Interlude 7. Klaus Finds Another Puzzling Thing

Klaus looked at the calendar and grinned. Truth to tell, he began to grow fond of those little peeks. Lady Gillespie had proved herself to be an enigma beyond everything he had ever encountered, and the things scrying gave back? Just out of this world. Literally, maybe. He had commissioned a wall board and a number of small nails so that he could organize his scrying results and other accompanying info. Differently colored threads provided a handy way to connect them. So far, he was not able to unite everything into a single web, but with each thing garnered, he was getting closer. And, not to put too fine a point on it, he had never gotten anything entirely useless out of it. Odd? Every single thing. But useless? Nope. The most mundane item also proved itself to be delicious, for example. The papers had given him some interesting insights into collating dossiers on his people of interest and he had instituted some changes to their usual procedures. For example, he had hired a dedicated painter to create the portraits of the most important people to attach to their dossiers. This was seen as extravagant at first, but the utility of being able to just show the person of interest to an agent had proved the utility almost immediately. In fact, Kraut diplomatic corps had picked up the idea for themselves and used it to great effect.

The fire spewing artifact was sadly spent, and Klaus was not able to reenchant it to throw the glob of green fire as it was doing originally. But, once he had carefully cut the bottom off and placed a piece of enchanted quartz inside, it had turned out to be a perfectly serviceable holdout weapon, and he had artificers create other similar artifacts out of bone. Agents, again, had quickly appreciated the utility of being able to launch a pre-prepared combat spell with no warning and decent accuracy. Bloody Hammer was currently on loan to Inquisition, who had been having troubles with vampires from the Confederacy. As it turned out, vampires were outright terrified of the thing after it's been used to nail a couple of coffins shut.

As the spell ran its course, Klaus became even more excited - it had summoned some sort of vambrace. And... A rather complicated one, he mused, as he turned the whole thing around in his hand. Not just a piece of armor, but also a weapon, apparently. He poked at the mechanism curiously, swearing as the blade slipped out suddenly, almost cutting into his hand. More examination revealed a rather clever mechanism. But... it was awkward. Trying the vambrace on, Klaus had quickly realized that there was something wrong with it. It took him a long while to figure out what, exactly, but in the end he came to a realization (after a number of self-inflicted cuts and stabs) that this vambrace was designed for someone missing a finger on their hand.

Furthermore, the whole thing had no magic in it, period. It was just a very elaborate hidden knife. Useful for an assassin, but hardly anything groundshaking. Setting the thing aside, Klaus sighed. That... posed more questions than answers. As usual. Why would anyone connected to lady Gillespie have an assassin's tool? One designed for a hand missing a finger, while at it? No one he knew of in her acquaintances had that kind of injury. Someone he is not aware of? Or maybe someone who is connected to lady Gillespie in a different manner? This vambrace made him think of Alamut hashishins, when he thought about it. None of them used anything quite like that, but hidden blades were definitely their kind of thing, and given what Klaus himself knew about assassinations, it would be pretty effective, if one could stealthily approach the mark. The way the blade would be mounted on the wrist allowed for some impressively strong stabs, as the movement was quite alike to that of a punch, and thus could be delivered with significant force.

Unfortunately, there were absolutely no personal details on the vambrace, so the only thing Klaus could determine in the end is that the owner of this had to have a missing finger. Supposedly, ring finger, though middle finger was also a possibility. An intriguing, but overall, not particularly revealing find. Putting the vambrace into his chest, he sighed. Oh well. It's not like every attempt was bound to yield more clues. He closed the chest and went on to note that lady Gillespie might be having an access to a trained assassin, or a small organization of thereof. The rate at which known hashishins disappeared in her immediate vicinity certainly bore that idea out.