a few comments in Titan, which she doesn’t comprehend, nor can she follow Direwolf and a few other languages that I can speak. We decide at this point to ‘clam up’ until we can be alone to discuss this ‘interesting’ situation we are now in.

We arrive at a station that the sign beside the train states is ‘Housden’, we alight onto the platform and the train continues on its way. We are directed to a large black vehicle described as ‘minivan’ by Jane. She opens up the vehicle from some 20ft away by pressing a button on a black metal key, the lights on the vehicle blink once and a short sharp noise emanates from the vehicle. We all enter the vehicle and take seats for our journey that Jane describes as “just up the road a bit”.

We drive for some 10 minutes and end in front of a large, imposing stone building. James tells us this is ‘Housden Manor’, it was here the book was discovered and we shall be staying here overnight at least. We enter the home and are shown to a drawing room where they offer us tea after our long journey. Jane informs us that only the cataloguing staff and a cook are here at present, “merely a skeleton crew”.

Once we have had some refreshments we then moved to the library, which is a sizable room, some 70ft square full of books from floor to ceiling and plenty of shelving. We ask about the book that has gone missing. They look back blankly at this and reply” what missing book?” James sighs and states, “The book of prophesies that was found when Lorraine was here, it caused exultation amongst yourselves and was the reason that Lorraine was later picked up by Helicopter then whisked away to London. The book that later disappeared from the vault in which it had been placed”.

They then seem to remember something but can’t accurately recollect the book in question. We then try to deduce whereabouts the book came from in the large library by tracing the movements and work of the people who were cataloguing in the library that day. There were 5 people cataloguing that day who were Lorraine, Jane, Algenon, Jennifer and Peachy. We have some success in this line of questioning and investigation but not enough to trace the more exact location where the book was found due to everyone not being bale to recollect anything about the book.

Faith asks Jane if she has Lorraine’s mobile number, she tells Faith she does and passes the number to Faith. Faith calls Lorraine and asks her if she remembers where the book was found, Lorraine does and passes the information on which gives us a starting point for our further specialised investigations.

The section indicated was one that Peachy had been working on and Jane then introduces Peachy to us. She is a pale slight human female with unusual orange hair, facial piercings in her nose and lip. She is dressed like a ‘fashion victim’ in the latest trends in ‘cut off’ shirt, which show her midriff, trousers only just stretching around her hips (hipsters) and large ‘chunky’ black shoes.

Peachy takes us over to the area of shelves she was working on; she then indicates the section as described by Lorraine. Mortimer leaps upon the shelves and starts pulling himself up to the indicated spot. Algenon who had been quietly observing until this time shouts “get down from there, that is not how you get to shelves in libraries”. Mortimer drops to the floor and asks “Why not? That’s how I do it in my library”. Algenon replies “well that’s not how we do it here in this library, here use this ladder” and he shows us the ladder. When I look around the area with my talent I do notice quite a few spirits or Ghosts in this old place and note it for further investigation when we have some time.

At this point Thoric has one of his great ideas and asks Jane “is there an outside balcony?” she takes him outside to the front of the house and they look back not seeing any. Thoric then looks carefully at the structure of the house and then asks Jane to throw a whetstone over the roof of the building. She looks puzzled at this suggestion and Thoric volunteers “it’s a local custom or superstition that to break a spell or bad luck on a ‘place’ that one should throw a whetstone over the roof to break the spell. She agrees and tries to toss the whetstone but only make it to the guttering where it catches.

They look downhearted at this setback but Mortimer comes along at this time and Thoric asks him to get it down, he flys up and gets the whetstone. Jane seeing this says, “Bravo, I knew you were magical people, illusionists and the like”. A discussion then ensues whereupon it emerges that she is reasonably open to the idea of magic and had sussed us out as being not from around here. It seems she is ‘on our side’ and would like to help but can’t seem to remember much of what we keep asking.

Thoric gets her to write a note to herself so that whenever she asks herself “What are all these pesky annoying foreign folk doing here” she will read the note and turn it over where it will read “To find out and investigate the missing book, the one found here on the 4th of August 2003 by Peachy in the top far left shelf in the 2nd aisle in the library. The book about prophesies and is partially written in blood. The book that prompted Lorraine to depart soon thereafter back to London, whisked away in a black helicopter that landed on the front lawn of the manor ”

After this Mortimer takes hold of her and raises her to a higher point with his flying (while she holds onto him with one arm) just below the lip of the roof and she again throws the whetstone over the roof, successfully this time. They return to the ground and Thoric again asks her about the book and she goes “what book”. He realises that it hasn’t broken the spell so he turns and returns inside to the others looking quite downhearted after his brilliant plan failed to work!

In the library Thaeuss looks closely at the shelf in question and finds traces of the magic still there and his DE Talent reveals the following.

General nature of the Magic: Magic
College Magic: Fey or Fairie
Exact Name / Nature of the Spell: Out of Time or Time Slippage

I wander the library at the same time and find a number of symbols on wall and panels that are identified by Jane as being ‘Masonic’ Symbols . I also find some of the hidden ‘servants’ passages that the house seems riddled with, these haven’t been travelled in some time as I see layers of dust in abundance. I follow one passage between the library and the upstairs landing where I check in on Kayseri and Dawn who are sequestered in a room so that Dawn may heal faster

The other rooms are allotted as follows: Algenon in one by himself; Jane sharing with Jennifer ; Peachy by herself; Thaeuss and Mortimer; Clarissa and Faith; James and Roger; Thoric and myself.

Once the others return from their foray outside the house and everyone has retired for the night (Algenon, Jennifer, Peachy and the cook) we all congregate in a room at the far end of the house far from the others for privacy. Faith is despatched to ensure that the others are in fact asleep

With Jane’s acquiescence we question her about the missing book, try to help her remember that events, what the book looked like and her general impressions. She happily agrees when we ask if we can do some magic to her to help her remember. I tell her I will draw a rune on her forehead, one of truth to help her remember and see through illusions etc. This has some effect and used in conjunction with Mortimer’s hypnotic suggestions of “relax, breath deeply, listen to my voice” seem to assist her greatly.

Soon she has relaxed into her comfortable chair, she has her eyes closed and is breathing steadily. I move around the room lightly pinching certain party members to keep them from being under Mortimer’s influence as well.

We then question her about the book and she recollects the following details:

It was an unusual book
It was almost hidden at the back of the shelf amongst other books, as if it didn’t want to be found
It was a book of prophesies that appeared to be quite correct in what it was prophesying for the few that Jane had reviewed.
It smelt a particular way. It reminded her scent wise of spring / Early summer, she describes it as a spicy flower scent . It was an evocative & emotional scent, as yet indescribable in it’s intensity and potency.

We ask her a number of other questions relating to her loyalties, connections to secret societies, religious affiliations, Fairies and the Aran isles. ? She has been to the Aran isles only one year ago on a walking holiday and she can recollect the 7 pairs of standing stones on Inishmore quite clearly as well as other archaeological facts about the isles. ? She has had contact with fairies when she was a little girl she saw some as the bottom of her garden. Her parents didn’t see them however and didn’t believe her when she told them. ? She acknowledges that there are things she has no knowledge over and that events transpire in the world that will affect her over which she has no control. ? She is fascinated by magic and its use by us.

At this point we note that we haven’t seen James in some time, since our initial investigations in the library earlier in the evening, in fact we seem to have ‘misplaced’ Roger as well .

Having been able to determine some of the things we came for Mortimer brings her out of the trance with the only post hypnotic suggestion being that she remembers what she has just said about the book when we ask her about it again. At this point we plan to retire for the night as it is now the early hours of the morning and …………………

Actions undertaken, decided or being cogitated over:

We have completed our physical investigation of the Vault (exc TV Tapes)
We have come to the place the book was discovered and undertaken some investigations. More to be done before moving on such as ‘speaking to the dead Earl’s here or the spirits that seem to abound in this house.
We still plan to visit the Aran Island after the abbey (providing we find no other logical destination once our abbey investigations are complete.
As per previous research undertaken thus far we shall concentrate our efforts in the Aran Islands off Galway rather than Arranmore the island off Donegal in Ireland. (However we don’t dismiss this as a possibility either).
The sites of ancient Celts at Dun Aengus and other related sites such as the 7 pairs of stones or mounds will be investigated .
There’s a very small, very old church there, which I would like to look at.
We have flown to York in Yorkshire and this is close to Rievaulx Abbey so we may visit the site while here.
We will look for and if necessary locate James and Roger who are not anywhere we know of and maybe doing things we would like to be aware of.

Chapter 5

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 1am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

Before actually retiring we ask Faith to locate James & Roger. Roger she says after a minute is in a room along the corridor, we go along to discover him quietly asleep in a large comfortable chair across the room from Dawn. He’s covered in a blanket and on some cushions looking quite peaceful so we leave him to his rest and concentrate on James.

Faith goes off heading downstairs and ending in a room like the one in Kree’s apartment where James is currently watching the box , which is playing views of the bank vault. He’s looking puffy eyed and tired after watching these for some time. Faith offers to relieve him, which he gratefully accepts after showing her how to use the remote control for the video. He then moves over to a long couch, stretches out and passes out asleep.

We are informed of Faiths intentions and we all head to bed for whatever sleep we can get until we a re required to be on watch. Faith spends the night watching this footage of the vault and fails to see anything James didn’t see. The people standing watch for the night check up on her as part of the schedule. The rest of the night passes without significant interruptions until daybreak.

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 6am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

Kayseri gets up and wanders around the house looking in all the rooms trying to find anything of interest. She searches the house to no avails then gets one of her dogs and goes for a walk outside . She comes upon the vault in a nearby churchyard on the estate, opens the door to reveal stairs descending into the darkness so she relocks the door and returns to the kitchen for some food.

Dawn gets up and heads for the kitchen where she comes upon the cook. The offer of a hot breakfast is made and accepted with alacrity. While cook is doing breakfast Dawn enquires as to how the old earl died "he had gout, consumption, a bad knee and arthritis and for many a year co-morbidity but in the end it appears old age caught up with him and his heart gave out in the night. A fine old man he was". No more useful information can be garnered from the cook so Dawn returns to eating.

7am arrives and we all stir from whatever sleep we have had. We pack James off to a proper bed for a few hours more sleep as we don't feel so threatened and Roger is about anyway. We all wander down to the kitchen except Thoric who is trying to get a bit more sleep .

After a good hardy breakfast I wander the house and find a likely room to talk with spirits. I draw my rune when I see one and ask, "who are you spirit", it replies, "woe woe woe is me” in sad, sorrowful and mournful tones, not at all helpful. Passing that line of investigation up for now, as it seems to be a very old self absorbed and menial type of spirit I return to the group in the kitchen and suggest we all move back upstairs for a discussion of what to do today.

Mortimer points out that his talk with the dead ability is best at night which seems entirely logical and Thaeuss wants to do some linking life-forces rituals to successful conclusions rather than being interrupted.

While Thoric was asleep Thaeuss went to try linking life-forces on him which is a ritual, he got most of the way through until Jane came in the room and started talking with Thoric, waking him up and getting him to move which disrupted the ritual at almost its penultimate minute, needless to say Thaeuss wasn’t amused.

However Jane had bought something rather interesting and what she thought was pertinent to our investigations. She has found a book of fairies literally; this is titled “Lady Coddingtons Pressed Fairy Book” It has squished fairies in the pages which we DA and find to be true fairies now dead some many years. They are associated with the Lessor UnSeelie fairie court. We get quite excited by this and set some people to look at the book with Mortimer to undertake ‘Ask the Dead’ questioning and also divinate it. The general information gleaned from the questioning was that they didn’t come here by portal, they were born in Tir-a-nan-Nog and there are at lest 4 other fairie courts.

Fairy info:

The age of the dead fae seemed consistent with the text about 100 yrs ago.
Gathered over a period from childhood to adult.
The last time they visited the lady was to get her to negotiate some sort of truce.
They were surprised when she caught them, and they had thought she would be reasonable in their negotiations.
The portal is operated by someone with the skill to do so, in the right place - stone circles (of varying numbers), and right time (equinox) ? The type of fae at the unseeley court ranged from the typical fairy, gnome, pixie, elves, etc
There is a king (and queen) of the court
The fairie questioned had come by choice to negotiate the truce.
The Lady was not the only human to be able to talk with the fae, though she didn't know about the book of prophecies.

It was found in the older section of the library on dusty long unused shelves. Probably collected by the 8-10th Earls. Jane also has a book as a gift for us called “the world of science” which covers a lot of subjects we have been wondering about like electricity etc. Faith starts to read this.

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 10am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

I would like to visit the family or estate crypt , which Kayseri has told me, is in the grounds some quarter of a mile north of the manor house, Thoric and Faith will join me to assist if needed as well as investigate where required. We leave the others in the room last night occupied by Thoric and myself last evening poring over the book and undertaking rituals of divination, ask the dead and linking life-forces.

We three walk to the indicated area; there we find a small church, a small mausoleum and a largish graveyard with many types/sizes of headstones in various states but of a generally well-kept maintenance. We look around the graveyard noting the dates and some exceptional graves and then head for the locked door on the mausoleum. Faith makes short work of it and the door swings open revealing a well-worn set of stairs heading down into the dark. The three of us have no problem with light being elves and a dwarf.

At the bottom of the stairs we find a well-kept tomb. In the centre of the 30’ by 30’ room is a raised heavy coffin on a solid pedestal with little adornment. Set in the walls are 3 human sized alcoves with two being filled at present by stone effigies of human males in relaxed poses! We do a quick check in the walls for hidden cavities or passages and find several, which Faith examines by her ability to walk through the walls and find little of significance. Faith finishes her examinations and we have a skull to show for it, which I place on the coffin for later ‘talking to’ by various means such as Mortimer’s speak to the dead ability or our divinations.

Thoric then examines the floor and finds a loose stone, which we lever up, and place against the sidewall. The space now reveals a wooden ladder descending some 20ft into darkness. Faith will go down and check it before Thoric and I descend. Faith gets to the bottom and jumps down to an earthen floor, has a quick look around and declares it safe for us to come down. Thoric and I descend and after the 20ft descent on the ladder and a short 9ft drop to the floor we find ourselves at the bottom of the shaft.

Once Thoric and I are down below Faith expresses a dislike for our environs complaining that it is in fact too ‘old’ feeling and she says “I’ll leave you guys to investigate here, I’ll keep watch upstairs in the open and fresh air”. She then leaps up to the ladder and bounds off leaving Thoric and I to assess our new locale.

The new area we are in stretches away left and right some 40 feet in length and around 20’ in width with the centre which we currently occupy being a circular area of about 30ft diameter. It has 36 shelves attached to the wall, all are about 6’6” long by 3’ wide and 28 of these shelves are taken up with what looks like bodies. The bodies are wrapped in a deteriorating velvety cloth of some sort and each has a metal brooch of the same style but one has a ring as well as the brooch.

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 11am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

Thoric and I judiciously avoid touching these items as we can’t detect the magic without some investigation and will wait for the rest to arrive with their magical talents and abilities before doing so. We yell to Faith “have you any way of contacting the others fast”; “Yes I do” she replies. Faith pulls out a 2-foot long arrow along with a stone tablet, and casts a spell. Then the arrow disappears and the tablet glows for thirty seconds or so.

While the arrow is in flight to the house I realise that I could in fact contact the party as they are in or near the room I spent the night in and one, which I had prepared for some eventualities. I start casting my spell of Sending. Meanwhile the arrow covers the distance in a short period of time and impacts Clarissa causing some damage. Just after this my image appears in the room and seeing the party I explain what we have been doing along with requesting their presence for investigation purposes. They rapidly deploy from the room along with newly arrived James via an Instill flighted flying carpetIII

Soon after the others arrive a number of magical events occur. DA”s, DE’s and other such talents are employed before we attempt any physical exploration of the area and before the lengthy but more informative Divinations.

There’s an area effect Preservation on the area down here, which is why the bones are in such good almost recognisable condition. This is a high mana area!!
DA of the floor is dated at 772 years ago.
The bodies are between 400 and 600 years old in general
The Brooches are all shaped magic and have a general magic of binding as well as an affect of Fealty and Loyalty on them.
There is discovered at each end an illusion that from a distance causes the wall to appear blank by causing your eyes to not see what’s there. These appear to be heavily magical and will need divinating. They seem to be of summoning magic. ? The bodies were tall for their time periods as they are all above 6ft in height.
There is a type of suspension magic in effect on the bodies and they will stay that way ‘until woken or raised’
The bodies GTN are mostly human, partly immortal!!!
The bodies in the crypt are skeletons of which about a third are female. They appear to have healed over wounds etc would indicate they were warriors with some of them having breaks which would account for their deaths.

Mortimer and I will now undertake our rituals with me taking an end and Mortimer taking the ring and a brooch since he can undertake two per hour to my one. I proceed down the end of the corridor and make myself comfortable before starting the ritual. I ask Thoric to stand nearby me to keep an eye on me while I lose myself in concentration for the period of the ritual.

While Mortimer and I are engrossed in meditation Kayseri decides to rummage around the crypt searching nooks and crannies. She does manage to find a secret alcove in the wall curvature under the ladder area. She decides to open the alcove while the magical investigators of Mortimer and myself are engaged in our rituals. She does so with no apparent affect . She then looks to open the box.

The results of the Divinations were:

Ring: It has a Command / Leadership aspect to I, along with a Binding component which is all linked to the brooches in some way. Has a blood component.
Brooches: These are similar to the ring but in a subservient manner. They are a conduit for communication as well as enhancing Fealty and Loyalty. Blood component as well.
The Wall: This appears to be some sort of activation device for summoning. Its in the same shape and design as the ring & brooches. It summons its adherents / members via a ritual. It will activate wearers of the brooches or rings; It was created via a blood sacrifice ritual using fey / fairie blood.; It appears to be mostly a portal for souls rather than objects.

We end with Mortimer and myself coming out of our rituals, seeing most of the others bunched around a box of some sort, which has had a side turned transparent by Thaeuss and inside they can see an object wrapped in some cloth of interdeterminate type. We look up from this event and see Dawn on knees looking down over a corpse with her hand touching a brooch! It appears she has touched the brooch and has gone into some sort of trance like or catatonic state.

Actions undertaken, decided or being cogitated over:

We have completed our physical investigation of the Vault and have now watched the TV videotapes with no new information discovered.
We have come to the place the book was discovered and undertaken some investigations and we continue to do so. This is a WIP as we are currently investigating the vault through various magical and mundane means.
We still plan to visit the Aran Islands after the abbey (providing we find no other logical destination once our abbey investigations are complete.
As per previous research undertaken thus far we shall concentrate our efforts in the Aran Islands off Galway rather than Arranmore the island off Donegal in Ireland. (However we don’t dismiss this as a possibility either). The sites of ancient Celts at Dun Aengus and other related sites such as the 7 pairs of stones or mounds will be investigated . There’s a small, old church on Inishmeer, which I would like to see.
We have flown to York in Yorkshire and this is close to Rievaulx Abbey.
We will keep a closer watch will be kept upon these and their welfare.

Chapter 6

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 1230pm 19th August 2003 (Earth)

Quickly assessing what may have happened to Dawn, Thaeuss DE’s her and gets an affirmative answer indicating she is cursed / blessed in some way. He quickly relays this to us and we think fast how we can get Dawn away from touching the brooch without the individual grabbing her succumbing to the same malady. Thoric thinks fastest and stands beside Dawn and pendulums his arm then lets it smack into Dawn with a small amount of force thereby breaking her contact with the brooch.

Dawn suggests lunch as her appetite has peaked after her short sojourn or out of body experience with the brooch. We ask James to use his ‘mobile phone’ to call the house and have some food sent here to the meadow area just outside the crypt door so we may have a picnic lunch. He does so and informs us it will be here soon as they have already prepared some lunch for us.

We ask her and Dawn relates her experience for us:

“The instant I touched the brooch, I was "portalled" to a forest glen. First up, I checked that my body and stuff was with me, I used empathy to check my arm is still injured to determine whether it was my real body or not.  I think it may not have been my real body, perhaps more my spirit in a real place? Out of time perhaps? It was sort of akin to the environment in Dom-Daniel.  And although there seemed to be air, there didn't seem to be wind, my flying didn't work. And there was mana around, but I couldn't seem to draw any to cast with it”. 
 
“ I could see a group of people around a large fire. There was chanting going on, although not in a language that I recognised.  It was possibly the bonding ritual - bonding the brooch to the ring and the men to each other. The men are all tall and some could be warriors as they were heavily armed. Some could have been mages. There is no human or fey sacrifice going on - the bloodletting appears to be voluntary, and involving smallish amounts perhaps just the slicing of palms.”

After this explanation we all then have a discussion for some 20minutes about the duality of blessings & curses, what one man might see as a blessing another would see as a curse . It’s all a matter of perspective really!

We decide to continue our investigations of the crypt end walls and having just completed my divinations we now look to other methods to discover information about the interesting area we now find ourselves in.

Thaeuss then pulls out one of his Golems, kneels to place a heart in it to activate it when Kayseri turns around and has a loud invective at him along the lines of “You just go ahead and do what you want…. You tell others to wait and think about actions… Your ugly, nasty and troublesome little golems you just use them and… You are a rude and obnoxious elf and.!” This outburst stuns us all except for Thaeuss’s interjections of “Sit down or you may get hurt…. I know what I am doing…. Just go away….”.

Kayseri once she has finished decides to leave, heading upstairs to get away from here and the company she is keeping. The party is splintered for a short time in different locales with some of us staying in the crypt while others join Kayseri upstairs for some conciliatory discussions and some of the lunch that James informs us that has ’just arrived’. We all are getting our breath back and considering what to do I determine that there is palpable tension in the air which I see needs to be resolved smartly before we continue our investigations.

I ask Thaeuss, Clarissa and Thoric to join me upstairs for some lunch before we go any further. With some hesitation we all ascend to the surface on the rope , join up again and start partaking in this fine repast we find there.

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 1pm 19th August 2003 (Earth)

I stand up, remembering the many sessions of mediation and counselling I have undertaken for my supplicants in Seagate and start my tirade for this troubled group. “Now what is the problem here that you guys are having?” I started off with. Kayseri and Thaeuss both had their says and seemed quite set in their positions. I thought of what they had said and it boiled down to two important issues that were Communication and Trust. I get my miniaturised Spear stick and snap it, which enables my full size spear to appear in my hands. I pound it on a rock nearby to stop discussions and then I proceed.

“OK here’s how I think we can heal our ructions and issues. First of all we should all acknowledge that each of us have unique skill-sets and abilities. Some are magical investigators either using personal magical abilities or using magical tools (such as Golems), while others are superior physical investigators who excel in the investigation of mundane non-magical items, places or objects”.

“Secondly we need to talk more about what we plan to do and what we are doing, the bettering informed we all are about each others activities then the better we can act as a cohesive unit to avoid unnecessary danger and anguish. Lastly we need to act more courteous to each other in our manners so as to avoid uncomfortable situations”.

Thoric piped up asking if anyone had checked whether any of us had been checked for curses, geas’s or other magical compulsions. There was resounding silence at this and a series of checks were done which revealed Kayseri under some sort of curse. We all thought divinations for everyone are called for and these will be done as soon as possible.

Meantime after my little rant the heavy tension seems to have eased a little and we are continuing on with lunch before going on to finish investigating the crypt then deciding what to do from there. The food disappears and we continue our work. We warn each other to look out for signs of actions that appear to be out of character from what we would normally do.

Someone makes a side comment about not going down into the vault for fear of death or losing our minds and Dawn perks up at this saying “lets go down and finish the job”. We advise her to wait but she is quite insistent. She tries to run off towards the vault doors and is restrained. She looks like she may be getting out of the restraints and I prepare to knock her out with the flat end of my spear should it be necessary.

I’m assured it’s not necessary to knock her out, so while she continues struggling I run over to the gate, relock the padlock and stand outside it until she calms down. Soon thereafter she seems to be calmed after words with Mortimer and someone suggesting that she as an Air mage would much rather hate being trapped in a box. A box does magically appear a few moments later and she climbs in to the relief of all.

I return to the group area and the new box and ask Faith if I can divinate her, to which she acquiesces and so I start a Divination ritual off to the side of the party. I become entranced in my ritual, watching Faith and Thoric watching over us both.

After another 5 minutes Mortimer starts to divinate the box with Dawn in it while the others keep lunching. Kayseri is looking around and she thinks she glimpses Dawn over by the crypt. The notion gets pooh poohed for a few moments but then someone opens the box and Dawn is no longer there . A panic ensues but I stay ritualling and Faith stays in front of me with Kayseri and James watching over us while the others speed towards the crypt. Mortimer starts surreptitiously divinating Kayseri.

Thoric and Clarissa head down into the actual crypt and Thaeuss stays up top of the chamber to ‘watch’. Clarissa asks, “Thoric please watch me and make sure I don’t act odd”. T&C quickly get down into the crypt where Dawn is again touching a brooch (again!!) and fearing for her mental state they act quickly. Standing over Dawn, Clarissa pulls out a small weighted sack, raises it over her head and strikes Dawn a knockout blow. Thoric pulls back, prepares his mattock and is about to exclaim, “what do you think you’re doing?” when Clarissa explains, “I’m just sapping her to break the trance”.

They carry Dawn over to the ladder, attach a rope and haul her upstairs away from the temptations down in the crypt. Dawn is then taken outside and revived through traditional means of having cool water applied to her face and some gentle ministrations to help her out of the unconscious state. Mortimer comforts her as much as he can while explaining what's happened and our suspicions as to why she’s acting so strangely.

She states she has more information this time on where she went when she touched the brooch. She relates the following “It was winter at night, snow was on the ground, and the bonfire was the focus of the group. The group included some women. The people were of similar bloodstock, but didn't look similar enough to be siblings. They were wearing dark blood red cloak. The leader was wearing the ring - marked as the leader by more impressive outfit. There were stars, but since I don't much about stars, I couldn't recognise where they were. Maybe Mortimer would ... or he could ask the dead people directly.”

Mortimer can see Dawn is still a bit unsure on her feet and since I will still be completing my ritual for another 30minutes or so, he decides to have a quick flying jaunt with her in her element of Air. They both go off after taking the eminently sensible precaution of becoming invisible.

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 215pm 19th August 2003 (Earth)

My divination of Faith ends with me establishing she has a curse, which will last a few more hours. She’s afraid of age, aging or old things. Mortimer’s divinate shows that Kayseri is under a curse of "puppet phobia " of unknown duration, probably the result of a recent backfire.

It’s pointed out that the box downstairs is still unopened and un-investigated so we all, once the flyers have returned descend again down to the crypt to finish what we are here to do. Thaeuss interrogates a brooch and a ring using his golems. I start a divination of the opposite end of the room to the one have already done to see if they are different.

Thaeuss then talks with the box and gets little from it. An investigation into the alcove in which it resides fails to find any magical traps, wards or other assorted nasty surprises. We then decide to use some brute force and wrest the box from its hole since there’s no magical defences on it. Our brute force consists of Faith and Thoric using their physical prowess to slide it out, but unfortunately the box seems wedged into the alcove itself. Faith quickly assesses that there aren’t or doesn’t seem to be any pressure plates under the box and so they undertake Plan B,

The result of my divination of the South end wall is as follows:

The Wall: Similar to the North end in that it’s purpose is one of summoning but it seems that this end is more attuned to the ‘movement of objects’ rather than ‘souls’ which was the North ends main purpose. This end is more of a channel rather than a true portal. It appears to be one way and this is the exit.; If one end of the ‘portals’ is activated then the other will be activated.

Once the box is pulled out we delicately unwrap the cloth to reveal 8 brooches, which would make up the 36 possible ones from the number of spaces down here.

The other find is a small piece of manuscript under the box, which reads as follows:

Manuscript #3

So dear friends your love is gone 
Only tears to dwell upon 
I dare not say as the wind must blow 
So a love is lost, a dream is won 
Go to sleep and dream again 
Soon your hopes will rise again 
From all this gloom life will start anew 
And there’ll be no crying soon.

We TK the brooches into a bag, (to avoid physically touching then) and leave it there in the crypt. We are still in the crypt area deciding what to do!

Actions undertaken, decided or being cogitated over:

We have completed our physical investigation of the Vault and have now watched the TV videotapes with no new information discovered.
We have come to the place the book was discovered and undertaken some investigations. This is a WIP as we are still currently investigating the manor & vaults, including the surrounding area.
We still plan to visit the Aran Islands after the abbey (providing we find no other logical destination once our abbey investigations are complete.
As per previous research undertaken thus far we shall concentrate our efforts in the Aran Islands off Galway rather than Arranmore the island off Donegal in Ireland. (However we don’t dismiss this as a possibility either). The sites of ancient Celts at Dun Aengus and other related sites such as the 7 pairs of stones or mounds will be investigated . There’s a small, old church on Inishmeer, which I would like to see.
We have flown to York in Yorkshire and this is close to Rievaulx Abbey.
We’ll need to keep closer watch upon James and Roger so as to not lose them again.

The Riddle

Contents

Summary

Scribe Notes

Prologue

Noon 30th Frost 803 (Alusia)

Chapter 1:

1pm 30thFrost 803 (Alusia)

The Note to Mortimer

The Manuscript

Earth

Chapter 2

3am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

730am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

830am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

The latest Manuscript Piece # 2

Chapter 3

10am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

Chapter 4

10am 1st Snow 803 (Alusia) - 18th August 2003 (Earth)

Chapter 5

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 1am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 6am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 10am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 11am 19th August 2003 (Earth)

Chapter 6

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 1230pm 19th August 2003 (Earth)

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 1pm 19th August 2003 (Earth)

2nd Snow 803 (Alusia) - 215pm 19th August 2003 (Earth)

Manuscript #3

Next

Navigation menu

Page actions

Page actions

Personal tools

Navigation

Search

Tools