Saus

[Graybeard]

Brother Miguel was rubbing his forehead, and this time there wasn't a bedbug bite to blame for it. He scolded the guard. "You know, I would really think you would find it in your best interests to be more forthcoming with the Chief Inspector than that, wouldn't you?"

"Er ... Yes, sir, sorry, sir," the guard stammered. "Truly, I don't think they know how the fire started. They seem to be pretty sure, though, that it started in the archives. I was guessing that it was books and papers and such that started it going."

"Thank you," Miguel said. "Always best to be careful to distinguish between what you know and what you guess. Dr. Cleveland, do you have any more questions for this fine fellow?"

[Drannin]

"So, the fire started in the archives," Argus noted. "Unlikely to be a freak accident. You must be considering arson." The guardsman was looking very uncomfortable at this point. "You ARE considering arson, aren't you?"

"Well, uh..." The guard looked like he desperately wanted to be elsewhere. It was exactly the attitude Argus wanted. If only the fellow was more informed... "This just happened, and we haven't really investigated, so..."

"Fine. Your investigation is lagging." The guard probably wasn't an investigator, but Argus wanted him kept off-balance. "So answer me this. Have you at LEAST learned whether there was anything strange going on here before the fire happened? Was there anyone strange hanging around?"

The guard, who was having a very bad day, had the look of a hunted man who desperately wanted out of the situation. Argus was rather having fun with the poor man. He was good at Imperious Old Bastard for a reason.

[Graybeard]

The guard squirmed, and as he lost his sort-of-military bearing, he slipped into the accent of the hill country he came from. "Sir, I just don't be knowin'. The sarge tell me to be comin' to guard the place, but he dinna say why. He say the big brains be takin' a lookee at what be happenin' here, and that we best be keepin' our asses out of the way. We dinna be askin' questions."

Brother Miguel was getting into the spirit of things now. "So, my good fellow, don't you think that when some of us big brains do show up to take a ... lookee, it might be a good idea for you to help us rather than just standing there like a lump of swamp-beast droppings?" His voice had acquired a menacing snarl by the end of the question...

That did it. "I be supposin' so. If you be wantin' to see the damage, step over thet line, but don't be goin' verra fur into the ruins, there still be smokin' comin' out."

"Bless you, my son," Miguel said. (The "son" was probably ten years older than Miguel himself, but he figured priests needed to talk that way.) As he held the magical cordon up for Argus, he took the opportunity to cast another Damping spell, and once they were both inside the line, quietly asked him, "Okay, what now? I want to at least see the logbook for the archive, to see who got signed in. You got anything?"

[Drannin]

Argus grunted. "I'll try some of my makeshift divination magic in the archives, but let's face it: I almost never have any luck with that stuff. I'm doubtful we'll find much of use here. I'd rather just check the premises, look for clues, and be on our way."

He suddenly had an awful thought. "And hope that whatever was behind this isn't interested in silencing potential sources of information." A cold chill went down his spine, somewhat similar to the time he had said something bad about Cirella's mother, right in front of said wife.

This whole thing was giving him a bad feeling. But it had been for a while now, so maybe it wasn't all so bad.

[Graybeard]

"Sounds right to me," Brother Miguel said. "Let's get going. I propose we start by checking the guest register where they keep track of visitors to the archives. At least they had one the last time I was here. That might give us some clues on people to talk to, at least."

He carefully picked his way over to the wall bearing the visitors' entrance, which was still standing more or less intact. "Any chance you could fashion us some head protection of some kind?" he asked Argus. "I don't want to get very far into this place while the roof is unstable. We should be able to get to the logbook safely enough, it was right by the door, but going farther than that ... Hm, that's interesting."

The visitors' entrance was standing wide open, the door practically ripped off its hinges. A small podium stood just inside the door, about the right size to house a logbook. No logbook was to be seen, however. All that remained was a small chain that looked like it might have fastened the book to the podium, now twisted and broken.

"Well, well, well," Miguel mused. "Whoever took that register looks to have been in something of a hurry..."

[Drannin]

Argus examined the chain. "In a hurry, and strong, too. This metal doesn't break that easily. Must have bashed it apart with some kind of hevy axe..." Indeed, there were gouges on the podium that indicated that someone had quite hurriedly done a vicious job with a decidedly choppy implement.

"Blasted strong," Argus went on, " And this must have been done after the fire was started, and people were running for cover." Argus got a sudden mental image of someone big and beefy hacking despaerately away while the fruits of their arson threatened to consume them.

He found it darkly hilarious.

Argus cast his peculiar variation of object reading on the podium but got nothing other than a sense of violence being directed towards it; his eyes had already told him that much. So, someone was very eager to keep the secrets of this place a secret...

He suppressed the thought that Father Egber was covering his tracks. No need to get THAT paranoid.

"Let's check out the archives. And don't worry about a collapse; I can already sense that it's stable enough; but I'm emitting a stabilization effect just in case. We're safe enough."

Argus glanced at the shattered remains of a window. "But let's not dally, either."

[LordofNightmares]

Argus glanced at the shattered remains of a window. "But let's not dally, either."
As two birds flew through the remains of that window a strange notion of being watched washed over Argus.
..............................................................................................................................................

On the roof tops Tsubasa jumped from roof to roof only to find some discarded robes. She looked for a few minuets till she got the feeling of being watched and grabbed the robes and ran back to Kureji . Casting a quick stealth spell she seamed to just vanish in to the shadows in the alleys around the buildings. She came out of the alley next to Kureji "All I found was some discarded robes,but I do get the feeling we are being watched." Tsubasa said handing over the Robes for Kureji to examine.

[Graybeard]

"Sounds right to me, other than the part about people running for cover," Brother Miguel said. "The genealogical vault keeps more or less 9-to-5 hours -- or I should say 'kept' 9-to-5 hours, because it's not gonna be open again for a while. The fire must have started after closing time, unless it smoldered for a long time before we saw that cloud of smoke. Accepting for the moment that it was arson, that poses a few questions. Why did the bad guys take the register, if they obviously hadn't come in during the working day? And what was Brother Roeland doing inside, if that's where he died? He should have locked the place up at closing time and gone back to his quarters, or to the evening services."

He paused and poked through the debris at the entrance for a moment, not finding anything particularly interesting, before continuing. "I think we need to make a tactical decision here. Some of the questions we'd like answered probably can only be answered by the Millenarians. The Abbot here is a new guy, completely unknown to me, name is Father Digby and that's all I know about him. Should we approach him? I can see pros and cons. With a death in his temple, he may not be in much of a mood for chit-chat -- but if the chit-chat turns up something about what happened to Roeland, he might be very interested indeed. I'm also not sure whether we want him to know why we have an interest in this place and what happened to it. What do you think?" He waited for Argus' response as he nervously eyed the two birds sitting on the charred rafters above him -- probably need to do something to keep pests like that out, but not really our problem.

[Drannin]

Argus stared at the two birds silently. They gave him a bad feeling. But Brother Miguel would probably consider him psychotic if he just reached out and squahed the two birds.

"Might as well. Nothing wrong with trying for a quick meeting with the man. It might be informative. At worst, he'll tell us to bugger off." Argus shrugged. "Either way, let's talk to him and then be on our way."

[Graybeard]

It took a few minutes for Argus and Brother Miguel to run the gauntlet of minions and functionaries en route to Father Digby, but eventually a tall, hawk-nosed man came to see them at the front of the temple. "I only have a few minutes before I must get back to the arrangements for the late Brother Roeland," he announced. "What can I do for you?"