[WFRP] The Bloody Crown IV

[-Sentinel-]

Elsabeth Holt

Elsa gave the urn a look with her witch-sight, and almost immediately recoiled from it.

"I, uh, really wouldn't open that thing," she said.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Do I dare ask what's inside?" Sieghard said, a bit troubled by her reaction to the urn.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsabeth Holt

"I'd like to know," said Elsa, "but I'd rather not have to find out."

She looked genuinely nervous. "Don't touch it, Adelbert. We wouldn't want to break it."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

Elsa's response only made him more worried.

"If whatever that stuff is is as bad as you think it is," he said,"why do you think the Illuminated Order just left it here? Even if they couldn't destroy it, there's certainly safer places they could put it where it's not likely to attract attention. Just seems careless to leave it lying around."

He wondered if they might have been just as careless with the book they sought.

[-Sentinel-]

Elsabeth Holt


"I honestly couldn't guess why they kept that thing, whatever it is," admitted Elsa. "Maybe they needed it for something."

Her eyes narrowed at the urn. If she stayed too long around that thing, her curiosity might just end up overruling her caution...

OOC

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...Could a book conceivably fit through the opening of the urn?

(I know it's a weird notion, but it would be silly to miss the book by so little just because we failed to think outside the box... or inside the urn.)

[RossN]

Adelbert Schreiber

Very carefully Adelbert put the heavy jar back on the shelf. He had a thoughtful look on his face.

"Some of the ancients used to transpose books on scrolls rather than the codex format we use. I suppose it is possible Meskhenet's 'book' could be a collection of scrolls, stored in an urn to preserve them..."

OOC:

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The Dead Sea Scrolls were contained in jars...

[Northern Lad]

Viggo Hirtzel

Viggo gulped heavily, clearly Elsa was nervous, which in turn made him nervous. "Maybe we should just get out of here and wall this damn place back up again?" He was still shooting anxious looks over his shoulder at the carved gateway. "There's nothing here anyway, except whatever is in this urn." He was glad Adelbert had replaced it on the shelf, he'd worried the scribe would drop it.

Approaching the shelves as nonchalantly as he could muster, he stopped alongside Adelbert, "Lets just see if it's full of bloody scrolls shall we and then get out of here?" Viggo very gingerly looked into the urn attempting to hold the torch so that he could see the jars contents.

[LeSwordfish]

"We didn't see any "books" as we'd know them in kheneb, did we?" Ludo asked, carefully. "If the order could leave something this dark here... I think we should open it."

"Do you still have the amulet from the effigy?" he asked Elsa.

[LCP]

Tilting the lid open just a crack, Viggo squinted to see what was visible by the light of the torch.

A dull silvery sheen revealed the reason that the urn was so heavy: it appeared to be lined with lead. At first, Viggo thought it was empty. Opening the lid wider, he saw that in fact there was a thin layer of what looked like black sand at the bottom of the jar. The larger granules glittered like broken glass, while the entire residue - no more than a fistful of the stuff - gave off a faint greenish glow.

[RossN]

Adelbert Schreiber

Adelbert gave Viggo a look of utter astonishment. Slowly and carefully he said. "Viggo, what do you think you are doing?"

[-Sentinel-]

Elsabeth Holt


Elsa peered over Viggo's shoulder, paled slightly and drew back several steps.

"Warpstone," she breathed. "Close this at once before one of us grows a third eye at the back of the head."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Just looks like sand to me," Sieghard said, "It can't really be that bad, can it?"

[Northern Lad]

Viggo Hirtzel

Obeying Elsa without hesitation Viggo replaced the lid on the urn, before setting to wiping his free hand nervously against his coat. "A third eye? Really?" His current pair of eyes were wide with fear. "Gods! It just looks a little like Black Powder to me?" He remembered with some clarity the hiding he'd received from his Pa when he'd been caught curiously investigating his fathers powder stores. Maybe this stuff is even more dangerous..

He shook his head at his own rashness before looking apologetically at Adelbert, "Sorry, but we had to know didn't we? There's no scrolls in there and we know that now."

[RossN]

Adelbert Schreiber

Adelbert looked very pale. He nodded slowly at Viggo.

"Well... the question is why was it left here? Elsa, I suppose this is of use to magicians? Why would the hedge magicians abandon it?"

[-Sentinel-]

Elsabeth Holt

"Well... the question is why was it left here? Elsa, I suppose this is of use to magicians? Why would the hedge magicians abandon it?"

"Because they all died," said Elsa dryly. "And yes, warpstone is very useful to wizards, but extremely volatile and poisonous. There's no safe way to handle the crystalized essence of Chaos."

[RossN]

Adelbert Schreiber

Adelbert nodded. He'd suspected as much.

"Well I would reccomend leaving it here and pretending we never found it but having destroyed the guardian out there that might not be an option. Perhaps we could sink it in the swamp proper?"

[LeSwordfish]

"What about taking it to Fassbender?" Ludo asked. "If anyone's qualified for this round here, she is."

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Even if this stuff is as dangerous as you say, it hasn't causes any trouble sitting where it is," Sieghard said. "Not our problem. Let's just keep going."

[RossN]

Adelbert Schreiber

Despite his disagreements with her Adelbert looked to Elsa for leadership here. "Elsa, you know more about this than the rest of us put together. I'm willing to follow your decision whatever it is."

[-Sentinel-]

Elsabeth Holt

Elsa considered the urn with a mixture of greed and wariness. The market value of warpstone did not interest her nearly as much as what she could do with it, if she discovered how to use it to her advantage. The possibility of adding power to her spells was almost enough to make her disregard the risks.

Almost.

Just a few months ago, given a choice, she would have taken the urn without hesitation and started experimenting with its contents. But she was not quite the Elsa who had left Altdorf in a hurry after a stupid duel. She was still ambitious and somewhat reckless, but she started to understand the value of patience and knowledge.

"I wouldn't touch that thing," she said with extreme reluctance. "We're rich enough, it's too much trouble to carry, we can't risk it falling in the wrong hands, and I wouldn't know how to use it safely. Fassbender might know what to do with it, but the way things are in these parts, I'm not sure if she'll still be our friend next year. Let's leave it there. If we need warpstone in the future, we know where to find it."

[LeSwordfish]

"Perhaps we could pile some of the rubble over it?" Ludo said. "That way, anyone without the witch-sight won't find it- I don't think we want any scholar or treasure-seeker with money for the boat to find it."

[Northern Lad]

Viggo Hirtzel

"It's managed to not get found for however long it's been since Gilbertus was dabbling with it." Viggo pointed out. "It can manage it again. If Elsa say's it's dangerous we'd be bloody fools to start carting it around!" Even as he spoke Viggo moved back towards the corridor, gesturing down it with the torch. "Lets just block the passageway back up."

An uncomfortable thought occurred to Viggo. "We should hurry up if we want to check the other passages too, we don't want to be stuck down here come night do we? If Gilbertus was... doing.. the same spells as Her High Boneyness, isn't there a chance that this swamp might start spewing the dead at us once the sun goes down?"

[RossN]

Adelbert Schreiber

Adelbert cast Elsa a sour look when she claimed 'they' were rich enough, but decided she had forgotten about his lost gold rather than aimed an intentional barb.

"I agree then, let's hide here underneath rubble."

[LCP]

With the stones from the broken seal, on the corridor, it was easy enough to raise a small mound over the jar, though the water and the scattered bones made for rather ungainly trips back and forth to the entrance-way.

When the jar had been covered to their satisfaction, they returned to the throne hall. Five more corridors still stood sealed, waiting in the dark.

[LeSwordfish]

Ludo took his crowbar and the corridor next to that they had explored, and began working at the mortar.

Spoiler

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(1d100)[67] vs str 21+ 20 crowbar?

[Northern Lad]

Viggo Hirtzel

Happy that he was no longer under the gaze of the Jackal carving and the gateway that made him feel so uneasy, Viggo set to helping Ludo dismantle the next stone blockade.

[LCP]

Breaking open the remaining corridors - particularly those at the back, where the water came up to Ludo's armpits - was tiring and time-consuming work. Nevertheless, Ludo and Viggo set to with a will.

The first corridor they opened was a dead end. Intruding tree roots had brought the whole ceiling down, blocking the way. The second led to a long, flooded chamber that resembled an armoury or a store-room. Like the altar chamber, there were a disturbing number of human bones mouldering in the swamp-water that covered the floor. The room had long ago been plundered, but there were still a few ancient and corroded weapons sitting in their racks.

Crossing the throne chamber, they opened a third. This one led a short distance into the dark before giving way to a rough-edged pit. Now completely flooded, it was impossible to tell how far the dark water that filled it went down.

The fourth corridor had also collapsed. That left the fifth and final seal, at the dry end of the throne chamber nearest the stairs. Dragging away the stones, they found the rotten remains of a heavy door. Time had not been kind to it, but it looked like it had first been destroyed by violence. The broken pieces of a heavy bar lay beneath it, cut through in the middle.

The room beyond had been ransacked in the same way as the rest of the manse. Broken work-benches lay around the walls, while a heavy iron cauldron still lay where it had been overturned in the centre of the room. No instruments or vessels had been left undamaged, but Sieghard could feel the crunch of broken glass in the dust beneath his boots.

Crouched in the furthest corner of the room, a runtish skeleton lay, still mostly in one piece. Its clothes rotten rags, it had fallen in a cowering posture, its arms raised over its head. The blow of a blunt instrument had caved in the right side of its skull.

[Northern Lad]

Viggo Hirtzel

"Our friend Gilbertus perhaps?" Viggo wondered out aloud, tilting his head in the skeletons' direction. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer chap."

Although this room seemed just as derelict and empty as the rest, Viggo spent a little time making sure that they hadn't missed a chest of gold or a stack of magical books hiding in a corner.

OOC

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Untrained Search Test

Int 15 - (1d100)[14]

[LCP]

Whoever had looted this room back in the mists of time seemed to have done a pretty thorough job of it. All he could find was dust and broken glass.

He had just about given up when his hand caught on something behind one of the stoved-in tables. Pulling it up into view, he found himself looking into the broken reflection of his own face.

He was holding a hand mirror. The glass was fractured with a crazed spiderweb of cracks, which had allowed the pervasive damp to spread blooms of corrosion across the silvered surface beneath. The frame was similarly tarnished, a thin ribbon of silver worked into the shape of a serpent biting its own tail.

Elsa Only

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Elsa could sense some lingering traces of enchantment around the mirror. Like everything here, time had not been kind to it, but there was an amethyst iridescence to the broken glass that did not seem entirely natural.

[TheSummoner]

Sieghard

"Funny. I imagined the great evil necromancer taller." Sieghard said, unimpressed both by what they presumed was Gilbertus and the lack of anything noteworthy in the room. It seemed the wizards who had ransacked the place were more thorough than he had given them credit for.