Play@YSDC

Jacob skim the papers' titles quickly before opening the secured black plastic packing box. He have a feeling that the papers is about the Maltese fragments, the plastic bag is more information and could it be ... the fragments in the heavy box ?

The smallest of the three boxes contains several years’ worth of correspondence, the majority of which has been carefully tied up with ribbon. There look to be several hundred letters. The Plastic black box seems to contain books by the sound of it. Its impossible to tell whats in the large packing crate, although its clearly when packed whatever it is.

The boxes,How is Jacob going to get into the last two boxes? Both have been well secured. He needs a screwdriver to open the large packing case and a knife to cut or something to twist off the cable ties of the smaller box. Naturally, he could simply break both boxes open.

Hmmm... I need a screwdriver or a wrench to break it open.
Jacob thinks.
Ahh ... there is a kit with tools for changing tires in his car.

After 5 minutes rooting around in the boot of the cat Jacob pulls out a tire iron. He can use it to twist off the ties and lever the top of the box off.

Jacob takes the wrench and twist off the ties.

Greg returns to help if it is possible in the given timeline.

ooc,I do apologize for my post rate. Feel free to NPC Greg if he holds anything up.

OOC:,Imp. Feel free to jump in. In subjective time, very little has happened, everything he has done could have happened in the gap between him messaging Greg and Greg turning up.

The smallest of the three boxes contains several years’ worth of correspondence, most of which has been carefully tied up with ribbon. There are several hundred letters, some of which are several sides in length. Working carefully through the letters for anything of interest is a day’s work. There are also several loose sheafs of paper which look like bills and or invoices and general correspondence.

The second box contains about a dozen books just reading the titles of the ones on top Jacob can see the following titles: The life and times of UlpiusCrinitus - Latin w/English translation, The History of Alexander: Bks.V-X v.2: Bks.V-X Vol 2, Baxter’s “Ancient Tribes of the Balkans. All three of the books look rather old and dated but are otherwise well cared for.

The large packing crate contains four smaller boxes each clearly carefully wrapped and individually packed in bubble wrap.

The books in the second box must be important and my best guess is that the Maltese fragments are packed in the large crate.
Jacob says as he takes one of the bubble wrapped boxes and open it.

Wrapped inside the bubble wrap is a well-made velvet lined wooden box opening this Jacob finds another small, unadorned stoneware box inside which is a codex with four pages of what appears to be solid gold sheets- The book measures 8 centimeters in length and 4.5 centimeters in width.It is bound together by gold wire. Each plate is covered in what appears to be text of some kind.Although the characters are indecipherable at the center of each page is a single image: they are a horse, a boat, the sun and a knife or possibly a sword.

Greg, here take a look at these. Let's open the rest of them, take a picture with the cellular and place them back. They will be secure over here if we'll ever need them in the future. Once the landlord will come back I will try to convince him that I need to take the books.
Jacob says as he place the book to the side for Greg to photo and takes the second one.

OOC: Just to move things on a bit here are the descriptions for the other items in the large packing crate.

The Golden Femur
Wrapped within a velvet cloth and sealed within a hard leather map case:
About 20 inches in length the two ends of a human femur have been carefully covered and capped the whole thing has an embossed design of a naked male with upraised arms the head however is that of a the sun or more likely a star, the whole thing is covered in flat, thin sheets of gold which have been carefully beaten around the bone.

The Coin necklace
Stored in a blue velvet lined box,the necklace consists of18 ancient coins hanging on a heavy gold 9" chain. The coins have all been crudely struck on fragments of other coins.

The faded ceramics
Wrapped in a yellowed copy of the Times dated 12th October 1913 are three large pieces of ceramic.Two bear heavily worked painted decorations incorporating equine motifs. The third, larger, piece was also decorated, but has been defaced:At some point in time someone has scratched the same pattern of symbols into the pottery over and over again.

They take quick pics of the artifacts before placing them back into the crate.
You better leave, the landlord will come back shortly. Send the address in SMS to Liz and Clay and write them we found something.
Jacob say to Greg as he place the lead on the big crate and the other boxex back in place. he goes to his car to place the wrench back and return to second box again. He takes pics of the titles of the books and then shuffle through the envelopes, trying to sort them by date before taking the latest one to read.

Jacob has everything back in place except the letters (there are three years worth of correspondence in the box in no particular order) when he hears the sound of the returning car.

OOC:,Spot Hidden please.

Spot Hidden (1d100=21) - Pass.

Jacob turns to see what is hapenning around. Not wanting anyone to surprise him.

Out of place among the letters Jacob spots an invoice from the couriers DHL for the delivery of a manuscript and camera memory cardto a Ms. Maria Demachi in Trieste Albania.

OOC apologies,Sorry for my absence. In case you were unaware, I work as a government contractor, and things have been very busy lately, as you could imagine. Again, if ever I hold anything up feel free to NPC me as necessary.

Greg slips away as quickly as he can without looking too suspicious, checking the pictures on his smartphone as he goes to see if he can make any better heads or tails out of it. He tries to recall if any of what they had just seen is similar to what they had researched in the library before. Undoubtedly, it all looked historically significant... but Greg was no historian. He wondered if they'd be returning later to acquire these items in a more shifty manner...and what they might do to cover their tracks. As he distanced himself, he took a few snapshots of the surrounding area on his smartphone so they could get an idea of the lay of the land should they need to make plans for sneaking in, and he marked his current location on his GPS app for future use.

The quick photos don't really do justice to the pieces the only thing Greg can say with any confidence is that the pattern of symbols scratched onto the pottery shards bears some vague resemblance to the photos of the Maltese fragments.

OOC: Feel free to go over to join the other thread, time-wise by the time you've driven back to Brichester they'll coincide.

Jacob takes a snapshot of the invoice, fold it and place it in his wallet.
He then place the bundle of papers and envelopes back before taking one of the books. He will skim Baxter’s “Ancient Tribes of the Balkans" as he waits for the landlord to come back.

Tim turns up with a smile. "Oh good, have you found your book?"

“Ancient Tribes of the Balkans",If the bookmarks are anything to go by its a book the prof used to research the verbetoi (classical name for the verbti).

Yes, I found several of them. I so happy they were not stolen.
Jacob says as he taps on the big boxes.
You did a good job, helping Adrian to storage them. This is important stuff that was supposed to be published in a future paper, sadly, now that Adrian is gone, it will not. Now, I want this to stay between you and me. Since this is a delicate matter and could be a breakthrough to the investigation. My instincts are telling me that the professor was murdered in connection to his research. please, keep these boxes here, safe from others, I will contact you soon as I wish to investigate more.
I want to take that book with me now, I'll return the book when I'll finish to go over the professor's notes. I will take another books later until my research is complete.