(062) The Basal

[danhem]

Ulric's eyes fall upon the gold ring.

"Ah!" he says with suppressed excitement. "Let me see that ring Armando."

Ignoring the talk of rest, Ulric will take a moment to study the ring.

[sully]

"I thought I'd lost you," says Josiane, tears glinting at the corners of her grey eyes.

She throws her arms round Dorgan's neck and plants a kiss on his bearded cheek.

Dorgan is clearly embarrassed but he sustains Josiane's affections stoically.

"That day may come, Miss, but it ain't today."

Addressing the group, he says, "I'll let the rest of ya choose whether ta rest or go on, but I do know we can't stay here. Either we push on or go back up'n find a safe place ta rest. Either way, I think I'll be back ta fightin' trim inna couple'a hours."

[flightcommander]

Armando and Ulric eyeball the ring. Perhaps there is some inscription upon it? Armando tilts his palm thus and so, that what meager illumination is available might cast any decoration on the ring into relief ...

[waysoftheearth]

Armando and Ulric examine the gold ring eagerly in what light there is...

...the band is most simple and plain, though there is an erstwhile luster about it that somehow seems more impressive than regular gold...

d6

...and lo, there is a run of tiny script on the inside of the thing, forming a complete circle.

"These are runes of the Archaic script," mutters Ulric, now totally engrossed in deciphering them... "more light, more light..." he mutters, getting so close now his whiskers might nearly touch the thing! "Yesss, yessss," he says, turning the trinket around before his glittering eyes. After a time, he ceases his mutterings.

"I believe I know of this verse, or one very much like it," he says, "Crudely translated to the Illiberal speech, it reads;

By noon ere by moon twice be thy boon,
Whither mountain or star or wind be thy fancy,
Or sea, for all of ages sent unto thee."

[ehiker133]

"Ooooh! A riddle!" Desmond whispers, stepping out of the shadows of the steps not a dozen yards from Ulrich.

"I love riddles!"

[coffee]

"That's the spirit" Wen would laugh and show Dieter the "bagged" sword.

Dieter takes the sword.

Does anything happen?

[doctorx]

"We must tend our wounded and our magic is all but spent," says Josiane, wiping her eyes, all business once more; "Yet friend Torben speaks true; we have missing companions and locating them must be our priority. If only we had some idea as to - Eeeekk!!"

This last as Desmond slips suddenly from the shadows.

"Where have you been?" she berates the hobbit, half-chiding, but with an evident look of relief on her face; "I've been worried sick!"

"And what of Lord Gustave?" she adds, noting with trepidation the suave swordsman is nowhere to be seen; "Have you any news of him?"

[ehiker133]

Desmond half turns his head away from Josiane with a grimace, expecting an extended verbal, and possibly physical, lashing.

But... when all he receives is a gentle chiding, he visibly relaxes and lets out a sigh of relief.

In a rush, Desmond starts pouring out details of what he and Mondes had been up to for the last hour or two...

"Well... We saw an opening in the wall made by that fiery cyclops thing, so we slipped in, thinking maybe The Gustave might be nearby if the wolfmen didn't have time to move him very far. Most of the rooms was pretty boring, like sleeping chambers and such wit nothin' much in 'em, not even a misplaced copper under a bed! Well, except there was beds, which might be useful if we ever get tired and want to rest, I suppose..."

"But we didn't find The Gustave. Oh, but we DID find the privy, if anyone needs it, and it smelled kind of weird - not gross like you'd think a privy would smell, but CLEAN like you would think a privy SHOULDN'T smell, right? And I decided to open the lid, which isn't something I normally would have done because I don't WANT to know what comes out of a wolfman's... er... so I opened the lid and there was a cage on a hook and"

"It war a FERRY hangin' out in the SHITTER!" Mondes interrupts with a rough laugh and a snort.

Desmond closes his eyes and sighs in exasperation. "It wasn't funny the first time you said it, you twit. And you're ruining my story!"

"So... it was a long chain attached to a silver cage. With a real live FAERIE in it." He sighs again. "See, dummy? You made it sound lame with yer stupid joke. Or whatever they call something that isn't funny. Your NOT joke."

"Oh, look..." He stops talking and unshoulders two small bags that are tied together and drops them to the ground with an audible clink! Then he takes his backpack off and unties a small 9" square silver cage from the back of it and holds it up for everyone to see.

"The cage. I went back and got it. After I, er..." He glances over at Highbough, "After I let her go."

He winces again in expectation.

[sully]

Dorgan

"Desmond! Thank the Soul Forger. Glad to see ya back, lad. Err, you too, Mondes. Mebbe ya can scratch up a bit of a map soes we can tell where ya looked around. And don't worry 'bout lettin' the ferry go. 'Twas the right thing ta do, I 'spect. Soo... uh, no sign'a anyone? No wolves, no Gustave, no nuns?"

[ehiker133]

"Er... a map? Well... I don't have any parchment for a proper map, but..." he pulls out his dagger and makes a rough drawing in the dirt. "As far as I can tell, this is a fairly good layout of the abbey, Dorgan..."

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............................................................
..............__Bell________________________................
..Orchard...//+-Tower-----------------------\\..............
...........//.|..|......|..............|.....\\.............
..........//..+--+......|...Chapel.....|......\\............
.........||__...........|..............|.......\\...........
.........||..\...........-------||----..|....Infirmary......
.........||.X.#.................Bridge..|.......||..........
.........||...#.........................|     ..||..........
..........\\...\............Guntram's...|Library||..........
...........\\...\............Breach.....|.......//..........
............\\...\-------------XXXX-----+......//...........
.............\\.................|.............//............
..............\\................|.Cloister...//.............
...............\\__________________________. H..............
.................--------------------------H................
...............................................Front Gate...
............................................................

"Right here," he makes an "X" on the far left side of the sketch, "is where I found the sacks of coin and some gems in a box lined in purple velvet, just like the velvet-lined box that orb Armando found came in! Oh, and a book! Look, Josiane!"

He reaches into his pack and pulls out a book wrapped in black leather and tied shut with a bit of leather cord.

"I, er... I couldn't read the writing in the book. It was all flowery... I think it's in Empyrean, maybe? Oh, but there is a long sheet of velum in the back of it that I COULD read! It has a WARD written on it! It looks like it protects you against the undead for a time! I thought that might be useful if we ever find ourselves facing a bunch of things that used... to be alive or... used... to... be... dead. Why are you all staring at me like that?"

"Anyway, I thought you might be able to read the stuff in the book, so I kept it." He gives the book to Josiane.

"Unfortunately, I didn't find The Gustave. But maybe that's a good thing, because maybe that means he's still alive somewhere. At least they didn't gut him and leave him for dead or use him to set a trap. Oh, I DID find a trap! Thank goodness we didn't enter the abbey through the front door, Dieter! It was all rigged up with like a score* of crossbows with wires an' pulleys and if we'd opened that front door, they all woulda fired right at us - including one that was aimed really low, just for me, those rotten bastards!"

"I, umm... made a bit of a racket trying to disarm it all and... Ooooh!" Desmond suddenly stops talking. "I bet that's how it knew I was there."

"I... I did run into... something. In the infirmary. But it warn't no nun. Well... I suppose it COULDA been a nun if it'd wanted to. But it was more like... well, it was more like me. I mean, it looked like me. JUST like me. It even had a second noggin! But it wasn't me. It was WEIRD though, because I always thought of Mondes as my evil twin. OW! Knock it off, twit! But then I saw THIS thing and I was like, 'Oh, it's my REAL evil twin! It's even got an evil twin Mondes!"

He stops and thinks for a second. "I don't know what you call it in Illiberal. My grandpa Sandybanks used to tell us stories about the nicht-genga - that means 'night goblins' in Lilliputian; it's kind of a vague term. He used it for pretty much any creature that would hide in dark places to try and eat us. Once he told us about a nicht-genga that could make itself look like other people! He called it a dyple genga - a twin goblin. I thought they was just stories, though..."

He lapses into silence again, but eventually finishes in a hushed tone.

"It tried to talk nice to me, but... it reeked of evil. So I ran. Ran back to the court yard where I'd seen you guys last. I was thinking maybe that's how the wolfmen got in with the nuns. Maybe they had the dyple genga to pretend it were a nun..."

Apparently Desmond is all talked out for the moment.

*it was 12