Re: Chapter 1: Signs from God
The Dons take Glen, Larry, and Solomon outside, placing the latter two in the back seats of one of the Suburbans. As one of the agents debriefs Glen and gives him a cover story to tell the rest of the town, the rest get to work on the church. Two of the agents scrub the soot from the walls, floors, pews, and everything else the webs touched while the other touches a long metal rod to the burnt pew Bibles, which instantly restores them to their unburnt condition.
Meanwhile, Frank and Tobias search the rest of the church. The small room to the east is simply a storage closet. In it is nothing more interesting than candles, a ladder, extra light bulbs, and a few other odds and ends.
The room to the west is Solomon's office. Two large tables dominate this room, and bookshelves filled with dark, leather-bound tomes line the walls. Along one wall is a thick chain which is bolted to the wall. The deep scratches and tufts of bluish black fur on the floor tell you that this is where Solomon kept the displacer beast.
While searching the desk, Frank finds a hidden drawer, containing an empty cutout in the shape of Solomon's revolver, several rounds of ammo, and three rolled pieces of parchment. Tobias recognizes the latter as scrolls of animate dead, magic missile, and fireball.
Tobias looks over the bookshelf, which is mostly filled with religious texts but is also peppered with books on the true nature of shadow. Many of these books are bound by hand and appear to be very old. He picks up one that has no label on the spine and opens it to find that it is Solomon's spellbook.
They find no evidence of a higher power directing Solomon's actions, but Frank does find one peculiar email while searching Solomon's decrepit computer. Its subject is "Ezekiel 5:17" and it was sent by reverend_paul@commonpath.org. A rudimentary web search of "commonpath" leads you to an official website for the Fellowship of the Common Path Church. It seems just like any other denominational website.
The content of the email is more suspicious, however. It is as follows:
Brother,
You should receive your package tomorrow. I pray you use it to do the Lord's work.
In God's good name,
Paul
The date on the email is two days before the first killing.
[Private to Tobias Byrne: Solomon's spellbook:
0-lvl: daze, detect magical aura, message, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, read magic
1-lvl: burning hands, mage armor, magic missile, shield, sleep, true strike
2-lvl: darkvision, invisibility, knock, spiderclimb, web
The scrolls you can use like normal scrolls or you can sacrifice them to automatically choose them as one of the spells you learn the next time you level up. The spell book can not be used as scrolls, but they can also be used as the spells you learn the next time you level up.
In addition, by reading through the appropriate books in Solomon's library, you gain a +2 bonus on your next research check made to learn a new spell.]