Legacy of the Stone Assembly, Chapter I: The Cabal, The Quill, and the Concord

[magic_gathering2001]

"Simply playing different recordings from the memory preprogrammed into you will not help you here spirit. Even though your words express meaning enough, their preconstruction is quickly as obvious as your own world's absence."

[sblock=ooc]Analyze Resonance again Int 3 + Occult 5 + Density 2 = 10 dice. Looking first to see if he recognizes the spirit's resonance, then to identify the most powerful feeling it resonates.

Also, not sure what the check is, but something to see if Prometheus' talking is phasing the spirit at all, or if the spirit even responds directly to him.[/sblock]

 

[Hella_Tellah]

[sblock=ooc]

Analyze Resonance again Int 3 + Occult 5 + Density 2 = 10 dice. Looking first to see if he recognizes the spirit's resonance, then to identify the most powerful feeling it resonates.

6 successes in 2 rolls (8 rolls left).[/sblock]
Prometheus scanned the spirit. More than any other emotion, the spirit resonated with loneliness and longing. Prometheus felt that the being deeply wanted to belong to something much larger than himself, and was utterly consumed in the desire--so much so that Prometheus wondered if the creature had any substance at all beyond that one overwhelming urge.

[sblock=ooc]

Also, not sure what the check is, but something to see if Prometheus' talking is phasing the spirit at all, or if the spirit even responds directly to him.

Wits (2) + Empathy (-1 for untrained) = 1 die, 1 success.[/sblock]
The spirit's gibbering started to make a little sense to him. There was definitely a pattern to the way it spoke. It was as though it struggled to keep its train of thought for more than a single thought, and had to meander about for a few sentences before coming back into the moment. It had been talking to him when it called him a "silly boy," so it at least acknowledged Prometheus' presence.

She turns and starts grabbing leaflets and brochures and little packets of info from other rooms in the house.

Thorn found a stand full of brochures near the front desk. It was the sort of thing you might find in a hotel lobby: pamphlets for tourist traps and water parks. There were, however, a selection of maps of interesting architectural and historical sites on the top shelf.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

"Simply playing different recordings from the memory preprogrammed into you will not help you here spirit. Even though your words express meaning enough, their preconstruction is quickly as obvious as your own world's absence."

"My dear boy," the spirit replied, hotly, "I'm afraid that, in this instance, your notions are as incorrect as your tone is rude. You may take this all for granted--take the mortar, block and glass--and you forget the speech that moved the stone. Well, it's just a coffeehouse, made out of wood, but espresso coffee tastes mighty good! Six stories, brick and mortar, the lighthouse lit Howard's Rock's nights like a flickering candle over a medieval scholar's papers."

 

[Shayuri]

That looks promising, Thorn decides, and grabs the whole stack from the top shelf. Carrying it across her chest like a schoolgirl would carry her books, she heads back to the piano room and sets the pile down on the top of the old grand hard enough to make the strings inside hum discordantly.

"Did you ask him about the music yet?" she asks briskly as she starts going through the papers, looking for anything related to the spirit's mania.

 

[BlueLotus]

Her brain still trying to make sense of the alpha and beta nonsense that the spirit referred to made Levanna lose track of the conversation. Rather than open her mouth and appear dull witted, she went to Thorn's side and asked "uh... Want some help with that?" while scratching nervously at the back of her head.

At least this spirit was amiable. It could have been a lot worse, she thought darkly.

 

[magic_gathering2001]

"Fair enough I suppose it, to say that Alpha survives in the product of its thoughts as many civilizations native to beta have done." Pausing his speech to move over to the sheet music, Prometheus will grab the pile and move next to the spirit, holding the sheet where both can see it, "What import does this particular item have to the fragment of memory which alpha deemed fit with which to impart you?"

 

[Hella_Tellah]

"Fair enough I suppose it, to say that Alpha survives in the product of its thoughts as many civilizations native to beta have done." Pausing his speech to move over to the sheet music, Prometheus will grab the pile and move next to the spirit, holding the sheet where both can see it, "What import does this particular item have to the fragment of memory which alpha deemed fit with which to impart you?"

"Oh, that's very important indeed, and I do hope you'll see that it joins its brothers in the Tome of Ages. The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of the 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-storey buildings. வானளாவிகளின் பாரம் தாங்கும் கூறுகளும், குறிப்பிடத்தக்க அளவு ஏனைய கட்டிடங்களில் இருந்து வேறுபடுகின்றன. El primer edifici que podria ser considerat gratacel és el Home Insurance Building, dissenyat pel nord-americà William Li Baron Jenney."

 

[magic_gathering2001]

"I would quite like to oblige you and return these notes to the Tome, however my knowledge of these things remains imperfect, and I have in fact no reference by which to identify the Tome, nor inclination as to where to look. Could you help me in these regards spirit?"

[sblock=ooc]Does Prometheus speak any of those languages, and if he does, could you translate it?[/sblock]

 

[Shayuri]

Her brain still trying to make sense of the alpha and beta nonsense that the spirit referred to made Levanna lose track of the conversation. Rather than open her mouth and appear dull witted, she went to Thorn's side and asked "uh... Want some help with that?" while scratching nervously at the back of her head.

At least this spirit was amiable. It could have been a lot worse, she thought darkly.

"Sure," Thorn said amiably. "I'm just sort of looking through all this stuff...seeing if anything he's talking about is in here. Figure maybe if we can show him proof..."

She shrugs and offers Levanna half of the stack she'd liberated.

"Mostly I'm just looking busy. I'm at the point where I'm ready to just grab his head and haul him out of the house with my bare hands."

 

[Hella_Tellah]

"I would quite like to oblige you and return these notes to the Tome, however my knowledge of these things remains imperfect, and I have in fact no reference by which to identify the Tome, nor inclination as to where to look. Could you help me in these regards spirit?"

"Ah, yes, I had the gentleman of Cathay append the address of a house in Howard's Rock, Massachussetts to the sheet music. Blister steel, produced by the cementation process, was first made in Italy in the early 16th century and soon after introduced to England. Cement plaster is a mixture of suitable plaster, sand, portland cement and water which is normally applied to masonry interiors and exteriors to achieve a smooth surface. Hydraulic cements are materials that set and harden after being combined with water, as a result of chemical reactions with the mixing water, and that, after hardening, retain strength and stability even under water.

"If you would please be so kind as to deliver that set of sheet music to the address listed upon its final page, and insert it into the Tome of Ages, I would be forever indebted to you, and you'd be doing history a great service. Storeys within a building need not be all the same height — often the lobby is quite spacious, for example. They are powered by electric motors that either drive traction cables and counterweights a pulley, or pump hydraulic fluid to raise a cylindrical piston.In addition to rods placed at regular intervals on the highest portions of a structure, a lightning protection system typically includes a rooftop network of conductors, multiple conductive paths from the roof to the ground, bonding connections to metallic objects within the structure and a grounding network."

[sblock=ooc]

Does Prometheus speak any of those languages, and if he does, could you translate it?

[I'm afraid Prometheus only speaks English, lacking the merits for others. He spoke in Thai and Catalan, if you're curious. I promise you aren't missing anything important.[/sblock]

"Sure," Thorn said amiably. "I'm just sort of looking through all this stuff...seeing if anything he's talking about is in here. Figure maybe if we can show him proof..."

She shrugs and offers Levanna half of the stack she'd liberated.

There were a number of dull pamphlets on local museums and tourist attractions, but one in particular caught Thorn's eye: Colonial Villages of the Massachussetts Coastline. It was full of photographs of seafront property and quaint old-timey main streets in a smattering of small towns along the coast. One photograph's caption seemed relevant:

Howard's Rock. Recommended for adventurous travellers. Fine cuisine.
​

Wasn't that the same town mentioned in the sheet music?

"Mostly I'm just looking busy. I'm at the point where I'm ready to just grab his head and haul him out of the house with my bare hands."

The spirit turned to address Thorn with a look of sincere contrition. "I apologize, my dear, if I've offended you in some manner. The word hotel is derived from the French hôtel (coming from hôte meaning host), which referred to a French version of a townhouse or any other building seeing frequent visitors, rather than a place offering accommodation. It has been proposed that the term is a throwback to the age of the shrine cults, the name being retained because all major Zoroastrian rituals were solemnized between sunrise and noon, the time of day especially under Mithra's protection. The early European dollhouses were each unique, constructed on a custom basis by individual craftsmen."