ORIGIN

Tahi-shei, in his search, finds mostly quiet, peaceful ruins. Here and there is shade, piles of bricks fallen away from the rest of the tiny temple; and farther off, the clustered remains of quite a few Magnetite shards. These are ancient, completely without magic at this point; but nestled in among them--almost as if placed there--is a piece of sandstone-like rock with pigment still shining across it. There is no trap or the like, and this piece can easily be retrieved.



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Aran will sense a magic in this place--in fact, upon the mural itself! As his cast was not all that strong, it will not be immediately clear what this magic is, but it feels... latent, as though something may happen if the right criteria are met. How strange.

There are other, fainter magics about, but it's difficult to pick them from the Gembounds' stones without further investigation, or a stronger cast of his own.

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Comet, in her explorations, bursts through a small cluster of bushes to find a small, clear pool set atop the little peak. It's peaceful: half-shaded by the shrub-like trees, with the rush of ocean below providing both scent and sound for an almost meditative state. Near the pool lies a broken anvil, toppled on its side and scratched and pitted with age; and beside this, a worn brick alcove with an ancient workshop of some kind. This workshop is small, simple, with nothing really left behind except for a brick 'well' of some kind and a couple of counter-tops. It's in the pool itself that she will find her luck: a piece of stone, old pigment still on it, somehow not washed away. It glints at the bottom, its sandy color catching the bright light, as if to summon her to it, and can be easily retrieved.



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Oka's search would take her (gradually...) to a nearby tomb amongst the ruins. It's overgrown with bright-leaved vines, with tough wildflowers springing up all around, as though the remains of some planted an age ago. The tomb itself is a large, stone sarcophagus, some twelve feet long and five broad; lying atop it, on its back, is a monstrous humanoid figure with four arms and spines lying flush down its back (barely visible down its sides). This is carved straight into the stone, and a great two-handed broadsword is held in this sculpture's hands, laid down across its body, point faced toward its feet: like the grave of an ancient knight.

The mural piece--bright sandstone, its colors still shining bright--has been placed at the foot of this tomb, leaning up against it.



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Kaimana and Leviathan, searching just around the mural itself, will find nothing; but this in and of itself may occur to Leviathan as a powerful hint. It's unlikely that Lessers took these pieces: it will become clear to him--almost a message, or a fact--that these particular pieces were carefully removed by a deliberate hand.

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Haven , though she fails to find anything--the pieces small stone amongst much other rocky rubble--will get a good idea of the layout of the ruins from above. In addition to what the Gembound have found so far, there's also a pile of crystals and rubble half-cascaded down a slope past the pool that Comet is at; and a statue, at the rear of the ruins themselves, of some sort of large humanoid figure, upright. She may choose to inform the others, or investigate herself.