Interlude 2 **The 237th Meeting of the Society of the Coruscating Seal**
It is after suppertime, in the twilight hours, that the Society of the Coruscating Seal meet. It is in the moments that they feel the energies of the far off Twilight Court, once sovereigns of this place known as Orm, seep back to the home they are exiled from and grant a bit more magic to everything. The society, as the also do, lay claim to the long community table they donated to the Drinking Crow back in 390. They adorn the oak surface as always with cloth of gold and indigo. With three plucks at the strings of a fairy harp, the witch's candle is lit to ward against "jealous practitioners of the arcane artistries from scrying on the profound contents of this gathering" and the official minutes begin.
In attendance of this meeting of theoretical magicians are members Professor Pondriferous Clud, Sir Jerimue of Blackleaf Lodge, Doctor Ravee Achewile, the Esteemed Claudnitus Vale, and Matron Fiophone Starr. It is noted that members Lady Celestine Muirk, Sir Dev Elfinear, and Anthermule Anthrip Antherson, Esq. are not in attendence. Added to the docket are matters brought to them by guests: the discerning of potential magic qualities of one antique fochlucan harp and the examination of the rubbings from an altar.
An hour is spent debating issues around dues and proper loan procedures for unbound, plant-based modes of textual communication before the second round of drinks arrive and the Society members delve into their most pressing subject: the one that pays. A group of adventurers (including, at least, Journeyman Crannoc, Betina, Sergio Canksore, and Avreml Oofnik) present 100gp and an aged harp for examination. Doctor Ravee Achewile produces a set of tuning forks, reportedly tuned to mystical frequencies and proceeds to puck strings and comparing them to the notes of the forks. Sir Jerimue pages through a copy of the short but comprehensive Mythic Instruments of the Simple Hill-Dwarfin Folk Culture of Lower Slumbering Mountains and Glooming Hills. Madame Starr rubs a pale blue powder on its strings before taking the harp outside to measure its "moonshadow" before comparing it to her charts on the auras of magically-imbued objects. They regret to inform the adventurers that four of the society member present agree that while an outstanding harp; it is not magical. There is one abstention on the matter.
It is somewhere after the third round of drinks had arrived but surely not during the fifth* that the topic of the kobold PakPak's rubbing came up on the meeting docket. Achewile and Vale argued whether the writing on the rubbing was a script used by members of a transcendental Limurian movement during the 26th aeon of the prior epoch or if it was some sort of Celestial shorthand popular among alchemists and magical universialists during the third dynasty of the Empire-that-was. Ignoring such theatrics, Sir Jerimue and Professor Clud were able to produce some texts, principally Homerinous' History of Magical Mysteries of the Middle-Late-Period of the Final Age and Magically Divine: The Role of Thaumaturgy in the Last Great Societies of Wizarding. Between the books, PakPak's memories of the room the rubbing is from, and along with elements the kobold picks out in the artifact leads PakPak along with four-fifths of the Society (one abstention) to agree that the markings are from an altar dedicated to a now-obscure deity, once highly popular in spellcasting circles, known as "Math". If one is to properly anoint some of the runes in the shrine with chalk dust and a brushing from a burning sage bundle before genuflecting before the stone book of the altar per the diagram in the rubbing, a practitioner of the arcane arts will be granted the power of "Math" if their mind is truly open. There is talk about how this shrine seems to be of unlimited effect and what value would be to those that practice the art to visit the altar.
The members of the Society had begun to grill PakPak as to the location of the shrine but, somehow, the conversation moved to the topic of the vivamancy of the Sorcerer-Kings after the fall of the Empire-That-Was, the dying art of vat-born life, and whether such a thing was possible today or not.
*It is a few sips into the fifth round when Professor Clud threatened to cudgel the Esteemed Claudnitus Vale with his walking cane for mentioning once again his theories on plasmic entities traveling through the membrane between worlds on the back of those mysterious rainbow lights so many fortnites ago. Clud exclaimed, "False arcanities! Everyone knows is it the timerobbers that travel along the undercurrents of the astral plane that rode the lights to find harbor in our realm!" The first smack, knocking Vale's mug into his chin brought meeting to a discourteous end.
In attendance of this meeting of theoretical magicians are members Professor Pondriferous Clud, Sir Jerimue of Blackleaf Lodge, Doctor Ravee Achewile, the Esteemed Claudnitus Vale, and Matron Fiophone Starr. It is noted that members Lady Celestine Muirk, Sir Dev Elfinear, and Anthermule Anthrip Antherson, Esq. are not in attendence. Added to the docket are matters brought to them by guests: the discerning of potential magic qualities of one antique fochlucan harp and the examination of the rubbings from an altar.
It is somewhere after the third round of drinks had arrived but surely not during the fifth* that the topic of the kobold PakPak's rubbing came up on the meeting docket. Achewile and Vale argued whether the writing on the rubbing was a script used by members of a transcendental Limurian movement during the 26th aeon of the prior epoch or if it was some sort of Celestial shorthand popular among alchemists and magical universialists during the third dynasty of the Empire-that-was. Ignoring such theatrics, Sir Jerimue and Professor Clud were able to produce some texts, principally Homerinous' History of Magical Mysteries of the Middle-Late-Period of the Final Age and Magically Divine: The Role of Thaumaturgy in the Last Great Societies of Wizarding. Between the books, PakPak's memories of the room the rubbing is from, and along with elements the kobold picks out in the artifact leads PakPak along with four-fifths of the Society (one abstention) to agree that the markings are from an altar dedicated to a now-obscure deity, once highly popular in spellcasting circles, known as "Math". If one is to properly anoint some of the runes in the shrine with chalk dust and a brushing from a burning sage bundle before genuflecting before the stone book of the altar per the diagram in the rubbing, a practitioner of the arcane arts will be granted the power of "Math" if their mind is truly open. There is talk about how this shrine seems to be of unlimited effect and what value would be to those that practice the art to visit the altar.
The members of the Society had begun to grill PakPak as to the location of the shrine but, somehow, the conversation moved to the topic of the vivamancy of the Sorcerer-Kings after the fall of the Empire-That-Was, the dying art of vat-born life, and whether such a thing was possible today or not.
*It is a few sips into the fifth round when Professor Clud threatened to cudgel the Esteemed Claudnitus Vale with his walking cane for mentioning once again his theories on plasmic entities traveling through the membrane between worlds on the back of those mysterious rainbow lights so many fortnites ago. Clud exclaimed, "False arcanities! Everyone knows is it the timerobbers that travel along the undercurrents of the astral plane that rode the lights to find harbor in our realm!" The first smack, knocking Vale's mug into his chin brought meeting to a discourteous end.
In the spirit of transparency, the results of the investigation of the harp was a 51 out of 85% chance while PakPak's non-magical research check into the rubbing was a 7 (success with a complication).
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