Completed Mysteries in a Bird Skull

[Marcus Ahysen]

. . Mysteries in a Bird Skull . . Timestamp: 7th of Summer, 513 AV Location: Temple of the Black Sun After he had been discovered, Marcus had been certain Inoadar would kill him. But, over the span of no more than a few chimes, everything had changed. Inoadar switched sides, if he had ever truly been against the Black Sun, and decided to work with Marcus instead of against him. Marcus had not only gotten out with his life, but with a new convert, and information good enough to make his superiors consider the mission a success. It was time to follow up on that success. Marcus had been asked to investigate the item Inoadar told him about, and while it had taken him some time to get things back in order, he did manage to find out about a mage who had not so long ago become an apprentice in the Ebonstryfe who might be able to help him. While he technically outranked the mage, Marcus knew better than to overtly thwart his authority over the man. A powerful mage was a powerful mage, apprentice or not, and Marcus wanted him to cooperate. He had a letter sent to Clyde Sullins, the mage in question, asking him to meet at the Temple of the Black Sun, on the 7th day of Summer, at the tenth bell in the morning. That was where Marcus was waiting. He was no longer disguised as a common worker, but was instead dressed in his official robes, marking him as an agent of the Black Sun. He was seated near the Black Shard. There were a few other people scattered about, but the temple was otherwise empty. There was no sermon scheduled for that day, so there was no special reason for anybody to be there. The agent kept an eye on the doors for the temple, having obtained a rough description of Clyde, and waited for him to arrive. OOCIf the timestamp doesn't work for either of you, I can change it. Just let me know.

[Clyde Sullins]

It had been awhile since Clyde had received a letter. As long as it had been since he had last been called off for some reason or other, to do with the Stryfe or Sun, or some other group of Ravok wanting him for some task. So when the letter was brought to his room, he let out a resolute sigh, having an inkling of what it would contain. When he opened it, he was not left surprised. When he opened it, he was asked to meet at the Temple of the Black Sun in a few days time, at a specified bell. It told him next to nothing in regards to what they wanted of him, or what he would be doing, which simply annoyed Clyde. How could he prepare, if he did not know what he would be doing? Was there some rule that any dealings to be made in the name of Rhysol, had to be vague and unclear? Could not one include in a letter what was going on? In his experience, apparently not... Not knowing why he was coming, if it was to fight, to craft something, torture someone, or something else entirely, he did not put on his good clothes, just wearing his normal everyday ones. He did not want to get them all dirty and mucked up, if it was any of the messier reasons. With him as always he took his pack with his supplies, his staff in his right hand, and a light hammer tucked into his belt, hidden under his robes. Just in case. Better safe than sorry right? Or so he felt, as he set off. As he walked in the front door of the temple, a few chimes early, he glanced about the open room. It seemed more or less devoid of people. Just a few random worshipers scattered about. The only person that caught his eye, was the one wearing the robes marking him as a agent of the Black Sun. A agent who was keeping watch of the doors, instead of the people worshiping, he noted to himself. Logically, that man would be the one who had asked him to come, and who wanted his services. As he entered, he headed directly for the man, looking him in the eyes as he neared. In other circumstances that would be seen as a attempt at intimidation, and perhaps the man would see it as such, but really Clyde was inspecting his eyes for color. He knew higher ranked followers of Rhysol, had lost the color in one eye. This fact was confirmed when he saw that both of the mans eyes had color. Once he finally arrived in front of the man, he nodded once. "I suppose you are the man I was asked to meet here? I am Clyde. Clyde Sullins. And you are? Will I finally find out why I have come here?"

[Marcus Ahysen]

Clyde's attitude was a bit unsettling. Normally an apprentice did not openly question the reason for their summons, but Marcus tried not to pay attention. The last thing he wanted was to be fried alive. He had of course been told about Clyde's efforts on the battlefield against the yukman during the mission to Syliras. While the mission itself had been a failure, Clyde had come out well off at the end of it. He was respected by the right people, even if he had yet to attain the right title, and big things were expected from him. This current mission was likely to be a trivial thing to him, but it could potentially lead to something much bigger if all went well. "Yes. I am Marcus Ahysen. I'm sorry the letter didn't contain more information, but you will learn that they rarely do. It is dangerous to put secrets on paper that anyone with enough mizas can bribe a person to let them read." Marcus motioned for Clyde to follow him, leading him away from the main chapel and through a door usually reserved only to the Black Sun and ranked members of the Ebonstryfe. The door only led to the Black Sun offices, but even so, it was rare for an apprentice to be taken back, and even rarer for a civilian. Marcus took Clyde to the first open office on the right. He did not have an office of his own, Marcus was a field agent, but he wanted a place private to talk. Once they were inside he offered Clyde a seat, then took a seat for himself opposite the mage. "I've heard a lot about you, Clyde. You've proven yourself to be quite capable since your arrival in Ravok, and it's expected you will rise quickly through the ranks once you complete your Crucible. I wish you the best of luck in that. I've also heard that you are a crafter of magical items, which is why I've asked you here today." Marcus paused, allowing Clyde to comment if he desired, but he doubted there would be many questions yet, since Marcus had yet to really explain anything. "I'm sure you've heard of the Rising Dawn, the terrorists who tried to destroy the temple last fall. I've learned that a contact of mine," Marcus left out the fact that the contact was actually a former suspect, "Has made contact with the Rising Dawn, and was given a magical item that supposedly allows them to track him down, wherever he may be. We want you to look at this item and see if you can learn how it works, and more importantly, if it can be reversed, and used to track down the mage that gave it to him. If you succeed, it will be a major boost to your reputation, and it may just help us to find where the Rising Dawn is hiding and take them down once and for all."

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde nodded at the man, noting his name, Marcus Ahysen. The last one was a bit tricky to say though. But who knew if he would ever even see the man again. With his luck he would, and it would not be good to mispronounce his name. "Yes, I have noticed that is true, people are always vague in such letters... I suppose security can be an issue in correspondence. Though I think that issue would actually be quite easy to circumvent. I realized it awhile back after thinking on the issue for a bit. All it would take would be some Glyphing, and the tiniest of Reimancy... And a carefully worded trigger..." Clyde suddenly broke off his speech, and grinned at Marcus. "But I highly doubt you brought me here to speak on security issues with messages, even if I have a simple solution. Go on." But in his own mind Clyde still thought on it, a simple application of a focus and a trigger, holding a tiny Reimancy spell in it, which could be scrolled secretly on the back of the paper. The trigger worded so that if anyone without permission attempted to look upon or read the message, it would set the trigger off. And as the magic was released, the Glyphs would break, and the paper would crumble to dust, therefore making it unreadable at the moment someone without permission attempted to look upon its message. He had thought of it awhile back, when Gallo had spoken of Cryptography. Though admittedly it was a difficult trigger to manage, one worded so particularly... He doubted a lesser Glypher could create a functional example of a trigger worded as such. Clyde followed along with Marcus, the thump of his staff on the ground sounding off every few paces. He followed along until he ended up in what was obvious a set of offices, and set down in a chair once he was led into one. Then it was finally time to talk about the reason he had come here, in secret. Once he began speaking, Clyde did not respond, simply letting him get on with it. He looked on impassively, even when he spoke of his own good prospects and future within the Stryfe, and of his impending Crucible. But the real reason he had been asked here, was because he was a Magecrafter, an enchanter of items. Was he being asked to inspect someone else's work? Perhaps to figure out what enchantment was on it, from a captured item? "Yes, I have heard of them, I took a bolt to the thigh awhile back, while stopping a group of them attempting to free slaves. Most of which did not want to be freed." "Is this an item of Magecrafting? I suppose it could be done, with some behavioral enhancements... Though that seems exceedingly expensive for an item you are passing off to another person." "As for reversing it... I am not so sure on that... I could perhaps figure out who forged it, who enchanted it... Possibly, mind you. I am not certain. But reversing the enchantment? I am not sure if that is possible. But first I would need to see the item. What exactly kind of item is this?"

[Marcus Ahysen]

"Yes. And I am fairly certain it was crafted by the mage, Ervis, one of the terrorist lieutenants." That was not what Clyde had asked, but Marcus did not know that there were different types of magical items. Actually, he was a little confused as to why Clyde would even ask that, when Marcus had already said it had been crafted by a mage, but he supposed the man was just being thorough. There was nothing wrong with thorough.. as long as it wasn't actually because he was just dim, and hadn't been listening before. But Marcus doubted that. "Even if you cannot reverse it, anything you can tell us about how it works would be helpful. I have not seen the item myself. I did not want to disturb it, as I don't know how it works. For all I know, I might accidentally somehow alert the mage that I know about it.. which is why I would rather an artisan such as yourself should take a look at it first. If you think it is safe to move, then we'll take it back to the temple. So.. let's go see it then, shall we?" Marcus stood and walked over to the door. Assuming that Clyde followed, Marcus would lead him outside to the main canal where there was already a ravosala waiting to transport them to Ino Vations. During the ride, Marcus was mostly quiet. He enjoyed ravosala rides, finding them relaxing. He hoped that Clyde would not mind his lack of desire for small talk. Marcus was quite capable of talking up a storm, but on the water he found it much more enjoyable to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Of course, if Clyde had more questions, or desired to converse, Marcus would oblige him. It did not take them long to reach Ino Vations. When they did, Marcus tipped the boatman before stepping out and leading the way to the door. He knocked once, signaling to Inoadar that he had arrived. The man would be expecting him, so it wasn't as if Marcus was going to be catching him by surprise. Hopefully there were no customers to delay them. Marcus would have preferred Inoadar close down the shop, but he didn't ask the man to do that outright. He wouldn't be surprised if Inoadar did, however, considering how paranoid he seemed to be. "Hello again," Marcus said when he spotted Inoadar. It was the first time they had seen each other face to face since Marcus had been discovered. Now Marcus was clean, his hair was back to normal, and he was dressed in the robes of an agent of the Black Sun. In truth, Marcus rarely wore his robes, preferring to dress more fashionably, especially considering he was usually an undercover agent. But he had purposely chosen to dress the way he did to drive home a point. Marcus was an agent of the Black Sun. He was marked by Rhysol, and Inoadar was not. He was the one with the real power, especially now that he was no longer hiding it. "This is the mage I mentioned in the letter," Marcus stated when Clyde followed him in. He purposely left out Clyde's name, in the case that he wanted to remain anonymous. The same for Inoadar.. or Nolan, or Trandino, or whatever he was going by these days. "Hopefully he can tell us something about the item."

[Inoadar]

Inoadar had no trouble keeping customers out when he wanted. At tenth bell, he quite theatrically dropped a vial filled with water on the floor and grabbed a cloth, covering his face and ordering everyone out through his makeshift filtering mask. Everyone was very cooperative. He called after them that he would be open again after he cleaned up and neutralized the toxin, say about fourteenth bell. That was when he started getting his truly serious customers and lucrative purchases anyway. These daylight browsers were mostly just trying to look dangerous by hanging around a poison shop. Most of his daytime bells were used for lab work in spite of them.

He chuckled at the memory of leaving a leaky sample of a contact poison out where it could be easily shoplifted. That sample was getting near the end of its full potency shelf life and hadn't been moving well anyway. The loss of the potential sale was well worth the object lesson in "petchin' with the poisoner".

Several chimes later, the knock came and he went to the door. It was, as expected, Marcus and another man he assumed was the mage. Inoadar stepped back, appraising Marcus' attire, "Just like in your painting." He grinned with a respectful nod. He was comfortable with the likelihood that he would be an ally but not a member. But there was definitely a twinge of envy. 'Maybe someday...'

Marcus confirmed the role of the man with him, if not his identity. In truth, Inoadar would have been surprised if he had spilled the name. As they moved fully inside, Inoadar reached back to turn the sign to "Closed". He turned back to the other two men, extending his hands to the mage. "You can call me 'Morley" He gestured at the door to the back room and lab. "Shall we retire to less conspicuous settings?"

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde frowned for a moment, listening to the wording of the man before him... And realized he knew next to nothing about magical enchantments. It was not surprising, even amongst mages it was a rare trade. But clearly by the way he had said that is was 'crafted by a mage'... It meant he did not know the significance of the word, or even the name of the magic which Clyde practiced. Did he not even bother to learn the names of the magics he knew? Some were newer additions, or ones he knew little on, but his Magecrafing skills was well known. But then again, he reasoned, not knowing of the magic, he might have read it, and not recognized the name for what it was. That actually seemed the most likely of explanations. "That is fine. Honestly though, I think my skill in auristics will be more important, than my skill in Magecrafting. Though perhaps my experience in the latter, will better prepare me to read the enchanted items aura. I have done so before after all. Albeit not for such a purpose as this." Clyde followed him along outside, back the way they had come. Once more he was out on the street, and was taking a ride in a Ravasolaman to some unknown destination. Clyde would spend the ride in quiet, thinking over the various things he might need to do. Likely at least some Glyphing to isolate the item, and perhaps to prepare for the auristical reading. He was not sure if anything further would be needed. He had ink and quill with him, and some leftover inscribing paint for the ground Glyphing. Once they arrived, Clyde simply followed along silently behind Marcus, staff in hand. He made sure to keep his eyes open, and to watch for the new person they were meeting. Considered how clandestine their meeting had been so far, he did not doubt this new person would be of the shady variety. Clyde shook the mans hand briefly, and nodded to him. However he was quickly straight back to business. "Pleasure to meet you Morley. So, were is the item? And were will I be inspecting it?" Once he showed them the back room, Clyde began to head to it, eager to get to work, and to work his craft, his staff tapping along as he walked.

[Marcus Ahysen]

Marcus almost chuckled when Inoadar introduced himself as Morley. It was always a different name with him, it seemed. The agent wondered just how many aliases "Morley" had, and how he was able to keep up with all of it. Of course.. Marcus too often took on many names, but he always went back to being Marcus. In fact, that was one of the core principals his teacher Luvet had instilled to him. Never forget who you are. While Marcus was not as skilled as he should be in the art of morphing, he still tried to follow Luvet's teachings and keep his sense of self intact. It helped when going undercover, even when he wasn't using his magic, to know who he was and never forget it. It made it easier to return to his normal life when the mission was over. As it was, he had no problem dropping his role as "Nolan's" assistant and becoming an Ahysen again. The show was now in Morley's hands, however. Marcus did not know where he had the item stored, or where he wanted Clyde to look him over. After Inoadar led the way, Marcus followed behind the other two. Outside, members of the Ebonstryfe moved into place to watch over the building. There would be no interruptions... hopefully.

[Inoadar]

Inoadar went to one of his locked cabinets and turned the key. The bird skull was set in a circle of rags, itself wrapped in one. He pulled it out and shut the cabinet door, not bothering to lock it. He unfolded the corners of the rag to reveal the bare bones of a tiny bird skull, covered in glyphs.

He turned to the mage. "I was given this and told that it would allow him to contact me. He said nothing of ME contacting HIM. I can only hope that there is some way to determine which glyphs pertain to that aspect, and find some way to alter them. I certainly don't which glyphs, if any, may be the ones."

His look became uncertain as he continued. "Neither do I know if there is any glyphs that will react to any other touch but mine. I think you should allow me to hold it while you examine it. When you want to see the glyphs below, just say the word." He held the skull up to the face of the mage, turning it slowly to give the man a chance to see all sides of it. He held another rag in his left hand, prepared to upend the skull into it to display the underside.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde watched silently, waiting to see the item, whatever it might be. Ideas were still buzzing through his head, of what it might be, what it might do, how it worked... The idea that simply touching it might alert the creator seemed odd... He was having some issues with this item, as it seemed a very expensive enchantment, should he do so with Magecrafting. However as he saw the skull, Clyde instinctively took a step back, a look of distaste covering his mouth... This was not his Magics, this was something else. It was just... Wrong, and something he did not deal in. He looked from Marcus, and back to Morley, and shook his head. This was further proof of how little they knew of magic, enchantments, or the very reason he had been brought here. They had called the wrong kind of mage! "Do you think I am a bone cutter? I don't deal in that magic. This is not Magecrafting, not proper enchanting that I do. This is Malediction. All of which I know of is that it is imprecise, unreliable, and works different to my own Magic of Magecrafting." Clyde paused for a moment, looking closer at the symbols on the skull. For as he looked closer, his trained Glyphing eyes instantly knew these were not true sigils or Glyphs. Just symbols to some other end. Possibly for no reason at all beyond looks. Perhaps that was its purpose, to look "Magicy" in order to fool people as these, the uninitiated, into thinking something else was at work. "I can also say that this not Glyphing, another Magic I practice. Perhaps these symbols serve a purpose, but it is not Glyphing. I cannot say that it will do nothing should another person touch it, but no spell is stored inside that will be released should someone do so." Clyde let out a breath, a bit aggravated at the pair of people he was before, and how inept they were proving to be. "That is not to say I cannot do anything. I could certainly isolate the skull with Glyphs, and make it safe to examine, even enhancing such an examination, and I could inspect its aura with Auristics... But I am not sure what that would tell me... If you want, I will do so... Though I will need a spot were I can inscribe my Glyphs to ensconce this... Malediction object..."