Diellan_

Chapter XXI
In Which Methods are Discussed and a Little Charm Leads to a Dead End

Even though Austria and Switzerland are neighboring countries, the two cities of Vienna and Geneva just so happen to lie in the most extreme sides of their respective countries, so the flight itself traveled the entire breadth of both. I spent a good portion of the flight pointing out to Victor (who seemed attentive) the various cities of import and listing the sites worth seeing in them, as well as some of the more recognizable mountains of the Alps. Since I am used to seeing these mountains from the Italian side, I actually found this rather difficult, except for some of the more iconic ones, like Cervino (the Italian name; English speakers know it by its German name, Matterhorn).

“Have you ever been up to the top?” Victor asked.

“Of Cervino? No.” I gestured vaguely. “A good deal of the fighting in the Great War took place in the Italian Alps, which are just beyond Cervino – it lies on the border between Switzerland and Italy. The Alps extend very close to the sea in the northeast part of Italy, so there is this corridor of relatively flat land which was patrolled heavily by both us and the Austrians, forcing both sides to try and use the shallower parts of the Alps to navigate around the main forces.”

“Wait a minute,” he scratched his head, “you fought in World War I?”

I nodded. “At first they were reluctant to make a man nearly fifty years old and who hadn't served for almost thirty years, but I didn't give them much choice.” My drew my lips into a tight frown. “Neither did the Austrians.”

“So you saw all the machine guns and mustard gas and trenches and-”

“Stop.” I held up a hand and swallowed back the flashes in my head. “You're thinking more of the Western Front in France and Germany. But, yes, there were still many of the more... memorable innovations of war.”

“Oh, like-”

“I'd rather not discuss it.” I turned back to the window, letting my eyes wander to the southeast, to the tops of the mountains just visible on the horizon. “Not here. Not now.”

Victor coughed, embarrassed. After a short pause to recollect myself, I resumed my tour of the area until the plane landed in Geneva.

We arrived at the apartment building Thomas Amann called home shortly after nightfall. It, like most of the buildings in the city, was large and squat, with his penthouse apartment just high enough to view Lake Geneva over the surrounding buildings. While it was very expansive and likewise expensive, he shared the apartment with nobody, which would make the visitation much easier should it prove that Amann was responsible for the deaths of Benveniste and Auer.

As much as Mister Amann and I crossed swords in the realm of business, I had only met him a handful of times. He was a young man, in his late twenties, fairly tall and with an appearance that could only be described as “meticulously handsome”. Having the reputation of a playboy, it was apparent that he spent an inordinate amount of time on his physical appearance, ensuring that all of his clothes were tailored just-so to emphasize his physique, his nails manicured, and not a single blond strand of hair ever fell out of place.

“And the eyes?” Rostov Kushan whispered.

“Blue, of course. Icy.”

“That's him, then.” Rostov Kushan lowered his binoculars and slid them into the inside of his jacket. “And nobody else in there but him. I would say he's unwinding from a busy day. Got a glass of alcohol and just turned on his television. A really nice one, too,” he added, sounding impressed.

“Yes, that sounds like him.” Amann went beyond materialistic and into the hedonistic. “Let's pay him a visit, then.”

Rostov Kushan and I crawled across the roof we had been observing Amann from, to the opposite side where Victor Kushan waited below. He leapt down first, making a small crunching sounds as he hit the pavement below - or, more accurately, the pavement made a small crunching sound as it was hit by him; his cybernetically enhanced frame gracefully absorbed the impact, and most of the kinetic energy was dispersed into the concrete below.

I simply walked off the edge and fell safely at a controlled speed, making no sounds or small craters. It was a minor magical trick that most mages learned very shortly into their careers.

“So, are we going in?”

I nodded in reply. “Yes, Victor. Nothing fancy; he might be a victim, not a perpetrator.”

“Ugh, I hope not,” Rostov groaned. “He's our only suspect.”

“Quite.” It wasn't exactly true; I had some other ideas at the time, but I chose not to voice them for a variety of reasons, mostly in that they were not particularly concrete or likely. My biggest fear, though, was that the culprit was somebody whom I did not know, who could freely strike from the shadows and vanish without a trace. That would make things... difficult.

“Yeah?”A voice called immediately after I knocked on Amann's door, sounding a bit surprised since we hadn't bothered to ring at the entrance to the building. There were footsteps to the door, and then a pause. “Oh. It's you. Heinrich said you might be coming.”

I gave the peephole a thin smile. “You were hoping otherwise, Mister Amann?”

“You bet!” Owing to his generally international profession, he chose to speak English whenever we spoke, even though I was fluent in his native languages of German and French, and he in Italian. The same thing happens with Madam Rabinovich, even though I am well versed in Russian.

“Are you going to let us in, or do you prefer shouting through solid wood?”

“Not solid wood,” he corrected. “You see wood and I see wood, but there's an inch of steel between us, Mondavi. Never can be too safe.”

I waited. After a few moments, latches were opened and the footsteps departed. I opened the door cautiously.

Thomas Amann is a very wealthy individual, more so than myself, even though we are direct competitors in the field, owing mostly to the fact that he works full-time and I pursue it mostly as a hobby. He has no problems expressing his wealth, and he apparently chooses to express it with the help of an interior decorator: pieces of modern and abstract art hung from the walls and stood in the corners in a well organized and spacious fashion. The furniture, of which there seemed to be just enough, assaulted the eyes with a variety of pastels, except for the tables and cabinets, of course, which were metal.

“Sit down, sit down. Have a seat, have a drink.” Amann waved at the sofas surrounding the large wall-hanging television, which currently was running through some football (European, not American) game. He had a variety of bottles sitting on the island counter-top marking the border between the kitchen and the salon, and separating him from us. “I was just sipping a nice martini. I think I've got some Kentucky bourbon – that is your style, right? - and some other stuff for your friends... Unless they don't drink on duty.”

“Yes, bourbon will be fine.” I sat down and the Kushans followed in suit. “My companions will do without,” I added. I didn't have any rules forbidding it, and I doubted the Kushans did either, but it helped to play along.

Amann shrugged and continued: “Not like you to walk around with bodyguards. You always handle yourself. I've heard all kinds of stories about that... Not really that surprising, given how many metas there are nowadays.”

“I rather enjoy the freedom of letting my mind wander on to other topics than my personal safety.” As well as not cluttering my mind with the variety of hanging combative spells that I would otherwise be forced to meditate on every morning.

“I'm sure.” Amann crossed into the salon, handed me my glass, and took his place in a chair. “So, Heinrich says you've joined his team.”

“That is precisely the case.” I smiled and took a sip of bourbon. I actually prefer wines to brandies, but I admit to a soft spot for the drink that shares its name with my noble heritage. “Fighting over artifacts is something to be done in Hollywood films, not the company of gentlemen.”

He gave a toothy grin and raised his martini. “Cheers to that, old chap!” He was the kind of person to randomly pepper his speech with idioms and phrases from dialects from around the world. I found it somewhat disconcerting. “I think this marks the first time that you and I have the same client. Usually we fight for the bids before this point.”

“Or after the artifact has been found.”

“Or that.” He smirked. “But I've already got the thing.”

I glanced at Rostov and back. “I beg your pardon?” Did he mean the Key?

“The journals from the digs,” he elaborated, somewhat annoyed. “They were in the possession of this bank manager in Zurich, a real hot little number who has a thing for archaeology, long walks on the beach, and blond-haired, blue-eyed Swiss. It took a bit of doing, but a little charm goes a long way, you know?”

“Yes, we all have our methods,” I replied vaguely, secretly disgusted.

He laughed. “Yeah, you were always a bit old fashioned in that regard. Ha! You're almost two centuries out of date, old chap. Gotta get with the times.” He eyed his empty martini and rose to his feet.

“So I have been informed.” Numerous times by numerous people. Sexual promiscuity is the rule of the day, it seems, and it is virtually impossible to avoid the topic. I quickly changed the topic. “Did Herr Auer tell you that I'd be coming for the journals?”

He nodded, not looking up from his drink mixing. “Yeah. He did.”

“If you would be so kind, I will take those and be on my way.”

“Sure. Just a minute...” He grabbed a remote control from the counter and aimed it at the television. The channel changed to a scene of flashing police lights under the night sky. I immediately recognized Auer's neighborhood. I winced and turned back to Amann.

“So...” He drummed his fingers on the counter, “you were just going to go along pretending that didn't happen? Hmm?” I gave him a puzzled look. “Oh, don't pretend you didn't know, I can see the truth written all over the kid's face.”

I refrained from giving Victor a look of disappointment and kept my focus on Amann. “Yes, I found out just before the flight.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Amann sneered. “You don't care about him, just the stupid temple. People start dying and you don't give it so much as a glance!”

“I have my reasons.”

“Oh, I know you do.” Amann's voice was rising gradually in anger. “You killed him, after all.”

“That is a very dangerous statement, Mister Amann,” I replied, keeping my voice calm and level. “It is quite the accusation.”

“Oh, please!” He rolled his eyes. “You visit Benveniste, he dies. You visit Heinrich, he dies. And now what? You're here, you grab the journals, you kill me? Is that what happens next?!”

“Calm down. Plea-”

“No!” He screamed, and brought his hand up from behind the counter. A large pistol gleamed menacingly. “I'm not dying. And you're not killing. It's simple!”

I flattened my palm to indicate to the Kushans not to take action yet. Amann was, frankly, no threat to any of us: Victor is fast enough to dodge bullets, Rostov can simply shrug them off, and I have my magical wards. I may not have taken the time to prepare my offensive spells, but I'm no fool – surprise attacks, by definition, happen when you least expect them.

“Mister Amann, please,” I began, “you need to realize the foolishness of your actions. Mere bullets are no threat to any of us, and, furthermore, I promise you, that I had no hand in Auer's death. You are mistaken.”

“I'm unconvinced.” He bared his teeth. “No threat? Ha!” He squeezed the trigger.

There was a blur, but no sounds of gunshots. In a fraction of a second, Victor had leapt from the couch, snatched the pistol from Amann's hand, and now had it pointed at the back of his head. Rostov, meanwhile, had drawn his own and had it, too, levelled.

Amann gulped.

I sighed and rubbed my temples. “Quite foolish. I am going to assume that you are unbalanced by the stress of your recent loss, and not hold you accountable for these actions. As I said before, I'm not the man who killed Benveniste or Auer, and you are in no danger from me. The real killer is still out there, and while I suspected that he might be you, I'm now reconsidering that belief.” I rose to my feet. “Now. Where are the journals?”

He pointed to a door. “Over there. In the study. On the table.”

“Victor, would you be so kind?” There was another blur and he returned triumphantly, waving a small box in the air. I returned my attention to our Swiss host. “Now that I have this, I will resume my hunt for the temple. I highly doubt that Auer's murderer will simply fade away, and at some point I am certain that he and I will clash over the temple and its artifacts; when that happens, I promise you, I will destroy him.”

“You'd better not be lying to me, Mondavi!”

“And you, as well, Mister Amann.”

“Do you think it's a good idea to leave him alive?” Rostov asked as we stepped out of the apartment building and onto the street. “He'll probably call the cops and tell him that we're responsible.”

I gave him a wry look. “Then it will give us that much more reason to find our nemesis quickly.”

“What if it actually was him and this was a-” He stopped and tilted his head slightly. “Did you hear that?” Victor and I gave him curious looks; his hearing, like most of his senses, was augmented by numerous cybernetics. I did not currently have any magics activated in that regards. “It sounded like a gunshot. Silenced.” He froze. “Sniper rifle.”

Victor gave him a stunned look. “How can you te-”

“Never mind that!” I shouted. “Amann!”

We ran up back into the building and up the stairs to Amann's door. I knocked once, twice, got no response. Rostov took a step back to ram the door down, but I raised a hand to halt him. Unlocking doors and portals is, again, a rudimentary magical spell, and after a minor incantation on my part, the door swung open.

A large bullet hole stood in the middle of one of the great wall-height windows that exposed Thomas Amann's salon to the grand vista of the Geneva skyline, as well as the building across the street where we had observed his actions a short while ago. The glass table that had stood between the sofas was shattered, and amongst the ruins lay the body of Thomas Amann, and growing pool of blood.

So far, army life has its ups-and-downs. The only real issue are the restrictions of Basic Training - except for my weekends at home, I'm stuck there with very little time for myself. So writing is restricted to the weekend, hence our posting schedule. Hopefully, when Basic ends (or eases up), it'll be much better.

Side note: It's good to hear that people are enjoying this.

Anyways, here's the promised post:

Chapter XX
In Which the Dead are Counted

“Dead?”

“Blown up.”

“Explain.”

“As in ka-boom.” Rostov Kushan waved his hands demonstratively. “His apartment exploded.”

“Exploded?” This news was... unnerving. “Do you think it has to do with us?”

“Well, I considered that Auer might have been involved in something else,” he rolled his eyes, “and then I checked the newswire.” Victor and I both raised our eyebrows at this; Rostov took a moment for dramatic effect. “Our pal Benveniste bit the dust, too. The French police say that he was mauled pretty heavily last night and they suspect the Circle of Thorns or some such.”

“It sounds like we aren't the only ones hunting the temple.”

“Yeah, somebody not afraid to kill off his competitors,” he replied.

Both Benveniste and Auer murdered within twelve hours of each other... Why them and why now? Herr Auer was the closest person besides myself to the temple, having pieced together most of the puzzle and acquired De Sarzec's work; Benveniste, though, didn't have anything beyond some of De Sarzec's work, and most of that he'd unwittingly sent to Auer.

“Oh no,” I gasped, “De Sarzec's work!”

The Kushans looked at each other, then quickly came to the same conclusion: if Auer is dead, then we've lost our only link to De Sarzec's work, which was sitting in the lab of some technician who knows that he'd be in serious trouble if anybody found out that he'd been doing this work clandestinely. Once word got out of Auer's death, which could honestly be any minute, who knows what a jumpy tech might do with the artifacts. They'd probably get stashed away for days or even weeks before they'd “mysteriously” appear again in shipping. We had to find the technician now.

I looked down at the box containing the manuscript, and my eye caught on the barcode and various stickers proclaiming its contents and origin. The Germans and Austrians both were notorious for their record keeping, and perhaps...

Within moments I was back at the front desk of the library, Miss Braun startled and happily surprised by my sudden reappearance. “How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you could help me track down someone,” I replied, and set the box on the counter. “You see, just a short bit ago this manuscript was being analyzed by one of the labs and they returned some rather fascinating results. Would it be possible to tell me where to find the people who worked on it? I have many questions to ask them about it.”

“Well, I'll see what I can do.” She scanned the box and turned to her computer. Several seconds of clicking, followed by an exclamation of satisfaction and a smile, and she returned. “It was returned by one of the grad students under Herr Doktor Fischer, from lab room 413, this building.”

“Grad students... Do you have a name?”

“Yes, sir, but I can't give that out.” She grimaced. “School policy. I'm sure Doktor Fischer can help you there.”

I gave her a small bow of thanks, repeated my goodbyes from earlier, and retreated to the main building. It didn't appear that Doktor Fischer actually knew of Auer's subterfuge, so we instead went straight to lab room 413, which took us into a poorly lit and unoccupied corridor of the building. We hoped that, perhaps, while the rest of the area was unstaffed, the technicians in 413 would be working, but, alas, the room itself appeared empty.

I turned to the Kushans, disappointed. “Unless we can find a list somewhere telling us who was in this room and when...”

“Can't you find it magically?” Victor asked.

I shook my head. Scrying for objects that I'd never seen without any fetters or magical connections was always an extremely difficult task for me; my skills generally lay in other areas. If I had time to conduct a proper psychometric ritual, I'd be able to trace back and look at who and what entered the room but, again, it would require a great deal of time that we didn't have just to parse through all the people, since I would not be familiar with any of them.

“Wait.” Rostov Kushan tilted his head. “Do you guys smell that?”

My nose failed me, up until he forced open the door to the lab and the putrid air from inside poured out. It was a smell I knew all too well: that of the recently deceased. A quick search of the area led us to one of the many storage closets which, upon opening, revealed a young Austrian man who recently found himself on the wrong side of a discharged firearm.

I groaned in realization. “Of course, of course.”

Rostov Kushan snickered. “Heh, yeah, of course he would be dead, too.” The repeated words were dripping in sarcasm.

“Well, yes, it is obvious in hindsight; he had the relics,” I explained, while reflexively raising my hand in order to make the sign of the cross over the poor student. I caught myself and quickly closed the closet, stunned by the return of a habit I had lost a long time ago. I have seen, and even caused, many deaths, but rarely was it from an innocent bystander; perhaps that is why the reflex had returned. Or maybe it was the uneasy feelings of Vienna...

I coughed and turned back to the Kushans, hopefully continuing my explanation before they could notice: “That would be the tie between the victims: Benveniste had them, then Auer, then this young man. Our murderer has probably been tracking this down from Paris, like us, killing everybody who knew the whereabouts of De Sarzec's findings.” I grimaced. “Probably after questioning them.”

“You know,” Rostov pointed out as we left the labroom, leaving the door slightly ajar so that the smell would travel, “we're going to be suspect numero uno once word gets out: we're one of the last people to see the other two alive, and we were just seen asking about this guy.” He looked down pointedly. “Even got your prints all over the murder scene.”

I silently cursed my lack of gloves, like the Kushans were wearing, and conjectured, “We met with Herr Fischer as well and he's still alive.” I felt a small pang of dread. “I hope.”

We hurried back to Herr Fischer's office, running when nobody was looking and briskly walking the rest of the time, just in time to see the good doctor step out into the hallway. I breathed a small sigh of relief and darted around a corner, just out of sight.

“Mister Kushan,” I gave the elder brother a stern look and point a thumb back over my shoulder, “I want Herr Fischer watched – much closer and better than with Herr Auer – and his office bugged. If somebody tries to kill him, I want to know immediately.” I hesitated a moment, debating inwardly, then added, “Keep it quiet and hidden, I don't want to scare our unknown opponent off. We need him to give himself away.”

Rostov nodded, pulled out a small handheld radio – at least, the small hi-tech device looked that vaguely like a radio – and began whispering small coded commands over it. Confident that this would be done quickly and competently, I turned my thoughts back to the problem at hand.

We had an opponent, unknown, trying to pursue the Temple of Anshar. They likely had De Sarzec's work and would have had the manuscript, too, if it hadn't been stored in the library and retrieved by me. They may or may not have gotten a hold of this “Key” artifact that Auer spoke of, and would still need the journals which Mister Amann had just acquired.

“Um, shouldn't we call this Amann guy?” Victor suggested. “What if these guys go after him, too?”

“Good idea, but...” I frowned. “For all we know, Mister Amann is the one behind this all. If we call him, he'll know that we know he's involved, and he'll take adequate precautions or, worse, go to ground somewhere.”

“Right...” He scratched his head. “So we aren't going to call your pal Bertram, either?” He saw my small look of confusion, and added, “Like, maybe he sets you out to try and ferret the information from these guys, but has someone follow you in order to wipe the trail. He doesn't like Auer much, though, so he offs him and takes his stuff. Now he just has to sit back and wait for you to come back with the manuscript.”

I frowned. It was a valid hypothesis, but it still left us with one soon to be very dead Amann.

“Unless he's dead already,” Victor pointed out.

“So either we need to catch him, save him, or perform his autopsy, and we can't call him without losing the first option.” How long would it take us to fly there, I wondered, not liking the odds.

“He's the Swiss guy, right?” Rostov asked, lowering his radio. I nodded. “In which city?”

“Geneva.”

“No problems, then.” I joined Victor in giving his older brother a look demanding an explanation. He coolly slipped the radio into a pouch in his jacket and withdrew a small PDA. “I've got lots of friends in Switzerland. Let me make a few calls and we can discreetly see if Amann is home. We can be there in just a few hours.”

I nodded my confirmation. “Make it so.”

Chapter XIX
In Which a Damsel is Rescued

For as long as mankind has been able to organize its thoughts and memories into language and inscribe those bits of information into something more permanent than human eardrums, men have collected those scraps into storehouses of knowledge. Some people horde it for themselves in their own private homes – like my associates Bertram and Auer – while others of a more selfless spirit and broader view create museums and libraries.

In the center of this, stands the humble guardian of wisdom and keeper of knowledge, the librarian. To the layman, the librarian is merely a custodian, arranging the shelves and tending to what few cares a book may have; to the illumined, the librarian is a companion in the search for knowledge, and an attendant to its acquisition, who can measure a book to a man much in the same way that a tailor does suits.

“How metaphorical,” Victor mused as we stood in one such storehouse of knowledge in the University of Vienna.

“How apt,” I corrected, and pointed out the various librarians bustling about the room, helping lost students find the research material they had not yet known they were seeking, and returning to the shelves those that had been found and once again discarded. “In my experience, you will find very few people with such breadth of knowledge as a librarian, who may be called upon at any moment to assist in the research of sixth century Chinese literature, poets of medieval Romania, or advances in the studies of Bose-Einstein condensates. This will often be followed up by somebody looking for 'this book about a guy in China – or was it Sweden? - who is solving this mystery where you think the guy with the green suit stole the crown jewels but it was actually the street performer's monkey'.”

“I think I've read that one.”

“Haven't we all?” I replied drolly. Victor Kushan, like Mister Rabinovich, was completely incapable of avoiding a chance to crack a joke, no matter how obvious the set up or worn the pun. “The point is, if we wish to return to the metaphorical tract, we are now in the most sacred of temples, young Kushan.”

“Hey, now, you know I like books as much as the next man, but I wouldn't go so far as to worship them.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I'm surprised you didn't make a crack about looking for the Vestal Virgins.”

“None of those here." He grinned broadly. “These are college students.”

“Ah. The wonders of mixed education.” I did not point out that the segregation between male and female colleges had no effect whatsoever upon the escapades of my classmates; there was an unwritten rule that Morals Were Kept and People Were Chaste And Honest In The Old Days, regardless of how things actually were.

“Regardless, I find that it is always worthwhile to enter a library with the proper spirit, even if you are simply there to pick up an object behind the counter.” Not that I expected the manuscript to be close at hand; it would take a small miracle for Herr Fischer to have even remembered to call ahead and inform the librarian of my request. Even if he had, it did not appear that the young lady at the front desk had any opportunity to leave, seeing as how she was in the middle of an increasingly heated argument with a tall and thick young Englishman.

Due to the rather loud and extremely careless nature of the male participant in the argument, I soon understood that they were a romantically involved couple who were mere minutes away from becoming two tragically separated singles. The causes were a bit murky at first, but once Victor embarrassedly interpreted some of the modern slang, I pieced together the events.

I stood back for a time, silent and patient, not wanting to get involved in private affairs, regardless of how public the affairs – specifically, the two affairs the Englishman had during the past weekend – were being made. My attitude changed once the woman started considering hysteria and the man violence to bring the two of them together again; after all, I reasoned, there's nothing impolite with being involved in public matters.

Also, there are two things I do not condone in my backward ways: making a woman cry, and laying a hand on a woman in anger. Victor seemed to be of the same mind, but I put a hand on his shoulder in restraint. I did not want to attract the attention that metahuman abilities brought.

“Excuse me?” The man continued ranting, and had grabbed the woman by the upper arm, rather forcefully. I repeated, louder. “Excuse me.”

“What do you want?!” He shouted, turning to me. He appeared to me to be of the tall, dark, and handsome with an edge of dangerous that young ladies tend to find attractive before they (both the men and the women) grow old enough and wise enough to know better. He probably played Rugby.

“You do realize that this is a library, yes?”

“Uh... duh.”

“And that a library is a public location, where peace and quiet are considered paramount for the acquisition of knowledge in this, a public location.”

“Yeah, yeah, public, got it.”

“Because you seem to have this space confused with your home.”

“Ha ha, leave us alone, grandpa.” He turned back to her.

“I'm not a grandfather,” I announced. “I never had children.” He glanced back at me with an incredibly confused look. “If I did, I would make absolutely certain that they knew how disappointed I would be in their persons if they ever behaved themselves in an inconsiderate fashion. Since I do not, I will have to take it out on you.”

He gritted his teeth, obviously at odds between his desire to attack the annoyance I presented and his reluctance to harm somebody so much older than him. He decided, instead, to order his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend out of the library.

“Now, now, young sir, that is doing nothing for my opinion of your person. You are violating a series of taboos regarding the treatment of your elders, women, and human beings in general. I cannot let you escort the young miss off of the premises, since I need her to assist me in picking up a manuscript at the insistence of Herr Fischer.”

The man whirled on me. “Now you see here, gramps. I've had it up to here with... your...” He halted and looked down. He had grabbed the front of my jacket out of anger; both Victor and he looked at his hand in shock, while I was staring at his offending hand with horrible intensity. He swallowed and let go, and I returned to looking at him in the eye. He tried to continue his sentence, but something he saw in my eyes made him lose his breath.

I was not pleased.

“I believe an apology is in order,” I announced, continuing to give him a steady glare.

“Er, um, yes... sorry, mister...”

“Your offenses against me are small in number and minor in consequence. The young lady, however...”

He hesitated. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face down to mine. There was no magic in this feat of strength – unlike many others I perform – at least, not in the sense of the arcane that people generally mean when they speak of the magical arts; this was magic in the street performer sense: the use and abuse of psychology and showmanship.

“You are young, and you are stupid, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt.” My tone was deep and level, monotone, and very quickly settling into the Tone of Command that I had to learn as an officer in the Italian Army. “You will apologize to her now, and then you will walk out this room and out of her life. No woman deserves such a neanderthal and, even more important, such a neanderthal deserves no woman. Leave her, and learn from the ruin you have made of your life and her life.”

“I'm sorry!” He started to struggle, then, and pry my hand his collar. I grabbed his hand by the wrist and squeezed.

“Do this and leave.”

The fool stuttered his apologies – including some eyebrow raising offenses that had not arisen previously in the conversation – and wandered out of the library in something of a daze. At some point in the future, probably around the time he made it through the parking lot, he would come to his senses and start to ask himself 'What the hell just happened back there?' With any luck, his sheer embarrassment at being pushed around by a white haired man of his apparent fifties would be enough to keep him away.

If he was unlucky, he'd be returning just as we were leaving and thus beyond the view of any bystanders.

The young lady watched her ex-boyfriend depart, then gradually swung her attention back to Victor and myself, her face frozen in that look of astonishment and surprise that would soon be coming over his.

“Lorenzo Mondavi, at your service, miss,” I announced, giving her a small bow. “And my assistant, Victor Kushan.”

“Oh!” She blinked, snapped out of her reverie. “I'm, uh, Sylvia. Sylvia Braun. Um, thank you.”

“Thanks are not necessary, miss.” I waved my hand dismissively. The name sounded familiar, but Braun was a common Germanic name, and Sylvia was common in all countries that had ever been exposed to the Bard's sonnets.

“Trivial matter,” Victor piped in.

“A trivial man,” I corrected; “the matter itself is not trivial to those who are involved and those who are hurt.”

“You know what I mean...” Victor glowered, gave Miss Braun a shy glance, and sort of shimmered – he still had tenuous control of some of his powers, and tended to start to fade from view when uncomfortable. I realized that he was merely trying to make a show of bravado in order to woo and calm (in that order of priority) the young lady; I had, so the parlance goes, shot him down.

“Indeed I do.” I smiled and turned back to the librarian. “Fraulein Braun, I understand that you are in the middle of something of a trying time, so I offer you the suggestion of temporarily losing yourself in your work. I find that it helps to have some form of idle distraction or another.”

“Oh!” She cleared her throat, wiped her nose, and straightened her blouse and skirt, then gave me a conspiratorial look. “Oh, like finding you that manuscript that Herr Fischer phoned about?”

I gave a faux innocent look. “Oh, yes, I had forgotten all about that. If you would be so kind, I would be eternally in your debt.”

She gave a little laugh and a hair toss and wandered off, with a “You? In my debt?” muttered under her breath. As soon as she had disappeared into the back rooms, Victor turned to me with a look somewhere between awe and annoyance.

“How did you do that?!”

“Which part?”

“Any of it!” He pointed out the door. “I've seen Ros do that to people, but he does it with glowing red eyes, sharp fangs, and a couple not-so-subtle hints about automatic weaponry! What did you do, hit him with some fear magic? Where can I get some?”

“Nothing like that, Victor, nothing like that.” I reached out to his collar demonstratively, but did not grab it; he flinched, nonetheless. “See? You, yourself, have some measure of fear and I have done nothing. It is all psychology, all confidence. If you convince someone, even a little bit, that they can be pushed around, then they ultimately will be; their subconscious takes over and they lose all control.”

“And her?” He lowered his voice. “If you looked twenty years younger, you could totally ask her out now.”

“Also confidence and politeness.” I grinned. “Besides, if I were so inclined to take advantage, do you really think she would care about my apparent age?”

He stared. I could see the little gears turning in his head – all the women he knew who admitted attraction to aging movie stars and celebrities, all the stories about wealthy old men and their beautiful young wives – and he shuddered. I suppressed a laugh as Fraulein Braun returned.

“Here you are, Mister Mondavi.” She set a small cardboard box on the counter and removed the lid, revealing the Arabian manuscript and its plastic housing.

“When is the due date?” I asked, amusedly. “Also, I am afraid I do not have a library card.”

She laughed, a bubbley thing, but deep in the throat, and sparked a memory. “I don't think it's necessary. Is this it?”

“Yes, yes- unless you can find the lost cylinder that was supposed to be shipped here, Fraulein Braun.”

“That would require magic, I think.” She smiled. “And call me Sylvia.”

I hesitated. “Sylvia? As in the Shakespeare? Or named after someone?”

“The latter; my grandmother's grandmother or something like that.” She sealed the box and slid it across to me. “She was named after her grandmother, and she was named after the sonnet. I get no end of English literature and poetry majors trying to use that as a pickup line.”

“Ah, yes, of course. How horribly original of them.” I chuckled along with her, and took the manuscript, suddenly feeling rather nervous. Grandmother's grandmother? Couldn't be. “Thank you for your assistance. You have been most helpful.”

“No, thank you!” She stopped, her fingers spread on the counter, and gave me a sheepish look. A small band of gold and jade flashed on one of her fingers.

Oh dear.

I pulled my gold timepiece – a pocket watch I purchased shortly before the Great Depression - out of my pocket and made a small show of examining it. “Ah! I am afraid I must depart. Victor, our flight to Switzerland is at hand.”

“Farewell, Fraulein.” I bowed. “May your tomorrow be infinitely more happy than your yesterday.”

“Why did we leave in such a hurry?” Victor asked as we entered the parking lot. “She was totally into you.”

“That would be the reason.” I gave him a 'do not ask further' look, but those always seem to go over Victor Kushan's head.

“What? You're too old? She's too young?” He scratched his head. “Or is it because of Sofia? I thought you and her weren't actually an item...”

“We aren't,” I declared, slightly annoyed. Things between Madam Rabinovich and I have always been complicated; whatever attractions there are between us, nothing can come of it. She is married.

“No,” I went on, “the problem is with the young Sylvia Braun. And the old Sylvia Braun.” He gave me a confused look. “Did you see the ring on her finger? The jade one?” He nodded. “Well, I purchased a jade and gold ring for a lover of mine, back when, oh, I was around your age.”

He stared. “Wait. Seriously?” He looked back over his shoulder at the entrance to the library. “Grandmother's grandmother's grandmother?”

I nodded gravely. “Quoting Shakespeare worked much better then.”

“That's... Whoa.” I could almost see the smoke rise from Victor's ears as he pondered the strange coincidence.

“There you two are!”

I turned around to see the elder Kushan bearing down on us, just slowing down from a sprint. He had a look of urgent worry and annoyance – no doubt he had been looking for us in Herr Fischer's office – but the former far outweighed the latter on his features, so I immediately became worried. The Kushans never worried.

“I've been looking all over for you... Your new friend Auer is dead.”

My wife and I are having the exact same problem: green bars all the time, then as soon as we enter a mission, it starts dropping packets left and right with a smattering of red spikes amongst a sea of green (no sky of blue). I've been messing with network settings, ports on the router, everything under the sun, but nothing seems to have any effect.

Chapter XVIII
In Which a Young Man Discusses a Diversion

“So, should I break out the MP-5s and C-4?”

Rostov Kushan and I were standing outside Auer's flat, waiting for his brother to return with the car. We'd only been talking with the German Austrian for a short time, but I was assured that Victor was performing most of his task at his normal hyperaccelerated rate, and would return shortly.

I gave him a long look. “Whatever for?”

“To force him to give us what we want, of course.” I stared at him blankly. “And to stop his inevitable betrayal. Much easier to just blow up his apartment now than have him sabotaging us later.”

“You don't-” Realization dawned. He couldn't understand German. My usual assistant, Madam Rabinovich, is a linguist of some renown (in her field, that is) and knows well over a dozen languages; I am not used to being in a situation with any kind of linguistic difficulties. “My apologies, Rostov, I am used to working with Madam Rabinovich.”

“Ah.” He snickered. “Yes, well, she is the most cunning of all-” He cut himself off from completing the rather rude joke, more than likely due to the look I was giving him, which said something along the lines of 'I can erase you from existence'.

Rostov coughed. “She does know a lot of languages. Understandable. Can't really live up to that. I took some German in High School, but I don't remember much...”

I accepted this as an apology and returned to the discussion on Herr Auer. “No, no, he's on our side, Kushan. He has supplied me with valuable information and we have made an agreement regarding the search for the temple.”

“Oh?” He shrugged. “Then where're the manuscripts and things?”

“At the university, so we're going there as soon as your brother returns.” Sure enough, I saw the Kushans' car speeding in the distance. “You should also have a flight prepped, since we'll be going to Switzerland later today.”

“Switzerland?”

I nodded. “To visit Thomas Amann and lay claim to some journals he is holding. Then it's off to Luxembourg. If things go well, we shall visit Mister Bertram some time tomorrow.”

“And we're just going to leave Auer here?” His jaw set. “Not afraid he's going to run off without us?”

“Actually, once I send him my instructions, he is supposed to do exactly that, and we will meet up with him and his archaeological team in Iraq.” I gave him a small smile. “If it will ease your sociopathic little heart, you can leave one of your men here on a stakeout.”

He snorted.

“It wouldn't be in Auer's self-interest to betray us, Kushan,” I explained as his car arrived. “Especially once I have the Key and manuscripts. In case you didn't notice, your presence is somewhat intimidating.”

He laughed as we entered the car, and was quickly on his car phone – his satellite phone wasn't working properly – giving instructions for a man to watch Auer's home and person, and for the plane to be prepped and flight authorizations to be obtained; the vital yet tedious minutia that are required in the career and the field.

My stints as military man, mafioso, and minor noble all had some measure of the micromanagement of manpower, and I always found it a mysterious mix of odd comfort and extreme stress. When one is such an exacting perfectionist as myself, the ability to control every event eases the mind, up until the point where one realizes that they spend so much time controlling the lives of others that they have sacrificed all control of their own. Finding the balance is complicated, and not something I ever managed to accomplish.

I haven't been in a leadership role for seventy years. Perhaps one day in the future I shall return to such a position. And strike the happy balance, or a semblance thereof.

It was a short journey to the university and to the department of Herr Doktor-Professor Hermann Fischer, the man in charge of the library where Herr Auer was planning to donate his collection, and the current caretaker of his manuscript. With a short amount of insistence and some minor name dropping of one of their wealthiest patrons, we were quickly ushered into the office of the illustrious department head.

“Ah, good morning!” Herr Doktor-Professor Fischer exclaimed from behind what I could only assume was a large desk covered in papers and dirty coffee cups. He coughed and stuck his hand into the pile and pulled out a small obsidian rock containing an even smaller timepiece and squinted at it. “Or good afternoon, as the case may be. How can I help you, gentlemen?”

“Herr Doktor-Profess-”

“Please, please, you're making me feel old!” He grinned at his feeble attempt at humor. I immediately put him into the mental category of “old jolly professor” and tensed for the trial of patience that dealing with such types inevitably requires. “Call me Hermann. Doktor Fischer is a perfectly acceptable alternative, if you're so inclined.”

“Doktor Fischer,” I obliged, “my name is Lorenzo Mondavi, and these are my associates, Rostov Kushan and Victor Kushan.” They both smiled and nodded. “I am here on behalf of a client of mine, Herr Heinrich Auer.”

“Oh, yes?” His face brightened. “And how is old Heinrich?”

“Doing rather well, as far as I am aware,” I replied, leaving the statement open in case there was some problem that I didn't know of. After a moment, I added, “He is... enthused and preoccupied, at the moment.”

Doktor Fischer nodded benevolently. “Ah, yes, yes, that work of De Sarzec. All he can talk about, these days. I nice little diversion, yes, and well worth it if it keeps patronship.”

“Diversion?”

“Oh!” He covered his mouth. “Don't tell him I said that! It's interesting, if you're into that sort of thing, but it's really just a minor footnote in history. I see new things like it every day.”

“Ah, I understand.” If there were no possibilities of magical artifacts or metaphysical artifacts, I, too, would have considered the discovery an interesting diversion and little more; I certainly wouldn't be traipsing across Europe. “And that is precisely why I am here.”

He blinked at me in confusion. “Because De Sarzec's work is not so important?”

I smiled, amused. “Because of De Sarzec's work, period. Herr Auer is full of pent up energy and frustration over the shipping delays, and needs something to divert his attention; he would like to study a particular manuscript that he has lent to the university.”

“Oh, good idea, good idea.” He paused for a moment and his features went through the standard phases that I have come to associate with the traitorous memory of the absent-minded professor. “Which manuscript?”

“Arabic, dated to the mid 6th century CE.” His face remained blank, so I continued, controlling my urge to sigh. “It is the account of a religious group, known as the Cult of Anshar, and claims the existence of an otherwise unknown and uncorroborated temple dedicated to same deity and supposedly destroyed by the gods at some point during near the end of the Akkadian Empire.”

“You're familiar with the piece?” He gave me a look of astonishment and... glee? “Do you work in the field?”

“It is an associated field, actually. I am a dealer in rare books and antiquities.”

“Really?” He scratched his head. The declaration of my profession has generally led to two responses: astonished joy from those who enjoy books and history, and polite disappointment from those who do not. Rarely do I get the look of surprise. “Doesn't Heinrich usually go through Thomas?”

“Thomas Amann, yes.” I waved in the air vaguely. “With any luck, Herr Auer will stop hiring my competitor and will stick to my exclusive services.”

“Ah.” He laughed. “Good luck to you on that, lad, Thomas knows his stuff; a very bright young man, when he puts his mind to it. And these two, they're employees of yours?”

I nodded, glad not to be forced to comment upon Amann (about whom I have very little good to say). “They do various odd jobs for me, as well as augmenting my knowledge of regarding relics of the Mu peoples. My own personal specialty is in the Oranbegan mystics, so our skillsets compliment each other nicely.”

“Oranbegan? You mean the originals, or the Circle?”

“Both.”

“Oh really!” His eyes lit up with a fire that I had come to associate with Mister Rabinovich's passionate forays into science – generally of the mad variety. Sure enough, Doktor Fischer began firing off questions about the original Mu-based Oranbegans as fast as I could answer them. Within a short time, he and I got caught up in a small discussion about the Oranbegan culture, and, as such conversations are wont to go, settled into such niche arguments as to the nature and classification of their pottery and burial rites.

This was, eventually, interrupted by Rostov Kushan taking his leave to answer his cell phone. I examined Doktor Fischer's obsidian encased clock and decided that it was time for us to move on.

“I am sad to hear it, Herr Mondavi,” he replied when I informed him. “We were having the most delightful conversation; I must say, you are quite thoroughly well-versed in the culture.”

I gave him a small bow. “Thank you for the compliment, Doktor. I have studied them a great deal. Know thy enemy.” He raised an eyebrow at that remark, and I hastily explained: “When your job is the buying and selling – and sometimes discovering! - of artifacts, you run afoul of the Circle of Thorns far more often than most other professions. Unless you work in a museum or university antiquities, I suppose.”

“So true, so true.“ He laugh, heartily. “I couldn't possibly count the number of times we've had those foul ruffians show to try and deprive us of our priceless artifacts. You'd better be careful, young man.”

I gave Victor a furtive glance to see if he noticed Doktor Fischer's mistake, but his inability to understand German saved me from having to quell any uncontrollable laughter or suffer jokes about my “youth” later. As it were, I was wandering the halls of this university before Fischer's parents were born.

“In any case,” he went on, oblivious to his error, “the manuscript is in storage downstairs. Just head down and ask the librarian to assist you in retrieving it – I'll call ahead here.” I didn't see a telephone for him to use, but that was hardly a surprise, given the horrendous clutter. It could be anywhere.

“Thank you for assistance and time, Doktor Fischer.” I bowed once again and turned to leave, Victor Kushan following right behind.

Chapter XVII
In Which Agreements are Made

Heinrich Auer, like many other residents of his upper class Viennese suburb, lived in a relatively spacious apartment built in a symmetrical, neoclassical style. The “relatively” is an important part of the sentence, since I have lived in the New World for nearly a century and have grown quite used to the excess of space and large proportions therein. I am told that many American tourists find the sheer density of Europe beyond their mental grasp, and the accommodations to be constrictive and downright claustrophobic. Neither of the Kushans made any remarks in that direction, though, so I can't confirm this with any firsthand experience.

Having left Victor to his task, Rostov and I approached the front door and gave the doorbell a ring. The sound of footsteps and a shift in light through the peephole proceeded an old and worn voice, which inquired as to our persons'.

“Herr Auer,” I replied in German, “It is I, Lorenzo Mondavi, and I would like to take a few moments of your time.”

“Mondavi? You look younger than I expected...” The voice mused. My age is something of an open secret, in that I am generally quite frank about my lengthy existence, but I do not advertise it in any manner. Mister Amann, who considers me to be something of a rival to him in the antiquities business, is one of the few people outside my general acquaintances who I know is aware of my origins, and it is not particularly surprising that he would have shared this information with one of his favorite clients. Herr Auer gestured to Rostov. “What about him?”

“Merely an associate of mine. Rostov Kushan.”

Auer grunted noncommittally, not giving any indication as to whether or not he recognized the mercenary's name. “So, what brings you all the way here?”

“De Sarzec.” From what I had heard, Herr Auer was a very quick-witted man who did not generally enjoy conversation. By cutting right to the chase, so it were, I would play to his good side.

There was a long pause, presumably during which Herr Auer was considering all of his options, and eventually decided in my favor; the sounds of bolts sliding and locks turning echoed briefly, and then the door swung wide open. Auer, a semi-retired German whose skin appeared to be losing the fight with gravity slightly more than the average 60-something, waved for us to enter and then shut the door behind us.

The apartment was Spartan and sparse, as per the classic German style, with the only ornamentation allowed being various artifacts that he had collected over the years and which he had arranged on various furniture surfaces with small placards and cards detailing each item. He took a seat in a large leather rocking chair, and gestured for Rostov Kushan and I to do the same. I kept my coat on, but removed my hat out of respect, sitting it upon my knees.

“You've figured it out, eh?” He asked, to which I said nothing, preferring to let him make assumptions first. “I wasn't so naïve as to think I was the only person who found the Shubat-Anshar reference, but you'll have to forgive me for being disappointed that you figured it out so soon.”

I smiled.

“So, what, you want his work?”

“I do, indeed.”

He leaned forward, conspiratorially. “The folks at the University of Vienna sent you here?”

I shook my head. It only occurred to me later in the conversation that he was trying to find out if one of his co-conspirators had betrayed him. “I have yet to visit them. I came here straight from the Louvre. Somehow, I didn't think I'd find it there.”

“Really? You made the connection then?” He laughed, which devolved into worrisome hacking. “I was hoping that by working through the university, I'd avoid suspicion. So much for that...”

“To be fair, Herr Auer,” I acquiesced, “I doubt that anybody not in my unique position would have made the connection.”

“Flattering me, Herr Mondavi?” Auer gave me a wry look.

“Merely acknowledging the simple truth.” My face remained bland. Truly, we were both right – I was indeed trying to groom him into aiding me, and I also doubt that somebody not already aware of his interest in the matters would have connected things directly to him.

“Well, I let you and your mercenary in here, so you already know my position.” And he was right, at that; he wanted to make a deal. He knew that I would not be daunted by any refusal on his part, and that he'd lost the safety of anonymity, so I would be able to dog his heels from here until eternity. “I'm glad I didn't turn you away, to be honest – you'd make a frightening enemy.”

Kushan grinned, exposing his sharpened canines. Auer, to his merit, did not flinch. It wasn't often that I faced an intelligent opponent who considered myself in their class and assumed that I had already figured everything out – the late Detective Doctor Graham and Madam Rabinovich being the two of the most recent. It was a refreshing change of pace.

“Your terms, Herr Auer?”

“Terms?” He chuckled. “We're friends now, yes? Or perhaps merely allies of convenience? Such terms are beneath us. We shall simply have a mutually beneficial business arrangement. We assist one another, find the temple together, and share the glory. I'm sure that's better than any deal you may have gotten from that arrogant Jew, Benveniste.”

I raised an eyebrow in surprise that he would be aware of my attempts to reason with Benveniste, but, in retrospect, it was an easy assumption to make.

He smiled affably. “I've come too close to the discovery to let it slip through my hands because of some stupid, cutthroat competition.”

He rose to his feet, and walked to the window, sliding the curtain just enough to see beyond. “That doesn't eliminate the issue of trust. You come to me with a bodyguard – though your backup has disappeared – and here I am defenseless. I have no guarantees to my safety regardless of whether or not I assist you. You, Herr Mondavi, hold all the cards.”

“I always bargain from a position of strength, Herr Auer.” I smirked, not adding the more important addendum of trying to maneuver such that success was inevitable. “Blame my Sicilian blood, if you must.”

He grunted at the last remark. Even after all the years of speaking Austrian German, I still retained some of the Italian accent that I grew up with, just as Heinrich Auer's accent betrayed his northern German heritage. At least I had the advantage of speaking English as an Oxfordian, instead of as a foreigner.

“Fine, fine...” He sighed heavily and turned back to me from the window. “My terms are that I want to be with you during the excavation – and we'll use my team, which I've already put together and are waiting for me in Iraq. We share all credit. We will deal with the findings themselves after we uncover them and determine their quantity and nature.”

I nodded. “In exchange, I wish to see all of De Sarzec's relics that you have acquired, as well as the Arabic manuscript you purchased some time ago.”

He paused a short bit, obviously taken aback by my request for the manuscript. After a short internal debate, he agreed: “Yes, yes, you'll be wanting to see the bit about the Key.”

I was... confused. Nothing I had read had ever indicated such.

“Oh, yes, of course you wouldn't know about yet, Herr Mondavi,” he explained, “nobody does, except for me and a few of my friends at the university...”

Herr Auer told us that an associate of his in the university had put in the request for De Sarzec's work, and when the crates arrived, had them “disappeared” - Lost in Shipment being the official news. In reality, they were moved discreetly to one of the labs for analysis and restoration. Auer brought the Arabian manuscript with him to the laboratory in order to compare its text with the writings on the relics. The technicians, though, misinterpreted his intentions and analyzed the manuscript as well. They found numerous faded lines that had been written over or corrected, indicating that the parchment had been reused or redacted at some point in the past. The hidden text described an object, referred to as a Key, that had been passed down for generations by the Cult of Anshar, a group claiming origins back to the original temple, until they were wiped out by Muhammedists. The Key itself was said to “unlock the gateway to the ancient temple”.

“I see.” Assuming we were operating with a mystical temple with real magical artifacts, and not simply a bunch of ancient religious charlatans, then there still might be some barrier protecting the remains. I added, aloud, “Perhaps that's why the temple has not been found all this time...”

“Because nobody had the key?” Herr Auer barked laughter. “Surely you don't believe in any of that? Sure, we have magic, but that's all from Mu and Oranbega and their so-called gods; there's no evidence that Enlil and Anshar and so forth were actually real.”

“I entertain all possibilities, Herr Auer.”

His laughter subsided after he saw the serious look on my face. “Well, then we're in trouble; I don't have the Key. I've had Thomas looking for it, but he hasn't gotten much yet. There have only been two expeditions to that area – the recent French one and a German dig in the 19th century – and since I have not found anything matching its description in De Sarzec's collection...” He left the sentence hanging.

“Has Amann acquired the journals from that dig, yet?” I asked, somewhat disturbed at the coincidence that Mr. Bertram had asked after those specific items. Bertram couldn't have known about the Key from the manuscript, so he must have learned of it from another source. But where?

He nodded. “Yes, yes. Just this morning he called me. He's going to ship them to me tomorrow. The archaeologists were quite meticulous in their records, so if the Key was found, it should be fully described in the lists.”

“How will you know it?”

“Its description is rather distinctive, but incredibly difficult to explain. It's something of a...” His fingers flexed in punctuation of the uselessness of words. “A geometrical oddity. I dare say non-Euclidean. There is a faded diagram on the back of the manuscript, which people long thought to be a symbol of the Cult of Anshar, but which I think is a duplication of the head of the key – the stone protrusions from the end of the cylinder itself.”

My curiosity was perked. “May I see the design?”

He shook his head. “No, no... I mean, not right now. I left it with the other items at the university. After everything is fully documented and replicated digitally, then the university will suddenly 'find' its missing shipment from the Louvre. I plan on donating the manuscript then.”

“Very well. I shall go to the university and take a look,” I announced, rising to my feet. Rostov Kushan followed soon after.

Auer was taken aback. “What? Right now? I haven't even had the chance to offer you tea and coffee!”

“Yes, now.” I gave him a somewhat genuine look of disappointment – tea sounded splendid. But I was afraid that we had no time for this. “I am a generally patient man, but I have met two others besides you and I who are on the trail of Shubat Anshar, and Amann is smart enough to figure it out himself, now that you've let him in on your pursuit – that makes five. Who else might be chasing it? Perhaps somebody who already has the Key?”

“I see.” He chuckled. “You are as tenacious and efficient as they say, Herr Mondavi, far belying your age. I would ask you your secret but, then, it wouldn't be secret, would it?”

“Farewell, Herr Auer.” I put my hat on and left.

[ QUOTE ]
You forgot (or it was added later) this Note:

[ QUOTE ]
(Note from me; Im not sure if that yes is in response to Leese’s Question.)

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, that wasn't there then. Way to rain on my parade, Europe! *shakes fist*

Well, I'm hoping anyways. Maybe we can get something from Posi when he's on later today.

From the EU boards:
[ QUOTE ]
Leese: Dom buffs confirmed for I15 ?
Positron: Yes

[/ QUOTE ]
Let the boundless and unfounded speculation begin!

Chapter XVI
In Which a Haunting Resumes

To be honest, there is an additional reason – quite personal – as to why I did not hurry from Paris to Vienna: I was reticent to break my long self-imposed exile from the city that was once the cultural and intellectual capital of Europe.

Like any other well-educated and well-to-do upper-class child of the 19th century, I spent a great deal of time in the two cultural capitals of Europe: Paris and Vienna. Of the two, I preferred the Austrian city and its famous salons and cafés, where the great intellectuals of the day came together to share coffee and culture, water and witticisms, pastries and politics.

Even after London supplanted all other cities in my heart, I still regularly visited the city in order to share knowledge and wisdom with the Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft, an occult society surrounding Guido von List. It was in those dealings that I first expanded my awareness of magical phenomenon outside the Hermetic system espoused in England; I discussed Germanic paganism, Armanism, Wotanism, and the runic magic system of Armanen Futharkh.

That ended, like so many things, when the Triple Entente succeeded in convincing Italy to betray its long standing alliance and invade the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the south. The Great War was a difficult time for every nation and every people, but it was particularly unpleasant for us Italians: despite having fewer people than either France or Britain, lost roughly as many people – and unlike either of them, half of that number was from civilian casualties.

We were, supposedly, on the offensive throughout the entire war, though you would never have known it; for every battle fought, we lost more and more ground to the Austrians. It was, truly, not until the eleventh hour – that is, during the last sixth month of the war - that fortunes changed and we pushed them back and drove into the country, forcing their surrender. Morale was low, casualties were high, and even I was affected by the oppressing despair.

A short time after the war, I returned to Vienna, and found the place to be incomparably different than I remembered. Not just because of the changing political climate and general social unrest, but because of the omnipresent feeling that I was surrounded by my enemies. Everything reminded me of violence and death, and I was never happier than when I finally left the city.

I haven't returned since.

Well, not until the Brothers Kushan and I set foot in the city after our twenty-four hour excursion in Paris.

It was with a small amount of trepidation that I stepped off the plane onto Austrian soil, but I found it much easier to cope with than I had expected. My memories of the country were unsullied by my brief visit after the war, and the landscape I saw before me had changed so much that it felt... alien. I traveled through the streets of Vienna with a disturbing sense of deja vu, caught in an uncanny valley of seeing an intimate friend clothed in the skin of a foreigner.

It was hard to equate the modern city of skyscrapers and suburbs with my great betrayer, and the feeling of walking over the graves of a million of my brethren was muted.

And then we passed through the city centre and into the old city and my eyes caught on the old alleyways. They had changed little from the days of my ill-spent youth, where I and my fellows evaded the watchful gaze of our minders and tutors to swipe a taste of the many delicacies and diversions that the city had to offer. I began to recognize the remains of cafés where I read poetry and talked philosophy and my mind traced the routes taken to some of the more popular salons, where gracious and intelligent men and women encouraged the propagation of art, artistry, and artists. I forged many relationships there, with those people, at that time, and faces paraded through my mind of pen-pals and paramours, most of whom had perished long before my self-imposed exile.

A building crossed my vision – an old apartment, formerly the domicile of Franz Cerny. He was a caustic and energetic member of the Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft, roughly one-quarter of my age when we began to have regular arguments about theology, and thus was caught up in the Austro-Hungarian Army when the troubles began. I buried him and dozens more like him on the slopes of Mt. Baldo.

And with that thought came, unbidden and unwanted, the glacier of emotions and memories of the war. Sights. Sounds. Silence. The silence was always the worst part.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Victor Kushan's voice pierced the roaring stillness of the blood soaked Alps, but did nothing for the macabre menagerie behind my eyelids. I opened the eyes I didn't remember closing and paused, collecting my thoughts and mastering my vocal chords.

“Geez, you look like you've seen a ghost,” he added, inadvertently appropriate in his choice of metaphor.

The words returned. “Merely a walk down memory lane, Mister Kushan.” One of the advantages of a stoney countenance like mine is that I don't have to bother trying to fake a smile. “I used to visit this city quite often in my time.”

“Whoa, it was still around back then?” Victor Kushan's sense of humor was, at all times, a test of endurance. Sometimes to refrain from groaning, others from playfully smacking the back of his head or punching him in the shoulder, and, very rarely, from pulling his tongue out of his head via the ear canal with a pair of molten tongs.

I was, needless to say, not in the mood. He must have seen something of this on my face and added quickly, “Justkiddinggrandp-er-Lorenzo-er-MisterMondavi.”

I sighed and accepted his weak attempt at an apology and continued: “Everybody who was anybody in Europe visited at least once in their life, if not once every year. I tended more toward the later in my youth. I had many friends here.”

“Oh, did they-” He caught himself, the realization setting in that nearly every man and woman I had ever known had passed away a long time ago. He looked down sheepishly, then turned to his brother, seeking a way to change the subject. “Are we there yet?”

Rostov Kushan snorted and turned slightly, putting his elbow on the top of his chair and staring back at his brother. He waited a few moments, his trademark toothy grin revealing that he was basking in Victor's embarrassment; he enjoyed making other people uncomfortable, especially if it punctuates some mistake of theirs.

“Yeah, it should only be a few more minutes.” He glanced to our driver – one of his bodyguards – who gave a small nod of confirmation. “We've started seeing lawns again, so we're in the right neighborhood.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You are familiar with Vienna?”

“Oh, yes... Plenty of clients here.” He waved at one of the windows. “Especially in this part of town, where all the private money is.”

I nodded my understanding. Rostov Kushan got two kinds of jobs: corporate, where some large multinational conglomerate needed some competition removed or a market forced open in some small country; and private, where individuals such as myself had a small endeavor needing his expertise.

“That reminds me,” he added, focusing once again on his younger brother, “I'll need you to do a small pickup and delivery job while Lorenzo and I are having our little chat with the Austrian.”

“What? Can't Oxford do it?”

Rostov tapped his arm mysteriously. “No. It needs to be you.”

I glanced at Victor, who was mouthing an 'oh' of realization. My eye caught upon the armband that he was wearing, right at the same spot that Rostov had pointed on his own arm; it had small, intricate symbol of a trio of swords – two short, one medium – over a flaming fist. It was a recent acquisition of his - at least, I had never seen him wear it until the two of them answered my summons. I hadn't put together the meaning of the symbol until that moment, due to the fiery hand that was never a part of that particular configuration of the crest of the Hunters, as well as the fact that Hunters rarely advertised their membership.

This brings me to the “inherited” side of Rostov Kushan; he is the descendant of an organization that operates in the gray area between the warring factions of Heaven and Hell. Their origin is long lost to the mists of time, but their activities are known to all who take interest in such matters – they primarily attempt to play one side against the other in order to preserve humanity and its freedom.

In general, I find the notion appealing.

I had known for some time that the elder brother was an active member of the society, but Victor's admission was new to me. Between that, the enchanted pistol he carried at his side, and his introduction into the world of a mercenary, it seemed that the two brothers were growing more and more alike.

Concealing both my secret amusement and my understanding that Victor Kushan was being sent on a job for the Hunters, I turned back to the window, just in time to see Herr Auer's apartment building – with its faux stone exterior and delicately manicured lawn - come into view.

Chapter XV
In Which Snails Are Demeaned and Defended

While locations like the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower may be iconic within the City of Lights, the real bastions of French culture are the numerous restaurants offering the latest and greatest of fine dining. While neglecting to visit the Louvre might be a travesty, not taking the time to partake of rich food and carefully aged wines would be a crime against humanity.

“I get it,” Rostov Kushan rolled his eyes, “you're hungry.”

“Also,” I gestured towards the velvet skyline, “it is rather late and Austria is ahead of us; I'd rather not call upon Mister Auer in the middle of the night. That would be most ungracious of us.”

“What're you convincing us for, Lorenzo? You're the one running this show.” He peered at me, calculating. He had the predatory look on his face that always came along with some biting sarcasm or uncomfortable insight into the nature of the recipient, often with a pun (though not nearly as groan-worthy as those concocted in his younger brother's mind).

I raised a hand to preempt his unnecessary psychoanalysis. “Yes, yes, I'm sure I am just projecting onto you my own doubts and in convincing you, I am also convincing myself. I am, in fact, hungry,” I admitted, with the tone of someone making a great sacrifice.

“Did you hear that, Vic?” He elbowed his brother in the side. “Tall, dark, and inscrutable here might actually be human!”

“I eat, therefore I am?” Victor Kushan posited, trying to hide the fact that his brother might have just bruised his ribs. “I'm sure that'll come to bite him later.”

I repressed a groan and asked Mister Oxford – one of Rostov's hired thugs and our chauffeur – to find us a good hotel. He silently obliged, working the car's GPS unit to retrieve a list, and in a relatively short time (as short as things can be in Parisian traffic) we had placed our bags in our rooms and were planning the rest of the evening.

Number one on the agenda: fine dining.

“This is crazy...” Victor announced as we were being seated in the restaurant that had been most recommended by the head clerk of the hotel. I wasn't sure whether he meant the magnificent chandeliers, the ornate glass sculptures that sat underneath them, or the vibrant paintings that hung on the walls. “This is way nicer than anything we have in the Isles...”

Rostov snorted, echoing my own sentiments on the matter. “At least, not any that aren't run by the mafia or worse...” He gestured back over his shoulder. “And the guy playing at the piano isn't being blackmailed by the owner, and the lounge singer isn't hired out as an escort after the show's over.”

“Well, you can't be too certain, especially on the blackmail,” I conceded, “but that tells you more of the failings of Isle society than it does the grandeur of the French dining experience. You won't truly know it until you've let your tastebuds be assaulted by dishes both sinful and divine.”

“Can we go without the poetry?” Victor asked, pretending to look nauseated.

“Only if you hold back on the puns,” I retorted wickedly.

He gave me a face. “Not worth it.”

I barked some fake laughter and waved the waitress over to read us the specials of the evening. After some thought, some suggestions of my own, and much debate, orders were made. The appetizers arrived shortly, and the younger Kushan quickly let it be known that he was unhappy with my suggestions for food.

“Snails?” Victor looked at me with disgust. “Why?!”

“Why not?” I wielded the tongs and fork with relish. Escargot is a favorite of mine, and a delicacy that I have not had a chance to partake of since the '30s. “They're simply mollusks, like clams or oysters.”

I tried to coax him further (“How can you come to Paris and not try escargot, at least once?”) and even Rostov joined in (“It just slides right down your throat; it doesn't wiggle too much!”) but he would have nothing of it. Victor spent the entire time poking at his oh-so-adventurous beef steak and mashed potatoes and wondering aloud if he could find a place that served tacos. At least Rostov had the good sense to choose the classic veal dish, blanquette de veau.

I am not, by nature, a social person, so I spent more of the meal basking in the myriad flavors presented by my stuffed peppers and interesting side dish of broiled asparagus than I spent in conversation. The Brothers Kushan chatted amongst themselves mostly, discussing a myriad of things that I, frankly, didn't pay much attention to. I, instead, found my thoughts drawn back to the Akkadian Empire and the lost Temple of Anshar.

The Akkadians themselves were an interesting anomaly, a blip on the radar of history that came from nowhere and conquered one of the greatest powers of the time, the Empire of Sumer. The man behind it all, Sargon of Akkad, had an origin cloaked in mystery, with numerous myths explaining his birth and rise to kingship in Kish. He swiftly and efficiently conquered most of Mesopotamia, introducing change to a land that had seen three thousand years of rule based in the city-states of Ur and Lagash. A mere two hundred years later, the Akkadian Empire collapsed with the return of Sumer, which also lasted a few short centuries under the constant attack from its neighbours before finally falling to the rising Babylonia.

Oddly enough, even though the Sumerian culture and language began well before the Akkadian and was still in use for various religious practices for millenia after the empire's fall, the Sumerians fell to the wayside, the Akkadians usurping their heritage. The Akkadan language would go on to be the earliest known Semitic language and would become supplanted by its cousin, Aramaic, while the Sumerian language virtually disappeared with no known linguistic relatives – a language isolate, as Madam Rabinovich would call it.

But while the Akkadians thoroughly supplanted the Sumerians in language, government, and all aspects of day-to-day life, there was one area that remained: religion. The gods and priests and temples were all adopted, and the language and writings remained in a borrowed, static state, similar to the Catholic use of Latin long after the world stopped using it. This had actually lent the Akkadians a sort of temporary legitimacy: the gods themselves had changed allegiance and were behind Sargon's numerous swift victories. The Temple of Anshar, like many others, was populated by Akkadians and conquered Sumerians, who all served an Akkadian king and worshipped a Sumerian god. And at some point, or so the story goes, the gods turned their faces away from the Akkadians and back to the Sumerians, destroying many of their temples and bringing an end to the civilization.

There was a part of me that felt silly lending credence to these ideas of the old gods performing acts on the globe, but that part was always eyed contemptuously by the part of me that remembers slaying an avatar of the Morrigan and being chased around by her and various other entities in the spirit world for the last seventy years. In the end, it was perfectly reasonable.

Except that there was little to any evidence of these particular gods' existence. Akkadian spells and rituals still existed, like the infamous Hammer of the World (or Malleus Mundi, as the Latin-loving magicians preferred to call it) which had the power to recreate parts of reality, but the gods themselves were nowhere to be found. Did they disappear? Were they sleeping? Were they killed? Did they even exist in the first place?

I hope that the investigation of the Temple of Anshar will give me some kind of answer to this.

“Waitaminute!”

I was pulled out my internal thought processes by Victor Kushan, who was pointing at me accusingly. “You get all antsy about me coming along because you don't want to pay double, but then you go about spending money like a mad man while we're here? Nicest hotel, nicest restaurant... What gives!”

I couldn't help but smile at his attempt at great insight. “Are you familiar with the concept of noblesse oblige?”

“Gezundheit,” Rostov Kushan jested.

I gave him a bemused look – I'm well aware that he knows the term - and turned back to his brother. “It's the old European idea that the nobility are obligated – hence the words – to the people of their fiefdom. It has long since been expanded with the idea that people of high birth are obligated to their class, as well, and this includes maintaining a certain extravagance.”

“Wait. You're nobility?”

I smiled softly. “The blood of the House of Bourbon flows through my veins.”

“That's a sign you drink too much,” Rostov chimed in.

“Regardless, yes, I am.” I waved as if shooing a fly. “But it is of no consequence nowadays; all my ancestral land has long been confiscated and sold. It is a near meaningless title in the modern world, and not something I parade around.”

Victor looked unconvinced. “That explains this stuff, but what about pinching pennies earlier?”

I grinned. ”The secret success to any man of wealth and standing is this: be a miser at home and a liberal abroad.”

“Yeah, it's all about showing off,” Rostov added in a helpful tone that I would like to assume was ironic. I responded with a fleeting glance of annoyance.

“Correction: it's not just about showing off,” I replied, stressing the 'just'. “It's about spending your money in a way that is not a complete waste. I am a man of simple tastes and pleasures, so spending large amounts there would be a waste. If I did nothing with the money I hoarded, it would also be a waste. So I spend it when a worthy cause presents itself.”

Victor glanced around the restaurant. “Like this?”

I smirked, raising my glass and making a toast. “There is no worthier cause than granting the uninitiated their first taste of fine Parisian dining.”

After initiating the two young men to a true Parisian crème brulee, we adjourned our meal and said our goodbyes for the night, each of us heading into a different direction to pursue item number two on our personal agendas. The younger Kushan wandered the streets of Paris, seeking out the clubs and other locations catering to a young man with a lot of energy, while the elder Kushan left to take care of some “business” in the city – I did not bother asking what.

I returned to the quiet solitude of the hotel and my books, bringing with me a bottle of a delightful white wine that we had tasted at the restaurant, and settled down for an enjoyable few hours of reading and drinking. My standard nightly ritual followed: I recast my magical wards and took a small homemade tonic for settling congestion and easing sleep and went to bed.

I awoke the following morning without any memory of a dream or nightmare, which is the happy and intended effect of my personal sleeping draught, and spent some time in meditation until breaking the fast with the Kushans – both of whom seemed to also be lacking in restful sleep.

“Are you two ready for the next leg of our journey?”

Rostov nodded. “Just after I get some coffee.”

“Me, too...” Victor mumbled. I stared at him in horror as my mind tried to comprehend what he would be like with a strong shot of caffeine.

“We can stop by a small cafe on the way to the airfield, though if you're patient, we can wait and visit one of the world famous Viennese cafes.” I caught my mistake immediately, and admitted it in somewhat subdued tones: “Well, at least they were in my time, even if they lost the title of best strudel to Berlin after the Great War.”

“Whatever ya say, gramps,” Victor replied as he walked out of the hotel. He had a tendency to come up with nicknames and monikers for every person he met, and that was mine. Generally he didn't use it unless he was feeling particularly playful or, as in this case, exhausted.

I let it pass and followed the two brothers out.

Chapter XIV
In which artifacts are inspected and networks are compromised

The journey to Paris was long and uneventful. As is par for the course, I kept mostly to myself and was left thankfully undisturbed, allowing me to spend time reading and attempting to get a good night's rest. I had been worried that the loquacious young Victor would pester me, but he was thoroughly distracted by some small electronic gadget with many buttons. I voluntarily broke the silence only upon our entering French airspace so that we could discuss our first stop.

Paris was substantially closer to my memories of it than most of the cities of Europe. It weathered the occupation by Germany rather well – and I'm told it was left mostly untouched by Allied bombers, as the Germans had very little infrastructure there – and its march into modernity has been in lock step with an eye to preserving and maintaining its cultural heritage. Many of the landmarks remained, though significantly cleaner than when I last visited, which is something I could say for the city in general.

Victor Kushan, for his part, was thoroughly enjoying the flight in, and spent some time pointing out the window and identifying those items which many feel they are obligated to visit while coming to Paris – especially the Eiffel Tower. It then dawned on me that he had never been to Paris or the Louvre, and the lack of either (the latter, in particular) constituted a serious hole in the education of a young man. Paris was, after all, one of the great cultural centers of the world, and the Louvre one of the greatest museums; to live without fully partaking in either of them would be a travesty.

I made a mental note to make some time for a small tour around our visit with Mssr. Benveniste, the curator in charge of the relics.

This turned out to be time that we would freely have, as the curator was otherwise engaged when we first arrived at the Musée du Louvre. Out of all the sites in the city, this is the one that had changed the most, having expanded its collection significantly since my last visit, and having remodeled several times, most notably at the entrance. I could not help but smirk at the glass pyramid that stood, majestic but short, in the center of the courtyard and served as the passage by which one arrived in the main building of the Louvre itself. It was, I had to admit, a rather ingenious way to present the merger of distant past and immediate present, both time periods where simple and elegant geometry ruled the public consciousness (a sharp distinction from the first half of my life, where extravagance and density of detail were paramount).

The works themselves were as impressive as ever, and in many cases, even more so, and I found myself marveling at the advancement of restoration science: works that had previously been dull and worn under layers of aged varnish were now bright and full of the contrast that the artists had originally intended. Admittedly, though, I spent less time on these paintings and more time viewing the sculptures and antiquities, especially the Egyptian and Near Eastern departments, which had grown extensively since my last visit.

I found the presence of the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department as unsettling as I did when I first visited it, for I can't help but feel that these items belong not in a museum in France, but in Italy. Like all my Italian countrymen, I have a good deal of attachment to the ancient civilizations of my geographical past, and it remains a thorn in my side to have so many other peoples lay claim to my cultural heritage. In my more hotheaded youth, before I was tempered by war and education, this would have driven me to some form of anger and spite, but at present, is merely a minor annoyance.

Yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy of the previous statements: that I complain about Italian relics being stored far away while I'm busy pursuing relics of another country for my own purposes, and – lo! - even make a small fortune off of dealing in antiquities. I will freely admit that this attachment is not particularly egalitarian of me and, frankly, I have no excuses or apologies. For one, many countries in the Middle East and Africa can not be trusted to safeguard their own cultural history, having noticeable track records of destroying such finds, especially if they are religiously unsuitable; for two, I see nothing wrong in my behavior. It is a conceit of the modern era to consider oneself above and immune to ethnocentric, patriotic, and nationalist behavior, even though not a single person on this planet actually is. Humans are social creatures, by necessity and instinct involved in a myriad variety of communities and hierarchies, ranging from their family and their neighborhood, to their cultural heritage and country, and as wide as biosphere itself. The denial of this is an erosion of the human essence, and a danger to the growth of our society.

I feign no such idiocies.

Regardless of interest and involvement in our observation of the items of humanity's past, we had schedule to keep and regrouped that afternoon. We quickly made our way to the administrative area and obligingly noted our presence at the front desk with the requisite signatures (though I can hardly count Kushan the Younger's meandering scrawl as language). After a short wait, during which Victor tried unsuccessfully to catch the eye of the thin and attractive young secretary while Rostov eyed him with something between amusement and disdain, we were ushered to the office of Monsieur Claude Benveniste.

He was less than enthused to see me in person.

“Monsieur Mondavi, did you not receive my letter?” He sounded exasperated. This wasn't an altogether unusual state of affairs, as Monsieur Benveniste had always, in my experience, been an incredibly high strung individual. He was the kind of man who kept his office tidy and orderly, with his degrees, certificates, and accolades hung in thin frames on the wall. Anything that did not go according to a plan or schedule set a day in advance bothered him – a terrible failing to have in the chaos of the modern era.

“I did.” I added a slight lightness to my tone to indicate that his letter was of no importance. “I was hoping that I could view the objects in person, so that my intrusion would not cause any delay in their study.”

He snorted. “You should know better than that.” He raised a stubby finger, stained at the tip from his long-standing smoking habit. “For one, you are a dealer, not an academic, so your presence is unnecessary and hard to explain to the administrators.” He raised a second finger. “And for two, several of the objects have been sent away for their study and restoration, so I could not show them to you even if I were willing to abrogate our rules on your behalf.”

“Including the cylinder?” I was dismayed that I may have come all this way for nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, since a trip to the Louvre is always worth the time, but the last thing I needed was to waste valuable time chasing these artifacts across Europe when someone else might already be digging in Iraq.

“Especially the cylinder, monsieur,” he replied matter-of-factly, sounding slightly annoyed. “As you well know, many sections of it are disfigured so as to be unreadable, but there are scientific methods to recover the lost text and reconstruct its original appearance.”

“And where were they sent?” I asked, perhaps a little too insistently.

Suddenly, Monsieur Benveniste eyed me with a look of suspicion, then let his gaze wander over to the Brothers Kushan, who had done their best to look both intimidating and unobtrusive, as proper bodyguards should. “Why do you want to know?”

“Obviously, I wish to pursue the artifacts and will entreat the institution to allow me to examine them.” I sighed, realizing that I had pushed beyond the boundaries of the business relationship that I had cultivated with the curator over the last few years. I had hoped to let as little of what was going on out into the public as possible, but it appeared that I would need to elaborate further in order to placate his suspicions. “Yes, a client of mine is intrigued by Monsieur De Sarzec's work and has hired me to authenticate it and provide a detailed enough duplication that he may continue it in his stead.”

“Ah ha, I knew it!” His voice rose triumphantly and he pointed an accusatory finger. “Well, you will just have to go back to Monsieur Bertram and tell him that he will have to wait. Monsieur De Sarzec's works were donated to the Louvre, and the Louvre will see his work continued.” His voice lowered darkly. “Archeology is a cutthroat, competitive field, Monsieur Mondavi, and the discovery will be ours.”

I retreated from his office, perturbed. I had not mentioned Bertram's name, but the curator knew that he was my unnamed client. It looks like I wasn't the only person Bertram had asked about the artifacts, and chances are he'd tried to get his hands on them himself and, only in failing that, did he come to me. Acquiring the items from the ignorant would have been easy, but the stars were against me.

I was slightly annoyed with my client over this: if he had disclosed the nature and constitution of his previous communiques, then I would have approached Benveniste differently.

“That went rather less than well,” I noted to the Brothers Kushan afterwards, as we stood in the lobby. “The objects are no longer here, but we don't know where they went. Mister Benveniste is opting to remain unhelpful.”

“We could remove his choice in the matter,” Rostov replied, grinning wickedly. I admit that I had considered the matter myself, but I found the approach distasteful. Not that I am above using torture to get the information I need, but that it seemed an inelegant solution to a rather simple problem. I would rather not pursue the brutish route unless it is the most fruitful. At the moment, we were beneath suspicion, and any harm caused to the curator would make the entire endeavor more complicated.

It didn't matter though, because Victor gleefully grinned at us and added, “Or we could just go to Vienna.”

We gave him quizzical looks, to which he held up his PDA and waved it in the air.

“These guys really need to hire some real IT security people, the whole network is easier to get into than the pants of a catgirl.” He pointed at some of the text on the screen. “They've got a record of a request from the University of Vienna, who offered to analyze the stuff discretely. It was shipped to them a short bit ago.”

Rostov chuckled, but I remained silent, somewhat discontent. A short time ago, I tried to obtain the Arabic manuscript mentioning the temple of Anshar, but was outbid by one Thomas Amman from Switzerland, an artifact broker whom I have butted heads with numerous times over the last few years. He purchased the item on behalf of a client of his in Vienna, a noted archaeological authority and patron of the University of Vienna named Heinrich Auer. Because of this, I was already planning to visit Vienna next.

I am the kind of person who finds all coincidences suspicious, and in this case, it was incredibly likely that Herr Auer was involved in the university's acquisition of the artifacts. This would imply that he was aware of its significance – no doubt in part to Mister Bertram's lack of discretion while pursuing the artifacts himself – and had every intent to find Shubat-Anshar first.

“Yes, yes...” I replied quietly. “We should go to Vienna. Time is suddenly against us.”

Chapter XIII
In which books are scattered and commitments are made

I had suddenly found myself planning what could possibly turn into a large scale excavation in the middle of Iraq, and trying to do such quietly and secretly. Even in such a service oriented society as today's, such an endeavor is difficult and requires utmost care and planning. Luckily, I have already been involved in similar efforts in the distant past, so I had some inkling of what to expect; sadly, this knowledge led me to believe that I would need a large team of men and an expert of such affairs to lead it.

That would, actually, be the easy part: I already knew of a trustworthy individual, and sent out a small missive asking to meet with him later to discuss it.

The more difficult task would be in keeping the regional government from interfering with my dig, and remaining safe from bandits and zealots and black market artifact hunters from deciding to raid and pillage my little camp. While I would be certainly able to deal with any minor infractions and attempts on my life, I've held to the philosophy that if I ever need to actively defend myself, I'm already doing something wrong – threats should be dissuaded from even attempting in the first place.

And that is why I made a very brief telephone call to Rostov Kushan.

To the general public eye, Mister Kushan is a man with a very discreet and successful shipping agency – an expert of exports. His shipping agency isn't successful in that it makes a lot of money – on the contrary, I'm under the impression it hemorrhages it, only drawing just enough money to keep the government from being suspicious; no, it is successful in its primary purpose of providing an elaborate cover to explain why he suddenly needs to be in Pakistan or the Congo at a moment's notice. For those who are more familiar with the seedier side of life, Rostov Kushan is a man who will take a job, any job, and accomplish it, so long as said job is the kind that is accomplished via a liberal application of overwhelming force. He is a top-class mercenary, and the kind of metaphorical muscle that would allow me to move throughout hostile territory without distractions.

There are yet other sides to Rostov Kushan, some inherited, some purchased, but that is not relevant at this point.

Kushan and I are something between close acquaintances and distant friends, co-workers and friends-of-a-friend during my brief stay in Port Oakes. He, like many of the people I came to know in that part of the world, came to my attention through his strange relationship with Hale, and we regularly crossed paths as we were both affiliated with the same loose organization of mercenaries.

Still are, I suppose, as I never submitted any sort of official resignation and periodically receive strange and cryptic attempts at newsletters from one of its more disturbing members.

Whereas I had ostensibly retired from such endeavors (having long since earned enough money to support my meager lifestyle), his schemes were only growing larger and more complicated. I had no doubt that he would consider my job offer to be nothing but minor little diversion to his booming business, but I assumed he would join it if I offered enough money and a nice archaeological trip.

Sadly, he was unavailable to be reached – or so his secretary told me – and I left a short message for him on his voicemail:

“I have a small expedition for which I require your expert services as a bodyguard. The matter is temporally urgent, so I request an offer immediately.”

I did not bother leaving my name; he would not need it to find me, for he is rather skilled in the magical college of Divination, and I was not currently warded from such traces. Even still, I was surprised to get a knock on my door the following morning, and even more so to find standing on my threshold, in addition to Rostov Kushan himself, a short, lanky teenager.

Whereas Rostov Kushan is known for his responsible, albeit caustic, manner, Victor is thought of and treated as some sort of anthropomorphic kitten: he is young, energetic, easily distracted, and something of a serious danger to those around him without any comprehension of such himself. He only just recently reached his age of majority, and normally the elder Kushan tried quite hard to shelter his younger brother from the more dangerous life – even going so far as to convince him that he was nothing but an accountant (much to the amusement of those who know the truth).

Seeing the two of them together for what would explicitly be a mercenary job was unexpected.

I looked between the two of them for a brief moment, then took a step back, waving for them to enter. “The Brothers Kushan. I did not expect you.” I didn't specify whether I meant that I did not expect both of them, as opposed to one, or whether I did not expect them at this time. Of course, I intended both meanings at once.

“Well, you know, Lorenzo, we just happened to be in the area,” the elder brother replied, “and thought we might drop in. Is this a bad time?”

I did not bother responding to his poor joke – I never do – and simply remained frozen in my gesture of welcome. They took the hint and entered, openly looking around at my humble abode.

Rostov Kushan shook his head as he lazily wandered to the leather chairs that, along with a few cherrywood tables and a large carpet, constituted my salon. “Not exactly a life of style and-”

“OhheybookshaveyougottenanythingnewdoyoumindifIgol ookthanks!” His brother interrupted as per his usual lack of manners and highly accelerated manner. Like a rather large subset of metahumans, young Kushan had incredible speed and reflexes, and when he was not in utmost control of himself (most of the time) he had a tendency to speak and move at lightning speeds. His awareness of time was such that he often complained about the “normal” world moving too slowly, and it is astonishing that he does not also age at an accelerated rate.

He was in a particularly distracted mode of thought this time, as he did not bother to wait for my response before darting to the nearest bookshelf and thumbing the spines of multiple books as I watched in tightly concealed horror. While I find his infatuation with the printed word refreshing in the modern world, it is his tendency to grab multiple novels, seemingly at random, and then forget to put them away that sets the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. If I'm particularly unlucky, he'll remember to do so, but put them back in the wrong place.

I often find myself rearranging my shelves after his visits.

Rostov Kushan stared after his brother for a moment, then took his seat. He leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head and asked, rather bluntly, “So, how many demons do I have to kill?”

“No, nothing like that this time.” I ignored the audible disappointment originating from my bookshelf and explained further. “It is a simple artifact hunt, Kushan. I must first track down a handful of individuals and items in Europe, and then make a short jaunt to southern Iraq, where we will, hopefully, dig up the long lost and hidden remains of a temple of Sumer and Akkad.”

He peered at me over the odd ruby-colored glasses he wore regularly. The skepticism was obvious.

“There is some possibility of significant danger,” I admitted, again ignoring the cries from the distant younger brother, “in that the owners of some of the items are greedy men who may require some convincing, and I foresee problems with the natives of the dig site. Furthermore, since this is quite possibly a temple containing magical artifacts and buried by a jealous god who wished to keep these things out of the hands of men, there is a chance that we will have to deal with angry Sumerian traps, curses, and gods.”

“Itoldyouthiswouldbeawesome!” Victor Kushan shouted, suddenly appearing on the sofa and leaving behind a small pile of books on the floor. I leveled a somewhat irritated gaze on him, and he paused slightly, before adding, “So when are we going?”

I still didn't have an explanation for his presence, so I ignored his question and turned my gaze to the elder brother.

“What can I say? I told him you were hiring me for a job, and he insisted on coming. I didn't think you'd have a problem; that would be silly.” He grinned at me, revealing his overly long and pointy canines, a feature of his whose raison d'etre has not yet been given to me. I have several guesses to be made on the matter, most of them having to do with the fact that he has the obvious metaphysical mark of having been claimed by a demon.

When I was referring to the “purchased side” of Rostov Kushan, this is what I meant. I had not been told the whole story, or any story at all, but at some point in the past this mercenary made a full blown Faustian bargain with a demonic entity. What benefits he gained are not known to me, either, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of his mystical abilities and near invulnerability (well, besides the part already explained by his huge investment in cybernetic upgrades) were part of the purchase plan.

He was right, though, I had no major problem with leaving young Victor out of the trip. He was smart, when his higher brain functions weren't being overridden by his lower body functions, and more than capable of handling himself in a dangerous situation, having both dabbled in some of the same magicks as his brother and developed full-blown pyrokinesis. My reticence stemmed from the simple fact that he had a habit of getting on one's nerves, and I was not sure that even my fortitude could withstand his presence for a lengthy period of time.

I gave him a long look and then a small shrug. “I see no harm in it.” A thought struck my mind and I added quickly: “But I'm only paying for you.”

“Payment? From such a good friend?” He waved his hand in the air dismissively. “I would never dare to ask. Will that be by check, wire transfer, or gold bullion?”

I ignored his jest, satisfied by his tacit agreement to the job. Rostov Kushan was the best kind of mercenary: the kind that stays bought. His purchasable loyalty was such that rumor went that he would be the only man in existence to fully intend to fulfill his part of a bargain with a denizen of the Lower Planes. While this seems like a surprising and foolish endeavor to the uninitiated, I find it keeping with a rather more intelligent way of thought, like that which led one of the greatest French philosophers to proclaim, when asked on his deathbed by a priest to renounce Satan, “Now is no time to be making enemies”.

“Sowhenarewe-” The young motormouth halted, shifted into a more sensible gear. “So when are we going?”

“In a few days.” I actually hadn't decided on that, myself, but years of experience leading and conning men had long gotten a hold on my behavior and I did not show anything but certainty as I answered. It was a completely true statement, of course, because I made the decision and committed myself to that course of action simultaneously with my declaration. I even had a good reason why. “I have sent out letters to the targets of my inquiry, and I should get answers back within the next few days.”

“Few days?” He gaped, seemingly unable to comprehend the necessary patience. “Couldn't you just, like, fire an email or something?”

“It is a rather simple thing with multiple benefits, Mister Kushan.” My tone slipped into the lecturing standard that had become something of a norm when dealing with the youth of the area. “An email can be lost, forgotten, filtered as spam, or replied to with a form letter. A handwritten letter, not even typed, carries a certain gravitas that people feel they must reply to. Also, it puts them in a certain state of mind regarding my requests, where they take it as far more serious and official than they might otherwise.” I allowed myself a small smile. “It also makes them think that I am being leisurely and that the matter is not of any importance or hurry, which will leave them off guard when I arrive at their doorsteps next week.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

Having satisfactorily gotten the business out of the way, I then proceeded to offer the two of them access to my supply of fine liquors, of which they both partook, and made a passing attempt at small talk, during which Victor acted stiffer than usual and Rostov spent the entire time grinning at his younger brother – I made a mental note that there might be something going on between the two of them, but said nothing, for it would be impolitic of me to pry. I played the good host and suggested they stay for dinner, but they had plans and left shortly; I had very little in the way of food in my house at the time, so I was relieved by this turn of events.

As predicted, I received my responses within the following handful of days, and telephoned the Kushans to inform them that travel was near.

Then I wrote a short note to Madam Rabinovich, asking if she would be so kind as to take care of my estate during my short trip. Normally, I would have asked her to come with me on endeavours such as this, especially since she and her husband both share my interests in history and archaeology, but a pair of injuries sustained recently have left her convalescing in her apartment, under strict orders to remain inactive. Madam Rabinovich is not the kind of person to follow doctors' instructions and would be thoroughly impossible to convince otherwise. If I told her in person, she would have asked questions and gotten suspicious, so I wrote a letter (hoping that she will simply mark my avoidance of a phone call as an eccentricity) and dropped it at their apartment as I went off to meet the Kushans at the small airfield where they kept a plane waiting for me.

Our first stop would be Paris; I needed to get a closer look at Professor De Sarzec's relics, regardless of what the Louvre's staff had to say about it.

As a warning, every time you teleport you will get a little Blessing of the Zephyr icon (looks like a feather) in your active buffs, which then disappears after a short while (120 seconds maybe?). It doesn't do anything or mean anything.

[u]Part II: ...Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,...[u]
Chapter XII
In Which A Letter Is Received And A Plan Is Rescued

It is with some difficulty that I attempt to explain the events that led to such a preposterous and fantastic outcome. The beginning of the causal chain eludes me even at this time, after all the facts and persons involved have been brought to my attention, so perhaps it will suffice for my explanation to begin with my own personal involvement. Even if I were to extrapolate upon my hypotheses of the origin of this disaster, I would begin the dissertation in the same fashion, so the point is, perhaps, moot.

While there are numerous factors that led to my involvement, the one that stands the best for the beginning of this narration is the reception of an electronic letter. I am sure that the fact of my ownership of such an address will come as a surprise to many, who see me as a wizened old sorceror, a relic of a lost century, not realizing that while my manner of dress and various habits are still a mix of the styles I grew up with, I have had little problems adapting to the modern era. It never ceases to amaze me how much these people imagine me to follow some esoteric stereotype promoted by poor novels and dismal films, even when these same people have seen me operate Crey and Council computer systems, and mostly I do not bother shattering their illusions on this matter.

Or on any matter, for people who make assumptions about my limitations are people who are not a threat to my person. I take the advice of the Strategist, who says “Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.”

The letter itself was part of a long running conversation between myself and one of my many business contacts – in this case, a Donald Bertram of Luxembourg. Mister Bertram was inquiring after an early 19th century journal detailing archaeological findings in Persia, as well as to a small manuscript from the Arabias, circa 550 Anno Domini. Sadly, neither of these items were currently in my possession – the latter having been sold to a collector a short time before while the former was acquired by a rival dealer – but I found myself somewhat intrigued by the query. The journal itself was no special affair, being simply a collection of old academic articles and anecdotes that have yet to be indexed and reproduced for the world to see in this Information Age, but the manuscript was very specific and very esoteric.

And very famous in some very narrow circles as the only post-Assyrian mention of the existence of the Sumerian Temple of Anshar, the temple whose destruction by its patron sky-god ushered in an age of drought and climate change bringing the downfall of the Akkadian empire and plunging the Middle East into a Dark Ages that would last centuries. Skeptics and academics doubt its existence, and certainly any theological effects, but the less sane and more knowledgeable believe it to be the burial site of a theurgic tradition capable of controlling global weather, ending famine, bringing immortality to kings and priests, and, as is all too common, prophecy.

Naturally, my curiosity was piqued.

Admittedly, it takes very little to entice the inquisitive parts of my nature, especially when archeology and metaphysics are involved, but I am normally a man of reserve and patience, and don't find myself overwhelmed by the desire to pursue every potentially useful scrap of information that passes before my eyes. And, at first, I had no such intentions regarding Mister Bertram, instead I sent him my regretfully unhelpful reply and a short inquiry as to the nature of his search.

He replied back shortly with a lengthy response that I did not read until that evening, as I had a thoroughly enjoyable and diverting day reading speculative fiction novels and continuing my studies of Linear B.

I found Bertram's response both surprising and illuminating. These two items were of such great importance to him that he desired to bring me into his conspiracy, seeing as how I knew where they both were and had a relatively high prospect of success in acquiring them from their current owners, if only on a temporary basis. I do not wish to duplicate the entirety of his letter here, but the concise version is that he was wishing to complete the work of the late Prof. Jean Luc de Sarzec, whose illustrious career ended so tragically with an ill-timed stroke this past year. Bertram was able to get his hands on a copy of de Sarzac's notes and a draft of an academic paper he was writing, both discussing new findings at a dig near Tell Telloh, Iraq, including a clay cylinder that he believed was describing the location of the Ansharian Temple I mentioned previously.

The importance of such a finding dug hard and sharp into my brain, and I felt compelled to assist him in his endeavor. I immediately sent messages out to the owners of the two articles he sought, requesting an audience to discuss their temporary acquisition, and began to scour the Internet for all information I could find about Professor de Sarzec's work. It was later that night that I learned that, after his death, many of the items had been donated to the Louvre and, wonder of wonders, they had thoroughly documented electronic images of the pieces, all available for viewing.

What the modern lacks in manners and gentility, it makes up for in convenience. Or attempts to, at the least; its rate of success varies, seemingly inversely proportional to how often I encounter other people and how many of them at a time. There are, of course, exceptions to this misanthropic view of modern humanity, but they appear to be as anachronistic as I - either literally, like the near immortal John Hale, or figuratively, like my neighbor and confidante, Sofia Rabinovich, who factors a great deal in what comes later.

These pursuits and inquiries became a normal part of my routine for the rest of the week, interspersed between studies both magical and mundane, until the Louvre published a translation of one of the tablets from Tell Telloh, rendering it as follows:

[ QUOTE ]
“... and when Ur-Doma returned from Shubat-Anshar, he brought neither syrup nor wine nor draught for the seers. Iyarum the magistrate accused Ur-Doma of taking the shekels for himself, but Ur-Doma showed him the shekels and lo, [they] were all there. Ur-Doma then said ... the orchards were gone, and the temple had been destroyed, that Anshar himself, blessed be he, had brought lightning and thunder and great winds in his righteous anger... [long break due to destroyed section] Fear of King Naram-Sin, of the four quarters, drove Iyarum towards the sun, to the place of Shubat-Anshar, to find the draught for the seers and the gem of Etnekhsa, the protection of Anshar. After twenty days and twenty nights, Iyarum returned, told of his failure to King Naram-Sin, of the four quarters, and fell on his sword...”

[/ QUOTE ]

I recognized Shubat-Anshar almost immediately for its similarity to Shubat-Enlil, which was the name of an Assyrian capital and meant “the residence of the god Enlil” in Akkadian; Shubat-Anshar, then, was the city home of Anshar, and a likely candidate for the temple that Bertram and I sought. My mind lingered on this draught and this gem, and I thought of a long standing story about the end of the Akkadian Empire, known as the Curse of Akkad. According to it, Naram-Sin brought the wrath of Enlil down upon Akkad when his oracles told him to attack the city of Nippur and sack the Mountain Temple there.

Could these be connected? Perhaps his oracles made such a vast mistake because the source of this “drought” had disappeared, leaving them with no more prophecy, no more guidance from their gods. Or perhaps it was really this Gem of Etnekhsa that was behind it all, a magical artifact that kept the climate stable and fertile, and without which, led to the massive climate change that brought an end to age.

If any of this was true, and my suspicions were certainly leading this way, then the temple was housing one or two very powerful magical artifacts. Ones which I daren't let into anyone else's hands. Not that I am a greedy individual or have an absolute thirst for such power (and nor will I deny that I have certain tendencies in that direction, for such is the curse that all seekers of knowledge and magic have), but if Bertram were to succeed in unearthing this, he might be unleashing untold dangers upon the planet or letting such things fall into the hands of those who would abuse them. So I made a resolution to find Shubat-Anshar on my own, and to get to it before anyone else.

Then I went to look for Rostov Kushan.

As you say, it makes the ranged vs melee thing totally crazy - why is it that meleers get to used ranged attacks (which are safer) at the same power as their melee attacks, but if a ranged AT decides to take risks and go into melee range, they get shafted? What's the point to even having different damage modifiers if they get ignored?

[ QUOTE ]
Just noticed...

The summary table shows the values for nonpositional Psi, not the relative composite values.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just noticed this, and it explains why Dark Armor was looking so uber (with its high Psi resist).

Interesting is that Shields winds up performing right around Invuln, and Electric is bottom of the barrel by significant factor.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm currently at work, so no access to OO. The version of Excel installed (11.8211.8202 SP3) has the same problem, though. You can get around it by manually typing a value in.

I'll check OO when I get home, but I don't remember it being an issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

It happens on my version of OO (latest), as well as Excel 2003. It's kind of bothersome, when I'm scrolled all the way to the right to look at the survivability table.

[ QUOTE ]

I myself have scratched my head more than once wondering why these very important items that Tony has mentioned weren't in the City Scoop. Yes it's sad that Lighthouse has left us, and yes I think it deserved front-page coverage, and no it didn't read (to me anyway) like he had died. But what about all of those other things? $5,000 worth of computer parts being given away in a costume contest that was so controversial that the thread on it was over 100 pages long and two of the contestants were disqualified as obvious Trademark violations, and that didn't rate a single line in the City Scoop?

[/ QUOTE ]

My guess is that we'll see them next week (one week lead time and all that). Also, I agree on LH's leaving being front page material, since it is big news in a way that none of these events and contests are - long lasting and with a large impact.

[ QUOTE ]
Edit: And OMG jquery.js makes my brain explode. That don't look like no JS I ever saw. That be lookin' more like brain[censored] code.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's because it's compressed. If you were to replace the eval with a document.write(), you should see more normal js.

Five Minutes to Midnight - Rogue Isles

Currently Recruiting: We are a new VG, and while we have a small core membership, we are looking to expand. We are always looking for interesting, intelligent, mature players.

RP Level: Medium to well-done. This is an RP group. Furthermore, many of the members enjoy (and prefer) writing fiction for their characters. The emphasis on fiction is important. We are looking for consistent, immersive, realistic RP. However, we won’t boot you for occasional OOC lapses, and we enjoy getting to know the people beyond the characters.

PvP Level: As an VG, we do not PvP though we have members who enjoy it, and do so on a semi-regular basis. PvP events can be available by request, if desired by members.

SG Concept

IC: Five Minutes to Midnight is a VillainGroup – and SuperGroup – whose explicit purpose it is to prevent the greater disasters; from nuclear war to the Greenhouse Effect, to the greater magical threats, it put before it as a goal nothing les than the greater preservation of the world, and mankind.

We don’t care if, on the way, you’ve robbed a bank. Neither do we care that you’ve saved an old lady’s purse. We look for individuals of a greater worldview and wider scope, those people who would be willing and able to do whatever it takes for the purpose of the ultimate greater good. Ours is a larger, and much heavier, responsibility than stopping the next heist or saving the next dumpster. Ours is also the understanding that petty crimes, sometimes even violent crimes, do not necessarily create monsters, and even those who rob banks, or destroy innocent dumpsters, may be responsible individuals with an eye to the future.

OOC: The group exists in two incarnations; the Paragon division, and the Rogue Isles division. Both work towards and for the same purpose, and share the same leadership. We encourage crossover of members who wish to create redside alts, but we do not necessitate it. It is entirely plausible to have some members in one branch and not another.

We are looking, generally, for the kind of heroes – and villains – who would be willing to take unorthodox paths to achieve their goals, and cooperate with the other side to do so. The group usually looks for the kind of characters for whom their primary weapon is not necessarily their powers or firearms, but their minds, their initiative and personality. we expect members to act independently; the leaders prefer to keep a light touch.

Requirements: There are no AT or level requirements, and no real background requirement so long as the character fits, or could potentially fit, with the overarching theme. Though the SG/VG is affiliated with the Midnight Squad, membership in it is only preferred, not required.

We do employ an application process that will involve either posting a biography, going through an in-game interview, or both. We expect a certain level of activity – in that we don’t want to see characters left abandoned for a year – but most members have a life, and we won’t require particular sign-in periods.

Activity: Since this is a new SG that does not, yet have many members, the play times can be sporadic, though we certainly hope to expand that to a wide presence as membership grows. We do have players who chiefly play Europe time (in fact, the founders of the SG do), but they can be found logged on at times convenient for the American public, either during weekends or if it had been arranged beforehand. As membership increases, we will run teams, TFs and RP events as we see fit.

Website: http://www.cynicslair.com/jtf/

Leadership -Lorenzo Mondavi
-Alexander Rabinovich
-Sofia Rabinovich

In-Game Contacts: @Diellan, @Genia

Out-of-game Contacts: PM Krasniy_Zakat or use the website forums

Base: This is a new group, so the base is a fairly small affair. We’re holding off on it until I-13 for fairly obvious reasons.

Other: No uniforms.

[ QUOTE ]
1) I am not sure how/where you are getting yours. and frankly, after saying you have two questions, I am not sure I should try and find out
2) I explained that in a post that got deleted. Primarily because I didn't want to have to decide what the 'best' slotting is, especially for powers like earth's embrace, since that would only open up more arguments over whether I should have slotted 2 recharge, 2 heal, 2 res, or 2 endredux, 2 res, or whatever. Obviously you can't 3 slot everything, so I left it out.
3) we are assuming a continuous incoming damage situation . Rest is a 'null factor' since it's the same for everyone.


[/ QUOTE ]

Bah. I hit the "3" on habit... It was only two questions and a suggestion, one that I feel is particularly important. You can't talk about "dead" time if you're talking about having to stop and recover endurance if you are also going to be talking about average damage over that entire cycle. If you're taking so much damage that you are only barely sustaining it when you have full endurance and are hitting everything as soon as it comes up, then there's no way in hell you're going to survive once you can't do that anymore. You're going to have to dart off somewhere and recuperate (through Rest or whatever). Not to mention the fact that in any situation where Stone is forced to rely on all of its tools until it runs out of endurance, Energy Aura would already be dead.

As for the equation, yeah, mine is correct. You can't simply add Resistance and Defense together, you have to multiply them, as SnowLace mentioned, otherwise you get bad numbers when you start having both Resistance and Defense. For example, it would say that having 40% Resistance and 25% Defense gives the same mitigation as 0% Resistance and 45% Defense, which is wrong, and it would also say that having 50% Resistance and 25% Defense would give you 100% mitigation, which is very wrong (and that my /Elec Brute with Weave has over 100% mitigation to Energy damage).

I have two questions:

1) What are you using to get your mitigation numbers? Because my calculations give different results. Damage Mitigation = 1 - ((1-Resistance) * (0.5-Defense) / 0.5), where 0.5 is the original ToHit of the mob (since we're talking even con minions). For example, I get that Stone's Smashing Def/Res mitigation is 29.7%, and EA's smashing Def/Res mitigation is 38.025%.

2. Is there a reason that you're giving numbers without any enhancements whatsoever? The Devs may not be balancing with IOs in mind, but they sure as hell are doing so with SOs in mind.

3. Rest. It caps your endurance recovery and will take you to full in 11.4 seconds (plus a 6 second cast time). Not 60 seconds.

I think Stalkers would have a few things to say about that.

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, like some people have already pointed out, this most likely *is* subdue. It makes sense it to be subdue and places psi dart as tier 1 for psi blast set.

FYI in general: the immobilizes in manipulations generally do the same damage as tier 1 blast. The difference is that ring of fire, chillblain and electric fence do it over time (dot) where as subdue does not. They are one of those exceptions that do pure damage without lethal component I mentioned in my previous post.

DISCLAIMER: ALL BELOW IS SPECULATION

I presume psi blast will look something like this but not necessarily in this order:

psi dart, mental blast, psionic lance, aim, telekinetic blast, will domination, psionic tornado, scramble thoughts, psychic wail.

I believe psi dart will be around 38 dam blaster side and mental blast 55 as is the case with archery. Basically this means psi blast has two tier 1s - again comparable to archery.

Tk blast is in fact the "standard blast" of the set such as ice blast, fire blast, lightning bolt and power blast. It has exactly same recharge and exactly same damage on defender side as those powers - and also has smashing component.

Will domination gets left behind by other higher damage blasts like power burst, shout and bib. Especially since its recharge is longer than that of those powers.

I.e. sample chains:

ice bolt (55) + ice blast (90) + bib (125)
power bolt (55) + power blast (90) + power burst (115)
flares (50) + fire blast (80) + blaze (170)
snap shot (38) + aimed shot (55) + blazing arrow (145)
psi dart (38) + mental blast (55) + tk blast (90) + will domination (100)

These numbers give psi blast second highest single target damage if we don't take stuff like recharges into consideration. I also happily ignored snipes - ice gets none, fire has highest and for the rest it's all same.

Curiously this also leaves it the weakest set in aoe damage when relying on the primary alone as without psychic scream, you have only psionic tornado to rely on - a power that has longer recharge than fireball, ball lightning, explosive blast, explosive arrow and most likely - if defender numbers is of any indication - lower damage than those.

So if this data is of any indication: good for single target, *very* bad for aoe. However, we will see once it goes to testing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Didn't they change Archery with the new Defiance in order to make it match the other sets? The first two blasts are all standardized (except, I guess, for Sonic... I don't recall if they altered it), if I recall correctly, which makes the addition of Psi Dart very odd.