Adventure #2 - The Shadow Man

"Oh, excellent."
"Great news, indeed."
"Right this way, right this way."

One of them leads Talmut through a door at the back of their shop, which leads down a narrow (and dusty) staircase, that turns suddenly and ends at a stout wooden door. After fumbling with his keys for a minute, the mage gets it unlocked, but has some trouble opening it. "Hrmph." He puts his shoulder into it and knocks the door open.

Then, he leads you into a dark chamber, where he uses a tinder-twig to light a lantern that is hanging from the wooden beam supporting the ceiling.

Dusty old book shelves line the walls, packed with old tomes and manuals. Everywhere where a more solid book shelf wouldn't fit, crooked wooden shelves are hung up, supporting even more books. Miscellaneous scrolls and trinkets are crammed in, on top of books, in front of books, sometimes in-between books. On a few of the flimsier shelves, wide glass jars (filled with all manner of strange components) serve as make-shift bookends. There are so many books, they are even stacked up on the floor in several piles.

Two massive oak tables dominate the floor, but they are covered with loose papers, piled-up so high that some have slid off the tables and spilled onto the floor. A couple of extra large codices have been lain across the papers, as have a number of partially melted wax candles.

"Ah, here it is. These are our notes. If you could, well, make sense of it all, we would greatly appreciate it. It's important work, you know? Very important. New ground, if you will."

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Upstairs, the other mage is still talking to Jeremiah.

"Oh, Jeremiah, where are my manners? Would you care for some herbal tea? Or perhaps a pipefull, instead?"

OOC - Can I use my Knowleges to help me sort and categorize this?  It looks like a giant undertaking, but I am totally willing to do it.  I will spend non crafting/learning new spells time here working.  Being a bit of an OCD logistician irl, I think the first thing I need is a clean shelf.  Is there room to put a sturdy shelf up in here?  The biggest that will fit, I am going to need all the room I can get...Talmut will also conjure an Unseen Servant to aid him, beginning tomorrow, when he can learn it.



Eyes glazing over at the trove in front of him, Talmut says, "Yes...I will get started right away.  May I bring in a shelf to aid in organizing?"

"Oh, of course, of course. Bring whatever you need."

There isn't a lot of room for a clean shelf, but Talmut is fairly confident he can squeeze one in on the wall somewhere ... worst case scenario, he could suspend the shelf between the two big tables.

"If you need to rest at some point, there is a cot in the closet. At least, I think there's a closet around here somewhere. Oh, and help yourself to whatever food and drink we have upstairs ... but if you're not sure it's food, well, probably best you don't eat it."

OOC: Sure, throw down a few different knowledge checks; whatever you think is relevant and we'll go from there.

Mage wrote:"Oh, Jeremiah, where are my manners? Would you care for some herbal tea? Or perhaps a pipefull, instead?"

"Both seem nice, I often find one goes with the other. I hope you don't find that to indulgent..."

Jeremiah will pull some of his herbs out from his stash to share with the mage.

Knowledge: Engineering - 15+13=28 (To go about the task in the most logical fashion)
Knowledge: Arcana - 19+13=32 (To break stuff down into basic groups?)
Linguistics - 15+13=28 (To figure some of it out...)
Detect Magic on the trinkets to separate them into groups by School (take 10's on Spellcraft?)
Unseen Servant to clean the room, stack papers neatly, ect.

How much is the shelf?


In regard to me staying on the cot:  "I was going to craft some items for my friends over the next week, but I have a room in the tavern that could suffice..."

After a bit of smoking, Jeremiah will take a short departure to the Boyer to have his bow tweaked.

"Do you mind if I step out for a bit? I need to drop my bow off to have it adjusted, it doesn't feel as... taunt as it should. I would be interested in coming back later, however, perhaps I should pick up something for you while I'm out?"

Jeremiah wrote:"Both seem nice, I often find one goes with the other. I hope you don't find that to indulgent..."
Jeremiah will pull some of his herbs out from his stash to share with the mage.

Odion of the Seventh Digit shares his tea and his pipeweed with Jeremiah, and gladly partakes in the pipeweed Jeremiah offers in return. Oddly enough, the wizened mage uses the same herbs for his tea that he uses for his pipe. Jeremiah finds in to be sweet spicy with heavy aromatics, both in the tea and the toke.

Jeremiah wrote:After a bit of smoking, Jeremiah will take a short departure to the Boyer to have his bow tweaked.
"Do you mind if I step out for a bit? I need to drop my bow off to have it adjusted, it doesn't feel as... taunt as it should. I would be interested in coming back later, however, perhaps I should pick up something for you while I'm out?"

"Oh, no, by all means. Do as you must. Your friend will be fine; he's very capable."

Jeremiah wanders the street for a little while, but eventually finds a bowyer just a few blocks over.

Talmut wrote:How much is the shelf?

Talmut leaves in search of a good shelf. It's not long before he locates a carpenter who will provide him with a sturdy plank for a mere copper piece.

Talmut wrote:Knowledge: Engineering - 15+13=28 (To go about the task in the most logical fashion)

Talmut examines the task at hand and quickly comes up with a systematic approach to sort and examine every pile.

Talmut wrote:Linguistics - 15+13=28 (To figure some of it out...)

Malabus and Odion use an unusual type of short hand, but it doesn't take Talmut long to make sense of it.

Talmut wrote:Unseen Servant to clean the room, stack papers neatly, ect.

The unseen servant dusts and sweeps and helps carry a few things, freeing Talmut to concentrate more freely.

Talmut wrote:Knowledge: Arcana - 19+13=32 (To break stuff down into basic groups?)
Detect Magic on the trinkets to separate them into groups by School (take 10's on Spellcraft?)

One by one, he starts to go through the sheets and the trinkets, separating them into type. His initial instinct is to sort by school, but after an hour or so, he realizes that he could also stack them according to basic principle. It seems their earliest studies (conducted long before Jeremiah arrived) were designed to test some pretty basic magical precepts, stuff most wizards take for granted ... but their observations during those studies were focused on really unconventional ideas. They were testing things like the effects of transformations before and after lunch, how long someone should wait after being healed before going swimming, whether sleeping people could hear phantasms better or figments, and whether magically altered food tasted different than magically created food. Really bizarre stuff.

The second stage of their experiments took those findings and introduced patterns; predictions made after analyzing the initial results. Some of their tests during this stage were merely to verify their predictions, by tweaking and altering common spells (for example, replacing the power word for "change" with the power word for "growth" or replacing a blue powder with indigo powder). In some cases, their predictions proved true ... but in a few cases, they proved false, sometimes with unexpected (and rather disturbing) new discoveries.

Eventually, as the experiments continued, they began to do the same with more and more powerful magic, but their earliest studies were by-and-far the most prominent portion of the tests.

Then, there was a gap in the study, where they seemed to stop altogether.

Finally, there was a series of tests performed on a single test subject (Jeremiah), using extremely advanced theories to replicate extremely basic spell functions. It is in these last steps that an intriguing pattern starts to emerge ... or so it seems. The concepts deployed here are well beyond the scope of Talmut's experience, but it seems to him that the culmination of each procedural path lead the researchers to a different (and highly advanced) spell constituent. Put together, the collection would produce a spell that is "well beyond" the Tisu Mudutu. 

Unfortunately, there's no way to know whether the combination works; whether it produced a working spell or a bunch of nonsense. They never tested it. Even if they had, the magicks involved are beyond comprehension ... no mortal caster could cast such a spell. Or could they?

At the end of the day, he feels satisfied with his results ... there is no way these piles could be better organized. It's time to show Malabus and Odion what he's done.

Bowing to the wizards, "Masters Malabus and Odion, I have organized and analyzed your research - amazing work! The room awaits your inspection, at your leisure."

Upon arrival at the bowyer, Jeremiah looks around for a bow that's just right.

OOC: Jeremiah is looking for a masterwork composite longbow fit for a +3 STR mod...

Alpha Omega wrote:Upon arrival at the bowyer, Jeremiah looks around for a bow that's just right.
OOC: Jeremiah is looking for a masterwork composite longbow fit for a +3 STR mod...

In a town of this size, Jeremiah has no trouble finding such a bow. The bowyer he finds has several bows that fit his specifications ... and a few that are even harder to pull. The level craftsmanship is clearly that of a master, though he has a few bows that are of lower quality, as well (for those who can't afford his more expensive handiwork). He has arrows and quivers, too. He has crossbows and bolts. It's quite the collection.

Jeremiah looks to the finest bow that has the perfect pull.

"How much sir? Also, would you be interested in buying this bow I have here off of me, perhaps some sort of a trade. I no longer think I will need this one..."

Alpha Omega wrote:"How much sir? Also, would you be interested in buying this bow I have here off of me, perhaps some sort of a trade. I no longer think I will need this one..."

"It's all yours for just 700 gold."
After examining Jeremiah's old bow, he says "Sure, I'll give you 300 gold for this. It's a little worn, but I bet I can get someone to buy it."

Jeremiah will head to the Fletcher and buy some arrows, after which he will head to the vault and make a deposit...

OOC: He'll eat at the Toad for the rest of the week, so 5cp x 20d = 100cp for the weeks worth of food.