Deus Machina - The Last Grimoire (Inactive)

Game Master Rednal

Aiden follows Allison out of the room.

"Honestly I could use a little mundane," Rory replies finishing his last banana slowly so as to give Aiden and Allison time to talk in the hall.

With that, Allison calmly headed back into the room. "So, I'll see all of you later?" she asked, grabbing a few things she could eat on the way to class.

"See ya!" Rory says, pulling his new gloves on, and leaving the breakfast table for class.

"Later, Allie!" Michael shouts after here.

He turns back to the others. "Lunch good, then? I better get to class myself." Finishing his last piece of food, he looks up at the others as if about to say something else, but decodes against it and departs.

The rest of the school day passes as normal - a few assignments are handed out, but those of you who care to work on them have no trouble getting things done well before dinner. It's a sad truth about college - at least at the entry levels, homework isn't really that complicated or difficult to stay on top of. That, and it's still incredibly early on in the school year, so it's not like you've learned enough to be tested on it...

As night arrives, however, Allison knocks on each of your doors to gather you together. The dorm is quiet, and she speaks freely. "This-" she said, holding up a metal amulet with a symbol on it, "-is a completely ordinary piece of metal with an amusingly symbolic icon on it." Well, duh. She pressed onwards. "It does not, by itself, have special powers, but it does two things. First of all, you will find other places marked with this symbol. We set them up in areas we've put wards over - normal people avoid these wards and don't notice that they're doing it, but they won't have any effect on somebody who understands and recognizes magic. We mostly use it to protect our research and stuff, but they're also set over other areas, which the boss will explain in a bit. Secondly, they're a kind of identification - if you see someone else displaying it, it means they know about magic." she passed out copies of her own amulet, one for each of the others.

Each PC has received a 'Magician's Token'.

"Any questions before we head out? No? Good." she said, walking briskly towards the door. "Then let's go."

Rory shrugs, puts the amulet on, and follows Allison toward the door.

"Interesting, a rather clever way of handling it. If wear them openly, will normal people notice?" Aiden takes the amulet, examines it for a moment and puts it on under his shirt.

Walter stares at the amulet for most of the walk, thinking of the various possible uses outside of identification, "Will we learn how to do these types of enchantments?"

"Why is the icon 'amusingly symbolic?' It kind of looks like a porcupine." Realizing Allie will likely ignore them, he follows similarly.

"I thought it looked kind of like King Bowser..." she mused. "But either way, doesn't it look like something hiding behind some spikes? Being dangerous to people who get too close is part of the most ridiculous set of tropes for secret societies." she sighed heavily. "Some people have no taste. I would've done the Elder Sign, myself. At least that one's usually protective, and we've got so many weird Observer Effect things going on that I'll take any of that I can get." It wasn't superstitious if it actually had an effect on things.

The trip across the grounds didn't take too long, and Allison knocked twice on the door of a small building on the outer edge of the campus before pushing it open and walking in. Attached to a metal plaque on the side of the frame was the same symbol that the tokens had, and the first room inside was wide, well-lit, and had the curtains fully opened. A collection of comfortable chairs were scattered around the room, though only one was filled.

As the group entered, the individual inside of it stood up. He looked to be in his early fifties or so, tall and relatively handsome. More importantly, however... "Ah, you've made it!" said Professor Freeborn, the same man who'd been at the dinner before everything had gone so wrong. "I do hope our Alli hasn't been too much of a bother. She's the only one we could rely on until now, so we had to push her harder than we really liked. Now that you're all here, though, how about we get started with some research?" he looked positively gleeful at the thought.

Rory raised an eyebrow, and looked sideways at his mates. "Yeah after a long day of lectures and homework, who doesn't want to do research?"

"Shit, I'm only here for the research."

"Sounds fun..." Michael considers for a moment before continuing with "but what kind of research?"

At Allison's knock, the door is opened by one very bleary-eyed Denton Salpicadera. He groans and leans one cheek against the edge of the door.

"Ung... talk about a crap night for sleep. I think my book's enjoying jerking me around. And then there was the..." He pauses and shudders.

Allison -- and the others she'd gathered by that point -- finally register with his foggy brain. "Oh. Hey. What?"

Then it starts sinking in that it's dark outside of the windows. "Wait... what?" He turns and looks behind him, out his room window where it's also dark. "Don't tell me some uber-evil freakazoid thing has brought darkness upon the worl..." He trails off as his eyes fall on the clock. And he realizes he's ravenously hungry. "Aw man, is that... PM? I know I was fried after that freaky dream and... stuff... but did I honestly sleep through the day? What time is it, really?"

Eventually Denton focuses enough to take in what Allison is saying, and he retrieves his book, backpack, and hanbo before following, trailing along silently at the back of the group.

"Two weeks before you arrived, we discovered an anomaly in one of the buildings nearby." Professor Freeborn explained, placing a printed paper down on the table for everyone to see. It seemed to be a blueprint of a house, and it was followed by a collection of photographs showing it from the outside. "Naturally, we raised a ward over the place immediately, but we couldn't actually take care of it. It's much too dangerous for anyone without a grimoire to invade, and Alli was busy with some other work." he placed a finger on the basement graphic.

"I'm not sure if you were informed or not, but Grimoires are actually very rare, and the fact that you all possess them is nothing less than astonishing. What we'd really like to do is get all of you some more training before trying to make use of your gifts, but the energy inside this area is getting stronger, and I don't think we could train you fast enough to outpace its growth... so striking now is our best option. It shouldn't be too dangerous, but I'll understand if you'd rather not risk it." He did, however, seem like he would be intensely disappointed. "Our current plan is to utilize you as a strike force. Allison will stay behind and communicate with you over your cell phones, or act as emergency aid if you really need it. If you're ready, we'll begin immediately. And I will answer any questions you have to the best of my ability, of course."

Aiden raises an eyebrow at Allison in a look that clearly says This is what you meant by boring?.

"Professor, as much as this research sounds exciting, I think we should address the events that took place at the library before we go any further."

"Strike force?" Denton repeats in astonishment, his dream-induced funk finally shaken off. "In what universe are we any kind of strike force? And I'm with Aiden: What the heck's going on around this crazy place?"

An uneasy feeling has been growing in the pit of Walter's stomach but he hasn't been able to put a reason to it until some point during Professor Freeborn's pep talk, "I don't mean to interrupt, Aiden, but are you guys kidding me? Sure there are five of us, but you want us to go in, untrained, to fight and contain whatever is lurking in there. Neither of you are going to be coming in with us, despite having much more experience dealing with things like this. Why do I get the feeling we're acting like cannon fodder here? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good fight, but going in with untrained abilities, against an unknown opponent, with no intel is more of a death wish than a fight."

"This one." Professor Freeborn explained. "The problem is relatively straightforward: In order to properly deal with magical events, we need some form of magic on our own. Unfortunately, we cannot cast magic without Grimoires... and I don't have one. They don't allow themselves to be traded or borrowed, either, so we're ultimately stuck with the people we have. It's quite unfortunate, really - we could learn so much more otherwise." he nodded to Walter a moment later. "Actually, in a way, I agree - magic is dangerous, and it's best to know as much as you can. However, we do think that Allison could handle this by herself - so having all of you go instead should be more than safe enough as long as you keep your wits about you." Finally, he turned to Aiden. "Well, I know Professor Derleth likes to go a little overboard on the ceremonies, but... you went in, you bonded with your grimoires, and you came out again. Did she say something odd?" he seemed more perplexed than anything else.

"More like something exploded, the place caught fire, she died. But I guess showing up to classes after that isn't too odd around these parts," Walter deadpanned, doing his best to not sound too sarcastic. "Actually Aiden, now that I think about it, seeing as absolutely nobody else seems to have either noticed or cared about any of that, I'm starting to think it was all mental. To show the grimoires that we're worthy. Except that Allison showed up right in the middle of it all. Nevermind. I don't even know."

Denton stares at Walter. "You mean like a test? A trial by cold fire? Dammit, I knew that hazing vibe was there for a reason!"

He shakes his head. "So it was some sort of freaky shared hallucination. After the dream I had last night... yeah okay, I can believe that. But where'd it come from? Our books, the professor, whoever or whatever created that thing Allison was fi..." His eyes narrow. "Wait, was that part of the shared illusion too, only she got sucked into it somehow?"

"No, it couldn't have been an illusion, our books got new pages. Unless they were already there and just..."

Denton facepalms. "Ah, not enough facts, gotta have a basis, I'm too fried to think through this right now."

Then he looks at Walter. "Except for the cannon fodder angle. I was thinking the same thing, but was trying to be polite."

He looks at Freeborn pointedly. "And okay, we're new. We have no clue what we're doing, and our -- well, at least my book seems to be having a ball freaking me out. But dude, 'stuck with' the people you have? Really? While you're asking for our help? Etiquette 101, okay?"

“I think it was a setup but not an illusion, at least not the whole thing. I think it was more test than hazing though, Denton. Either way, I don’t appreciate that we were lied to about what we were getting into, especially since Valerie seemed to actually have fallen to whatever it was that was attacking us. Or was she part of this, as well?”

Michael laughs, not having experienced the same events as some of the others. "I know! Derleth must be a zombie! Or maybe a shapeshifter!" He's very obviously being sarcastic, though he might feel otherwise had he been there.

"The strikeforce thing sounds cool. Kind of like a game of Monster Hunter? Although, if Allie can handle it alone, it sounds like we're the B team."

The Professor listened calmly, giving the students his full attention as they explained their thoughts about the events of their first night with the Grimoires. When he was done, he glanced towards Allison. "I believe this is your specialty." he said.

Allison didn't look too happy about being called out, and sighed heavily. Yeah, sure, push all of the work onto her... "Something crazy was obviously going on there." she said, placing her Grimoire on the table and flipping through its pages. Many of them seemed to be written in garbled, unreadable text - though a fair few were recognizable as earthly languages, and she stopped once she found the page she was looking for. "Our main problem is that they appear to remember something happening, which external evidence suggests never actually occurred." she said, tracing a finger down the page.

"One of the things we do know is that greater forms of magic take significantly more energy to cast. That's why we usually try to get the maximum benefit from every spell we cast - you can do quite a lot with weak magic as long as you're creative. Physically altering and repairing the library with nobody noticing would take orders of magnitude more power than anything I've ever seen. It's probably not impossible if you had enough power, but I don't think that's what really happened. We'd have heard about anyone like that." she closed the cover of her book. "Maybe it was the books screwing with us, or maybe it was someone else entirely. I just don't know enough to say for sure." she looked very disturbed by this - not knowing things wasn't something she enjoyed. "Does that answer your questions a bit?"

Aiden is silent for a few moments, then speaks. “Are you suggesting that it may have been an illusion but that someone or something else was to blame? Regardless, we started all of this blind. We were made to believe that all this was some kind of experiment, when it is clear you have been aware of the power of these books all along. I know I probably would have participated regardless but it would have been my informed choice. How can we trust that this mission is really as safe as you say?”

"It's simple," Rory finally chimed in to answer Aiden's question, "We don't." After a pause, he continued, "Either go back to our rooms, and we go no further. Or, we do as they say, go into this place, and see how far the rabbit hole goes." In spite of how serious he was, he couldn't resist saying this last bit in his best Morpheus impression.

"Man, if you're going to quote a movie, at least do it right." Turning back to Allison and Professor Freeborn, Walter shrugs and grins, "As it is, I'm voicing a formal complaint regarding your methods, not that anything will come of it, but that being said, MAGIC IS REAL! A week ago I would have killed someone to take part in something like this and now I'm going to question whether or not it's safe? Screw that. Let's do this."

I googled it, if it's wrong, my source is wrong

Allison snorted. "I wish I knew the extent of their powers." she said. "Stupid things have surprised me more times than I can count, and they're probably not going to stop anytime soon. It's hard to formulate a solid theory when your test subject spends half of its time proving every one of your ideas wrong." And the other half giving you new ideas. She did hug her grimoire a bit closer to her body, though - despite her tendency to complain, she did like her book.

The Professor merely smiled and nodded, continuing to listed to the choices of his students. He wasn't especially surprised - when they encountered magic, most people fell into a relatively small number of positions. Some ran as fast as they could, trying to escape it. Others jumped right in and never let go... and when you'd made the decision to join in, well, you tended to stick with it. "Please, though, don't take any risks you shouldn't." he said, eyeing Walter. "It's true that many things about magic are dangerous, but the same could be said in construction, sports, and hunting. As long as you exercise good judgment, though, you can drastically reduce the number of potential problems... and we'd strongly prefer to not lose you." He wouldn't even hesitate to ask people to take risks in the name of science (such as it was). Taking stupid risks, however, was an affront to his dignity as a scholar.

"Well I'm not happy about all the vagueness and confusion, but I'm with the Sarge. We're all here to learn, right?" Denton pulls out his hanbo and twirls it as he grins. "This is kinda like OJT. So let's do this!"

"And can we make it snappy? I'm freakin' starving!"

"I'm with you, Walter. No way I'm turning away from a chance to be involved with this but I do feel I should make one point: You need us Professor, it would behoove you to be candid with us in the future. I can't speak for the others, but if I feel like I'm being lied to again, I will take my ball and go home, so to speak."

Sense Motive to determine if they are hiding anything atm: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7

"If there were no risks, there would be no reward. Without taking risks we'd all still be cavemen, or maybe extinct. I wonder what this book thing can do. You guys make it sound so cool."

He turns to Allison awkwardly. "And, um...girl, too, I mean."

"Let's go check out this building and find this anomaly" He says, turning back to the group with an eager smile. "Do you think the school will pay for us to get our own Mystery Machine?"

Rory chuckles at the Mystery Machine comment.

Professor Freeborn laughed as well, sounding honestly amused. "Actually, they do give out cars, but only for groups that are going on research expeditions." he explained as he walked over to... what was, in fact, a green van. "Despite our library, there are many things we can only study elsewhere, and many students will take at least a few trips for added study. In fact, that's part of what tuition and scholarships are paying for. Though many still treat it as a vacation..." his expression grew thoughtful as he moved into the driver's seat. Allison took a seat in the third (and back) row, gesturing for those who were coming to get in. "It's actually a fairly short drive." the Professor explained. "We just need to carry some supplies, so they've been loaded into the back."

Denton climbs in and heads to the back of the van to sit next to Allison, trying to inconspicuously look past the last seat to scope out the "supplies."

Bluff (for the surreptition): 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (18) - 2 = 16
Perception (for the scoping): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23

"I'll sit as A-driver," Walter says as he jumps into the front passenger seat.

Rory gets in as close to the front as he can, and as close to the door as he can without impeding anyone else entering the Mystery Machine.

After a few moments of attempting to resist, Rory blurts out, "Zoinks!" in his best Shaggy impersonation.

Denton laughs and answers back with a gravely "Rut roh!"

A little stunned at actually getting a "Mystery Machine" upon request, Michael just stands there with a bemused expression on his face.

"Wow. Free school, free food, magic book, free van... what's next?"
I wonder what would happen if I asked for a dragon? Could I handle a dragon? What do dragons even eat?

After zoning out for a minute, his usual big dumb smile returns and he hops in the van to find an open seat.

As promised, it doesn't take very long to reach the destination - a small house about three blocks away from the campus of Miskatonic University. As usual for the region, it's relatively foggy out, but the Professor seems quite relaxed as he simply gets out of the car, walks up to the front door, and opens it. It seems the door wasn't even locked, and he returns to the van just a moment later to begin carrying in the supplies from the back of the van. Once everything is in order, he coughs slightly, then gestured to the floor where the same marking as the talismans has been inscribed. It appears to be no more interesting than a simple wooden panel, albeit one that leads somewhere down.

"This is the entrance to the problem area." he explained. "From the small parts of it we've examined, it seems to be within some sort of self-contained space. Honestly, that's the kind of thing that really keeps me up at night, because we don't have any models that explain how this is even possible. I believe your people might refer to it as a type of kekkai?" he asked, eying Michael and not seeming quite sure whether or not that was the right word. "It's some sort of pocket universe, anyway." he popped open the panel, revealing a simple ladder that, from what was visible, appeared to lead to a... richly furnished living room. "Any last questions before you go in?"

Meanwhile, Allison was quietly setting up a number of ritualistic instruments, preparing for what she'd need to do to be able to contact everyone.

What do dragons even eat?

"A pocket universe," Denton says, a bit awed. "Some variations of Maxwell's Demon thought experiment predict pocket universes."

He eyes the ladder. "On the other hand, other interpretations say it's turtles all the way down."

He looks at the professor. "And that symbol, that's like an SEP field? Ordinary people just don't see it?"

Surprised at first by Professor Freeborn's use of the word, he replies: "I guess it fits. You watch anime? That's cool."

After a pause he says: "Well, I guess the Buddhist definition might work, too. One last question, though. Do we have a clear target; are we sweeping the place? I mean, what exactly is the goal of our 'strike force'? So far all I know is there's a big bad thing in there and you want us to go down there with it."

"Beside it's unexpected appearance, is there any reason to believe this place is dangerous?"

Once he receives an answer, Aiden heads down the ladder.

"Nothing you shouldn't be able to handle." the Professor said cheerfully, watching as Aiden went down. He looked at Denton a moment later. "Indeed, there's plenty of theory behind pocket universes. The idea of creating them isn't complicated, but being able to intentionally create one around specific criteria, such as having human furniture, is within what many cultures would call the power of gods." he paused. "Of course, magic itself is typically within a godly realm, or at least somewhere close. Christianity has various prophets and heroes said to be given various powers. In the Greek myths, Circe the witch was the daughter of Helios, their god of the sun. The Nordic Seiðr was associated with Odin, so any mortals practicing it would have been sharing the divine realm at best." he blinked. "Ah, I'm sorry, I was rambling again. The symbol by itself is powerless, but most people nowadays just shrug and move on. It's a bit easier here, too - the only people who really come to live in town are those who aren't worried about what others are doing. That one was just to mark the floorboards; it's the one outside we enchanted to subconsciously steer people. As you say, they tend to figure it's somebody else's problem." he clapped his hands. "And we have no idea what the target really is! Be sure to detail the things you see; we will have you come back if necessary. Pocket dimension or not, enough explosives ought to solve the problem."

Meanwhile, as Aiden went down... the room itself was fairly normal, at least at first glance. As the Professor had indicated, the room seemed much like a normal, well-decorated living room of some kind. A lamp was plugged into a nearby wall socket, while the chairs seemed old and well-used. Two doors served as exits; a fine-looking wooden one and an older metal one, smaller and more plain. Between the two chairs was a wooden dresser with several drawers.

Aiden sees the lamp plugged and shouts up the ladder, "Could a pocket dimension, have running electricity? Also, you said we communicate via cell phone? Seems like a pocket dimension might interfere with that, doesn't it?"

Aiden searches the room, pausing at the dresser and opens his book.

Casting Detect magic on dresser

"'Nothing [we] shouldn't be able to handle.' So yes, it's dangerous. Noted. As long as you don't decide to use those explosives while we're in there..." Walter waits a moment either for nothing to happen, in which case the area is currently safe, or... Oh good. No screams. and follows Aiden down the ladder.

After taking in his surroundings, Walter closes his eyes and focuses on his connection to his grimoire.
Cast Detect Magic on the room

Edit: Looks like great minds think alike. To clarify, I'm looking for any magical auras in the area.