Saus

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
Locked
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Saus

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: Sorry for the doubleheader, but things are slow...]

Brother Miguel knelt to the campfire ashes. "Recent, all right," he observed. "The ashes are cold, but there's been no rain on them and they haven't been disturbed by man nor beast. That's good. Maybe I can finally contribute something personally to this little quest of ours. Any of you folks happen to have a piece of glass on you that you don't mind dispensing with?"

The apparent non sequitur took Argus, Sister Rose and Sasha (and Harker) by surprise, but a little rummaging produced an empty glass bottle that had been in the bed of the wagon. Miguel looked at it critically. "Hmmm ... not perfect, but it'll do well enough, if I can only remember the spell. Back off a little and watch your eyes." The others moved a few steps away as he smashed the bottle on the side of the wagon, leaving its heavy bottom intact. "Now I need a couple of little sticks," he said, bagging most of the bottle's pieces -- wouldn't do to litter, now -- and placing the bottom in the middle of the campfire.

As soon as two or three twigs were found, he nodded and placed them on top of the glass. "Back off again ... I haven't done this in quite a while and I'm not sure what will happen ..." With everyone five paces back, he mumbled a brief prayer and started to chant.

In about half a minute, the twigs broke into flame, and with them, some of the embers in the campfire that hadn't been completely turned to ash.

"Okay, now we give this a couple of minutes," Miguel panted; whatever this spell was, it had taken a goodly amount of mana. The group stood around the fire, Miguel with a look of anticipation on his face, the others with puzzlement, until the twigs and embers guttered out. "And now we see whether I remembered this thing correctly or not," he said. "Can I have a good, thick cloth? Gotta do this before everything cools."

Rose handed him a horse blanket, and he knelt to the fire again. "And now, we see if I did this right ... Aha!" Using the blanket to protect his hands, Miguel held the bottle bottom up triumphantly.

A faint, but distinct, facial profile had been melted into the glass -- and the profile was unmistakably that of Father Egbert.

"We're on the right track," Miguel proclaimed, with more than a little pride in his voice.
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
User avatar
Drannin
Prince of Space
Posts: 1350
Joined: August 15th, 2008, 2:46 pm

Re: Saus

Post by Drannin »

Argus gave a low whistle. "Impressive," he admitted. Divination was not his strong point... he could make a house move itself, not tell who'd been inside it. Still... "I don't suppose you can tell how long ago Father Egbert was here?" Then it struck him. 'It' being Harker.

"Say, Argie, didn't you say somethin' 'bout this Egghead guy coming from a town 'round here?"

"Yes, I did," Argus mused. "Which begs the question: is Father Egbert on his way home? ...Or there already?"
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Saus

Post by Graybeard »

"How should I know?" Brother Miguel replied irritably; he was still a bit worse for wear from the casting of his Divination magic. Then he caught himself. "Sorry, that was rude of me, but that kind of information is just beyond the power of this spell. It can only show who was behind the fire, not anything involving intent."

"I didn't know you could do fire divination," Sister Rose mused. "Out of curiosity, why didn't you try it back at the Millenarian temple, to see if the faux Grumiel was responsible? Oh, wait, I think I know..."

Miguel nodded. "Casting Divination spells in a place that has experienced Luminosita's Presence is a Very Bad Idea. Terminally bad, potentially. That's true even if the goal of the divination is learning something having nothing to do with Luminosita." All of this was said for Argus' benefit as much as to answer Rose's question.

Rose nodded in turn. "Yes, I just figured that out. So back to the topic at hand. Argus, I think it's clear that wherever Father Egbert was going, it's still some distance from here. If it had been close, he wouldn't have bothered making a campfire at all, after the incident back in that bar; he'd have just hustled out of town and gone on to his destination as quickly as he could. So his final destination isn't too close to here."

"Right," Miguel said. "It does raise an interesting question, though: how could he possibly feel safe enough to make his camp here, after what happened in the bar? The men in that bar weren't likely to just forgive and forget, even if this Floyd wasn't the most popular fellow in town. Yet he sought sanctuary here. Either there's something more to this place than meets the eye, or there's more to Egbert than meets the eye, or there's something we're missing, or maybe all three."
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
User avatar
Viking-Sensei
Evil Admin Overlord
Posts: 1193
Joined: August 14th, 2007, 12:18 pm
Twitter @: Kallisti_x
Location: Vikingopolis, USA
Contact:

Re: Saus

Post by Viking-Sensei »

"Hang on, I have an idea. I probably can't tell why your Egghead was using these ruins, but maybe if we know why the elves did..." She returned to the cart and brought out her tripods, and handed one of them to Rose and the other to Argus. "See the big slab here? That's a good start... set those pods up on the other corners."

Once all three were in place, she produced a small wand from her pocket and started adjusting the settings back and forth. Shadowy images danced across the top of the stone, like birds were flying high overhead and just barely obscuring the sun's rays.

Sasha twisted the dial again, and the whole scene began to hum slightly. The worn slab started to regrow, pebbles and chips that had long since fallen off due to natural erosion leapt from the soil and rejoined the main rock's body. In the small radius surrounding the stone, seasons were now rapidly flying by backwards, leaves falling on snow falling on flowers. The rhythm continued, growing steadily faster and faster in speed. Until...

Everyone reacted quickly to shield their eyes, but the blast was so bright, even though it was only for a second, that ghostly trails still haunted their vision for moments after. "That was probably the Mage/Priest War." Sasha yelled over the rising hum. "That means we should be reaching the outer range of what the device can normally pick up... but this rock's giving off an incredibly strong signature, so let's see how far..."

The images inside the tripod kept going back further and further, picking up speed and intensity as they went. From their individual vantage points now, they could see through to another age, beyond the stone, beyond the immediate ruins. Rotting stumps sprung into massive trees that then sucked straight into the ground. Another flash of fire, this time not nearly as impressive. A camp appeared, quick as a blink, rough houses and carts that shimmered and shook because they were not still, just moving very fast but often stopping at the same place. Houses unassembled themselves and were suddenly replaced my massive stones (a couple of which Sasha suspected she'd seen being used as part of a bridge they'd crossed earlier) that were part of the original ruins.

Now, vaguely human shapes drifted on the wind, no one person but the images of thousands upon thousands as they all stood in the same place... a chair - no, a throne of some sort - appeared on the slab, getting nicer and nicer as it went. A man appeared in the seat... not a man, an elf, you could tell because he (unlike the rest of the scene) did not appear to be getting younger. Tiny flying things buzzed around him, blurs of motion, never pausing long enough for the images to get a lock on them.

"This was a teaching center." Sasha called out. "That was one of the elves, teaching to the savage humans their ways of *scoff* civilization."

And then.... nothing again. No other stones, no elves, no ghostly amalgam humans, just the rock. The humming stopped... but the flickering illusion of a peaceful green field with a veeeeery clean, jagged, uncut, unworked stone sitting at it's edge. A bird fluttered down, landed on the stone for a second, then took off... and flew right past Harker's head, landing in a non-illusionary tree back in their real time.

"Oooooohhhh.... crap. That's not good." Sasha said, looking at the bird from thousands of years before. "I've just got to go back to the cart for a second... don't let anything go near this from our end... and, if you happen to see a dragon, try and keep it on the other side."
How could a plan this awesome possibly fail?
Image
User avatar
Drannin
Prince of Space
Posts: 1350
Joined: August 15th, 2008, 2:46 pm

Re: Saus

Post by Drannin »

Argus stared at the brightly colored bird. He'd seen it in a book once. "Melnibonean Kingfisher?" he asked distantly. Argus looked at the bird. At the image in the air. Exchanged a look with Harker. Looked back at the bird. "Yeah... I saw a picture in this ancient book... interesting reading... especially since the species had been extinct for a couple thousand years."

Harker looked at it speculatively. "Prob'ly worth a damn fortune."

By this time everyone was looking at the rift hovering above the ground. Miguel was a bit less interested; he still had a splitting headache; but Sister Rose looked startled and a little curious. Argus realized that he was edging closer to the rift himself and forced himself to stop.

"Ah... Sascha?" Called Argus. "So... is this an actual temporal rift, or some sort of sophisticated illusion?" Sascha's response was muffled as she had her head stuffed in a bag of... something. Argus started to ask for clarification, when he heard the sound of wing beats from the magical singularity. Rather heavy wing beats.

And somewhat leathery.
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Saus

Post by Graybeard »

"Not to worry," Brother Miguel said, rubbing his forehead. "I have it on good authority that if dragons existed in this world, they'd be more like armored turtles than flying, fire-breathing ... oh, damn."

It might be a matter of semantics whether the thing that hurtled through the gap could be called a "dragon," but if it wasn't a dragon, it would do until one came along. It had a thirty-foot, leathery wingspan and a body about ten feet long, much of that length in the form of a head with long jaws filled with sharp-looking teeth. The whole was leather-brown except for an improbable pink crest on its head.

Screeching like a banshee, it soared into the air, then pivoted with surprising maneuverability and plummeted like a stone, sharp claws outstretched ...

... Toward Harker.
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
User avatar
Drannin
Prince of Space
Posts: 1350
Joined: August 15th, 2008, 2:46 pm

Re: Saus

Post by Drannin »

"Dammit!!" Argus reacted without thinking. He thrust his hand high in the air, incanting mentally as he did so. The result was a ten-foot long spar of rock jutting out of the ground just as the apparent dragon was almost at Harker. Slamming, or perhaps stabbing, into the gut of the dragon, the ancient reptile shrieked and was propelled several feet in the air before crashing down in a heap.

There was a pregnant silence as the assembled took in what had just happened. Harker was as stiff as a stuffed and mounted version of his base-line cousins, and his eyes were all but bugging out of his face. Slowly, Harker turned his face to Argus. "Knew ya loved me, Boss!" That grin again. Argus would have groaned had he not noticed something rather important.

The rock spar he had jammed into the dragon was fractured and crumbling. As if it had been driven into something much more solid.

With a leathery rustle, the dragon got to its feet and snarled... while looking directly at Argus.

"Uh-oh."
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Saus

Post by Graybeard »

Brother Miguel and Sister Rose looked at each other. "Barrier?" Miguel asked. "Barrier," Rose confirmed. They linked hands. "BARRIER!" they both proclaimed. A glowing hemisphere, lightning flickering on its surface, came into being around the four humans (and Harker and the wagon).

Now, we just have to maintain this until that thing loses interest, Rose thought, putting her mind to it. In the event, it didn't take too long. The creature lunged at the barrier a few times, drawing sparks, then gave up. It snarled and flew off to the north, gaining altitude as it went until it was lost from sight.

"We'd better report that," Rose said as she produced a piece of light paper and started to write. Miguel nodded agreement and reached for the parrots, which were quite sensibly hiding at the far end of the cage. When Rose was done, she folded the note, inserted it in a message capsule, affixed it to the bird's leg. Miguel said, "Code word RAGWEED. And I might suggest you stick to treetop level."

"RAAWWK! Whaddya think I am, some kinda idiot?" the parrot answered, and took off, not without a sidelong glance at the Melnibonean kingfisher, which was watching proceedings from a high tree branch.

"Okay, now that that's taken care of, would you mind filling us in on just what happened here?" Rose said to Sasha, as Miguel summoned the mana to put his Truth capability back on.
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
User avatar
Viking-Sensei
Evil Admin Overlord
Posts: 1193
Joined: August 14th, 2007, 12:18 pm
Twitter @: Kallisti_x
Location: Vikingopolis, USA
Contact:

Re: Saus

Post by Viking-Sensei »

Sasha glanced worriedly towards the disappearing dragon, then the still-open vortex. "It's drawing power from some incredibly powerful external source... I don't think I can shut it down without-" And with that, she swung an axe through one of the tripods, shattering the large crystal in the center into a thousand little crystals which scattered to the winds. The field, now only supported on two sites, flickered and faded.

"Ok... answers. Yes, I suppose I owe them to you. First of all, my name isn't Sasha Doyel. It's Sasha Mitchel. I'm a Tsuirakan expatriot. I give out a false identity when I'm traveling abroad, especially in Veracia -nooffenseyoutwoyou'vebeenverynice- in case I'd be captured so that I can't be used against my family. All the other stuff about being an archeologist and anthropologist was nearly true... I'm still technically a student, but I've been doing this stuff since I was a toddler living with my grandparents, who were also archeologists."

"As you probably know, straight out Chronomancy is strictly forbidden here just as much as it is in Tsuiraku... for obvious reasons... this device was originally designed for magical crime scenes, locking on to the echoes of recently used magics and displaying the events in a realistic 3-dimensional illusion spell. The problem was that it kept locking on to other magics as well, or sometimes to background magical radiation itself, and that it proved to be virtually impossible to keep it on recent events... when I heard about it, I figured that it would be perfect to research the Mage/Priest War with. And normally I was right... I can now give accurate dates and accountings to three of the battles that were speculated happened but were never admitted to by either side. But there's been a problem, too..."

"Like you just saw... there's something else here in the background in Saus, no in Veracia as a whole. Something incredibly strong, and unreasonably old, that the viewer keeps finding and setting itself to. That's not the first "dragon" I've accidentally tuned in to. I've seen armored turtles, and great beasts with mouths full of thousands of teeth and teeny tiny arms, and flying whatevers like that one. Honestly, I don't even know if that peaceful meadow is in OUR history, or possibly someone else's. After all, CI has made a couple of "unpredictable" devices in the past."
How could a plan this awesome possibly fail?
Image
User avatar
Graybeard
The Heretical Admin
Posts: 7180
Joined: August 20th, 2007, 8:26 am
Location: Nuevo Mexico y Colorado, Estados Unidos

Re: Saus

Post by Graybeard »

"Magical crime scenes," Brother Miguel repeated. "Hmmm. Did you have anything to do with that recent dust-up in Kiyoka?" Sasha's blank look answered that, so he continued, "I wonder, though, if you might be able to help us with our own problem. As you've probably gathered, a priest of the Veracian Church has gone missing under mysterious circumstances. This is the man who lit this campfire, and I'd bet money that he was there when that guy died in the bar the other day. He also has some other people looking for him that we don't know, but we're pretty sure their motives aren't altogether on the up-and-up." That seemed like a reasonable way to describe someone who'd kill two people and burn down a temple to cover his tracks...

"Wait a minute," Sister Rose interjected. "Who's 'CI'? You said they've made 'unpredictable devices.' I don't know the acronym; can you enlighten me?"
Image

Because old is wise, does good, and above all, kicks ass.
Locked