MtA: Sun, Surf, and Shadow

[Premsyl]

Morpheus' vision fills with the soft colors, and winding threads of resonance. The offices are filled with the resonance of determination and perfection, and the trace of magic is heavy and mixed here. Most of the magic is of the arcanum of mind, though every arcana is represented in abundance. Inside the office, the resonance is particularly heavy in space, time, and fate predictably. The majority of casting seemed to take place at the desk. The locked door and the area around it resonates extremely heavily of potent use of space arcana. Looking around at his colleagues, Morpheus can read their auras. Each of them wears their own unique shifting colors, based on their personality. One thing is strange, however. Alrikar's coat pocket seems to resonate differently with the rest of him. The resonance is strong, but strange and off. It reminds Morpheus of the strangeness of the resonance back at the crime scene. The taint on the forces magic.

[JMobius]

(OOC, really confused, because I can't see Premysl's post while viewing the thread, but it shows up everywhere else. I almost missed it...)

Morpheus walks into the room and immediately returns to Erwin's side to assist him. After a few minutes of this, he peers up and asks "Hey, Zephyr, Alrikar, you found anything?"

(I'm at home, going to look up teamwork and post another roll in the dice thread, use if appropriate)

[MinotaurWarrior]

"I have indeed discovered that most of Provost Arcadius's books (or at least the ones located on his bookshelf) are worthless sleeper drivel. They are probably exist for the sole purpose of making the bookshelf look more full. Despite this I took the liberty of memorizing the titles of the sleeper books anyway, in preparation of the unlikely occurance that, for example, his possession of Do-It-Yourself Carpentry is the key to discovering exactly what is going on here. Of real interest to you and everyone else, are the five books on magic I located on Provost Arcadius's bookshelf. I think that Zephyr and I should probably go over them at some point, in case Arcadius's disappearance was the fault of some magical experiment gone awry and we can glean the nature of his experiments from his books. Mystagogue Zephyr and I should be the only ones to examine Provost Arcadius's books, in preparation for the unlikely event that Provost Arcadius wrote one of the Diamond Order Mysterium's greatest secrets in the footnotes: 'asterisk, the secret to our mastery of using investigation when casting rote spells is the daily consumption of the testicles of maimed grazing mamals baked into cakes or breads but not muffins'." Alrikar answered, doing his damed best to sound so absolutely boring, stuffy, and loving of the sound of his own voice that absolutely no-one would ever expect that he had chosen to omit something of more importance than the presence of an ant colony in his back yard.

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Ignore that thing in my pocket, it means nothing.

[JMobius]

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That sure is a damn good roll :) I think I'm going to need a GM call on whether or not its really plausible to have it work on me, given what I'm seeing now, though. At the very least, that should levy a pretty big bonus...

[Ditto]

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Okay, so apparently it didn't post a few days ago when I cast Space-MageSight. I was going to follow it up with a Scrying/Follow Through (whichever was applicable) if I found any portals, to see what might be on the other side. I suppose that door is a likely target...
Gnosis3+Space3+Tool2+MW1 = (9d10)[1][3][1][6][8][6][4][3][8](40)
Ten-agains, if applicable (2d10)[8][6](14)

Zephyr

Zephyr excused himself to the hallway to talk with Darcan. "They're a crowd, alright, Master Darcan... they each have their quirks. You may be familiar with one of them - foreign guy whose quirk is a 7-foot-tall big black pillar fellow.

"We're actually in Arcadius' office now, poking around and trying to get a bead on whoever nabbed him. I know it's sort of open-ended, but have you heard any rumblings about magehunters who might be interested - or more importantly, capable - of pulling down something like this? At least one of the attackers was a willworker, Forces adept I'm told. You don't make an attack like this on a Provost lightly. I'm wondering if there's anyone you think I should talk to while I'm here in bigwig HQ downtown, too..."

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I'll also want to start using my proper Investigation skill (woo applied skill!) as I skulk about the room. Int3 + Inv2 = (5d10)[3][3][5][1][9](21)
(2d10)[10][8](18)
I'm not sure if I should add any other dice in there... it's not like he has a crime scene kit, but he's using Mage Sight to research a magic scene. Zephyr has a specialization (Artifacts) under Investigation, in case that should come up for some reason.

[Premsyl]

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I had tried to submit a post a few days ago, but the site must have eaten it. Anway, what I'd said then was that Morpheus should be able to ask about what he sees.

Zephyr's magesight kicks in. The office is filled with the resonance of space magic. The locked closet absolutely thrums with it. If there isn't a portal behind the door now, then there was recently.

Darcan replies over the phone. "Heh. The Foreign Lord, am I right? Yeah, I know of him. I know his mentor, Aeonassal. He's some super scientist. Runs some crazy cult. He's got some pull in the order, though. More than me. But listen... Keep your eye on them. I'm not gonna say anything except that these guys come from a really strange place and aren't like normal people. And that's a lot coming from one willworker to another. Use them as best you can, but reserve your trust.

Arcadius was a weird one. I'm sure everybody's been telling you the same thing, right? He kept to himself, and did most of his business out of his home, yeah? He didn't keep much company amongst mages. I've only known him to speak to two people with any regularity. One of them is Charon, Curator of the grand Athenaeum located on the top floor. Another is Azura, who's the head censor round these parts. Harsh woman. I can't say what they talk about, but a censor who's been doing the job as long as she has, and an old Moros librarian would have a lot to tell, I'd guess.

Oh, yeah. A cabal of what I can only guess to be banishers is operating out of the Keys. Nobody I've talked to knows where, but they've made a few big hits in the past few months. Word was that the consilium was gonna send some arrows out there, but I haven't heard much else besides that. The information came with a GPS location, I'll send that out after we get off the phone. I don't know if they were capable of taking the Provost, and I've never known banishers to kidnap when they can kill. Hey, it's a lead. I've got to go, my boy. My last bit of advice is to try and work together with those guys. You never know, one of might need to save your life." Darcan hangs up the phone.

Zephyr begins investigating the room thoroughly, but there genuinely isn't much to find beneath the surface. The bookshelf has been ransacked by Alrikar, but Zephyr notices the cut-out niche that the strange book had occupied. The desk's mysteries were mainly excised by Morpheus, though Zephyr finds an unoccupied secret compartment in one of the unlocked desk drawers. Beyond that, not much. The windows haven't been washed in a while and the faux potted plant in the corner could use a good dusting off.

With Morpheus' help, Edwin is able to crack the computer system. A menu pops up, listing Internet, E-Mail, System, and Office.

[JMobius]

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Fair enough. I don't think I could realistically top Alrikar's roll to sense his motive, so I'm going to go with a mood of confusion rather than suspicion.

"Really?" he steps forward with an eyebrow raised. "No offense, but I think you might be wrong about that. You've got something strange in your coat that I didn't see earlier. Any idea what it might be?"

[Premsyl]

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Morpheus doesn't recognize it as Forces Magic or as belonging to one of the attackers. All he notices is the weirdness of the resonance being similar to the weirdness on the forces magic. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that.

[JMobius]

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Ooooh, whoops. Edited, then, :)

[MinotaurWarrior]

"Ah yes, that. You see, the reason I even thought of Arcadius writing revealing footnotes is because of the thing you are detecting in my coat pocket. To put it quite simply, it reveals pretty much all of the secrets initiates are taught: our rote specialties, our shorthand, etc. Further more, it is enchanted so that it can, on command, recite it's contents in a soft whisper. I have no idea why he had such a thing, but hopefully you can understand why I want to keep it out of the hands of the members of the other orders. I believe I shall likely have to destroy it, lest someone undeserving of it's contents reads it."

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Yeah, I'm paranoid about you getting your hands on that thing, but only for pre-established reasons, not because I'm a proud little twit who can't read the text on this thing

[JMobius]

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1 success to seeing through the deception, failure.

Morpheus nods. "Very well, I understand. You should probably turn it over to Immirion on the way out, then. He asked me to make sure he was informed of anything interesting or unusual we might have found."

He turns around. "Now, about that door..."

[Chineselegolas]

Edwin

"I'm in" Edwin said, leaning back in the chair at the others before opening up email. "Lets see what hes been upto" he muttered, going straight for the deleted bin.

[Ditto]

Zephyr

Zephyr smirks at his ordermate as he stands from his position examing the fake plant. "You could also say 'Hey team, no-touchie.' May I?" he asks, gesturing generally to Alrikar's pockets. He adds to Edwin, "Edwin, could you pull up the Internet when you get a chance? Our tail from the cafe has parked himself somewhere in the keys, and for that and other reasons it's definitely worth checking out later. I'd like to Googlemap it and see if there's anything in the area."

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Crap! Why'd Brickwall have to get himself all disappeared on us? Hermes sounds like he would've been really useful for a Key-hopping expedition and Arrow info. Any word on where Madonna's at?

[Premsyl]

Edwin finds only a handful of e-mails. Cryptic memos from others in the order, summons to appear. In the outbox is only one e-mail. Dated as being sent at 11:00 that morning.

It reads thus:

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Jessica

Things are getting stranger. Whispers in my head. I'm beginning to worry. I want you to change the code on the safe in my study just to be sure.. Use the secondary code we'd agreed on. I've got some other errands to run this evening, and I should be home. Be careful, if anyone comes snooping around deal with it.

-AH

Zephyr is able to check GoogleMaps and determine that the microphone is located in what the program shows to be a smallish trailer park.

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I talked to Madonna's player a few weeks ago and they said they were gonna resume with us but I guess something changed. If anyone knows anyone else who's interested that would be cool.

[Chineselegolas]

Edwin

"If we go to his place, lets not snoop. His wife has been told to deal with snoopers and I don't like the sounds of it" Edwin said, showing the message to the others. "The rest of his mail seems unrelated to our plight."

[MinotaurWarrior]

"Jert-kel'yen'elpicsid-disciple-to, have the book," at this point Alrikar threw the loose-bound thing at zephyr, "None of us can read it, so I was going to take it to my mentor and see what he could do with it. Now, let's just finish up here and go.

[Premsyl]

The book falls to the ground at Zephyr's feet, making an uncharacteristically heavy thunk when it strikes the carpet. It falls open, from what you can tell from where you stand the page bears the image of some sort of ritual. An inexplicable sense of foreboding pervades the atmosphere of the room, and then passes as quickly as it came.

[JMobius]

"Um... you know, there is something pretty weird about that manual, Alrikar. Zephyr, when you're done, can we take it to Immirion... right away?"

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I've got someone else I keep trying to convince to play, but he's being very lazy about stating up his character. He is Mysterium, though, so this would be a good place to introduce him.

[Chineselegolas]

Edwin

"Yeah... That thud was not right" Edwin said, moving over to the book and shutting it

[JMobius]

"Incidently, do any of you share master Arcadius's interest in the study of space?" Morpheus asks, walking over and picking up the picture of the man back off the desk, and showing it the group. "Because I think we have found something that might be of some use."

[Ditto]

Zephyr

He carefully picks up the book and turns the page. "Let's place a bookmark there and not turn to that page again." He closes most of the book, flipping through a few to see if there's anything intelligible. Upon seeing the 'Azura' post-it, he says, "Azura... she's our head censor. This may well belong to her... we should probably turn this in at the Athenaeum - the Curator, Charon will be able to attend to it, and I'm told he talked to Arcadius as much as anyone."

At Morpheus' inquiry, Zephyr half-raises the hand not currently holding the nifty book. "Space is my specialty. I'm quite keen to see what's hiding behind this door... I trust there's a portal there, or was recently, and I'm curious to see where it leads. What've you got?" He steps over to look at the picture, not immediately seeing the connection.

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I'll want to try a Loosen the Threads spell on that door at some point, if it doesn't just open for us. That spell 'opens locks, loosens doors' - it's from the Grimoire of Grimoires, which I don't have access to. Anyone have it? I just get the Cliff's notes version from my handy index.

[Premsyl]

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I just picked up Grimoire of Grimoires. The spell you're talking about is a rote exclusive to those who have read the grimoire of Lark Demonde's Travels. Don't forget, this isn't d&d. There's a little thing called creative thaumaturgy.

[JMobius]

"I'm suggesting that perhaps we try to find master Arcadius the way he'd er... find himself. We've got a picture of the guy, that's more than we had before. Since you know Space, with this, we can probably track him." He frowns. "At least, I think that's how it works anyway."

[Premsyl]

To those with mage sight active, the resonance of space in the room suddenly goes crazy and you realize after a second that a portal is opening in the middle of the room out of which a woman materializes before it closes again. She's very slender, carries herself with strength and perfect grace, and wears black wide-legged cotton pants, with a matching tanktop. Her skin is fair, and her arms are well muscled. Her head is shaven clean, and her eyes are focused, intense, and blue. She doesn't smile. Her voice is tinged with a french accent, and she speaks calmly and quietly, but her words carry great gravity.

"I've come here for that book you hold. Inside that book are hidden secrets that could shatter your mind, should you be so clumsy as to glimpse them unprepared. Mind you, I'm not asking. I am prepared to face you in combat."

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Sorry I've been so quiet. Been trying to figure out some stuff, and also working. Hopefully this should start to make up for it, provided you're all still with me.

[Ditto]

Zephyr

At the FOONT!ing, Zephyr immediately shouts, "Immiron!" When the woman is clear of the portal, he turns to stand with the book in the hand away from her and says flatly, "Identify yourself."

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I don't suppose I'd be fortunate enough to recognize her as Azura? Cuz that'd be all kinds of handy. I like that she told us she'd be shooting us, though - very courteous!

[Premsyl]

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You don't recognize her. I'm going to go ahead and begin combat. Talking is free. Im gonna be rolling intiative for folks and Ill let you know the fight order.

[Chineselegolas]

Edwin

Still sitting in the chair, Edwin turned round reaching into his pocket to put his hand on his pistol, the other hand moving to clutch the chain of his watch. Looking up at the woman and back down, Edwin clutched his pistol a little harder, focusing on the flow of time and how everyone was moving

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Casting perfect timing, 5 successes

[Premsyl]

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Battle Order is: Alrikar -> Edwin -> Enemy -> Zephyr -> Morpheus. Chineselegolas that spell you cast counts as your turn, capiche? Like I said, talking is free so quip, boast, negotiate, and beg all you want.

[JMobius]

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Worth noting that Alrikar has his retainer as well.

[Premsyl]

The woman seems unperturbed when Zephyr calls for Immiron. "I am known as Khaleoud." She stretches forth a hand "The book?"

There's still no response from Immiron.

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Alrikar and Montaenoo rolled a tie on their initiative. I'm leaving it to Minotaurwarrior to decide who goes first between the characters. Btw, Khaleoud is pronounced 'Kay-Lee-Odd' with the accent on the last syllable.