"But that's what the book said to do" rebutted Mesmer., "And I know because I have an eidetic memory!"
 |
| Heavy thunderhead clouds gather over Carthage |
"Oh wank you, wank you" exclaimed Wonton profusely.
When Mesmer heard that King Bernard has raided Tariq's compound and taken his whole library, he figured that maybe King Bernard might let him borrow the book of instructions that he had used to create the Baal symbols on the original sarcophagus.
"Just to see if there were any missing pages" he explained.
Wonton and Felix returned to Carthage, requested to see King Bernard again, and passed on Meser's request.
"Of course" replied King Bernard.
"Vonderfool" exclaimed Wonton.
"But it must be returned before 10am tomorrow morning" stipulated King Bernard.
"Or....? questioned Wonton.
"Or ... you will not want to find out" stated King Bernard firmly.
"Ah, vell, no problem at all" stammered Wonton.
Bernard hustled off into the gloomy shadows of Carthage with his large rattle of skeletons, and soon returned carrying a large tome, the Corpus Necrominiton volume XVII, and personally handed it over to Wonton's outstretched hands. Wonton quickly backed off and clambered into the truck clutching the book to his chest.
Back at the desert camp, Wonton and Meser retire to the quiet command tent and pore over the book.
"See" exclaimed Mesmer, "three pairs on opposing sides using the three different symbols. Containment effect!"
"But, it no worky containing" muttered Wonton, "so wrong must be"
"Maybe the orientation" mused Meser, "See how there is no description of which sides the pairs need to be arranged"
After studying the book all that night, Mesmer and Wonton piece together the requirements to cast a mythos spell that can contain a mythos creature in a temporary statis field. The time to prepare and cast the spell is around ten minutes, and it will hold the contained creature for around four hours.
"But" calculated Mesmer, "the mythos power required to cast the spell takes around eight hours to recover naturally"
"Defnitly use much limited" confirmed Wonton, "Power exhaust after few day only"
Giant skeleton attacks during sleep
Wonton and Felix returned the book to King Bernard in the morning in accordance with the agreement.
"Thank you for bringing it back as agreed" King Bernard responded as Wonton gingerly handed it over.
"See" claimed Wonton, "Ve weary trusty. You rely us ok vine"
As they leave Carthage, Felix notes that clouds look thinker and darker and the the shadowy old city had appeared even gloomier.
While Wonton was returning the book to King Bernard, the weary and tired Mesmer and Gazala head off to the Tunis library, now reopened after the recent troubles in the city, only to find it swarming with gendarmes after a raid during the night by a rattle of skeletons led by an arrogant Frenchman wearing a crown and carrying a green flaming torch.
"Damn that Bernard" complained Mesmer, "He is just one step ahead of us at every turn"
Fortunately, Mesmer found that King Bernard had missed the books from an entire shelf of the secure mythos section and eventually managed to convince the librarian that under the direction of Inspecter Heroux, he was to take the remaining books back to the secure and well-guarded desert camp for protection while walking skeletons were at large in the city.
When everyone was back at the camp after their excursions, they found that most of the rescued slave girls had left and returned to Tunis. Except for Naseeba, Wonton's betrothed. She had taken one of the other girls, Urwa, as her own personal slave. A pointed discussion between Gazala, Wonton, and Naseeba resulted in Naseeba committing to the betrothal, Urwa running off to Tunis after the other slave girls, and Wonton committing to hiring some personal help for Naseeba.
"Oh, so pay servants like whore" Naseeba declared, "This must be the way of China".
[Handling the books during the transport required both Gazala and Mesmer to make rolls against their Mythos skill due to the potent magics instilled in the books. Mesmer is relatively proficient with a large Mythos skill and easily made his roll. Gazala had a -1 skill and of course failed hers. Her Mythos skill increased to zero, but she still doesn't believe in such things as skeletons, magic, or summoned creatures. This fact is a mystery to the rest of the party who have watched Mesmer fight and dispatch many such creatures with her magic knife. Mesmer has used his Psychology skill to try to understand Gazala's rationalisations of all these things but is still stumped by her attitude.]
Mesmer and Wonton start into a brief study of the books "rescued" from the Tunis library that night, but it is soon apparent that the terrible dreams of the night before are recurring again. Noone is able to rest, and something had to be done otherwise the whole party would be exhausted and effectively incapacitated.
Some scientific experimentation quickly determined that the "nightmare" effect was active within about one kilometre of the camp. In fact, of the location of the baby skeletons' ammo case!
Wonton cast one of the new stasis fields, a Blood Circle, around the ammo case, with great expectations of a reduction in the sleep disturbances. Alas, to no effect. So, we loaded the skeleton onto the truck and Gazala, Jean, and Mesmer (taking the magic mirror and its magical resident, Tala, with them) drive the truck off into the desert to give the rest of the party an opportunity to rest in the camp. At about 1am, they drove the truck back to camp and Felix, Wonton, and the gendarme driver took over for the rest of the night.
 |
| Our most wanted commodity - silver |
In the morning, the party all got together again at the camp for breakfast. Feeling partially rested following the relocation of the baby during the night, serious discussion occurred about what should be done to solve the current situation. The solution seemed to be to get the baby encased in silver again as soon as possible, but there were challenges.
Three ingots of silver were required to provide an adequate layer around the new spherical container that would hold the ammo case.
King Bernard had stolen the three ingots that Inspecter Heroux had gathered and required Tariq in payment for them.
The Tunis supplies of silver had been exhausted by Inspector Heroux and would take three weeks to resupply three ingots.
There were no other supplies of silver available anywhere nearby that we knew of.
"Vat bout Tariq?" wondered Wonton, "Ask him maybe?"
Felix and Wonton were back in the truck straight after breakfast, and headed into Tunis to meet with Tariq, and maybe make a silver deal. The party wasn't sure they trusted Tariq, particularly since his men had kidnapped Fleur and held her captive in his compound, so Wonton and Felix were cautioned to be circumspect.
"Yes, yes" replied Wonton, "Ve very sirspect. Ve need silver quick quick. No vorry"
"You lie us" Wonton accused as soon as they were ushered into Tariq's lounging room.
Funnily enough, the rescued slave girls were all there, waiting on Tariq and preparing the tea for Wonton's and Felix's visit.
"What did I lie to you about?" asked Tariq.
"I no say" replied Wonton, "You know ready, you need explain"
"I have not lied to you" Tariq replied.
"Well, is there anything you would like to reveal to us concerning our party members?" intervened Felix.
"No" responded Tariq, "There is nothing to reveal"
"Any vay, ve need silver. You got for us?" demanded Wonton, after explaining the current supply challenges.
Tariq could supply one ingot immediately, a second in three days, and a third after a week.
This sounded most excellent, although still a week before the escalating baby situation could be dealt with.
The bargaining seemed to be going surprisingly well, despite the less than circumspect start, until Wonton asked Tariq about Fleur directly.
"You kindernap our Fleur you liar" complained Wonton.
"Oh, her. She is just a woman. I hold her for leverage" Tariq replied.
"Yes, just woman" spluttered Wonton, "But our woman, you liar"
At which point Tariq must have decided he had had enough and shut down the silver negotiations and demanded an apology. Something about his honour and learning to do business in the local way.
[It was downhill from there, and only through Felix's successful Persuasion roll did they manage to get out of Tariq's city residence and back to the camp. Felix did note however that Tariq had at least ten guards on duty and that the place was very defensible and would be extremely difficult for the party to attack, in his opinion]
As Felix and Wonton are reporting their partially successful negotiations with Tariq to the rest of the party, one of the gendarmes summon everyone to the command tent to see Inspector Heroux. Apparently, Tariq had quickly cooled down after Wonton had left and he had sent one of his men to drop of his first silver ingot.
"wery pickle dese arabs" commented Wonton.
Things were looking up. The newly commissioned stone container with spherical cavity was under construction and was expected to be delivered in just two days, the spherical metal container hadn't been stolen from the police station and we had bought it back to the camp for safety, the first of the required three silver ingots was in our possession, and we had three potential options to get the remaining two ingots, albeit all over longer time frames than desirable.
A letter of appreciation was sent back to Tariq.
That night we relocated the baby via truck again, to different locations than the previous night, and those sleeping in the camp had peaceful and uneventful rest. Mesmer commented to everyone at one point that having thought about it, he recalled that it was actually Wonton's fault that the sarcophagus was carved incorrectly, and the mythos beacon formed. Wonton was away with the baby at the time and couldn't defend himself, but when he returned, he protested most vehemently, as only Wonton can.
In the morning we were again summoned to Inspectors Heroux's command tent where Heroux pointed out that three ingots of silver had been left at the edge of the camp overnight. There were a lot of scuffled footprints at the location they were found, with a trail pointing straight back towards Carthage. The accompanying note, signed by King Bernard of Carthage, read:
"I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, now fulfil yours"
"Four ingots now" exclaimed Mesmer delightedly.
We quickly penned a note back to King Bernard and sent if off with one of the ingots. It read:
"Thank you so much for your down payment of two silver ingots. We humbly return the third ingot as we are unable to fulfil our part of the bargain at this time. As soon as we can, we will, and you will be the first to know."
For the rest of that day, we mostly stayed around the camp and kept an eye on things there. Mesmer and Wonton pawed over the library books recovered from the Tunis library, arguing excitedly as they turned page after page.
That night we again trucked the baby off into the desert in two shifts, to allow the other to rest peacefully in the camp.
The next morning the stone container was delivered, the ammunition case containing the bay skeleton was inserted into the spherical metal container, which was then loaded into the spherical chamber inside the stone container. The three silver ingots were melted down and poured into the upper opening in the spherical chamber, until molten silver filled the complete void around the internal metal sphere. The three pairs of Baal symbols were carved into the six opposing sides of the stone container, in the alternate arrangement determined by Mesmer and Wonton.
The stone container - can't even see the joint!
Tests were carried out. No mythos beacon was present. Sure, there were traces of mythos from the container, but more akin to background readings than the overpowering beacon of the last attempt. Normal restful sleep was possible in the vicinity.
Job done; mission accomplished.
"Let's fly the bloody thing out of here" suggested Gazala. [Gazala has been continually improving her flying skill, and despite never having flown, was now quite skilled, in theory. Richard has been searching for an opportunity to take a flight for weeks, and this was now looking like a relatively sensible suggestion]
A plane and flight were organised through Inspector Heroux for the next day, and we all nervously waited for something to go wrong. Nothing appeared to. Wonton and Mesmer spent the afternoon and evening pawing over the library books again. Noone had particularly nasty dreams, and the dawn arrived with a perfectly calm and clear day ahead.
Off to the Tunis airport, and Gazala loads herself into the pilot seat of the large transport aircraft that was waiting for us. The party, with some gendarme assistance, load the stone container into the cargo hold, and Gazala engages the engines and takes off with a huge grin on her face.
"Just like the books" Gazala exclaimed.
We waited for night and summoned Tala from her magic mirror to check for any strange mythos effects.
"No beacon, or even any mythos traces at all there" she confirmed, "But I do see two glowing orbs up there"
She was pointing up into the sky above us. Mesmer tries to Detect Mythos but can see nothing.
Wonton can see something too though.
"Eyes" he squeaks worriedly.
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