RAIDERS of the LOST BOOK
OPERATION:
BIBLIOPHILELOCATION:
Ashkelon, Judea, Dimension 257PRotLBSandy got up to get some food out, unfolding the window table to do so. In addition to a round of flatbread, he unstoppered all the
oinochoai of wine he bought, pouring some of one into his cylix, before offering the jug to the Baron. “Naxian wine? It’s supposed to be pretty good, but I, um, have no idea what it tastes like.”
The Baron nodded graciously. “Now we're talking,” he said quite pleased as he took the jug and drinking liberally. He smiled slightly as it traced the inside of his mouth savoring the unique taste before swallowing. “Pleasant. But not strong enough for me,” he laughed.
“There’s a point to trying it: the Everfull Cup was originally a Greek spell. I can show some ... improvements without having to show all of what it can do. There shouldn’t be a problem showing, um...” He paused, thinking. “...people used to bronze tools a stronger bronze, but showing them modern steel? No.” He picked up the cylix, about to check the wine’s aroma. After a second, he added, “And something for you, Nick? I have a little cheese, and I can conjure cream, or even cream of turkey soup.”
Not paying as much attention as could have been the case, Nick didn't activate the collar to reply. Head under his front leg, he'd forgotten for a moment that Sandy was too far away. “
Sure, those all sound delicious! Are you still mad?”
Sandy was so stunned, he nearly dropped the cylix. Gears ground in his mind as he tried to consider what this meant. A sly look came to his face, and he took a sip of wine, turning to face Nick squarely as he did so.
Cheers! I hope you like the taste! The wine had strange notes to it: wonderfully fruity, with a hint of spice, but also a touch medicinal and a trace of a corky aftertaste. Better than he expected, but showing the limitations of Greek wine-making technology.
Nick pulled his head up fast enough to almost give himself whiplash. "
Oh - Sandy - you found a spell which induces telepathy?" The wine - though a bit faint - was quite literally like nothing he'd ever tasted. "
What on earth is that drink...?" And what was this about implications? "
Uh, cool surprise! I- I'm still useful, right? I can scout..." The cat's doubt/insecurity wasn't as keenly felt as would have been the case with touch, but still was sufficient to confuse Sandy.
He stared blankly in Nick’s direction, trying to understand what Nick meant, and why he was more upset. After hanging for the longest time, the penny finally dropped, and Sandy burst out laughing.
Nick, you’re
doing this! He turned to the Baron, still chuckling. “Our travelling companion seems to have learned a new trick. Let him demonstrate.”
Staring at both, Nick activated the collar, which created a thoroughly odd echo effect. “
You're kidding. It switched off. “
Can I actually do this? No way...why now... Think of a number, think of a number - four - too low -” An image of a rather familiar snake who presently was driving Amanda batty appeared, if a smidge faint. “
Persian-rat-snake. 6-No-7 3 5.” Apropos of nothing, the cat put his paws...over his ears? Over his eyes?
”This doesn't work.” Finally he settled for in front of his ears. “
SEVEN. HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE! ARE YOU TWO GETTING THIS?”
The Baron nodded cautiously. “That is quite impressive,” he said slowly watching Nick carefully. Slowly a genuine smile cracked across his face. “My that is unique. What changed?”
You’re thinking of the snake your bought and the number 735. Sandy let his smile fade, and returned to mulling the implications of Nick’s telepathy now that it had some range. He rubbed the back of his head while he sipped his wine, looking thoughtfully at Nick.
”NO CLUE, Prime! ARE YOU SURE IT'S ME?...huh, YOU CAUGHT THAT TOO? Maybe the time travel did something? Should I...it's kind of a silly theory, why bother mentioning it to them? Wait, don't tell me. YOU HEARD THAT PART.” Amusement, surprise, excitement...and perhaps a touch of resignation. He hadn't realized that he was being quite that transparent.
The Baron looked at Sandy, “Did you catch that? Perhaps the time travel had sort of effect on Nick. The temporal effects and realignment could...” Primordial trailed off a long look of fear suddenly clouding his face. “Oh Elder Gods. We forgot to offer subservience to Tindalos. Do you think...a portal that large and continuous, it would have to have some kind of constant appeasement going on right?”
The Baron seemed stuck on some magical paradox and was now deep in thought with a grim look of worry on his face. Occasionally he glanced up to look at the corners of the room with a deep intensity.
Sandy slowly became aware of the Baron’s concerns. “Hmm? I’m not sure… You’d have to ask Myra, but…” He trailed off while he thought about the question. ‘Tindalos’ was a name he recognized as part of the Baron’s religion, but that was all he knew about it. A god, apparently, since it needed to be appeased. He chose his words carefully, more out of worry than fact. “I don’t think our host intends for his home to be found, so I don’t… don’t think interlopers would have noticed us arriving on street near the market.”
He took a last draw on his wine, set the cylix down on the table, then turned back to Nick. “I think I’m going to get some air. Keep ‘talking’ to me, and, um, keep an eye on what I see.” He punctuated his sentence with a wink.
“
Uh, I can try. Will that work? Could you/Sandy try to send me whatever you're seeing right now? I can't get it yet… Nick shifted position, standing as opposed to flopping on his stomach. “
Huh?” Sandy would notice something like his palm being poked gently. “
Oh. My “moon rock.” Even Prim, who'd been busy at the time, would understand: it was a souvenir of a place few had been to, Nick’s first. The amused cat carefully picked the Ashkelon pebble he'd carried on up with his tongue, and walked to the case holding the incorrigible tea set. “
Don't swallow, don't swallow… Sandy picked up the cylix again, focusing on the abstract design running around its outside. “Try now.” The style was unfamiliar to Sandy, but it was several hundred years later than he was used to, and may have been a locally-made copy in any event. The pink and yellow figures on black were either a more recent invention or a local adaptation of Greek forms.
The colors were clear, but the abstract figures they formed were rather misty and faint - half overlay on the cat's vision, half mind’s eye - and almost shifting, writhing as Sandy associated other shapes and styles, Greek forms for instance.
Sharing vision may not work very well with this… He pushed his own at Sandy. A somewhat blurred image of their luggage was overlaid by a quite-faint cylix. The analysis was a constant undertone - bits of reasoning drifted to Nick. He found found them and the pottery itself rather interesting, so he headed towards Sandy.
Shifting his head, he managed to just about line up said overlay with the greyed-out pattern.
That's pretty cool. I thought you Sandy were familiar with these things? The tone wasn't of condemnation - rather astonishment that Sandy the expert didn't know exactly what they were looking at.
A mental shake of the head: Sandy knew better than to claim he knew everything about the Greeks.
Of the many things I know about the Greeks, I know little about their art, and their pottery least of all. Sandy was disinterested in it, and his memories of learning about the subject were colored by boredom: lists of styles to memorize, pictures of ostraca. None of that held his attention.
Pottery is useful to archaeologists to date finds, but once their work is done and my work starts, I think of other questions: where this came from, why and how it was for sale in Ashkelon, and what it would have meant to its owner.There was a distinct pause in Sandy’s thinking as he switched gears, going back to his original request and considering other possibilities.
Perhaps we should just stick to hearing, since we have that down. I want to see how far we can stay in contact; which senses we use do to it don’t matter.After some moments of trial and error, the pair managed to combine their hearing at normal volumes again, although the other's portion had a distinct tendency to fade if either faltered in paying close attention to the fact that they were sending and receiving sounds. Feelings drifted back and forth as well - Nick felt quite curious, pretty happy, and more than a bit confused though not yet frustrated. So too did some surface thoughts. Sandy would find that more of his were passed to Nick when he intended for them to be; Nick, for his part, was growing resigned to Sandy being privy to the vast majority of his. At least they weren't as noticeable as those he intended to send...
…”
is unusual. I haven't seen this often maybe Sandy (resignation) Sandy how did they do the wall uh-oh, time, he wants - you want to go out on deck or something - no need to answer - “know little about their art,” you said. OKAY, we're STILL IN CONTACT. READY WHENEVER YOU ARE!” The cat was clearly growing rather excited. Sandy’s enthusiasm had been contagious, Nick’s now was too… Fortunately for the Baron’s sanity, the emotion wasn't being transmitted to an extent that would result in a feedback loop.
“
I wonder how far?! Maybe I could reach across Alexandria, or…” A hazy world map flickered in Sandy’s mind’s eye, zoomed in on the Eastern Hemisphere. “
Multiple continents even? Or is that just silly - I'm definitely getting ahead of myself, In books, that's...really powerful.” Reminding him of his status as a humble creature, Nick's stomach grumbled. “
TURKEY. Cheese. NOW- SORRY! That was rude - FEED MEEEE - Sorry, Sandy - would you please?”
Sandy did his best to suppress a smile, but got nowhere close to succeeding. He probably shouldn’t enjoy Nick’s mixture of enthusiasm and babbling thoughts so much, but he did.
I’ll take it nice and slow. He nodded to the Baron out of habit rather than necessity. He stepped through the door, listening for the torrent of Nick’s thought. The small space between the cabins and the cargo hold bulkhead was empty, but he could hear voices coming down the companionway. There seemed to be chanting above the general clamor.
He took the stairs up, pausing at the top both to get used to the sunlight and to listen for Nick’s mental contact, which despite their efforts was growing fainter. Most of the sailors were in on the foredeck, weighing the ship’s second anchor, chanting as they hauled rhythmically on its cable. The other anchor was on deck already. The rest of the crew was amidships, some lowering the sail, others supervising or talking to each other. Both groups of sailors had pushed people out of the way to get space to work, so the deck was packed with unhappy people. Sandy could do nothing but wait to move further; Nick did his very best to face towards him, assuming that it would help. Focusing on the soft chanting, the cat struggled to overlay it with the quieter noises of the cabin.
The anchor-raising finished first, and Sandy was able to move with the crowd as it flowed -- oozed, given its slow pace -- forward. Nick’s subconscious babble started to fade out as he shuffled forward; the rest seemed a bit louder, as though Nick had raised his telepathic voice... Glancing over his shoulder, Sandy guestimated that he was a bit more than ten feet from the stairs down. By the time he was a little less than halfway to the mast, Nick seemed to be straining to make himself heard; twenty-thirty feet, Sandy thought. He pressed his way towards the nearer wale, getting out of the way of those still creeping forward, and then he waited again. No voice...but were some of the emotions Nick’s? It was hard to tell, and even that sense of maybe having a tenuous link faded some steps further on.
Once the sail was set, he was able to return to the cabin - finding that the contact was reestablished as he reversed his course, emotions first, then intentionally sent thoughts and so on - and tell the others his guesses. Many of the intentional thoughts were Nick’s continual apologies for his unintentionally sent “
FEED ME” demands, but the undercurrent of wanting the soup remained.
[OOC: Collab with the usual Raiders suspects, now with extra telepathic power!]