Kiyoka, part 2

[Graybeard]

Hopelessness.

That was all the brackets were revealing. The dagger (and it was a dagger) that Father Egbert had taken (and he did take it with him) might have been sufficient for self defense in a city. If the emotional residues on the brackets meant anything, however, he didn't think it was going to do any more good against whatever was really threatening him than a pair of nail clippers would. The fear, and the despair, were enough to make Argus flinch.

Meanwhile, Sister Margaret was checking out some of Egbert's belongings. It looked like he was traveling awfully light; his shaving kit was gone, as were a few basic toiletries, but that was about all. She noted that there were only two or three empty hangers in the sparsely-filled bedroom closet; he'd literally walked out wearing the shirt on his back and practically nothing else. The bookcases were neat and orderly, and were split about evenly among theological texts (nothing notable that she could see, based on her own education), travel guides (she noticed that the book "Veracia Off The Beaten Path" had been removed from its usual location and was on the nightstand), and miscellaneous novels and biographies from the popular trade, most of them looking like they'd come from the mission library. There might have been one or two other titles missing, it was hard to be sure, but there was nothing significant-looking among the ones that remained. The simple, twin-size bed was tidily made, with a single pillow; Egbert was obviously used to sleeping alone.

The one piece of furniture anywhere in the rooms that looked in any way out of the ordinary (other than the somewhat unusual banality of such furnishings in the apartment of a highly educated, well-traveled, fairly important man) was a large, well-constructed desk. Aha, Margaret thought, but a superficial examination revealed nothing out of the ordinary here. A Tsuirakuan crystal ball, apparently of not-too-recent manufacture, lay in its cradle, atop a piece of paper with Crystal-net addresses; she thought she recognized most of them as contacts for Church functionaries, although it might be interesting to check out some of the others. The desk calendar showed nothing unusual at first glance. The top drawer was full of writing supplies, most showing plenty of signs of use, and the large cabinet on the left was full of meticulously arranged files -- again, maybe something to look at as they sifted for clues, but at first glance, nothing out of the ordinary. The cabinet on the right ...

Wait a minute. There was no way to open this cabinet. It appeared to be locked, or at least forcefully jammed -- but there was no place for a key, nor was there a dial or anything else speaking of a combination lock. A quick detection spell confirmed Margaret's suspicion: this part of the desk was magically locked -- and was the only thing anywhere in the room, other than of course the crystal ball, that had a magical aura.

"Argus? Could you come in here and look at this?" Margaret called out into the drawing room, interrupting him in a sad examination of the weapons.

[Drannin]

"Be right there," Argus called back. He looked at the weapons grimly. Father Egbert hadn't expected to survive. For some reason... he had been utterly convinced of the hopelessness of life. But why...?

Argus walked over to where Sister Margaret was standing by Father Egbert's writing desk. "The right cabinet is magically locked," she said, "can you get into it?"

Argus shrugged. "I can try, at least." He walked over to the cabinet and examined it. Hmmm. Mystically bound with recursive runes... Reciprocal bindings... and a Thest-model seal? Wow... "Impressive!" remarked Argus, genuinely surprised. "Father Egbert had some serious magical protection on his desk. It's going to take me a few minutes to bypass it."

"But you can get through?" asked Sister Margaret.

"Well, it'll take me a bit, but I've worked with and even laid these type of protections before. I'm going to have to work slowly though... If you pressure these kinds of wards to much, they can send you flying across the room. Literally." Argus started to get to work, then paused. Getting up, he pulled some pillows off of Father Egbert's bed and placed them against the opposite wall. After considering the woeful appearance of this protection, he grabbed and lugged Father Egbert's whole mattressacross the room and stood it up against the wall.

Sister Margaret stared at the sight in bemusement. Argus shrugged awkwardly. "I'm getting old," he explained lamely. "And I'm serious about needing to be careful." After a moment of hesitant silence, Argus returned to the desk and got to work.

Weave, I hope I don't embarrass myself.

(OOC: You've heard of techno-babble? Welcome to Mago-babble!)

[Graybeard]

As Argus worked on the wards, Sister Margaret conducted a more careful examination of Father Egbert's bedroom, at least such of it as remained intact after Argus dismantled the bed for wall padding.

It was remarkable, she thought, how little of the man's personality was visible in his apartment. That wouldn't have been surprising in some of her other colleagues in the Church; she wasn't convinced that some of the priests in Emerylon had personalities. She didn't want to think about what might be in Brother Jerald's quarters, either ... But this stark apartment was a surprise because of what she knew of the man. For example, she knew that Egbert, like almost all of the other priests and nuns, was highly musical; it came with the territory. She could understand why his beloved string bass itself wasn't in the chambers -- plain old shortage of living space explained that. But where was all of the music that he performed at the drop of a hat, the awards that she knew he'd won? He'd also shown himself to be a proficient sailor, and there was no evidence of that either. The apartment was almost antiseptically lacking in such indications of a life -- except for those swords, and she knew why those were there.

Turning to the bookcases as Argus labored away, she finally found one item that might be interesting: an album of images of what appeared to be Egbert's family. In the pictures she could see a young, roly-poly boy growing into a chubby adolescent, then into the spherical man that he was today. (Not an image remained of his time in the regular military, but she knew the reasons for that; none would be found in her own collection of memories, either.) She noted with interest that a girl, perhaps seven or eight years younger than Egbert, appeared in the family shots, growing from infancy into her own adolescence. Later, the same girl, or more accurately the woman she'd grown into, appeared with an unidentified man, and then, in the most recent pages, with a baby in her arms. A sister? Margaret wondered; she'd always assumed that Egbert had no living relatives. This might be something to pursue.

She was just putting the album back on its shelf when there was a flash of light from the bedroom, and a triumphant shout from Argus. Apparently he'd managed to open the magically locked cabinet, and without blasting himself into the far wall as he'd feared. She rushed into the room, to where he was staring at the open cabinet and its contents ...

Nothing.

Father Egbert had gone to all those lengths to protect a storage container that, to all appearances, was utterly devoid of contents. There wasn't even a trace of the dust that was ubiquitous in the mission -- and that told them all they needed to know.

Egbert had cleaned this cabinet out before he took off, as carefully as though it had harbored pure gold dust.

[Drannin]

Argus leaned back on his heels and sighed. "Well, so much for this angle," he said wearily. "And I'm more or less out of ideas." He looked over at Sister Margaret wearily. "Unless you found anything in here, I think we can conclude that Father Egbert left us nothing to go on." A pause. "Which only poses even more questions, I fear."

[Graybeard]

"Don't lose hope quite yet," Sister Margaret said. "If you can make those brackets and the roof talk to you, how about the desk? Might it be possible to deduce something about what was in there, from some sort of residue left in the compartment? If you have the energy left, it might be worth a try."

She let Argus ponder that for a moment while she looked again at the photo album, and particularly, at the family that she thought might include Egbert's now-grown sister. Something was gnawing at her memory: was one of the places in the background familiar? Perhaps a street scene, a dimly remembered temple, a school ... Ah. It was the mountains. One of the scenes with the man, woman and child showed the rock formation known as the "Sleeping Sexton" that was a prominent way point on the road between Emerylon and Saus. She'd passed by there many times when she was younger. Even better, the three were standing in front of a small but distinctive house, beyond which the rocky ridge rose. This place shouldn't be too hard to find.

She was about to tell the still-meditating Argus of her discovery when Sister Rose swept into the room, looking happier and more excited than she'd been in a while. Well, maybe things are starting to look up, Margaret said to herself...

[Drannin]

Well, worth a shot, Argus decided. Reaching out to take hold of the cabinet, ignoring the headache that his repeated divinations were starting to give him, Argus cast the object-reading spell one last time, in hopes of finding some clue as to Father Egbert's mysterious behaviour.

Of course, he might catch some flashes of Egbert's porn stash. That could either be very good, or very bad, depending.

[Graybeard]

The Living Flame.

Whatever it was, it had left a scar on the desk that had contained it -- nothing that the eye could see, but it certainly registered with Argus' extended senses. There were other hints of impressions in the cabinet: strange, ill-defined magic, a manuscript of some kind, hints of something fearful but nebulous. And somewhere in the midst of it all, Argus sensed his own name.

The spell wore off abruptly; a diminution in the mana in the room was almost palpable. As Argus retreated, exhausted, to exist solely in the physical world, he could hear Sister Rose's voice behind him:

"Wow ... Something just shorted out the Empathy that I had up, but before it went, I could have sworn that that desk was in pain."

[Drannin]

"Magic," Argus gasped, his head spinning. "The Living Flame, whatever that is. Magic, a manuscript, something frightening. My own name associated, I don't know why..." For a moment, Argus thoughts cleared, and he wondered aloud: "What have I stepped into?"

And then Argus passed out, mind strained to the limit, falling into happy dreams where spinning women in gauzy clothes held the freshest beers. And in the midst of it all was Cirella, holding the greatest ale, and wearing the gauziest clothes of all...

There was also something about pistachios, but there's no need to go there.

[Graybeard]

"He's smiling," Sister Margaret said, as she pulled a blanket over Argus' inert form. "I guess that's good."

"We've probably been over-stressing the poor man," Sister Rose clucked. "Between what he said before he passed out and the feelings that I was getting, it sounds like he found something in there that was just so crazy that he couldn't handle it. Probably best we just let him sleep for a while. An hour or so ought to do it."

"Yes, and we'd better start thinking about how to get him out of here," Margaret said. "Any news from the airship terminal?"

"Actually, better than that. I was able to cut a deal with the warp gate for a, quote-unquote, 'test gate' to send him and one of us to Saus. It'll open some time tonight."

Margaret was impressed. "How in Luminosita's name did you manage that?" But Sister Rose simply smiled shyly, her expression matching Argus' as he dreamed.

[Drannin]

Do you want to know Argus' dreams?

No you don't. Really. You don't.

Argus is an old lech who likes to drink. You can use your imagination. Or better yet, don't.

Well, all right. It involves women. Lots of women. Oiled, attractive women who forgot their clothes. There are also rivers and oceans of refined booze. No trolls, emphatically. His wife is there, and she's doing some things not many wives would consent to doing. There's also some stuff about clockwork and butter, but best not to discuss that.

Unfortunately, Argus' dream is about to come to an end as something new enters it:

"Not the soapy melons!" yelled Argus, sitting bolt upright. He realized that he was sitting on a bed. With a blanket partially over him. As well as Sisters Margaret and Rose looking at him in bewilderment.

"Burrrr....." a certain cult would have been very proud.

Some things you really can't explain.