As she keeps an eye out, Anneth seems to be deep in thought.  She removes her mace from its harness...  "Anya," she attempts to get the Fighter's attention.  "Until you get your own weapons back, or better, I'm willing to let you borrow this.  I have other means by which to defend myself."

"Oh, thank you, Anneth!" Anya responds to Anneth's offer, accepting the mace. "I know how to wield one, but have not had much cause to do so. It will certainly be more effective than just the dagger."

"Bring on the hobgoblins! I'm ready for a rematch now!"

In reply to Anya Canson (msg # 273):

I open the hatch then light a torch before descending down into the ship.  Handing the torch to whoever is following me so I can hold my sword at the ready.

Someone has to go first.  Might as well be me this time.

In reply to Tom Wolf (msg # 274):

Aaron takes the torch had follows Tom, sword at the ready.

In reply to Mysterion (msg # 271):


Talis leans back from his whispered conversation with the Old Man "Gentlemen, Ladies let us continue our search!"


He then walk over to the captured Halfling and inspects the little man's bindings.

Rodrigo holds the hatch open for Tom and Aaron. "I'll cover you," he says. He doesn't bring down the bow from his shoulder though.

Rodrigo uses his infravision to get a better look into the hold.

Satisfied that Anya now has a better chance of defending herself - and her - Anneth draws one of her own daggers, and looses her whip.  Whip goes into her right hand; dagger, into her left.

Elwood makes sure the bandages around his wound are secure before readying his flail and shield. He turns to Fando and asks, "Will you be fine watching over this rascal on your own?" He points to the trussed up halfling. "Or would you like me to stay with you just in case, sir?"

Tom leads the way down into the ship's hold... and almost misses a step at the sight that he sees in the torchlight.

Both walls of the hold are covered from front to rear by a panel of metallic plates. It was this metal that glinted in the daylight that seeped in.

A rack of iron bars is fastened to the floor and the ceiling rafters, but not to the actual side of the ship. The metal plates are then fastened to these iron bars.

Some of the plates are silver, some brass, some bronze, some gold, some steel. There are of a vast array of shapes--squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals, diamonds, lozenges, shields... some have been cut out in patterns, but most are arcane symbols etched on to them. Nearly all of the circles have toothed edges like gears, but none of them turn. They are all riveted to the iron bars or to each other. There is some overlap, of course, but none are covered up.

The area where the hole was in the side of the ship has a dozen or so plates snapped off of the iron bar. They lay bent, twisted and charred across the floor of the hold.

In reply to Mysterion (msg # 280):

Well atleast there isn't anything dead or alive down here to attack us.  I call back up to the others.  I take a closer look at some of the markings.  Magical symbols?

Once Rodrigo sees that the hold is safe, he also enters. "Hmm," he muses thoughtfully. "These plates are part of the magical device that allows this airship to fly, but when it crashed a whole section of them were damaged," he says to state the obvious. The elf goes up to some of the metallic plates that were broken off, picks a couple up and examines them. "Well, no doubt it can be fixed. Let's ask the 'skymaster' upstairs what we need to do to get this thing skyworthy again."

Elwood relaxes a bit when he hears Tom call up that all is clear below. He'll remain in the cabin, watching the halfling to make sure he doesn't escape.

Noticing the arcane symbols, Anneth racks her memory to see if she can't place any of them - meanings, anything like that...

01:36, Thu 09 July 2015: Anneth Mage-Singer rolled 6 using 1d20 ((6)).

"This is more than a simple farm boy such as myself can fathom. I hope you know what you are doing."

Anneth recognizes a few arcane symbols, but most seem to be alchemical in nature. There are earth symbols and sky symbols and air symbols (not the same thing exactly), but she is surprised not to find any 'binding' symbols, such as would be used to bond djinn or air elementals.

She does realize, though, that the orientation of the plate... or more exactly the symbols on the plates, seems to have a relevance. For instance, the steel plate with the earth symbol is oriented to the lower edge of the plate, and it is bracketed by the symbol for quicksilver. Quicksilver is noted for adding to a potion or other substance to give it negative qualities.

By the end of her examination, she can identify at least half of the symbols and work out what their function is. There are others that she's never seen before, and has no idea what their purpose is; she can't even deduce that.


However, her examination has led her to the aft end of the ship, where she realizes that the plates don't end at the wall but extend into the room beyond, for there is, indeed, a door in the rear wall of the hold.

In reply to Mysterion (msg # 286):

After examining the Halfling's bindings (and assuming he found nothing was amiss with them) Talis escorts Fando about the business of inspecting the ship.  The big Elf does not actually hover over the old man, but it is obvious that he is concerned with his well being and appears ready to defend or assist him at a moments notice.

"What are the chances she will ever fly again, Fando?  Do you think it can even be repaired?" he asked as they wandered about taking in the inner workings of the fantastical vessel.

"All this talk of magic bores me," Durek comments, "although if you find a magic hammer or axe, well, that'll wake me up! Har, har. So I'll keep an eye on the Halfling for ya."

"Ya know, I used to like them folks. They weren't Dwarves, o' course, but neither was they Elves or persnickety Humans. Now, not so much. Yeah, yeah, I know... one bad Halfling don't spoil the whole bunch."

"Meanwhile, maybe I'll ask him what kind of torture he prefers, or maybe how he wants to die. Hee-hee."

"Oh, sure, the ship can be repaired," Fando replies to Talis, "though whether can make it operational again will depend on all the plates still being here and not signficantly damaged."

"What you see here is merely the method of making it fly. It has to have a source of power, which, I hazard to guess, is behind that rear door. That's assuming it's not damaged, destroyed or missing."

"Ah, I see Anneth is already trying reassemble the plates in the correct order."

"The plates represent a method of controling the ship... turning it left, right, up, down... yaw, pitch, roll! If I'm reading these plates correctly, they indicate the ship could completely roll over and fly upside down! How amazing is that?"

"Of course, I can't think of any reason you'd want to fly upside down."

"Oh! Maybe not. I think these symbols here indicate limits." he finishes as he picks up one of the plates and indicates some of the lines on it.

In reply to Fando (msg # 289):

Talis mulled over Fardo's words "Perhaps the ship generates its own gravitational field?  Then the ability to fly upside down would be a plus."

While the others concentrated on the plates Talis examined the wooden hull.  What kind of wood would be used in making such a vessel?  Was it ensorceled? Covered in runes?
This message was last edited by the player at 10:36, Fri 17 July 2015.

"If it generated its own gravity, then that would be how it flew!" Fando replies. "However, I have heard of different techniques that were tried, though I do not know if they were ever successful. There is reputed to be a wood called liftwood, in the balsa family, that is lighter than air. And supposedly there is an alchemical method of soaking regular wood to produce the same result."

"A double hull with air elementals trapped between them was another suggested method, as was doing the same using djinn. Trying to control djinn, however, was considered insane if not outright impossible."

As if anticipating where Talis' thoughts had ventured, Fando added:

"Sorcery is the most often tried method. Basically, casting a spell such as Fly on a large object should work, but it never does. Sorcerers and wizards have tried to figure out that secret for centuries. Runes have also been tried, but while you can carve a rune into each single board, getting them all to work together is the problem there. Rune magic, apparently, is much more narrowly focused than a spell."

"You can put a rune on a door to protect it, but you can't put a rune on an entire fortress... though I heard that Aristobulus sought to build his house into the shape of a rune. Never heard how that turned out."

"I gave the matter a bit of thought in my youth, you see. The reason a ship design is used is because of the First Law of Magic: like produces like. If you want to sail across the sky, should you not do it in a vessel meant to sail across the seas?"

"Oh, I know what you are thinking--sail? Why not fly across the sky? Yes, there are those who have tried to build a huge mechanical bird. This is seldom done with metal, though using Nth metal would make sense. Alas, Nth metal is as mythical as liftwood."

"So you see, there are many approaches. If anyone has ever discovered the secret that works, they have kept it to themselves."

"This ship, unless I miss my guess, utilizes the Seventh Magic! The secret here isn't the Seventh Magic itself, but a method of employing it. It would seem to be based on transference--the plates transfer magic throughout the ship."

"Well all this talk of runes is beyond me," said a bored Aaron, "Let us see what these reckless magical meddlers have used for their 'power source'!".

Aaron heads over to the rear door and opens it.

Talis eyes the door Aaron opened with caution, but did not miss Fando's statement "Seventh Magic?  All this talk about the secretive Seventh Magic before our quest began and now, suddenly, an airship powered by it just happens to have crashed here?"

"My ability to allow for coincidence is being sorely tested."

Magic is just another tool for people to use.  Unfortunately some of the most inteligent people who can use magic are not the wisest and make stupid choices.  Magic also requires patience of which I do not have enough of.

Tom follows Aaron into the next room.

"It is only you that has dubbed it a coincidence," Fando replied to Talis, "though perhaps I misspoke."

"I am not at all convinced that this is, indeed, the Seventh Magic. It is just that I have not heard of any such magical transference as appears to be used here, not by any alchemist or by any wizard I know. And then there's the name of the ship. So it was quite natural for me to make the connection."

"You are here because I am here. I am here because I was looking for the Seventh Magic. Upon hearing of this ship, an anomaly any way you look at it, I came here to investigate, since it seemed self-evident that some form of magic had to have been used to bring the ship here."

"Although, on second thought, I suppose a giant waterspout could have swept the ship up into its swirling water and then deposited the ship here. Now that would have been coincidence!"

"Consider, too, that ever since the change in the Radiance, people have been looking for a way to... fix it, though perhaps 'restore' is a more accurate assessment. Some of them will have been delving into the lore of the Seventh Magic. Given the Third Law of Magic--the Law of Sympathy--it might follow that this search for the Seventh Magic is what has drawn the ship here, if, in fact, it uses the Seventh Magic for its power."

As Aaron and Tom moved to investigate what was behind the aft door, Fando also moves in that direction, but he does so a bit more cautiously. He finds it odd that the ship's power would be concealed behind a door when clearly the metal plates lead there.

Perhaps it was employed for... secrecy. It might also have been employed because there was danger.

Aaron opens the aft door and walks through... It's not a large room as it's only the rear 10-feet of the ship though it's around 30 feet wide. The metal plates that come through the wall from the hold cuts off a good 5 feet on either side because they are slanted and connect to the strange device in the center of the room.

The top plate on each side connects to the top of the device while the bottom plate connects to the bottom of the device.

The device itself is a 5-foot in diameter crystal sphere. Within it is an apparatus that consists of three concentric gimbal-mounted rings that are each slowly spinning. The innermost one is a septagram made out of a bluish-silver metal. It is spinning within a silver ring which in turn is spinning within a copper ring.