Interlude 3. Klaus Is Untrained In Pistol Skill

It galled Klaus to admit it, but he couldn't find anything worthwhile from the twelve papers. Oh, he still had them, but what relevance they had to lady Gillespie? No idea. No idea at all. His hunch about Oireland Butcher did not pan out. His name was not Frank. His name was not anything, actually, because, as his investigation found out, he was born deformed and his family refused to give him a name. Or education. Or anything, really. Instead, they kept him in a cellar room his entire life until he escaped upon reaching seventeen. When his people found the Butcher's lair, they were shocked to find out his speech was like that of five years old. Given that the wildling was also a cannibal, the leader of investigating group had made a decision to put him down out of mercy. He reviewed Anne-Marie's report and found himself in full agreement with frau Geldstein's decision. That sorry bastard was best off in the afterlife, whichever it might be for him.

Still, that left him without any clues. So, out of other options, he resorted to scrying spell again, hoping to gain something else that would give him an insight on the twelve mysteries and their connection to the woman in the center of it all. The result... was more than a little disconcerting. What he got back was a... cylinder, of sorts, with a ring on top and a small tube sticking out just under it. Made out of unknown white material, which felt simultaneously soft and hard to the touch. The only clue the cylinder had was a mysterious PS20 written on the side. Fiddling with the strange artifact, he had noticed that the thing actually fits pretty snugly into his hand, if he were to put his index finger into the ring and hold the rest in his palm. Some kind of fist weight out of strange wood? No, too light. So what is it for......

And this is where Klaus squeezed a little too hard. The inner part of the ring suddenly depressed, the tube between his fingers heated up and the artifact had belched out a ball of green fire, which slammed into the chair in front of his table and exploded, sending the chair flying against the wall and setting it and a good portion of floor on fire. For a moment, Klaus just sat there in shock. Then he dropped the artifact on the table, hopped up and hollered for water, grabbing for the jug in the alcove to at least start putting the fire out.

Half an hour later, he was sitting in his study again, trying not to pay any attention to the new chair or the blackened circle on the floor, and fiddled with the strange weapon. Try as he might, it would not shoot the ball again, and he was quickly coming to the conclusion this must be simply one of the one-shot fire enchantments, just in odd form. The color of flame was strange, but he had to admire the practical shape of the device. It actually permitted one to cast the spell pretty accurately, simply by the virtue of only allowing one to grasp the thing in one specific way. The material intrigued him as well, but on further consideration, it became obvious that it was simply an odd bone. The bevy of identification spells he levied on the device had given back the "dead flesh of ancient beasts, alchemically treated", if he were to interpret the spell results into specific words.

Maybe lady Gillespie had discovered some ancient bones that are particularly suited for enchantment? The blast was pretty strong, and the color of flame... Curious, very curious. Klaus had made a note for his field agents to be wary of any green fires and delved back into reports. While the mystery of lady Gillespie was in many ways the most intriguing problem he had, the rest of the world also needed some attention from the spymaster every now and then.