Killigan's stuff

[Merc]

ooc: If you want to take this to IRC, post in general discussion what time is good for you before session, Navi, and we can do this then (I'm free all day tomorrow/friday/sun, and on thursday/saturday after 7pm cst). Otherwise, just post here, it'll be a little slower, but hopefully we'll get it done befre session.

ic:

Having finished discussing things with the prince and coming to something of an agreement, Anassia splits off from the group as they help the knight, Davan, come back to consciousness and get him caught up with their plan of action. Grabbing the bag that they took from Killigan's body, Anassia begins searching it.

Inside are various exotic knick-knacks, 100 gold coins, a framed picture of a woman, some rations, and a-ha! The necklace they'd been discussing, with it's lid closed and everything. One ponders if it's safe to grab it, considering that's apparently all it takes to make it do... whatever it does.

[Navilee]

Anassia, ever being cautious about magical teleporting necklaces that might or might not land her in a random house halfway around the world decides to do the sane thing and pick it up by the chain rather than the actual possibly-transporting bit itself.  Hell, she has no idea how this thing might work.

[Merc]

Nothing unexpected happens when you pick it up by the chain, thankfully. It's pretty much a normal chain necklace as far as you can tell from a glance, even if you know better.

ooc: If you start examining it, let me know how closely you do so in your post, then roll spellcraft. You can also attempt to use Divination/Scrying to get some information on it, or combine the two to try and figure the necklace out. If you have any other ideas, open the clasp on the necklace, etc, post on that.

[Navilee]

She watches it for a few seconds, expectantly.  Magical items are supposed to glow, right?  Or shriek?  Bleed?  Something like that.  They always do in the tales, at least.  It is a disappointing few moments.  Once she's established that there's nothing overtly magical about it, she sets it down on a nearby flat surface to get a better look at it, still making an effort to not touch the locket itself.

OOC: I'll use D20SRD's rolling for ease; I was unaware that there was a scry skill in IH.  Also, sorry for delayed replies and such; sleep schedule has been going even more psychotic of late.  And my dad's been getting back into barbecue, so I've been less-able to skip meals.  And I think her divination is fairly useless at ML 1. Basically functions as a weak Mage's Eye, IIRC.

Anywho, Spellcraft:  1d20+17; 8+17 = 25

[Merc]

[22:03] <Merc> As you examine the necklace using your expertise on magic to guide you, you come to the conclusion that whatever magic comes from the necklace must be whatever Prince Victor had said was glowing inside the locket. At the very least, nothing screams 'magic' about the craftsmanship, nothing that looks like magical runes, for example.
[22:13] <Anassia> With much trepidation will she lean foward to open the locket carefully; if squeezing it can cause teleportation, who knows what opening it can do!
[22:18] <Merc> IT EXPLODES! ...no, not really. It opens slowly under your careful care, though there's no show of that glowing red energy that the prince claims to have seen. It is in fact not glowing at all. There is only a dull dark red gemstone, just a little bit of luster to it, and carved with some odd symbols on it.
[22:23] <Anassia> Anassia blinks a few times before reaching out to pick up the gemstone.  Normally, this would be intriguing, but, instead, it is kind of anticlimactic.  A gemstone, afterall, is less interesting than randomly red glowy light.
[22:26] <Merc> ooc: will save
[22:27] <Anassia> roll 1d20+4  Go go shit saves!
[22:27] <Penuche> Anassia invokes Penuche's magic: < 9 > [d20=5]
[22:28] <Anassia> (( And Penuche delivers. ))
[22:31] <Merc> roll d6
[22:31] <Penuche> Merc invokes Penuche's magic: < 1 > [d6=1]
[22:32] <Merc> Your hand tingles a little, and you can see a very brief dim red glow shine through the symbols before it starts to die...until you feel a sharp pain shooting through your hand, causing you to drop the stone reflexively as it bursts alight with red even as it hits the ground. The light quickly starts to vanish, however, and after a few seconds, is back to a dull black-red.
[22:33] <Merc> ooc: You've lost one point of magic, btw
[22:33] <Anassia> She blinks a few times at the fallen stone before frowning down at her hand, flexing her fingers a few times.  "Huh."
[22:34] <Anassia> (( Oh noes, not.... one point. ))
[22:34] <Merc> ooc: =p
[22:38] <Merc> ooc: nothing else is happening with the stone while it's on the ground.
[22:40] <Anassia> After a few seconds of flexing (and making sure hand is still working), she bends over to pick the stone up, steeling herself this time, as she knows it's not entirely the friendliest gemstone the world around.
[22:40] <Merc> ooc: will save again
[22:40] <Anassia> roll 1d20+4
[22:40] <Penuche> Anassia invokes Penuche's magic: < 8 > [d20=4]
[22:40] <Merc> roll d6
[22:40] <Penuche> Merc invokes Penuche's magic: < 4 > [d6=4]
[22:40] <Anassia> (( Yes, I hate you too, Penuche
[22:42] <Merc> Ouch! Another jolt of pain, this one stronger through your arm this time! The gem continues glowing for a while longer as you hold it this time, having steeled yourself to the pain. OOC: Continue holding or dropping it?
[22:43] <Anassia> Hold.  It's starting to glow, so that must be a good sign, right?  Clearly the pain is only temporary....
[22:44] <Anassia> (( "The pain will only be temporary.  You should survive to process." ))
[22:46] <Merc> You continue to feel your magical energy continually drain from your body as you continue holding the stone, and instead of returning to its dull color, it continues glowing, getting brighter in fact.
[22:46] <Merc> OOC: spellcraft
[22:47] <Anassia> roll 1d20+17
[22:47] <Penuche> Anassia invokes Penuche's magic: < 28 > [d20=11]
[22:49] <Merc> The gemstone is obviously leeching your magical energy. It's apparently some sort of...battery-powered magical device or something, that's how it works. You're not entirely sure you're charging it the way you're supposed to, but hey, it's working, right? Even if it is kind of painful...
[22:50] <Merc> ooc: You going to keep holding it until your mana runs out, it does something besides glow, or what?
[22:52] <Anassia> She will put it into the amulet, considering that pain wasn't described to her, exactly.  And to see if the 'charge' is holding.
[22:52] <Merc> ooc: Anyhow, it's starting to look more like what Victor described, and you mostly suspect that's not how you charge it because Killigan was mentioned as having to check the locket.
[22:54] <Anassia> She will flex her hand a few times after putting it back, rubbing her arm.  CLearly, whomever designed this was a masochist.  Or should have put instructions on it- hey!  She'll see if she can read the rune!
[22:56] <Merc> You wouldn't be able to read the runes while it's glowing...Then again, as she puts the gem back in the locket, the light immediately ceases to emit from the gemstone as a whole! Huh...scratch 'non-magical' about the locket. You can still feel the magic, -your- magic, centered in the gemstone though, but there's obviously some sort of connection between the locket and gem as a whole device. The runes in the gem occassionally flash with red.
[22:57] <Merc> ooc: spellcraft again to analyze runes.
[22:57] <Anassia> roll 1d20+17
[22:57] <Penuche> Anassia invokes Penuche's magic: < 25 > [d20=8]
[23:00] <Merc> Hrm...you're not entirely sure what's going on. You recognize one rune involving movement, remembering it from the books you learned magic from, but there really wasn't much on magical items besides the dangers of them. You somewhat make an intuitive guess at various runes near the movement rune to combine to give that teleportation effect, but that just leaves some other runes unknown.
[23:01] <Anassia> (( Are the runes cycling with each flicker? ))
[23:04] <Merc> ooc: yes, it always cycles in the same order, going in this order: Unknown rune, Unknown rune, Rune related to movement, rune related to movement, unknown rune, rune of movement, splits to three remaining runes related to movement, then vanishes. After a bit, it starts again.
[23:05] <Merc> ooc: actually, one sec.
[23:07] <Merc> Given the pain from the transfer holding the stone directly, you also suspect the first rune involves power regulation/transfer.
[23:08] <Anassia> She watches it for a few cycles, before touching it on the first unknown rune, experimentally.
[23:09] <Merc> ooc: the one you suspect to be about power regulation, or the one right after?
[23:09] <Anassia> The power one
[23:09] <Merc> ooc: will save
[23:09] <Anassia> roll 1d20+4
[23:09] <Penuche> Anassia invokes Penuche's magic: < 5 > [d20=1]
[23:09] <Merc> ooc: *snorts*
[23:09] <Anassia> (( Holy hell. ))
[23:09] <Merc> roll 2d6
[23:09] <Penuche> Merc invokes Penuche's magic: < 6 > [d6=2,4]
[23:10] <Anassia> (( Penuche is bound and determined to fuck her up. ))
[23:11] <Merc> Ow! Is it -supposed- to hurt more each time you touch the damn stone?!? Okay, sure, it's not -really- causing her physical damage, but it hurts and she feels more drained every time the stone glows more.
[23:12] <Anassia> Anassia decides that's enough powering for now.  At least it should be plenty charged, right?  Another flex of her hand and she waits for the runes to cycle again, touching the second this time.
[23:16] <Merc> As she takes care to touch only the one rune, nothing really happens from touching it and the stone it's on...wait, no, you feel a tingle, but none of that sharp pain from before or draining feeling.
[23:17] <Anassia> She blinks a few times.  A rune that makes you tingle?  That seems a little.... pointless.  She shrugs again, taking care to not press the movement runes as she continues to fiddle with the locket.
[23:19] <Merc> You still feel the tingling as you handle the locket.
[23:23] <Anassia> She frowns a little; what little she knows about magical tingling makes her think it's not very good when it's a continual thing... Still, she presses the next unknown rune.
[23:26] <Merc> Still tingling. Nothing else happens.
[23:26] <Merc> ooc: Note, you only feel the tingling when you touch the locket or the stone not in the first rune.
[23:27] <Anassia> (( Not in the first rune? )_
[23:28] <Merc> ooc: Also, I'm going to say you're currently down to 8 mana points, from the draining. And you think you feel it from the first rune too, maybe, but it kind of HURTSOHMYFUCKINGGODOOOOOOWWWWWWW almost immediately after.
[23:29] <Anassia> (( AHa.))
[23:30] <Anassia> She'll wait for the second rune, pressing it again, frowning slightly.
[23:32] <Merc> Stiiiiiill tingles.
[23:33] <Anassia> She's noticably more freaked out now.  The tingliong is similar, so maybe the first rune will be better, now....  She tries it
[23:34] <Merc> ooc: fun will save time! *tosses Penuche a cookie*
[23:35] <Anassia> roll 1d20+4
[23:35] <Penuche> Anassia invokes Penuche's magic: < 6 > [d20=2]
[23:35] <Merc> ooc: man he is -hating- on you tonight.
[23:35] <Anassia> (( High will save roll so far is a /4/ ))
[23:35] <Anassia> (( It's nothing new! ))
[23:36] <Merc> ooc: nah, your first roll was a 5, for a total 9.
[23:36] <Merc> roll d6
[23:36] <Penuche> Merc invokes Penuche's magic: < 4 > [d6=4]
[23:36] <Anassia> (( I think either way, it's the same
[23:36] <Anassia> (( Sucky rolls :P ))
[23:36] <Merc> You knew it was coming. Still, didn't hurt as much as the last time...about the same as the second, maybe? Hard to tell as your hand pulls away.
[23:36] <Merc> ooc: down to 4/27
[23:37] <Anassia> She shakes her hand off, frowning, and waits a few seconds for the pain to die down to see if she's still tingling.
[23:38] <Merc> The hand only tingles whenever you're handling the stone or the locket.
[23:53] * Topic is 'Bad Navi/Cid! Bad! Game moved to 9/12!'
[23:53] * Set by Merc on Sun Sep 05 19:57:48
[23:54] <Anassia> She moves the locket to the other hand, curious!  Maybe it's just bound to her hand!
[23:54] <Merc> Nope, now the tingling is on the other hand.
[23:54] <Merc> ooc: getting sleepy, so we'll try to finish tomorrow. If for some reason we don't, I'll just use what we did to guess how much PAIN it takes for you to work your way through the device!
[23:54] <Anassia> (( KK.  ANd pain is the best teacher! ))

[Merc]

It's very frustrating process, as Anassia keeps trying to figure out the necklace's mechanism through trial and error (mostly error, painful draining errors at that).

After a few more hours fiddling with the magical item, so far here's the list of things she's relatively sure of:

-The necklace slowly charges up by absorbing ambient magical energy, although the process can be sped up by touching the absorption rune directly. Even after taking a big portion of your magical energy for the day though, it's still not steadily glowing, except when you pull it out of the locket. It's likely that the locket's 'battery' is only fully charged when the gemstone glows even while in the locket.

-It should work even when not fully charged, given that the prince's rare meetings involved him teleporting to meet Lord Ranus, and once the meeting was done he'd teleport back, with no issues.The necklace also seems to tie two locations based on where it was last used (To clarify, if you teleport to point B from point A, it'll imprint on point A. If you move to point C from B and teleport, it'll take you to point A, imprinting on point C instead of B). You're not entirely sure what happens if you use it while it's on an empty charge or near empty charge, though. Might just not work, might work in odd ways, who knows. Right now, it's obviously not fully charged, and you don't know how much energy it'd take for it to be fully charged.

-You've figured that it requires a mental command of some sort to make it use that stored energy, which it can use to teleport one or more people elsewhere, as you can't think of any other way for the device to work given that Killigan activated it just by grabbing it, but also didn't activate it when he'd opened the locket that one time. You -think- you may have puzzled enough of it to work even without knowing what the command might be (although you could always try some of the more obvious ones, but it'll likely take a UMD check).

- While you're not entirely sure what rune relates to what ability, that'd still leave two runes unspoken for, given the abilities of the necklace that you're aware of or have deduced. So you're still missing something...

- You need a nice long nap. So drained...~