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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1060205" data-attributes="member: 2292">Friday, September 22nd, continuedYip looses interest in the study of the orb quickly, turning his attention to the more intriguing study of the contents of the dead Gauntian’s pockets.  Expert paws sift through the contents, quickly separating the potentially magical from the simply valuable and placing them in two different piles.  Every now and ten he finds something that sparkles nicely in the silvery light of the orb, and he holds it up to appreciate the momentary beauty of the reflection.Sometimes its good to be the rank and file, rather than the guy who needs to know what’s going on.  When the sorting is done and his three companions are still staring at the orb with intent concentration, Yip happily settles down on the necromancer’s corpse and starts taking quiet nips from his hip flask.  Sooner or later, someone will tell him what’s going on and what parts of the loot are worth keeping.  That’s all he really needs to know right now.Meanwhile Blarth, Geoffrey and Halgo wrack their brains trying to work out what the orb is and why degenerate devil-worshippers would want it.  Halgo is adamant they exhaust the limits of their training and knowledge before examining the sphere in close detail, even before using divinatory magic to determine the strength of its magic.  “You never know what we might be dealing with,” the dwarf muses.  “And it could be dangerous to meddle with it.”Everyone is quick to agree, bowing to Halgo’s superior experience in meddling with things they shouldn’t have.  Or theoretical experience, anyway.  Dwarves don’t often shave their beards down to goatees without a damned good reason, and Halgo seems to know what he’s talking about, so everyone follows along.They sit and they think, occasionally sketching crude notes in the dirt and bathing in the silvery glow.“It’s very shiny,” Blarth suggests eventually. “Oh, that’s going to be useful, thank you,” Geoffrey sighs.“Blarth not mind, he here to help.  Feels kind of…holy…too.”“Blarth.”“Yes.”“Stop helping.”“Okay.”“Glowing silver spheres four foot tall,” Halgo mutters.  “Seems the kind of thing you’d make a note about for future generations, doesn’t it?  The kinds of things you bury under churches usually are.”“You ever heard of it?” Geoffrey asks.“Nope, but we’re under a church.  Seems the kind of thing you’re training should have covered, doesn’t it?”“Maybe, but it hasn’t,” Geoffrey says.  “I spent my time learning dogma and the niceties of dealing with other faiths.  Obscure arcane and holy relics I leave for the apprentice Law-sages.  Everyone’s sure they haven’t heard of it?  Not in any of the religious, arcane or psicrafts we’ve studied?”“Blarth sure,” Blarth says dubiously.  Halgo just nods.“Then I’m going to scan the dweomer,” Geoffrey announces.  “This is getting us no-where.”“No, let me do it,” Halgo says quickly.  “There may be a second wave standing guard outside the church, and any healing you can manage is best left at the ready.”Geoffrey nods.  “Good thinking,” he says, and Halgo breathes a slight sigh of relief.  He starts chanting the phrases that will unlock the presence of magic, keeps his eyes focused on the silver orb.  As soon as the spell is finished, the silvery light flares up as though it were becoming a small stare, bathing everyone in a warm glow that seeps through them like honey.   Halgo sees spots dancing in front of his eyes, a hundred tiny orbs spiraling back and forth as he tries to focus.  Everyone else looks away, the intensity of the orbs glow too much for them.When the radiance dies away, it takes everyone a few minutes to realize they’re sitting in pitch darkness.  Geoffrey pulls the everburning-stone from his pack, but it’s light seems meager and dim in contrast to the spheres sudden flare.“It’s gone,” Geoffrey says.“Yep,” Halgo comments.“And we seem to be healed,” Geoffrey comments.“Yep,” Halgo comments.  “I even had a hang-nail that appears to be gone.”“I take it that thing was powerful,” Geoffrey says.  It’s a statement, not a question.“Most powerful thing I’ve ever seen,” Halgo says blandly.  “At a guess, I’d say roughly on par with some of the greater artifacts.  The Mithril Giant of Heironous.  The Morning Star of Simon Humanborn.  The Radiant Waters of Sulrathi.  The Scepter of the Empire.   Any of a dozen evil artifacts hidden by Drakius Bane-warden. That kind of thing.”“Gift from the gods kind of thing then,” Geoffrey says.“Say so.”“And we’ve just lost it?”Halgo waves a hand through the empty space where the orb was only a few moments earlier.“Yep.”“Blarth wonder if someone be angry about this,” Blarth says, his face scrunching with the effort of coming up with an answer.Everyone thinks about this for a few seconds. “We were keeping it out of Gauntian hands,” Geoffrey says.  “Really, that should even things out.  Right?”</blockquote>

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