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AGELESS Campaign Episode 2 - Temple of the Cat-Goddess
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<blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 4777374" data-attributes="member: 8530"><p><strong>Chapter Twenty-one, “Tunnel to the ends of the Earth” September 2nd, 1882, 1:45 P.M.</strong></p><p></p><p>George had been listening intently to the story, nodding occasionally and taking notes. He says, "You know James, if they had a portal. And it has eight sides, my guess would be that there are a total of nine gates, each gate able to transport to each of the others. If the Atlanteans had the capacity to build them on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the far Mediterranean, the other five could be anywhere in the world. Though my supposition would be that whereever we have seen concentration of late Neolithic advancements, we may find evidence of Atlantean involvement. </p><p></p><p>Have you looked into evidence near the Indus valley or the Hwang Ho in China? Or in the Andes? The arrival of Atlanteans may explain certain architectural similarities between the pyramids in Egypt and the Olmec and Toltec temples in the Yucatan. In fact by my list: Florida, Atlantis, Egypt, Yucatan, France, China, India, Babylon (another site of pyramid like structures in the ziggurats) and the Andes accounts for the major sites of civilization and meshes fully with your theory while having a total of nine gates." </p><p></p><p>Luiz says, "That is an excellent theory as well, certainly worth consideration.” George continues, "How ever, regardless of how the word translates, I still deem the use of the Timucuan by the Atlanteans as slavery. It was still servitude if clothed in service. What may have led the Atlanteans to have used them in the first place?" James says, "I won't disagree with you there, but I've always been an abolitionist. Why does any race use another or treat others as inferior?"</p><p></p><p>George says, "And, Plato, citing sources in Alexandria, which now may have been actually Atlantean, said that Atlantis was built by Poseidon for his children to rule over so long as they maintained their godly state and when they debased themselves by being human like, the island sank into the water to return to Poseidon. How do we reconcile these ancient accounts with what you have found? Lastly three have always been references to the Priest-Kings of Atlantis, indicating a divine source of magic, but you refer quite often to their wizards. But maintaining a reverence for Mathus, yet legends say they were of Poseidon?" </p><p></p><p>James says, "A good point, but bear in mind that Plato had a strong pro-Greek bias." "Well of course, many believed Atlantis to be mere fiction created by Plato to promote the glory of Athens, by creating a tale in which they defeated a more powerful nation."</p><p></p><p>"That conjecture is now gone as we have evidence of some manner of Atlantean civilization. But I still have a few questions, and perhaps you have shared everything with us, but I doubt that. Now how is it that we have but one reference to this great civilization theretofore, especially if they have or had the capacity to move on two continents. Yet we have found no other archeological evidence of them?” James says, "Unfortunately the vast majority of information about the Atlantians was collected by Alexander the Great and stored in the Library of Alexandria, which was burned and destroyed in the year 391. I am hoping that this magical gateway will lead us directly to more information about the Atlantians.” </p><p></p><p>George asks, “Where James, are you suggesting the surviving colonists were transported into before they returned to France?" asked George looking at James expectantly over his glasses. James states, "I'm suggesting that they went through one of the other gates. Which one, and where it went to, we do not know yet." George says, "I have a few more questions, but I will let you answer these for the moment" says George as he gets up and gets another iced tea for himself and Ruby. </p><p></p><p>Ben fished around in the hidden pocket sewn inside his left sleeve cuff and retrieved a thick, eight-sided gold coin half the size of his palm. "Maybe you and Mr. Eastman oughtta take a good look at this thing, Sol," he says, flipping it toward him with a high arc. "I fancied its odd design -- just look at the scrollwork on the reverse! I liked its heft even more -- that's at least 18-karat gold, as sure as the fuzz on my third nut is curly!"</p><p></p><p>Fish blushes as he catches himself: he's just not accustomed to talking in mixed company -- or rather, such genteel mixed company. He avoids looking at Ruby and Abigail. "All that filigree on the face of the coin? Is it a code? Does it make any sense to you? If I were less clever, I'd have missed that particular sovereign. Sir Guilleault had it exceptionally well-hidden..." Sol looks at it then hands it to Alsoomse. She spends around two minutes examining it before saying "Definitely Altantian, and set of symbols on this is the word for 'door'. Thank you Benjamin, I will see what more I can deduce from this in the next few days."</p><p></p><p>Returning to the previous conversation Luiz says, "We believe that the large flat stone had been magically enlarged by the top Saturiwa wizard to block the tunnel. The two families that remained behind would have filled in above the stone and then made the land look undisturbed. While they did this, the Saturiwa who had fled to their new location then filled the tunnel in behind them up to the stone, with dirt from their new home. This darker dirt which was clearly not from either of the other presumed doorway locations of France or Egypt, as the soil matches neither of those regions." </p><p></p><p>James says, "As we dug out the darker dirt from within the tunnel we found a significant number of rock samples mixed into it. Alsoomse made preliminary identifications of these stones, which I then sent those to Geology departments of two different Universities for analysis and confirmation. Thomas, would you like to tell the others what you discovered?" Thomas answers, "Yes, the samples I examined contained significant amounts of monazite, Wolframite, and titanium, all of which are extremely rare earths and metals, uncommon at best in their occurrence." </p><p></p><p>Alsoomse says, “Only one of those elements are common to this part of Florida. During the summer I have used geology-detection magic to investigate sites throughout both Duval and Saint Johns counties, a radius of approximately thirty-mile from here. The only precious metal found in this region of any quantity is Titanium, a soft lightweight metal first discovered in England in 1791. Titanium makes an incredibly strong alloy when mixed with iron, but to date nobody has discovered an economically feasible way to extract and refine the metal from the other ores that it is found within.</p><p></p><p>Neither Monazite or Wolframite is found anywhere in the southeastern United States. Wolframite, in fact, is only known to exist in significant volume at five different mines throughout the entire world. It is also the worlds most highly sought after metal. Practitioners of magic use it, as it has the highest melting point of all metals and is also an excellent conductor of both electricity and magnetism. Whenever possible, that metal is used for the creation of magical rings, wands. rods and other permanent metal magical items.” </p><p></p><p>Luiz states, “Of the five known Wolframite mines, the two oldest and most productive are in Portugal. They are in a carefully guarded secret location. Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion and occupation of Portugal at the beginning of this century was for the sole purpose of locating those mines. He was unsuccessful in learning their locations, despite torturing and murdering several members of the family who controlled the mines.” James interjects, “Yes, my maternal Grandfather was of Portuguese descent. The people who Napoleon killed were distant cousins of mine.” </p><p></p><p>Luiz continues, “Early in this century a third Wolframite mine was discovered in Russia and that mine is tightly controlled by the Czar. That mine’s discovery was what then prompted Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia. Since then France and its close ally Belgium have suffered from these naked attempts by Napoleon to steal the Wolframite ore. Napoleon may be long gone, but neither Portugal or Russia will sell any of their ore to the wizards from France or Belgium as a result of his actions. </p><p></p><p>The final two Wolframite mines have been discovered here within the United States during the last quarter-century, one in Colorado and the other in California. Both theoretically remain unworked and are heavily guarded by the United States Army to keep it that way. In reality, they are lightly mined by the military with the ore secretly sold to France and Belgium through the Department of State in order to maintain diplomatic ties to those countries. </p><p></p><p>It is actually due to our discovery of a possible new source for Wolframite through this doorway that Luiz and I were able to obtain the financial backing to make our plan of funding the AGELESS Corporation and Timucuan Conservancy a reality. This was through my family connection to the owner of Portugal’s hidden Wolframite mines. He has pledged to be our benefactor, having put up over three million dollars in a trust to finance this effort." </p><p></p><p>Ruby had sat, not really bored, though normally she would be at this kind of talk, but in awe of all the discussion that was going WAY over her head. She was embarrassed and felt out of place and wondered if everyone else understood what was being talked about. She supposed she was really only here because of her grandmother and James, or perhaps what they really wanted George and knew he would follow her to the ends of the earth and back. She watched George as he spoke, she didn't understand anything he was saying but she gazed at him with love and admiration, she was always amazed at just how smart he was. </p><p></p><p>Suddenly she snapped out of her thoughts. "THREE. MILLION. DOLLARS? Boy, that guy is brave putting up that much money! What happens if we don't find the stuff he is looking for?" James replies, "Our benefactor is not a greedy man. His sponsorship of our group is largely due to his desire to keep the French from finding the Atlantian secrets. As I mentioned before, Napoleon tortured and killed members of his family. </p><p></p><p>He does desire to keep both his family and country financially sound in the long-term, through the controlled flow of Wolframite throughout the world. If we do manage to discover a new source of the ore, then he wishes to be involved. He understands that it would be the AGELESS Corporation itself that would own the ore and not his mining company in Portugal. It is the controlled distribution of the ore to maintain the current pricing of his own mines that remains his primary concern. He may also occasionally request some assistance from us with the distribution of some of his current merchandise to regions of the world that we may be directly involved with. </p><p></p><p>And lastly, our benefactor would like any magical items or ancient artifacts that we find and choose to not retain ourselves to be displayed at the University of Lisbon’s museum. That University, in turn, will provide us with whatever informational resources we might need to undergo our missions. </p><p></p><p>Financially his three million is in a trust, which we will not directly draw down the principal investment of, although we can initiate loans with that as backing, which is how we funded this house construction and the purchase of an ocean freighter. The investment interest from the trust will also be between a quarter and half millions dollars a year, which is more than sufficient to fund operations. Plus the commercial side of the business will also generate income for our operations. The financial arrangement is such that half of all profits from both the commercial and academic side will go back into the business." </p><p></p><p>George says, "I do have worried that we will be beholden to your financial benefactor. His interests may not always align with those of the United States, of which nearly all of us here are citizens, and there is always the threat of sectarian division over magical sources arising again." James states, "I share those concerns and have voiced them to our benefactor. I consider myself a patriot and have served my country loyalty through direct service in two wars. However, I do not now and have never agreed with the country's official position in regards to wizard magic. I will never do anything to harm my county, but I will do whatever I can to see that arcane magics are preserved rather than destroyed. In that, our benefactor and I see eye-to-eye."</p><p></p><p>George says, "And there is of course the Timucuan themselves. Are you suggesting that they have traces of human blood in them? Or that they merely used natural selection to heighten that appearance?” Luiz says, "I believe them to be half-elvan, I have spent decades studying and have written medical texts upon the differences between the races. I have examined these drawings in detail and the physical appearance drawn by the artist depicts both human and elvan characteristics." </p><p></p><p>George asks, "Lastly, what is the source of the tungsten in the tunnel? Have you run a spectral analysis on it? Where can we find both monazite and tungsten acids in the same soil? Surely with such limited sources, though I do hear rumors a small find in northern North Carolina, it would not be hard to cross-reference the monazite to it? I am willing to listen you all your facts, theories, postulations and flights of fancy James, but you have not answered all my previous questions yet." says George with a smile.</p><p></p><p>James says, "To that we have devised an answer. The ore samples alone therefore are not conclusive as to determining a location, as the Wolframite does not appear to be from either of the five known mines, Tungstun locations are largely unknown, and Monazite is found in a number of different places throughout the world. The key to finding where the Saturiwa had traveled to came to light after we dug up a pair of broken natural shovels that had been buried among the dirt.” </p><p></p><p>James heads over to his bookcase and removes a folded blanket, placing it on the table and unwraps it. Inside are two pieces of bone animal claws, one-piece two feet long the other a foot long. Bones of this size could only have come from either a large mammal or perhaps a dinosaur. At the top of the shorter section a stone handle that has been attached with crude metal wire. At the bottom of the longer section is a long outstretched webbed multi-fingered claw, creating a scoop widening to fourteen inches and twenty-two inches in length. James shows how the two pieces would have joined together to form a shovel.</p><p></p><p>He states, “Like the large flat stone blocking the tunnel, these crude shovels have also been enlarged and strengthened with a permanency spell. We believe they were what the Timucuan used as tools to fill in the tunnel behind them. When the shovels broke through heavy use they were just tossed in with the dirt as garbage. We reduced one of these. The handle had apparently been fastened on after the magical enlargement, as it did not reduce in size. As to the remainder of the claw, once the magic was dispelled, it became like this.” </p><p></p><p>He holds up two much smaller but similar pieces, with a total combined length of around ten inches. He states, “We photographed this claw and Doctor Crane brought the photograph to a Zoological museum in Ohio. They positively identified it as being the claw of a duck-billed platypus, a creature native to only southeastern Australia.” </p><p></p><p>Luiz and I spent last night up in the library, reviewing journals of Australian explorers. The theory of southeastern Australia being the new home of the Saturiwa tribe for the last three centuries is consistent with the journal entry by the Scottish explorer Sir Thomas Livingston Mitchell, who ventured through the wilds of southeastern Australia in 1836. </p><p></p><p>He wrote about coming to a remote location ten days travel west of Sydney where there was a large community of several hundred tall, heavily-tattooed aborigines who were physically quite different than the native halflings of the continent. He described them as an elvan-like race nearly the height of humans who called themselves the Mocama. Ladies and gentlemen, Mocama was the name of the language spoken by the Saturiwa tribe. ” </p><p></p><p>"Well gee, I'm glad we have some smarty pants people to figure all that businessy stuff out. So the real question is," Ruby sat forward and grinned widely, "How soon do we start the fun stuff?" James say, “We can resume digging once this meeting is over, although I don't know that I'd exactly categorize that as 'fun'. Thus far Sol, Alsoomse and I have been doing all of the digging.” </p><p></p><p>Luiz interjects, “Yes, they won’t let me help. They are afraid of me harming my surgeon’s hands. They have, however, let me help in removing the dirt from the tunnel at night under the cover of darkness.” James replies, “Only because you insisted, and for that task the use of magical levitation devices on the wheelbarrows actually does the majority of that work.”</p><p></p><p>James continues, “We managed to dig through two-to-three feet a day without the students and construction workers being aware of what we were doing. Once they all left our productivity increased to nearly twice what it had been before. The tunnel now reaches down for approximately ninety feet, which at a thirty-degree angle puts us at a point fifty feet below the surface. </p><p></p><p>We have no way of knowing how much further it will be until we reach the anticipated magical gateway, but with this plateau being approximately one-hundred feet above the water level we must now be at least half-way there. With more of you now here to help we should be able to accelerate our productivity, so we should be able to find it in less than a week. </p><p></p><p>On Monday we have new workmen coming to dig ditches connecting this house to the homes of the Delroy-Kingsley family and also to our neighbors who you just met, the McKinnons. These ditches will contains pipes containing both electric and telephone lines. This house has electricity generated through an electrical-generation engine that we have constructed on the river, using the river itself as the main power source. These new ditches will provide us with a place to remove and hide this darker dirt as we accelerate our efforts to find the end of the tunnel. </p><p></p><p>Those of you willing to help dig will want to wear sturdy but comfortable work pants and boots, for while invigorating, the digging can also be rather grimy and sweltering." Alsoomse adds, "I can only cast two of these cooling spells a day, which helps, but it still gets hot digging down there." </p><p></p><p>Thomas grins as he says, "I believe I may be ideally suited for this task, given my ogrish heritage and my acclimation to the heat. While my years as a slave, albeit as a disguised agent, certainly weren't happy ones, one of the advantages derived from the experience was the development of the ability to immerse myself in hard labor without suffering serious mental or physical fatigue. When I am not needed in the laboratory or library, I am most content dedicating myself to hard labor -- it has the added benefit of keeping me in good shape for the unarmed methods of combat I prefer." "And I greatly appreciate that Thomas," James replies.</p><p></p><p>Hardin actually seems to be paying attention, taking the odd note in a small notebook with a fancy lawyer's pen. He whistles between his teeth and set's the pen down at the mention of the three million dollars. "Trust or no, direct access or no, three million is an awful big stake, James." His eyes narrow a bit. "Can I assume that the...umm...other interested parties may have similar financing in place? Not to take a detour into the foibles of men, greed and power...but that kind of stake means people tend to play for keeps!" </p><p></p><p>James says, "Those are correct assumptions. Money is absolutely no object to our French competitors, they have tens of millions. Luiz, why don't you go get that list of the 'Weekly Wizards' current membership roster, so that everyone here can see who and what we're up against. It lists each by, name, date-of-birth and occupation." Luiz stands and leaves the room, heading downstairs to his office. </p><p></p><p>Ruby stifled a yawn as George and James discussed history and business and politics. "I'm going to need something more than iced tea if we keep up this conversation," she mumbled. She stood and stretched then wandered over to the table with the animal bones while they spoke. She picked up a piece and seemingly studied it. "Australia huh? Seems like you figured some of these mysteries out, you've certainly put in your research time! These things," she held up the bones, "Seem very advanced. I'm excited to be helpful, if I can. However, I'll tell you right now, I don't think I'm very good at... digging. Dirt." </p><p></p><p>"I have a few last questions James." says George half rising as Ruby gets up from the table. "So it seems AGELESS has a quandary on it's hands. Continue digging for the portal, or seek out the Saturiwa directly.” James replies, "Or we could do both, my ship The Magnificence is on it's way here as we speak. We could set out for Australia if we want, but it would take two weeks to sail there and another week or two to travel inland. Alternately, if we find the portal and figure out how to use it we could actually be there sooner." </p><p></p><p>George asks, “Now do you suppose the same portal here transported both the Saturiwa and the settlers? To two different locations? In other words the transporters are programmable? Sol intejects, "That is the assumption that we are working under." Ruby furrowed her brows. "I suppose we won't know all the answers until we get down there. But I thought you were saying there are 8 or 9 gates and those gates are to set places on the planet. So you think that the gate destinations can be changed? Assuming so, you'd be able to go anywhere on the planet! Now that is really... interesting," she grinned, her mind flooded with the thoughts of all the places she could go. James says, "Yes, we won't know for sure until we get there.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silver Moon, post: 4777374, member: 8530"] [B]Chapter Twenty-one, “Tunnel to the ends of the Earth” September 2nd, 1882, 1:45 P.M.[/B] George had been listening intently to the story, nodding occasionally and taking notes. He says, "You know James, if they had a portal. And it has eight sides, my guess would be that there are a total of nine gates, each gate able to transport to each of the others. If the Atlanteans had the capacity to build them on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the far Mediterranean, the other five could be anywhere in the world. Though my supposition would be that whereever we have seen concentration of late Neolithic advancements, we may find evidence of Atlantean involvement. Have you looked into evidence near the Indus valley or the Hwang Ho in China? Or in the Andes? The arrival of Atlanteans may explain certain architectural similarities between the pyramids in Egypt and the Olmec and Toltec temples in the Yucatan. In fact by my list: Florida, Atlantis, Egypt, Yucatan, France, China, India, Babylon (another site of pyramid like structures in the ziggurats) and the Andes accounts for the major sites of civilization and meshes fully with your theory while having a total of nine gates." Luiz says, "That is an excellent theory as well, certainly worth consideration.” George continues, "How ever, regardless of how the word translates, I still deem the use of the Timucuan by the Atlanteans as slavery. It was still servitude if clothed in service. What may have led the Atlanteans to have used them in the first place?" James says, "I won't disagree with you there, but I've always been an abolitionist. Why does any race use another or treat others as inferior?" George says, "And, Plato, citing sources in Alexandria, which now may have been actually Atlantean, said that Atlantis was built by Poseidon for his children to rule over so long as they maintained their godly state and when they debased themselves by being human like, the island sank into the water to return to Poseidon. How do we reconcile these ancient accounts with what you have found? Lastly three have always been references to the Priest-Kings of Atlantis, indicating a divine source of magic, but you refer quite often to their wizards. But maintaining a reverence for Mathus, yet legends say they were of Poseidon?" James says, "A good point, but bear in mind that Plato had a strong pro-Greek bias." "Well of course, many believed Atlantis to be mere fiction created by Plato to promote the glory of Athens, by creating a tale in which they defeated a more powerful nation." "That conjecture is now gone as we have evidence of some manner of Atlantean civilization. But I still have a few questions, and perhaps you have shared everything with us, but I doubt that. Now how is it that we have but one reference to this great civilization theretofore, especially if they have or had the capacity to move on two continents. Yet we have found no other archeological evidence of them?” James says, "Unfortunately the vast majority of information about the Atlantians was collected by Alexander the Great and stored in the Library of Alexandria, which was burned and destroyed in the year 391. I am hoping that this magical gateway will lead us directly to more information about the Atlantians.” George asks, “Where James, are you suggesting the surviving colonists were transported into before they returned to France?" asked George looking at James expectantly over his glasses. James states, "I'm suggesting that they went through one of the other gates. Which one, and where it went to, we do not know yet." George says, "I have a few more questions, but I will let you answer these for the moment" says George as he gets up and gets another iced tea for himself and Ruby. Ben fished around in the hidden pocket sewn inside his left sleeve cuff and retrieved a thick, eight-sided gold coin half the size of his palm. "Maybe you and Mr. Eastman oughtta take a good look at this thing, Sol," he says, flipping it toward him with a high arc. "I fancied its odd design -- just look at the scrollwork on the reverse! I liked its heft even more -- that's at least 18-karat gold, as sure as the fuzz on my third nut is curly!" Fish blushes as he catches himself: he's just not accustomed to talking in mixed company -- or rather, such genteel mixed company. He avoids looking at Ruby and Abigail. "All that filigree on the face of the coin? Is it a code? Does it make any sense to you? If I were less clever, I'd have missed that particular sovereign. Sir Guilleault had it exceptionally well-hidden..." Sol looks at it then hands it to Alsoomse. She spends around two minutes examining it before saying "Definitely Altantian, and set of symbols on this is the word for 'door'. Thank you Benjamin, I will see what more I can deduce from this in the next few days." Returning to the previous conversation Luiz says, "We believe that the large flat stone had been magically enlarged by the top Saturiwa wizard to block the tunnel. The two families that remained behind would have filled in above the stone and then made the land look undisturbed. While they did this, the Saturiwa who had fled to their new location then filled the tunnel in behind them up to the stone, with dirt from their new home. This darker dirt which was clearly not from either of the other presumed doorway locations of France or Egypt, as the soil matches neither of those regions." James says, "As we dug out the darker dirt from within the tunnel we found a significant number of rock samples mixed into it. Alsoomse made preliminary identifications of these stones, which I then sent those to Geology departments of two different Universities for analysis and confirmation. Thomas, would you like to tell the others what you discovered?" Thomas answers, "Yes, the samples I examined contained significant amounts of monazite, Wolframite, and titanium, all of which are extremely rare earths and metals, uncommon at best in their occurrence." Alsoomse says, “Only one of those elements are common to this part of Florida. During the summer I have used geology-detection magic to investigate sites throughout both Duval and Saint Johns counties, a radius of approximately thirty-mile from here. The only precious metal found in this region of any quantity is Titanium, a soft lightweight metal first discovered in England in 1791. Titanium makes an incredibly strong alloy when mixed with iron, but to date nobody has discovered an economically feasible way to extract and refine the metal from the other ores that it is found within. Neither Monazite or Wolframite is found anywhere in the southeastern United States. Wolframite, in fact, is only known to exist in significant volume at five different mines throughout the entire world. It is also the worlds most highly sought after metal. Practitioners of magic use it, as it has the highest melting point of all metals and is also an excellent conductor of both electricity and magnetism. Whenever possible, that metal is used for the creation of magical rings, wands. rods and other permanent metal magical items.” Luiz states, “Of the five known Wolframite mines, the two oldest and most productive are in Portugal. They are in a carefully guarded secret location. Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion and occupation of Portugal at the beginning of this century was for the sole purpose of locating those mines. He was unsuccessful in learning their locations, despite torturing and murdering several members of the family who controlled the mines.” James interjects, “Yes, my maternal Grandfather was of Portuguese descent. The people who Napoleon killed were distant cousins of mine.” Luiz continues, “Early in this century a third Wolframite mine was discovered in Russia and that mine is tightly controlled by the Czar. That mine’s discovery was what then prompted Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia. Since then France and its close ally Belgium have suffered from these naked attempts by Napoleon to steal the Wolframite ore. Napoleon may be long gone, but neither Portugal or Russia will sell any of their ore to the wizards from France or Belgium as a result of his actions. The final two Wolframite mines have been discovered here within the United States during the last quarter-century, one in Colorado and the other in California. Both theoretically remain unworked and are heavily guarded by the United States Army to keep it that way. In reality, they are lightly mined by the military with the ore secretly sold to France and Belgium through the Department of State in order to maintain diplomatic ties to those countries. It is actually due to our discovery of a possible new source for Wolframite through this doorway that Luiz and I were able to obtain the financial backing to make our plan of funding the AGELESS Corporation and Timucuan Conservancy a reality. This was through my family connection to the owner of Portugal’s hidden Wolframite mines. He has pledged to be our benefactor, having put up over three million dollars in a trust to finance this effort." Ruby had sat, not really bored, though normally she would be at this kind of talk, but in awe of all the discussion that was going WAY over her head. She was embarrassed and felt out of place and wondered if everyone else understood what was being talked about. She supposed she was really only here because of her grandmother and James, or perhaps what they really wanted George and knew he would follow her to the ends of the earth and back. She watched George as he spoke, she didn't understand anything he was saying but she gazed at him with love and admiration, she was always amazed at just how smart he was. Suddenly she snapped out of her thoughts. "THREE. MILLION. DOLLARS? Boy, that guy is brave putting up that much money! What happens if we don't find the stuff he is looking for?" James replies, "Our benefactor is not a greedy man. His sponsorship of our group is largely due to his desire to keep the French from finding the Atlantian secrets. As I mentioned before, Napoleon tortured and killed members of his family. He does desire to keep both his family and country financially sound in the long-term, through the controlled flow of Wolframite throughout the world. If we do manage to discover a new source of the ore, then he wishes to be involved. He understands that it would be the AGELESS Corporation itself that would own the ore and not his mining company in Portugal. It is the controlled distribution of the ore to maintain the current pricing of his own mines that remains his primary concern. He may also occasionally request some assistance from us with the distribution of some of his current merchandise to regions of the world that we may be directly involved with. And lastly, our benefactor would like any magical items or ancient artifacts that we find and choose to not retain ourselves to be displayed at the University of Lisbon’s museum. That University, in turn, will provide us with whatever informational resources we might need to undergo our missions. Financially his three million is in a trust, which we will not directly draw down the principal investment of, although we can initiate loans with that as backing, which is how we funded this house construction and the purchase of an ocean freighter. The investment interest from the trust will also be between a quarter and half millions dollars a year, which is more than sufficient to fund operations. Plus the commercial side of the business will also generate income for our operations. The financial arrangement is such that half of all profits from both the commercial and academic side will go back into the business." George says, "I do have worried that we will be beholden to your financial benefactor. His interests may not always align with those of the United States, of which nearly all of us here are citizens, and there is always the threat of sectarian division over magical sources arising again." James states, "I share those concerns and have voiced them to our benefactor. I consider myself a patriot and have served my country loyalty through direct service in two wars. However, I do not now and have never agreed with the country's official position in regards to wizard magic. I will never do anything to harm my county, but I will do whatever I can to see that arcane magics are preserved rather than destroyed. In that, our benefactor and I see eye-to-eye." George says, "And there is of course the Timucuan themselves. Are you suggesting that they have traces of human blood in them? Or that they merely used natural selection to heighten that appearance?” Luiz says, "I believe them to be half-elvan, I have spent decades studying and have written medical texts upon the differences between the races. I have examined these drawings in detail and the physical appearance drawn by the artist depicts both human and elvan characteristics." George asks, "Lastly, what is the source of the tungsten in the tunnel? Have you run a spectral analysis on it? Where can we find both monazite and tungsten acids in the same soil? Surely with such limited sources, though I do hear rumors a small find in northern North Carolina, it would not be hard to cross-reference the monazite to it? I am willing to listen you all your facts, theories, postulations and flights of fancy James, but you have not answered all my previous questions yet." says George with a smile. James says, "To that we have devised an answer. The ore samples alone therefore are not conclusive as to determining a location, as the Wolframite does not appear to be from either of the five known mines, Tungstun locations are largely unknown, and Monazite is found in a number of different places throughout the world. The key to finding where the Saturiwa had traveled to came to light after we dug up a pair of broken natural shovels that had been buried among the dirt.” James heads over to his bookcase and removes a folded blanket, placing it on the table and unwraps it. Inside are two pieces of bone animal claws, one-piece two feet long the other a foot long. Bones of this size could only have come from either a large mammal or perhaps a dinosaur. At the top of the shorter section a stone handle that has been attached with crude metal wire. At the bottom of the longer section is a long outstretched webbed multi-fingered claw, creating a scoop widening to fourteen inches and twenty-two inches in length. James shows how the two pieces would have joined together to form a shovel. He states, “Like the large flat stone blocking the tunnel, these crude shovels have also been enlarged and strengthened with a permanency spell. We believe they were what the Timucuan used as tools to fill in the tunnel behind them. When the shovels broke through heavy use they were just tossed in with the dirt as garbage. We reduced one of these. The handle had apparently been fastened on after the magical enlargement, as it did not reduce in size. As to the remainder of the claw, once the magic was dispelled, it became like this.” He holds up two much smaller but similar pieces, with a total combined length of around ten inches. He states, “We photographed this claw and Doctor Crane brought the photograph to a Zoological museum in Ohio. They positively identified it as being the claw of a duck-billed platypus, a creature native to only southeastern Australia.” Luiz and I spent last night up in the library, reviewing journals of Australian explorers. The theory of southeastern Australia being the new home of the Saturiwa tribe for the last three centuries is consistent with the journal entry by the Scottish explorer Sir Thomas Livingston Mitchell, who ventured through the wilds of southeastern Australia in 1836. He wrote about coming to a remote location ten days travel west of Sydney where there was a large community of several hundred tall, heavily-tattooed aborigines who were physically quite different than the native halflings of the continent. He described them as an elvan-like race nearly the height of humans who called themselves the Mocama. Ladies and gentlemen, Mocama was the name of the language spoken by the Saturiwa tribe. ” "Well gee, I'm glad we have some smarty pants people to figure all that businessy stuff out. So the real question is," Ruby sat forward and grinned widely, "How soon do we start the fun stuff?" James say, “We can resume digging once this meeting is over, although I don't know that I'd exactly categorize that as 'fun'. Thus far Sol, Alsoomse and I have been doing all of the digging.” Luiz interjects, “Yes, they won’t let me help. They are afraid of me harming my surgeon’s hands. They have, however, let me help in removing the dirt from the tunnel at night under the cover of darkness.” James replies, “Only because you insisted, and for that task the use of magical levitation devices on the wheelbarrows actually does the majority of that work.” James continues, “We managed to dig through two-to-three feet a day without the students and construction workers being aware of what we were doing. Once they all left our productivity increased to nearly twice what it had been before. The tunnel now reaches down for approximately ninety feet, which at a thirty-degree angle puts us at a point fifty feet below the surface. We have no way of knowing how much further it will be until we reach the anticipated magical gateway, but with this plateau being approximately one-hundred feet above the water level we must now be at least half-way there. With more of you now here to help we should be able to accelerate our productivity, so we should be able to find it in less than a week. On Monday we have new workmen coming to dig ditches connecting this house to the homes of the Delroy-Kingsley family and also to our neighbors who you just met, the McKinnons. These ditches will contains pipes containing both electric and telephone lines. This house has electricity generated through an electrical-generation engine that we have constructed on the river, using the river itself as the main power source. These new ditches will provide us with a place to remove and hide this darker dirt as we accelerate our efforts to find the end of the tunnel. Those of you willing to help dig will want to wear sturdy but comfortable work pants and boots, for while invigorating, the digging can also be rather grimy and sweltering." Alsoomse adds, "I can only cast two of these cooling spells a day, which helps, but it still gets hot digging down there." Thomas grins as he says, "I believe I may be ideally suited for this task, given my ogrish heritage and my acclimation to the heat. While my years as a slave, albeit as a disguised agent, certainly weren't happy ones, one of the advantages derived from the experience was the development of the ability to immerse myself in hard labor without suffering serious mental or physical fatigue. When I am not needed in the laboratory or library, I am most content dedicating myself to hard labor -- it has the added benefit of keeping me in good shape for the unarmed methods of combat I prefer." "And I greatly appreciate that Thomas," James replies. Hardin actually seems to be paying attention, taking the odd note in a small notebook with a fancy lawyer's pen. He whistles between his teeth and set's the pen down at the mention of the three million dollars. "Trust or no, direct access or no, three million is an awful big stake, James." His eyes narrow a bit. "Can I assume that the...umm...other interested parties may have similar financing in place? Not to take a detour into the foibles of men, greed and power...but that kind of stake means people tend to play for keeps!" James says, "Those are correct assumptions. Money is absolutely no object to our French competitors, they have tens of millions. Luiz, why don't you go get that list of the 'Weekly Wizards' current membership roster, so that everyone here can see who and what we're up against. It lists each by, name, date-of-birth and occupation." Luiz stands and leaves the room, heading downstairs to his office. Ruby stifled a yawn as George and James discussed history and business and politics. "I'm going to need something more than iced tea if we keep up this conversation," she mumbled. She stood and stretched then wandered over to the table with the animal bones while they spoke. She picked up a piece and seemingly studied it. "Australia huh? Seems like you figured some of these mysteries out, you've certainly put in your research time! These things," she held up the bones, "Seem very advanced. I'm excited to be helpful, if I can. However, I'll tell you right now, I don't think I'm very good at... digging. Dirt." "I have a few last questions James." says George half rising as Ruby gets up from the table. "So it seems AGELESS has a quandary on it's hands. Continue digging for the portal, or seek out the Saturiwa directly.” James replies, "Or we could do both, my ship The Magnificence is on it's way here as we speak. We could set out for Australia if we want, but it would take two weeks to sail there and another week or two to travel inland. Alternately, if we find the portal and figure out how to use it we could actually be there sooner." George asks, “Now do you suppose the same portal here transported both the Saturiwa and the settlers? To two different locations? In other words the transporters are programmable? Sol intejects, "That is the assumption that we are working under." Ruby furrowed her brows. "I suppose we won't know all the answers until we get down there. But I thought you were saying there are 8 or 9 gates and those gates are to set places on the planet. So you think that the gate destinations can be changed? Assuming so, you'd be able to go anywhere on the planet! Now that is really... interesting," she grinned, her mind flooded with the thoughts of all the places she could go. James says, "Yes, we won't know for sure until we get there.” [/QUOTE]
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AGELESS Campaign Episode 2 - Temple of the Cat-Goddess
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