In her own personal wonderland, Willa managed to discover that though most of the vials contained essences, extracts and chemicals that would only be of use to an alchemist or to ritual caster, she found three small bottles – no bigger than her hands – positively oozing with magic.
Jubei however managed to turn up nothing he could recognize as significant or decipher. The breeze from the stairwell was at least helping to ventilate this underground space. If only a little. As he looked into the room Willa had found, letting his gaze drift over the instruments and equipment that to his eyes just seemed to clutter and litter the space, he noticed a peculiar white lantern. It was rather large even to the kaetyma, and yet was so ornate and delicate in its appearance that it was a wonder that it could support its own weight let alone withstand any sort of heat. Yet Jubei dared not retrieve it due to his fear that doing so would cause something inside the packed chamber to fall over.
Drex noted that the room contained many more shackles. Some obviously meant for either very large or very powerful beings. Clearly this room had been used a jail of sorts – though it seemed to have only had one occupant for some time. He could not spot any other doors then the one he had come through, though a hidden one might have escaped his gaze.
Then again – he thought –
why hide a secret passage in jail?
The shackles that secured the man to the wall had glyphs upon them that Drex recognized as the Primordial tongue, the language of the Ehuron and the corpse carried the same signet ring upon his left hand as that which rested upon the corpse of the body Drex had found in the main bedroom of the upper floor of the ruined villa above ground.
Nothing else upon the man’s body gave any clue to neither his identity nor why he had been jailed here. From just looking at him Drex gathered that the man had probably died of starvation, he was terribly thin and grossly pale, even for a human. Though as Drex drew close to examine the body his nose noticed that the body stank of smoke more than of decay. Picking up some of the straw, he quickly sniffed that it too was saturated with the smell of smoke. Could it be that the smoke from the fire had gotten down here? And that it had instead choked this man to death rather hunger?
Though Phelan was unfamiliar with the craftsmanship he did recognize the magic, the green gems set into the helm were in fact soul gems. Those soul gems could capture the life force of a creature slain by whoever wore the helm.
In turn those souls were used to fuel the other spells tied to the helm which would either restore the vitality of its carrier or empower their strikes. Otherwise its only other inherent capacity is to know, at a glance, the health and wellbeing of another creature.
The books and documents upon the table were simply to mean for Phelan to be able to read through properly so he did the next best thing, he flipped through them hoping to spot something interesting. A few things did catch his attention.
The first was note which tersely spoke about the helmet upon the desk. From what Phelan could make out it suggested that the item had been in the care of the Gravewatch keep before having been taken from it recently – although if it had been stolen or looted he could not say.
The second was a few loose pages made in the study of a
Spirit Lantern there was even a drawing of it. It certainly looked like a lantern, though it held no apparent light source nor was it clear how exactly one was supposed to carry it. The lantern was a long twisting cylinder of made of tiny figures – no two alike – who rose up from the flat base of the lantern and twirled around the cylinder in four intertwining spirals before merging with another flat hood at the top. The figures were either animals, plants, humans, doola tywuar, kaetyma and scores of other creatures and things Phelan did not recognize. And the whole thing was a very bright white.
The author of the notes had been trying to understand how the lantern worked and quickly realized that it operated by powers that dwarfed mortal understanding. In the end the study was resigned to frustration and failure.
[There are more things to see in the papers but that is all I can give you in this “round” Phelan. I should also take this moment to note that there is a considerable difference – in this setting at least – between Spirits and Souls. A spirit is an immaterial entity, not always bound to a material body but is what is considered the essence of a person or creature it is this part of a being that the Grim consider so sacrosanct. The soul is the spiritual energy that binds a spirit to physical existence. It is usually damaged beyond repair upon death. Both of these spiritual things linger with the body for some time after death. Which is only released after the remains have either decayed or been destroyed beyond a certain point. More enlightened societies – like the Ehuron, Musadi, Narayah and Ulh – have little qualms over the manipulation of souls (within reason). Think of it in much the same way as surgery on internal organs, to some it’s a non-issue to others its morally/ethically/religiously/scientifically/etc. wrong. Some more learned or academic individuals also are not concerned but that is largely a case by case basis. This helmet presents something that falls into a grey area for people who know what it does.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:52, Wed 30 Apr 2014.
