Tekumel 6

The fingers of your left hand are closing about the clasp which holds the dusty old tome shut before you realise it. The grey-white cover, scribed with symbols you almost recognise, reminds you of something. As you open the book, the warm scent of cinnamon reaches you. Your eyes rest limply on the first pages. There are those within you who desire desperately to read the words, to speak them as they once did, but they are as yet too far below the surface.


Closing the book, you pick it up to take it with you. You will need a pack of some kind to carry it very far. The dark doorway you now see at the back of the laboratory suggests that such things might lie up the curving stair, now barely visible among the deep shadows. First though, one of you (LoneIslander) demands their earlier desire to investigate the buzzing noise be addressed.


Searching through the cluttered environs of the laboratory, following the sound which has now returned to the front of your thoughts, you believe you've discovered its source. Clearing away several chlen-hide boxes and instruments from a high table, you reveal a remarkable device. A large diamond shape of heavy golden metal, beset all around with ornate spines, curves and lattices of strange black iron, looms against the wall. A complex circular base lies behind the huge golden diamond, as wide as your own chest. On its nearer face, and surrounded by lesser stones, is a massive, smooth cabochon, too large for both your hands to cover, glowing in shifting colours from beneath the tracery and lattice of iron. It is set into the wall at the back of the table, apparently directly into the stone, and the vibrating noise emanates from within, seeming, as you gaze at it, to vibrate the very fabric of the air between it and yourself.