GM Granta's War for the Crown (Inactive)

Game Master Granta

Pavo shakes his head as he regroups with the others. "There's nothing that I can find as a way out in the bar unless it's locked inside that ironwood cabinet," he says wearily and with a growl of his stomach.

"What scroll case?" he asks Ayalina. "Does it have any food in it?"

You mean the one that Tiber found and then gave to Delena that Pavo never saw?

Returning to the group, Ayalina pauses at Pavo's words. "The one we found yesterday? I thought you might've been able to take a look at it." Ayalina frowns. "Maybe I'm mixed up about it. These past twenty-four hours have been something of a trip."

...RIP.

"Food?" Tiber's head snaps to attention like a dog hearing the sound of their food bag opening. "Thank ye, my lady," he says while giving Ayalina an over dramatic bow, his nose coming precariously close to the floor.

Immediately heading back to the kitchen, he holds his hand out urgently. "I... should probably eat..." he pauses with a frown, looking quizzically at the lack of food in the bar. "...the spoon?" This is a cruel joke.

"It does things, I promise!" Ayalina says, flustered. "It's a... sustaining spoon! And Thalasou found that the wand can create food and water!"

Thalasou holds the wand in his right hand. "Uh. Ok. I guess I can give this a try." He flicks the wand and tries to remember some of the things that he was taught about magic.

Two large loaves of bread, and hunk of cheese, and a few apples appear on the counter top.

"Wow. I never suspected that. There's not quite enough food here for all of us. Let me try again."

He flicks the wand again and a large smoked fish materializes on top of the bread and cheese.

@Thalasou: You are mostly correct. A single charge of the wand would feed 15 humans.

Pavo is corrrect. Tiber gave the scroll case to Delena.

After a long, but expert search, Tiber confirms that the scroll case and rectangular glass piece were the only things hiding in the master bedroom. Unfortunately, Delena doesn't think it's an actual looking glass.

Delena takes one apple and bites it. "Are you sure this is an apple? It must be the most tasteless fruit I have ever tried", she complains. She cuts a piece of the bread with her dagger, and tops it with a slice from the cheese. "This tastes exactly like the apple. I wouldn't know which I was eating if I had a blindfold."

"So, what do we have this far? A piece of glass and a key?" Delena says and digs the objects from her pouch. "Wait, I had forgotten this, she says as she notices something more in her pouch. She draws out the scroll case Tiber gave her. "Let me see now..." she mumbles as she casts two spells and starts to examine the case and its contents.

"Ah, Cayden's luck!" Pavo says as the food materializes. He fixes himself a small pile of food and whistles over it before beginning to eat. "That fresco seems like the next more likely than not feature that might hide a way out of here."

"Honestly," Tiber says between large mouthfuls of food, "I've had worse. A little blandness is sometimes an improvement." As Delena works her magic and the others eat their fill, he leaves the bottle alone and enjoys his meal well enough. "Thanks, Ayalina, for letting me know about all this. Sorry for being so gruff."

"I think anyone might become a bear if they were hungry enough!" she says to Tiber cheerfully. She carefully assembles a meal made up of a piece of sliced bread covered in just a bit of the smoked salmon and a nice slice of cheese.

When she sees Delena draw out the scroll case in question, she taps her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Sorry, Pavo - you're right. I must not have been paying proper attention yesterday. I remembered seeing it, but I didn't remember where it went. I didn't mean to confuse you!"

Thalasou surprises himself with the volume of food that the wand produces. "Wow. I wouldn't have thought it would be this much." He follows Delena in taking a bite out of an apple.

"I see what you mean. Pretty tasteless. But I guess it will sustain us for a while."

He chews on some of the fish.

"So we have that fresco and the scrollcase. Anything else to look at? That glass too?"

Since nobody spoke up, we'll only retcon the second casting. Who is holding onto the wand and tracking its charges?

Inside the scroll case, Delena finds a tattered, mundane not that reads, "Fourth bed from the north. Comforter. Backup key."

Tiber's eyes narrow at Pavo. Thinks he is so smooth, doesn't he? "So, fancy man, when were you going to tell us about the food you found?" he snips at Pavo. "I know we've just met, but s$@+ man, I was drinking whiskey straight for breakfast! Hiding anything else from us?"

He has stopped eating and his hands are pressed against the table.
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"What? You saw me take the same food as you from the table," Pavo says with wide-eyed innocence. He hums a little tune and waves a hand over what remains of Tiber's food. Picking up a piece, he tastes it. "I have no idea what you're complaining about. When you're done displacing your frustrations on me, we should go look at the fresco."

Thalasou tries to placate Tiber. "It's ok. I mean, I know that this food isn't great but it's edible. I'm not sure what happened with Pavo's food." He turns his attention to the bard. "You do seem to be enjoying the food better than the rest of us. Or are you just pretending?"

"Pavo dear, you are not even trying to hide it. Still, I can't idle here enjoying a meal when there are noble positions available for grabbing outside", Delena scorns.

"A spare key hidden in a bed? It had better be to a different lock than this one", Delena says when reading the note, and points to the key at the table. She gets up and walks to the bedroom with several beds. "Ridiculous talking about north inside. I guess the bar is north, so it's this one", she says. She feels and checks the comforter for anything unusual, then pulls out her dagger and cuts the fabric open.

Continuing on fourth bed from the other direction if found nothing.

As expected, Delena finds a key sewn into the comforter; and as hoped, it looks different from the one already in her hand.

Delena walks back to the bar. "Found it. Maybe we can now take the really good wine with us", she says and tries the key to the locked bar door.

Tiber pushes his seat away from the table, stands up, and heads to the bedroom with Delena. He's been holding out food and they are worried about noble positions and playing nice. Just like nobles, everything is fine as long as others are hurting and your are climbing the ladder.

In the room, he makes no motion to help her cut up the comforter and follows her out when she finds the key. Still clearly fuming, he shoots Pavo a glare buts keeps any further words to himself. Knew I couldn't trust him.

Ayalina takes another bite of her breakfast, watching as the drama unfolds. Delena and Tiber leave and return with their findings, but the air is still a bit tense. "I think stressful situations can bring out the beast in all of us," she tries. "Pavo, did you do something special to your food?"

--

"Just a little magic to make the bland less bland," he says with a small smile. He turns to watch Delena return with a key and try the cabinet. "Might it be too much to hope there is a bolt hole inside the cabinet?"

Thalasou remains with Pavo and Ayalina while Tiber and Delena go into the other room. "Really? It's that easy?" He asks Pavo. "Well. I don't think it's that big of a deal."

He slides off his seat when the two return. "Ok. So let's see what's in here."

"Clever. Now make his apple taste like fish", Delena says to Pavo, smiling wickedly and pointing at Tiber.

Finally, things are beginning to work themselves out! Delena's new key does open the hoped for cabinet. Inside, she finds an immovable crystal ball built into the back wall, but with a small rectangular hole in the top.

"As if he's not grumpy enough!" Pavo replies to Delena. "Wager that piece of glass fits inside that crystal globe?"

Thalasou snorts a laugh at Delena's suggestion. "Ha. That would be funny."

When the globe is revealed Thalasou tries to get a look. "Yeah, that glass probably does fit. Want to try it?"

Great, he's already won them all over and set them on me. I need to get out of this box. Taking the piece of glass, he storms over to the cabinet and shoves the glass into the rectangular recess.

I'll just get the job done and keep my head down. I felt something as I watched them get cut down by that animal in the crowd. Obviously wouldn't have been reciprocated. Waiting for something to happen, he leans with his back against the bar with his arms folded.

"Not the level of finesse I would use, but suits the purpose", Delena comments Tiber's methods of inserting the missing piece.

"Now let's see what kind of device this is" she says excitedly, watching the crystal closely. She casts a spell to detect the possible magical effects better.

When Tiber and Delena peer into the crystal, they see the southern wall of the storage room, the one with the fresco of the Fourth Army of Exploration. The Lady is pretty sure it's a type of crystal ball, though not a standard one.

"Anything interesting?" Ayalina inquires. She doesn't move to look herself, not particularly interested in crowding either of her companions.

"Yes and no. That fresco in the storage room," Tiber says, hiking a thumb in the general direction. Destination clear, he walks to the storage room and starts to look it over. Alright, let's get out of this damn place.
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"You were right there, Pavo. Looks like there is something in that Fresco" Delena says as she looks into the crystal.

"Time to leave", she says and quickly gathers all the things still laying around, especially the key from the bedroom. She glances at Tiber still glaring at Pavo. "There's a lot of suave faces to smash outside, if you don't especially want another civil war inside here", she says to Tiber with a mean smile.

When she gets in the storage room, she starts to examine the fresco more closely. "Disriana, try to find something special. Keyhole, moving pieces, anything. Hiss if you find one." she instructs her viper, which then slithers on the wall.

"Can we be sure it's an image of the present and not an image that's been preserved?" Ayalina asks, blinking. Distractedly, she says, "I'll be just a minute."

As the others move to the storage room she takes a moment to linger, hoping to see if they appear in the crystal.

Thalasou tries to get a peek at the crystal ball but the others are in the way. Before he has a chance to look, Delena and Tiber begin moving towards the other room. Thalasou follows. "What did you guys see? Where are we going? Did you find the way out?"

In the room with the fresco he tries to examine it more closely. Just how closely does the imagery in the picture match what he remembers from the Fourth Army.

@Delena: I just remembered that Disriana doesn't speak or know any languages yet. I had been treating her like she just can't speak, but she can't understand either. I'll post an official ruling in the recruitment thread as to what communication she can understand until level 5.

Nobody turns up anything new in the storage room, but Ayalina does gain some information back in the social room. Her companions never appear in the crystal ball, but she does see some shadows moving across the wall.

Pavo returns to the storage room to examine the fresco, swiftly growing frustrated with the lack of actual produce from following the antique escape room's hidden clues.

How strange, she thinks, frowning. Surely they're there by now, right?

She gives it another moment to see if shadows clarify. If they do, she sticks around for a bit longer. If they don't, she follows the others to the storage room to let them know what she's learned.

"Shadows? You didn't see us but you saw shadows? That's strange."

Thalasou gets closer to the fresco and reaches out to touch it. He pushes on it a little bit to see if the wall it is painted on is solid to the touch.

"Nothing?" Delena says in frustration after the unsuccessful search. She sits down on a storage box, and starts to go through their findings, annoyance in her voice. "So. We have a fresco. Fourth army. Fourth army stuff all around. Crystal ball linking bar to the fresco. But what triggers the exit? No buttons, no command words? Why is the ball in the bar? Is the trigger there? And why on earth was this hidden behind the boxes? If it is relevant, how did the last person leave? Or lock the crystal cabinet?"

"Shadows", Delena repeats when Ayalina tells about her findings. "Light has something to do with it? What, should we do shadow puppets? Look, Galitian has horns!" she sneers and does a horn impression with her hands.

Not many ideas here right now.

Nothing anybody tries so far produces an effect, except to increase everyone's boredom and frustration.

"The only thing that I can think of," Pavo says, after hearing what Ayalina saw, "Is to turn out the lights here and look again."

"It's worth a try," Ayalina shrugs, equally at a loss. Her understanding was more in line with people and history rather than in strange magic that caused shadows in places there should be people and messed about with lights. "I'll let you know if anything changes."

She returns to the strange crystal ball, ready to report any changes in the image.

"If that doesn't work, try changing the orientation of the glass in the sphere," Pavo calls after the singer. "The manner of insertion--elegant as Tiber's effort was--might have some effect."

"Yeah. The lights. In fact, maybe that's why the switches are in different rooms. That makes sense. Well, sort of." Thalasou waits in the room for the lights to go out and then to hear what Ayalina reports.

Tiber waits in the storage room as the lights get manipulated. I’m sure this is easy for whoever made this place, but why’d they make it so hard to leave? Getting in would be the part I’d make a challenge!

Once Pavo finds the correct combination of switches to turn off the lights in only the storage room, Ayalina sees a glow appear over the coat of arms on one soldier's shield.

"Why are these lights so complicated to work?" Pavo wonders out loud.

"It worked!" Ayalina rushes to the others, excitement obvious in her expression. She points to the soldier's coat of arms on the actual fresco and explains, "There's a glow here in the crystal! There might be something special about it!" She pauses, before sheepishly admitting, "I'm alright at reading magic, but not so great at detecting it... Unless there might be some sort of secret button or something?"

--

Tiber shrugs at Pavo and Ayalina's wonderings and touches the glowing shield, his own shield raised. Get. Me. Out. Should have been a wizard, then I could just teleport out of here.
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If the wall gives way or something, Tiber will continue forward.

"I hope this is the final step and not just another delay", Delena says. She again casts a spell for analyzing the magic and examines the rune as Tiber presses it.