Act 2: Upheaval III - The Master Weaver and the Arena

The housekeeper is now sitting against the wall with her arms wrapped around her legs. She makes sure not to look at Mihai or speak to him while he waits for Konrad to come back.

A few minutes later, the red mage reappears in the kitchen.

Konrad reappears with a length of rope on his shoulder.

"Nope, nothing. Didn't want to come back empty-handed," he says, patting the rope. "Alright miss, about-face and put your hands behind your back."

The servant is very unhappy to be tied up, but she offers no resistance. Konrad then decides to explore the manor while Mihai keeps an eye on the housekeeper. After all, Steve said it'd take him at least an hour and a half before he'd be back. When he finds the master bedroom and the office, a thorough examination of both rooms reveal nothing useful. In fact, it appears that Professor Goodman hasn't even used the office that much.

Once he's found the lounge, Amber decides to move the four survivors in there and bring them some food from the pantry. The servant is bewildered when she sees them walk through the kitchen, and Mihai is pretty sure she's being sincere.

"I'll explain everything in about an hour or so." - he tells the woman, when he sees her reaction.

"Well, I've found nothing in the master bedroom or the office," he says out loud to no one in particular. "I'd better give the library a quick glance before I go back down to the basement."

He goes into the library, and gives it a cursory glance through the ether.

Spellcraft 21

Konrad finds nothing but a lot of books.

Konrad heads down to the basement to...he takes one look at the great gathering of papers and books and thinks out loud, "I'm not sitting down and reading all of this here," and just takes everything.

Before he leaves, he stops to examine one of the unconscious mind slaves.

Konrad realizes he cannot take all of the books with him since there are almost twenty of them; treatises and articles on high level weaving, some of which are even written by Professor Goodman himself. As for the notes, they appear to focus on the experiments themselves, and he could probably take all of those with him.

He then notices a small black book which contrasts with everything else on the table. When he skims through it, he finds the complete weaving designs for three specific runes; Elemental Sword, Elemental Bow and Magical Resistance Shield. Two more designs were apparently planned, but Konrad only knows the names Goodman had in mind for them; Mind Override and Operating System.

Konrad picks up this book with every intention of taking it with him, and looks for the runes inside to match them to what he can see on one of the unconscious victims.

Konrad examines the woven runes on the unconscious test subjects and identifies the Shield rune on their left arm and the Sword on their right one.

Konrad T-poses one of the dead archers and starts stripping the body until he finds the runes he's looking for.

He finds the Bow runes in the arms, but cannot identify those on the head.

Konrad covers the body with the clothes he removed. Then he returns to one of the unconscious mind slaves and, reaching through the ambient magic as he had with the crab, he attempts to "dim" each rune on the man's head.

Konrad immediately realizes that the mysterious runes on test subject he chose—the one without woven handcuffs–are too powerful to manipulate without risking the effects of Madness.

OOC:

"Gowno." Konrad thinks for a minute, and decides that he should open a cell door to cut the marked skin to "break" one of the runes carved into the man restrained by a mundane pair of manacles.

He heads upstairs to the kitchen to grab the dropped knife for that purpose.

Konrad finds a knife sharp enough for this purpose.

Downstairs in the basement, the red mage unlocks the door to the cell to get closer.

He decides to roll Weaving first before he does anything stupid.

Weaving 27
On the runes.

Konrad examines the runes woven on the man's head and realizes that Goodman's skill at weaving was so high, he was probably capable of weaving a bag of holding by himself.

The runes are not only linked to the man's nervous system, but also the Sword and Shield runes. He surmises that interfering magically with the unknown runes without studying them in a controlled environment could have unpredictable effects such as; involuntary reflexes, organ failures, or even a discharge of elemental energy.

Interfering physically with the unknown runes is very likely to cause a discharge of energy that could damage the unconscious man, or more likely, Konrad himself.

"Oh, bugger all." Konrad steps out of the cell, locks it up and tosses the knife away. Before heading back up though, he steps into the control room, reactivates the traps, and closes the door to the research center via control panel if possible.

He'll unlock and lock the doors from here on out to move through them. And having done this, he unlocks the door to the hallway, locks it again, goes to the wine cellar and locks the door behind him, then locks the door to the outside from the wine cellar, and finally heads back upstairs.

Konrad needs to close the door to the lab before he can reactivate the traps, but with the keys Mihai has given him, he has no problem doing that.

He returns to the kitchen where Mihai is keeping an eye on the housekeeper.

"Not sure we should bring the lady near them. They might think she was involved."

The servant shifts uncomfortably on the floor. "...Who are they?" she asks in a concerned tone.

Mihai sighs, and looks at the housekeeper with a measure of pity - "Have you heard about the string of kidnappings that's been going on for the past two weeks now, ma'am?"