The Riddle

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: The Riddle
GM: Lisa
Season: Spring 803 WK

Party

1. Thaeuss
2. Dawn
3. Father Broc
4. Clarissa
5. Faith
6. Kayseri
7. Mortimer
8. Thoric

Mission

Finding a missing manuscript for 'M' on Plane: 'Bond' Earth

Original scribe notes

Media:Snsp0302.zip

Scribe Notes

These are the certified true and correct scribe notes for the adventure, as written by: 
Venerable Father Broc von Hecklyn  	 	 
For the period 30th Frost to 8th Seedtime 803 

Prologue

Noon 30th Frost 803 (Alusia)

The wet, cold and generally nasty day wasn’t getting any better as the constant flood of ‘good and upstanding’ townsfolk continued into my room at the Church of St Eustace in Seagate.

All these good people with so much sin to confess, I was still astounded by it all. If it hadn’t been for my aching headache ¹ from the binge drinking the night before with that party in the Green Dragon I would have got up and left but it was easier staying put and listening without the need for movement.

Several times during the morning I’d had to excuse myself to the gardrobe so as to make myself more comfortable after the nights excesses. I vowed never to drink dwarven Rot Gut ale followed by Fenargh Brandy again. Well not in the company of dwarves and a few orcs anyway.

A knock on the door while I was listening to Miller Sveltston broke me from the stupor that had developed over the past 20 minutes of listening to how much he loved his pets over and above his wife in a ‘very special’ way. Looking up I saw my acolyte Ga’Venton motioning at the small window beside the door. I realised that something of great import must have happened, as I was never to be disturbed while in ‘confessional.’ I quickly stopped the Miller and told him his penance ² and he left expounding profuse thanks, vowing to all he can for his marriage and his good wife.

Once he had exited Ga’Venton came in and told me “A runner from the guild just passed by saying that the ‘Mad Mechanician’ Mortimer had returned to the guild unexpectedly and needed some help in an urgent task”.

I had spoken to him of Mortimer’s repute as a scholar of great experience and my wish to meet him. He is renowned as a great sage and good man so I would be furthering my work on Gabriel’s behalf by enjoying a sojourn with him as well as my ability as a religious scholar of history and literature.

I asked Ga’Venton to excuse me to the waiting petitioners and I grabbed my warm cloak and headed up to the Guild with haste. I saw a few others heading in the same general direction but also under heavy cloaks to keep out the cold and light drizzle of the day so I failed to recognise anyone on route to the large imposing edifice by the river which is known as the Seagate Adventurers Guild (SAG). It’s also known as ‘The Guild’ in the surrounding area due to its fearsome reputation or perhaps the fearsome reputations of its members.

1. I know I could have healed it but they say suffering is good for the soul and it gave me something to help look miserable and down trodden which is better for my supplicant than me smiling and looking happy when they are so down.

2. He was to sell all his animals to the church and to spend more time with his wife. He was to just talk with her some more. (She had visited me some days before and told me of her concerns and how she’d do anything to save their marriage)

Chapter 1:

1pm 30thFrost 803 (Alusia)

I passed through the guarded gates of the guild and asked the door warden where Mortimer was meeting to organise a ‘party’. He indicated meeting room 2 at the far end of the corridor. I entered the deeply shadowed and irregular shaped room; there I saw a few other adventurers including a few familiar faces.

Already gathered in this warm and cosy room (with dark & shadowed corners were:

• Thoric Farsearcher, a Dwarf male, renowned for his mattocks and thick accent*
• Faith, an Elven female E&E, short in height but big in notoriety† ? Clarissa, an Elven female Air mage, a lady of known good character‡
• Thaeuss, an Elven male Binder, a fellow adventurer I know well§
• Dawn, a Human female Air mage, a young lady of repute if not renown**
• Kayseri a Human female Illusionist, as well as her small ‘dog called ‘Spot’††
• Mortimer, a Hobbit male Warlock, a mechanician of some note. ‡‡

(There are more detailed physical descriptions can be found in the Endnotes section)

I bowed upon entering and introduced myself to the assembled mob and I then asked Mortimer to join him in whatever endeavour he had need of a group. He acquiesced, indicated a seat for me and then started on his story.

Other introductions were made, including Kayseri’s small dog-like creature of the beagle variety. Faith commented “was it like an Alpaca?” several of us looked on in askance at this being a real word until Mortimer said; “it’s like an ugly sheep” . The others were ‘enlightened’ with the range of warnings to do with Thaeuss , his special abilities, equipment & golem assistants, the rest of us seem quite pedestrian in contrast.

Mortimer has been asked by an off plane ‘source’ called ‘M’ to assist in the recovery of a manuscript that had significance to the plane he was on, called ‘Earth’. Mortimer had an established relationship with this ‘M’ who worked for a guild called MI-6 and they had called in a favour for past assistance. The letter read:

 3. We do worry at this time that Mortimer classifies barnyard animals by their attractiveness.  

 4. Don’t pick up his amulet when it drops, do pick up the sapphire or was it the other way around? 

The Note to Mortimer

To: Operative Graves 	 	 	Re: Research Mission 
We believe that your unique abilities will assist us in the location of a manuscript that
may be of grave importance to our world. Please assemble a suitable group of specialists
and report to Headquarters as soon as possible. Skills needed may include puzzle solving,
research abilities, information gathering from civilians, and some mode of
transport and infiltration abilities. Please wear your existing garments, as we believe
they will be more suitable than our current trends.   M 

Guild notes in relation to this manuscript are:

The Guild can confirm that suitable payment has been lodged (to the amount of 2 large gold ingots), and that the bearer of the message was genuine. His additional verbal comment was to the effect that they were calling in a favour. He also brought a fragment of a manuscript that has been left with the Guild for further investigation. The value of the ingots has been assessed as being 40,000sp.

A low, raspy cough from the far corner emanated at this point announcing a Guild security member, he stepped from the shadows dressed in customary all black garb, appearing dull, gaunt and seemingly distracted. He identified himself merely as “Geoffrey” and asked that we formally designate party members before going any further, he then returned to the shadows for the rest of our discussions.

After a brief discussion we proceeded.

Military Scientist was the first discussion with 3 possible of Mortimer, Faith and Thaeuss. Each of which have their strengths, Faith’s being in mass battles, Mortimer’s in sieges and Thaeuss’s in small unit tactics. After a discussion we voted Faith in as the Military Scientist when in mass battles with her 2iC being Thaeuss who would control any smaller battles. In the event of us conducting, being involved in a siege we’d of course defer to Mortimer’s experience.

The issue of who would be scribe was next. Clarissa volunteered that she herself was in arrears of several sets of scribe notes and would not be a good choice. Then a long silence reigned in the room and people started studying their navel fluff in order to avoiding looking at others. The silence grew more uncomfortable but then Thoric started speaking in his heavily accented speech. I feared he would agree to be scribe which meant that we might all have mangled unintelligible dwarven gibberish to read later, so I got in first, volunteered and was voted in without resistance for this thankless group task.

The thorniest issue of all was the Party Leader voting which came last. While it is usually highly contested and sought after it seemed we had an unusual group of retiring, standoffish guild members. Several of us thought Mortimer would be a great leader due to his breadth of experience and knowledge of where we were headed, however he declined to volunteer himself.

Clarissa whom had been with Thaeuss and I on my last three ‘missions’ did in the end put herself forward as she correctly recollected that I had led one and Thaeuss had led the other. It seemed only fair that she should lead this one to round out the three missions.

We expounded on how the Party Leader does in fact seem to be a figurehead rather than a true leader at times due to the often democratic decision making processes that are common in guild parties. While there were some with reservations of being lead by one of the ‘young, new’ crop of adventurers it was soon smoothed over and Clarissa was voted in as our Party Leader.

With these petty administrative tasks completed we then undertook a short and brief examination of the piece of manuscript, which read as follows:

The Manuscript

‘Neare a tree by a river there’s a hole in the
ground where an olde man of Aran goes around and
his mind is a beacon in the veil of the night. 
He is the peacemaker.  Do not let him pass 
beyond the veil. Ware the fey, they are’ 

I examined the manuscript after others had looked at it, Thaeuss defining it as partially magical due to his innate magical talent for seeing such things. I looked at it and quickly assessed there was an embossing on the paper itself that I saw to be depicting a flying winged figure (possibly angelic) carrying a heraldic banner of some sort. I also used my ability to examine runes, symbols and writings to conclude that this manuscript details some sort of prophecy. It was specifically a prophesy of doom but I couldn’t assess who or what’s doom.

Others then looked more closely at the manuscript but could ascertain no further information. Thaeuss turned himself into one of his small rag and string golems and then started to interrogate the letter itself though an ability to speak with writings?

We all listened in some fascination to his interrogation of the poor manuscript and we couldn’t help ourselves from interjecting in the conversation when he was asking

Thaeuss:  	“Did you see who wrote on you”? 
Manuscript:   “No I don’t have any eyes” 
Some of the party,  “Yes you do, ten ‘I’s’ in fact” followed by much laughter. 

A number of other questions were asked of the manuscript but failed to produce anything more of substance or significance to us. He did get the following information though:

• The letter is very old
• It had been reused many times
• A being identified as the archangel Gabriel is depicted
• It was written in the blood of some as yet undetermined creature

After all this had been done we decided to leave in 4 hours by meeting back here at the guild as the note to Mortimer did stress the need for urgency. We all left, completed our various travelling preparations and returned to the guild by 4pm.

We all rendezvoused at the appointed time back at the guild dressed in our travelling attire and we proceeded to portal up to the castle of Countess Anastasia in Borovia. Mortimer went a few minutes in advance to ask permission, pass on courtesies and to generally speed our passage. We exited the portal in an unusual looking bedroom in the castle and then passed onto another room at Mortimer’s direction.

This new room was different in that the scenery depicted in the windows didn’t resemble Borovia by any means but we were told by Mortimer that it was a scene from the plane we are going to / now on and we had already passed through the portal.

A voice in the distance shouted “Hello, is anyone there” and we hurried down some stairs into a large room where we were introduced to James Martin, an agent of M's and a member of MI-6. He was almost shouting when he said “HOW ARE YOU” and several other sentences.

We managed to get across that we were in fact not deaf and could speak normally so the conversation then continued. We are to see the “boffin” in the morning to discuss the issue of the manuscript and in the meantime we are to make ourselves at home here in Kree’s ‘penthouse apartment’.

The night passes painfully for some while Faith almost gets ‘el-ectric-ified’ when she pours some wine over a rope leading between a ‘jug’ and the wall mounted ‘mana conduit’, she is ably joined by Thoric in this endeavour much to Mortimer’s chagrin.

The ‘lady’ Faith also shuts herself in the safe of cold specifically trying to find out about the light therein. She also soon after seeing them ‘borrows’ James’s ‘Triggering card’ and his speak to others device but later has to return these when he notices them missing.

Also Thaeuss in his ‘being helpful to the Air Mages persona’ manages by way of his magic to open a portal to the outside world via the wall of the ‘penthouse apartment’. This sets off a rather loud noise that emanates throughout the residence causing us discomfort and James to run over to a wall and look at some lit up panels on a larger panel. We inquire as to what’s causing the noise and he responds with “someone has penetrated the perimeter security measures of this abode”, we all start to prepare for the expected assault in our usual ways (magic) but are unable to do so due to the distraction of the very loud noise.

Thaeuss at this time comes over and asks what’s happening exactly, James explains that the penetration is in the dining room north window, at which point he turns around and sees Thaeuss standing there holding something vaguely window like.

Thaeuss says “this one?” 
James nods in disbelief and asks “Why? How?”   

The response is “to provide fresh air and an egress for the Air mages to fly out, Oh and I used my magic to do this!” <Thaeuss was smiling as he said this> – thinking he had been a clever binder (we all know this to be an oxymoron in almost all cases – perhaps he is the exception to the rule)

James asks in a remarkably calm voice that he should replace it forthwith, which will then hopefully enable the reset of the alarm system, which he temporarily mutes by way of pressing some of the panels.

James also states in a slightly calmer albeit higher toned voice that “there is a roof door for those who need to fly and I’ll show it to all once the window is replaced”. The window is replaced, the alarm reset and the roof exit is shown to those enquiring.

James comes to the kitchen, in one long swig finishes off some of the wine named champagne and then goes to pull out his speak to other device. Well he tries to but it’s at this point that he discovers it (along with his ‘triggering-card’) missing. Faith pipes up and says she has them and returns it and his ‘triggering card’ to a now chary looking James. He uses the device and asks for some more ‘protection ’ and some food as well. He’s informed they will be there shortly and he emits a small sigh of apparent relief, barely heard by any but those of us with trained hearing abilities.

Meanwhile young Kayseri goes exploring the local areas while unseen and we lose her for a while somewhere in this large tower we are in. She finds many other floors in this tower some 32 in fact by the count of the numbers on the panel in the elevating room. Most look like the one we are on and it is all well lit and warm. She returns in the elevating box when several of James’s fellow workers bringing food in boxes, which turn out to be delicious ‘pizza’. NB: I must make some of this upon my return to the guild; the hobbits would just love it!

I find a ‘closet’ full of Kree’s ‘local’ clothes, which are about my size, and I spend the next while getting dressed in various garb which is very different from my Alusian attire, and no real place for my sword and crossbow to comfortably be hidden.

But he has a range of great accessories and so I grab myself some sunglasses (‘Oakleys’) and a long leather jacket. I also ‘borrow’ two bags, a small (Backpack) easy to carry one for bits and pieces, as well as a large bag for all my Alusian gear which I can’t wear here on “earth’ as it’s a bit obvious and out of place judging by the pictures in the ‘magazines’ I have looked at.

I’ll now wear a dark suit, black shirt, black leather shoes and a dark tie and carry a pair of sunglasses with me at all times while here on ‘Earth’.

We also indulge in some ale and wine imbibing while staring at a wall depicting some local ‘troubadour’ tales titled “Die hard”, “Die harder”, “Die hard with a vengeance” , “Terminator”, “Terminator II” and “Ever After”. Mortimer calls this last one a ‘chick flick’. Roger the other protection lad watches it with us!

Actions undertaken, decided or being cogitated over: 1. To wait for the boffin to tell us what they want us to do and how we can help them as it would be a waste of effort to start undertaking research or planning not knowing what we are to do.