This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed
"Welcome back, Canas," Sven, the dwarven bookseller says. "I have something you might be interested in."
"What is it? Any books matching my requests?"
"No, nothing on those books. Not a book at all, actually. I don't normally carry this sort of thing, but I was sure you'd be interested." He leads Canas through the stacks and to a table littered with loose sheets of paper and smudged broadsheets. "Behold!"
Canas stares. "What is it?"
"I have no idea. The modron who sold it to me wouldn't say. Do you want it?"
10 comments:
"Well, that is interesting. I'd love to take that off your hands nad try to se what I can do with it. Sadly, I don't precisely have any money on me at the moment, any chance of putting this on a tab?" Canas pauses for a moment, seeing if there is an immediate rejection of the idea. If not, "Also, did the Modron tell you anything about where this came from?"
"He wouldn't tell me. Kept dropping hints, made me think he'd stolen it from his masters, but that just doesn't happen. Modrons don't steal. Still, I'm sure it has some fascinating history to it.
"Frankly, I don't have any idea what to charge for it. I gave him 20 marks for it, so if you can give me 25, I'll have made a nice profit. That's not too much to add to your tab. Still, I'd like to see some money before adding any more than that."
"For that price I wish some information came with it, but I suppose I can work on that on my own. Well, I guess that's fine. How much is my tab up to anyway?" Canas sizes up the device, trying to figure out the best way to carry it back to Hedgemere. "The next time I'm here, I'll pay back as much of the tab as I can. Until then." Canas smiles broadly and leaves.
"Well, that would bring you up to 75 [remember that 1 gold = roughly $10]. I look forward to your next visit."
He wraps the thing in brown paper, and ties it with twine. It's a large arm load, but not too heavy. Bulky mostly. You'll get it home, but you'll want to avoid much sightseeing on the way.
Canas heads straight back to Hedgemere, quite pleased to find that he was only 75 gold in debt, instead of what he was expecting.
After having a little difficulty getting the device into his room and clearing a space for it on his desk, Canas unwraps it and inspects it carefully, looking for any indication at all of what the device does.
Assuming he doesn't find any, he'll attempt to find someone who might have a better shot of determining said function. Canas is looking for wear marks and dials or buttons with markings or symbols of some type, though with the express intent of not activating the device just yet.
If Garrett's there: "Sorry for the distraction, but do you happen to know anyone who can find out the function of something like this? By the way, how's your enchantment work coming along?"
OOC: oops, the last sentence of the third paragraph was supposed to end the second paragraph, sorry!
There are no obvious controls, and no clear indications of what it does. There are rivets, tubes, bolts, and a glowing glass sphere, all mounted on an ornamental plate. There's a definite aura of magic from it, but it doesn't really seem to be enchanted. It's puzzling, really.
Garrett [and is he intended to be modeled on the main character from the Thief games?]: "I'm getting along. Actually, I could take a look at it for you; if anyone stuck anything to it long term, it would have to be enchanted."
He moves over to Canas' desk. Looking down at the thing, he furrows his brow and stares intently for several minutes. Eventually, he looks up, finally blinks, and starts rubbing his dried out eyes.
"It's not enchanted, but it's magical. It's almost like a magical creature, that sort of inherent magic. But it doesn't do anything at all, not that I can see. It just looks cool. Still, it's not natural, someone made it, and I can't see why they'd put so much effort to make it inherently magical with no purpose. I guess you could take it apart and see what happens, but do it somewhere else; I think the results might be messy."
OOC: Garrett is actually slightly modeled after a character in my favorite book series, the only thing I know about the thief games is that they exist.
IC: "I see, thanks very much for helping me out, let me know if there's anything I can help you with."
Before taking it apart, Canas heads to the library in the hopes he can find a reference to something made of similar material. Considering where it came from, he'll start with looking up information about the plane where Modron's dwell.
Mechanus. Modrons live on Mechanus, except on the Modron March, when they go absolutely everywhere. A march happened not too long ago, way off schedule. It could have come from Mechanus, it sure looks like that. It could have come from anywhere, either brought or found by a modron. Or it could have come from the elemental planes, given that it looks like it's got bottled lightning in it.
Materials: brass, lots of it; glass, in tubes and chambers; some silver filigree. Fairly mundane materials. Could be gotten anywhere. The only thing unusual it it's appearance.
Mechanus is your best bet, if you want to check on modrons. Of course, you've no idea if the modron was rogue or not, and rogue modrons don't hang around much in the home territories. But, if it was acting on orders, if it wasn't rogue, Mechanus is the place to look. [hint: go to dinner, and drop in on Ionjae's table]
Well, that's a whole lot of ifs, but I've got to start somewhere. Canas withdraws the book from the library and heads to dinner. With that, to the other section!
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