Mission: Ice Is Back With A Brand New Invention

[overharrowed]

WHO: Julius, Sawbones, Amos, Holden and Wysteria
WHAT: Poking an artifact for science.
WHEN: A montage over Guardian/Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post over here, no warnings for now.

Some initial groundwork has established that the pyramid is not going to turn on spontaneously, at least to the satisfaction of those who need to sign off on it being brought into Kirkwall proper after some out-of-town evaluation. The thing now has dedicated laboratory space, the room rearranged slightly to accommodate its size. The dark artifact rises roughly five feet high. Notes from those who found the thing indicate that parts of it were glowing before it was deactivated; these are added to the notes they found with the item (mostly in Trade, with several untranslated words surrounded by question marks and guesses).

Julius briefs those of them who weren’t there on the circumstances of its discovery, deferring to Sawbones when questions about those circumstances arise. His priorities for research, roughly in order, are as follows:

1. How does this artifact work?


2. Is there any red lyrium involved?


3. Does it seem newly constructed, or is it more likely an older artifact Corypheus’s forces turned to their advantage?


4. If the latter, who built it originally?

While he’s technically part of the Diplomacy division these days, Julius started out in Research, and it isn’t hard to see why. While the question does have strategic importance, it may be evident that the matter has captured his curiosity in its own right too. He's certainly in the laboratory as much as his other duties allow.

Comments

Group Thread (No Tag Order, Chaos Rules)

[overharrowed]

Julius has settled a bit to one side of the room, in eyeshot of but not interacting with the pyramid itself as they work. Instead, he’s sifting through the notes, making a separate set of his own notes on some clean paper to one side.

“If he was going to translate this so badly,” he complains to no one in particular, “he could have had least had the decency to include the original text as an appendix.” It’s not that his Tevene is so good, necessarily, but they have Riftwatch agents who could handle anything that eluded him. He glances up, and adds, “Any luck over there?”

[innerharbor]

Amos makes a gesture toward the pyramid, neither excited nor impatient. He just kind of is, though the smile he hangs on his face is meant to be reassuring. And maybe if you don't notice how the smile doesn't reach his eyes, it might be.

"It's got buttons," Amos says amiably.

[okayimin]

"We could try pushing them."

Sawbones does not reach across to try, because Sawbones hasn't completely taken leave of her good sense. Her curiosity is thoroughly roused by the thing and her eyes are bright as she tries to study it from her vantage point on top of a chair.

[acreage]

Holden stands near the thing too, frowning thoughtfully, arms akimbo. He does not, specifically, reach out to push any buttons.

But the fact remains that his hand brushes a large button towards the pyramid's base —

and the pyramid starts shaking, first more gently, then with increasing intensity.

"Shit."

[innerharbor]

Amos rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Goddammit, Cap."

He's not really mad. This is to be expected, and his bearing shows a general lack of surprise.

[heirring]

From where she is recording measurements on the opposite (relatively speaking) side of the pyramid, Wysteria pauses. Her pen comes up from the page she is writing on. If her examination the trembling artifact goes slightly cross-eyed--

Well, she read the report. A certain degree of caution is reasonable.

"Do you suppose we ought to step back?" she asks brightly.

(So not caution then.)

[okayimin]

"Reckon it'd be better if we got behind something," Sawbones says, having seen first hand the destruction the pyramid could wreak. In the same breath, she glances over at Holden and says, "Poke it again."

[innerharbor]

Amos groans. "Get behind me."

He's big enough for Wysteria and Sawbones both to get a bit of shade in his shadow.

[overharrowed]

"No, we shouldn't just ..." He's getting up and fetching his staff (just in case). As he moves: "Have you tried pressing the same place again yet?"

It's the equivalent of "did you try rebooting it," sure, but: did you?

(The shaking is getting harder, and he's certain that can't be a good sign.)

[acreage]

"I'm not just going to -- "

Poke it again, Jesus, watch him press another button and the whole goddamn thing explodes. But in all of the commotion, as the pyramid starts shaking even harder, he does try pushing the button again. Which does fuck all; but then he tries again, pushing for longer (with his other hand holding a button-free part of the artifact so the whole thing doesn't just shake out of his grip), and

it stops.

After a beat, he lets go.

"Well, now we know the buttons aren't just for decoration."

[innerharbor]

Nodding to Wysteria, "Hey, Dimples, write that down."

He said he'd stop calling her bug-eyes.

[okayimin]

Sawbones pops out from where she had ducked behind Amos, bouncing back up onto her chair.

"What was that meant to do though? It couldn't be just shaking." Again she does not reach out to touch, but her gaze on the pyramid is very keen.

[acreage]

He doesn't back away from the pyramid or anything, but he does cross his arms.

"It could be a deterrent."

[overharrowed]

"Maybe," Julius says, thoughtful. "I'm going to cast a spell just to make sure it didn't do anything magical that's not immediately obvious, one moment."

Julius is primarily a diplomat and secondarily a researcher, which makes it easy to forget he's also a battle veteran (if it's something one knows in the first place). But the deliberate sweep of his staff is so practiced it's almost automatic, his focus on its effects, not the working of the spell itself. A faint green circle, centered on the pyramid, flares around them briefly. Nothing else changes.

"...hm." Is not the most helpful reaction, possibly.

[innerharbor]

Amos squints, a momentary twitch running through him. Magic. Sure. Okay.

"That encouraging, Jules?" He's been calling Julius that since they met.

[overharrowed]

(He may have tried a correction the first time, but it doesn't truly bother him, and he's seemingly decided to live with it.)

"Well, in that it didn't curse any of us or freeze the room solid, it's not the worst outcome. But what was it doing, then?" He approaches a bit, and he himself seems to be considering the pros and cons of poking it (with his staff, rather than his hand). He makes no move yet to try, though.

[heirring]

Wysteria, halfway through her new string of notes, opens her mouth. Then closes it. Then does not glance about the room.

But after a moment, with uncharacteristic tentativeness, she says, "Perhaps— Well. There was a response to both. Perhaps you might... activate it as Mister Holden did and then see if casting on it in that state caused a similar reaction?"

Something had shifted. She had felt it, like the faintest of breezes.

[innerharbor]

"So magic happened and we don't know what it did." Just clarifying for all the rubes.

Amos squints, thinking. "Cap ain't wrong. Buttons are made to be pressed. We just gotta figure out which and when."

The look he shoots Holden seems to discourage trial and error.

[okayimin]

"We probably should get some barrier or something up if we're gonna try more." So yes, trial and error. "Reckon we might not get frozen to the ceiling just from poking one button at a time, but I don't wanna take too many chances."

[innerharbor]

Amos, who is many things but primarily a mechanic, feels an immediate rejection of the idea. "We do that, might break the fucking thing. Don't you guys have notes?"

Notes he's going to copy, at this point, or die trying.

[overharrowed]

"We do, though they appear to be in translation, so I have some questions about their accuracy. Still... the notes do suggest you're right that there's some correct sequence to press. Sadly, there's not an included diagram or sequence, as far as I can tell, though you're welcome to take a look."

He rests his staff on the floor, not immediately planning to cast again. "Miss Poppell," he adds. "What sort of response?"

[heirring]

From her side of the pyramid, Wysteria's hesitates. Her gaze flickers about them, mouth hanging slightly open and on the verge of saying something—

She clears her throat, makes a note in the margins of her own papers, and says simply, "Perhaps I was mistaken. But for a moment when you cast on the thing, I had the impressed that the pyramid was altered in some way." If she tips her head, magic lingers just there in her peripheral vision like the after image of a gauzy, filament thin curtain drifting about the artifact.

"The effect might be more obvious were we to—" She mimes pushing one of the buttons. "Activate it first. But perhaps you could first try simply magecrafting on it in a...more sustained fashion?"

Yeah cool totally not suspicious at all. Very scientific. No mage talent here. Nailed it, Wysteria.

[acreage]

Now a safe distance away from the pyramid, he comments, "I didn't see anything."

But his tone isn't contradictory, just thoughtful. With a shrug,

"It's worth a try, once we get a better idea of the order to push these things."

[overharrowed]

He considers, then suggests: "I could cast another glyph, perhaps? Or a wisp, that's essentially just focused arcane power that I could move closer or farther away as needed. I'm disinclined to cast anything that could damage it, we hardly want to send the Gallows into a deep freeze."

[heirring]

"Let us try a wisp, then," she says, nodding and making a brisk series of marks in her notes. "That seems the most easily regulated of the two."

Time For Some Da Vinci Code Shit (Wysteria, Sawbones, Julius)

[overharrowed]

When he comes over, Julius is frowning absently. “Take a look at this,” he says, putting a sketch on the table. “Do you think any of these symbols might make more sense rotated? Maybe we’ve been thinking of the top of the pyramid as the top of its writing surface when we shouldn’t.” A brief smile, and he adds, “Or maybe I’ve been staring at them too long.”

[okayimin]

She has to stand on the seat of a chair to see properly, but since she's been barely restrained from crawling on to the table with the device, it hardly registers. Sawbones leans over the sketch to scrutinize the runes.

"If it was meant to be upside down, you think we'd've found it like that," she says, then taps one of the runes thoughtfully, "I've seen these before, I think. In Orzammar."

[heirring]

One might generally tip their head this way or that to examine the Enchanter's notes, particularly when they are being expected to share them. Wysteria simply reaches past Sawbones where she is learned forward over the notes and begins to rotate the sketch about.

"Do you recall where in Orzammar? In what context, I mean."

[okayimin]

Sawbones snorts, "Everywhere." She taps the familiar runes in turn as Wysteria turns the page, "These are enchanting runes. Plenty of things have enchantments on 'em in Orzammar. Don't know if guessing at what they do would be much good, no idea what the others are."

[overharrowed]

"Fascinating," he says, looking closer. "I wonder if that means it was originally dwarven construction, or a collaboration." To Sawbones: "Could you go through, if I sketched out the ones we have, and mark which you've seen before? That might at least help us narrow down some of the functions."

[okayimin]

"Reckon so," Sawbones says with a nod, surrendering the paper to Wysteria entierly now that she's had her fill of looking.

[heirring]

With the notes fully in her possession, Wysteria turns it thoughtfully this way while they—Sawbones and Julius—are at their liberty to continue their exchange. Don't mind her, she's just over here folding paper.

[overharrowed]

Julius absently watches Wysteria manipulating the paper, but he says to Sawbones, "Thank you. I'll compile a list of everything we have and let you take a look. I was hoping at least some of them might be spell glyphs, but if they are, they're not any I've encountered before. If they're mainly enchantment, though, that makes more sense."

At least in relative terms. As much as anything about this artifact makes sense.

[okayimin]

"Getting a runesmith might help," she points out, even as she nods in agreement, "Something like this ought to be recorded in the Shaperate, but failing that, at least a runesmith could give us specifics on what some of this means."

[heirring]

"Miss Merow is a runesmith," Wysteria remarks absently, and then the paper is folded once more and she laughs - a bright, sudden and delighted sound. "Oh, how clever. I didn't know you could modify them this way. --Well, theoretically. I suppose we don't know if it actually worked as intended, given the state that the artifact was found in."

The folded paper is abruptly thrust between them. With a few folds and turns, Wysteria has made considerable headway with turning Julius' notes into an arts and crafts project. In the process, a series of runes have been bisected by the edge of the paper or layered over one another.

"This side here. See? The jagged sweeping little legs of the character. That's a fragment of an amplification rune." The fold is peeled back so they can look at the other half without the matte of the paper over top of it. "But I don't have any idea what the rest of it's meant to be."

[okayimin]

"Amplification..." She plucks Wysteria's oragami up to turn it around in her hands. "Maybe that's to do with why all that ice and cold coming from it was so strong. And- Hang on, do you think there's parts of the pyramid that move? Like puzzle pieces?"

She turns the piece over and over, inspecting the runes.

[heirring]

"Oh, no. --Well, maybe. I've no idea. I think it more likely that someone was trying to alter runes. Well. Not alter. Create variations might be a better way of saying it. See here," she says, pointing to a different character entirely as Sawbones turns the paper around. "I recognize pieces of this too, but they orientation is all wrong. Though I rather doubt it was whoever took the notes we found. They hardly seemed the work of a true scholar, and this almost certainly is."

Is she giving the Unknown Notetaker too little credit? Possibly.

[overharrowed]

"I don't think it's fair to call the artifact unsuccessful," of the earlier comment, "when it kept a sizable chunk of Orlais frozen for years. Either it managed to do so without regular tending, or someone was regularly tending it and thus presumably wanted the effect.

He peers, thoughtful, at Wysteria's manipulated paper. "Oh that's interesting. My knowledge of runes is sadly elementary, but if they're anything like glyphs, you could ... wait a moment." He reaches for some more paper and starts sketching something out, trying to capture an idea. "Small variations can sometimes mean outsize effects," he says, absently as he sketches. "I don't want to over-generalize, runes may be quite different, but even so."

[okayimin]

"But was that the intended effect," says Sawbones, "That may make the difference in whether the result was successful or not. What specifically is the artifact meant to do?"

It's more of a rhetorical question. "Perhaps they meant for something more focused? Like a staff?"

[heirring]

"Let us say this is in part something of dwarven make," she interjects. "Have we any contacts among the trade in Tevinter or in Orzammar who might be able to help us identify the product? Or perhaps a maker's mark of some kind or...Surely they must use dwarves in Tevinter for their enchantment work, yes? I can't imagine there are many Tranquil in the North."

She glances toward Julius for confirmation.

[overharrowed]

He frowns, but says, "I am hardly an expert, but I believe they have Tranquil in the North as well. But either way, the Imperium's trade alliance with Orzammar is no secret. It's worth looking into." He moves to retrieve his notes, and adds, "I can ask Rutyer if there are any contacts that would suit. I don't know of any offhand, but that doesn't mean they don't exist."

[okayimin]

"I've got contacts in the Carta," Sawbones says, "Nobody in the Castes, but there's a chance someone might've heard something or been on a weird run in Tevinter. Something like this wouldn't be cheap." Or on the up and up, considering. "Though I reckon putting out word that somebody found a Dwarven relic that's been tinkered with by surfacers will pull some kind of results. The Shaperate at least will want to know about it."