Saus

[Graybeard]

"Anthropologist?" Argus and Brother Miguel said at the same time.

"You know, once of those people that looks at weird tribes in the jungle," Mildred said. "Least that's what she said she was. I don't know why she came here."

"Well, maybe she just came to Heamish so that she could ask about something else," Miguel ventured. "Do you think regular, God-fearing people would call Ramanzel 'weird'?"

She pondered for a moment ... "Yes." No more, no less.

"Aha." Miguel had heard all he needed to know. "Mrs. Hamael, thanks for your time. We have some ideas now about where to look for your brother, so we'd best get on with it. That beaver pelt should be worth something to you, and you can probably use the meat too, right?" A nod confirmed this. "Then we'll leave you to harvesting it and getting things back together with the house. You have a lovely house and a lovely family." He noted with amusement that his Truth spell was having a minor fit at this; the house wasn't bad looking, but Mildred, Jason and the baby could all charitably be called "homely..." "May Luminosita's blessings be on you."

They took their leave and started to walk back to the center of town, to find an inn for the night. "Well, what do you think?" Miguel said. "Stay here and follow more local leads? On to Emerylon and the Codoin sisters? See if we can connect with this anthropologist at Ramanzel? Try to check out Wilbur Hamael's old stomping grounds up at the Sleeping Sexton? Lots of possibilities."

Argus started to say, "And another is to follow Wilbur Hamael to Emerylon and --" but Miguel cut him off, frowning as he pulled Argus away so that Hildegard wouldn't overhear his quiet objection. "Whoa. Just thought of something. I was looking down the lane when he got back to the main road ... and he didn't turn toward Emerylon the way he said he was going to. He turned toward Saus. Let's think about that."

[Drannin]

Argus was silent for a very long moment, staring into the distance. There were a lot of questions to ask...

Brother Miguel waited patiently while Argus considered the question. After a time the old mage spoke. "I still think we should investigate Emerylon... eventually. However, I want to know more about Father Egbert... his past, what he may have been involved in. It may be the key to everything." He turned to Miguel. "Let's go to Ramanzel. Maybe we can meet this archaeologist and get some more information. Maybe we can learn a couple of Father Egbert;s secrets. Either way, let's move."

Brother Miguel looked thoughtful. "You sure you want to leave so quickly? And what about Wilbur Hamael?"

Argus sighed. "You aren't wrong. However, I really don't think that the people here will be all that forthcoming about Mr. Hamael. And the man himself... troubles me. I'd like more information before we confront him. I suspect Ramanzel could be rather... enlightening." Absently, Argus rubed his temples and something pinged in the back of his mind.

[Graybeard]

"Sounds good to me," Brother Miguel said. "Let's see if we can find a place to stay and turn in early, then get an early start tomorrow."

Hildegard steered them to a nondescript inn in the middle of town and helped them with the crotchety innkeeper; he didn't think highly of renting to "apostates," as he put it, but their money was as good as anyone else's, so in the end he relented. The rooms were basic but serviceable, and there was even an acceptable dinner downstairs -- with non-alcoholic beer, of course.

"I must leave you now," Hildegard said as they were finishing up. "The Father truly needs my help around the house and the temple. But might I ask you one thing before I go?"

Miguel and Argus both shrugged their shoulders, so she addressed Miguel directly. "Back earlier, at the Father's house, you cast some manner of spell that fixed it so that the Father could hear you a passel better. Now, most folk around here don't hold much with magic, but that's a spell that I think they could come to get used to. How did you do it?"

"Oh, that," Miguel smiled. "As you probably know, in many churches, the weekly smitings are done under a Damping spell, so that the people being smote don't make so much noise as to make it less ... worshipful for the people waiting their turn. One of our people at the Kiyokan mission had the bright idea that by reversing the spell, we could make it so the air didn't damp the sound, but clarified it. That seemed like just the thing for helping members of our flock whose hearing isn't as good as when Luminosita originally bestowed it on them." He didn't feel it expedient to mention that this bright idea came from mini-skirted Sister Marilyn, nor that she'd worked with a low-level Kiyokan mage to get the bugs worked out of the reversed spell before teaching her boyfriend (himself) how to use it. Some things were just better left unsaid in a highly Orthodox community...

"Well, that's very creative," Hildegard allowed. "Would you mind if I passed that idea on to the Father? I think he could make some use out of it, and the rest of us would right appreciate it."

"Not at all," Miguel smiled again. "I like to leave people a little better off for having met me. Please communicate the idea to Father Rilus as part of our thanks for his, and your, assistance. Go, and may Luminosita's Peace be with you."

[OOC: Fast forward to next morning? Or do any of you folks want to have some more fun during the evening and night?]

[Drannin]

(OOC: I'll get this in, and then we can jump to morning)

It was dark. The sky was cloudy, and there were no stars out. He was up to his waist in muck. There were very large, very nasty beaver-things all around.

It did not matter. He had found his target. And they had a lot of catching up to do. All it would take was one good pounce, and there would be no escape...

Ahead, a town beckoned...

And a small, squat figure sank up to its neck in quicksand.

Over the lonely moor, a loud stream of profanity carried over the hills. If the swamp beavers could understnad it, they would have been quite upset, as none of THEIR mothers would ever do such things. Still, it was a clear indication that someone was having a bad day...

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Elsewhere, Argus woke up, his head tingling in an unfamiliar way... or was it unfamiliar? There was something about it...

However, nothing semmed to be immediately wrong, so he rolled over and went back to sleep, back to an unusual dreams about giant beavers with death rays cooming out of their eyes being ridden by amazonian warrioresses wielding beer steins.

[Graybeard]

"Did you sleep any better than I did?" Brother Miguel called blearily to Argus as they converged on breakfast.

He didn't look like it, and the innkeeper and his daughter, who was cooking breakfast, didn't look well rested either. In fact, nobody in this part of town had had a very good night's sleep, and the tired background conversation at the inn quickly revealed why. Well into the night, there'd been muffled explosions coming from the direction of the temple. A delegation had gone over to the parsonage, to be met by a haggard-looking Hildegard, who informed them that Father Rilus was ... researching ... a new ... worship ceremony ... that required just the teensiest bit of fine tuning. At least that was what they thought she'd said; one moment, the air would have a crystalline clarity that allowed her voice to carry as though amplified, and the next, it'd be as though everything was being muted by a thick fog.

Miguel took the background rumblings in with amusement. "Guess that's what happens when you try to teach an old priest new tricks," he chuckled.

"When I try to?" Argus remonstrated. "I wasn't the one that..." Miguel raised a hand, cutting him off.

"Figure of speech, I assure you."

[Drannin]

Argus chuckled. "Well, all the more reason to leave town for somewhere... quieter." There was another exlposive sound from outside, and the crowd at the inn collectively groaned. Argus sighed. "One year, a researcher at the academy was developing a method to cure indigestion by speeding up the metabolic process. This sounds like that."

"What about the smell?"

"Don't even ask."

[Graybeard]

"Well, that last eructation convinced me that we should get a move on," Brother Miguel said. "It never occurred to me that the old guy would have so much trouble reversing the Damping. It should have, though. The Orthodox church usually tries to keep its more magically adept priests and nuns close to the main temple. That means the ones out here in the boonies usually aren't very skilled. Actually, that he can even attempt to develop the reverse spell puts him ahead of a lot of the small-town priests. You get some in some of the really small towns up north or down south with barely enough magical know-how to light a candle."

"How about in Ramanzel?" Argus asked.

"No idea. Yesterday was the first I'd even heard of the place. I suspect it's pretty small, with all that that implies. Speaking of which, we should probably try to pick up a map before we leave town. Let's see if the general store across the street is open yet."

It wasn't, but they didn't have to wait long before a middle-aged man showed up to open it up, even as another muffled bang echoed from the direction of the parsonage; Father Rilus was persistent, they had to give him that. A few minutes later, they had their map, a fairly standard affair showing the main roads and cities. Ramanzel was just barely large enough to show up, from the looks of things; it registered as a tiny dot, ten miles or so northwest of the larger town of Lorenzel, in the southern part of the country. (By comparison, Heamish itself had a symbol intermediate in size between the two.) The two travelers took note of the curiously empty region in the map just to Lorenzel's east -- no villages, no points of interest, no roads, no geological features, nothing. Argus was about to say something about this white spot when the proprietor spoke.

"You be lookin' like you be in the market for a more detaily map. Sorry, but I dinna have one. The lass that come through about three days ago bought the last one I had, and I won't be gettin' another from the city for a week or two."

"Not a problem," Miguel said as he paid for the map. "Was this 'lass' an anthropologist, by chance?" The man nodded, and Miguel made a mental note to look her up if possible.

"Looks like we'll have to make do with this," he said to Argus as they left the shop. "I don't suppose you've got one of those Tsuiraku crystal-ball doohickeys, do you? I think they call them GPS -- Geo-thaumaturgic Positioning System, if I remember it correctly."

[Viking-Sensei]

Sasha looked at the GPS unit she had, now showing a rough outline of the area she was in. Her blip and the third of the historical sites she'd planned on visiting were nearly atop one another now, so she started setting up some of her equipment.

She removed several short poles from her bag and began connecting them together until she had formed three poles about as tall as she was, each with a small crystal on top. Placing them in a rough triangle several feet apart from one another, when the third and final pole was placed, all three crystals began glowing. In the center of the poles, a flickering-ghostly image of the corner of a farmhouse appeared, then faded, then appeared again, but instead of just appearing and disappearing it was more like it was... being built, aging, and eventually decaying all in rapid fire succession, then in reverese, then forward again.

"Interresting." Sasha noted to herself. "So that would put the settlement here... over two hundred years ago. Probably when the train that used to run through this area was at it's height... given this site's location, I'd guess that this particular village didn't get destroyed so much as it's people simply wandered off for one of the other three communities in the area at the time. Note the lack of fire or other obvious catastrophe in the playback. End recording."

She then picked up her poles and moved to another location further into the field, this time one that encompassed a stump of what had once been a large tree. She set her poles a little wider this time... the further apart they were, the worse the quality of the image between then and the faster the skips in time, but the better an idea of the area she could get. The crystals hummed quietly, as the tree above the stump quickly reappeared (or a rough, treelike outline, anyway), looking very unhealthy. Over a few seconds time, the tree returned to health, then started to shrink, eventually disappearing altogether... then, from the stump, a tiny tree bud appeared and rocketed through maturity, eventually growing huge before withering and dying.

"Again, no fire, flood, or other signs of disaster. I'd say this village was probably long abandoned before the wars, even." She patted the tree stump in a friendly sort of way, since she now felt she "knew" the tree (having witnessed it's birth, growth, and eventual death all in a few seconds time) then picked up her stakes and moved on.

All in all, she analyzed sixteen different spots and concluded the same thing at each one... this wasn't the site she was looking for. Which was unfortunate, really. Here, unobserved in a field, her chances of completing the dig she so desired would be fairly high... and in conjunction with the upcoming festival, her chances would be even better. But... if this wasn't it, and the others she checked weren't it, then the next stop was going to have to be Ramanzel. She sighed heavily as she started back to her campsite on the edge of the road, again not looking forward to the considerable walk ahead of her.

[Graybeard]

Argus let out a low whistle as he and Brother Miguel studied the map. "That's a long way from here. If we have to walk, it'll take a good week."

"So I see," Miguel confirmed. "Well, I know you don't like trolls, but I remember an old proverb that they think originated among the trolls: an Anuban swamp beast is best eaten one bite at a time. The place isn't going to get any closer if we stand here talking about it. Let's get going." He started walking back toward Saus, or more accurately toward an intersection a few miles back that would put them on the road toward Ramanzel.

They'd only been going for half an hour or less, though, when a wagon came rumbling in their direction from Saus. Its sole passenger, looking too small for the two-horse team and the wagon they drew, was the driver, a young woman wearing a farmer's work clothes...

...That matched her green eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Argus and Miguel exclaimed simultaneously, as Sister Rose brought the team to a halt and clambered down from the wagon.

"Long story," Rose said, debating how much of it to tell. Eventually she decided to at least give the bare bones. "The Cardinal Inquisitor arrives in Kiyoka today. Sister Margaret thought it might be best if I were ... somewhere else when he does. She's probably right; remember that he's ultra-Orthodox, and we learned that he looks askance at any magic outside the Orthodox Church canon. My polymorph magic definitely qualifies. Out of sight, out of mind, and besides, she was guessing that you could use some help."

"So we can," Miguel said, hauling himself into position on the wagon. "Can't speak for Argus, but personally, I'm incredibly happy to see you." Argus' face said that he felt the same way. "We've been on the road since about this time yesterday and haven't heard anything from home for a day or two. How are things going?"

"Not well," Rose said. "I'll fill you in as we go. For right now, I'll drive while you talk; I'm as anxious to hear what's been happening here as you are to hear about Kiyoka." She stirred the horses into motion.

[Drannin]

Hildegard sighed as yet another explosive sound came from the church. Honestly... she had heard the saying "boys with toys," but this was a whole new definition...

"Hooo. Now THAT sounds rude," came a deep voice from behind her.

Hildegard laughed. "Ah, well... that's Father Rilus for you." She turned, smiling to face the speaker... and found nothing.

"Down here."

Hildegard looked down. Took in what she was seeing. Her eyes grew wide. Her mouth opened...

******************************************************************************************************

"Someone just hear a scream?" asked Brother Miguel.

Argus and Sister Rose shook their heads. "Probably just your imagination. My ears are still ringing from last night." He rolled his eyes and rubbed his head absently. Sister Rose just laughed. She found Father RIlus' experimentation to be absolutely hilarious.

Argus continued. "Anyway, that bring us up to date. I'm hoping that we'll find something in Ramanzel we can use; some clue about Father Egbert. I don't have a GPS, but I do know a geomantic ritual that can simulate the effects, to a degree. Takes a half-hour to pull off, though."

He turned to look at Sister Rose. "But enough about us. Tell us about Kiyoka. What's happening there?"