IC-Ep 2-Tourists(Elizabeth/Lucius/Brook/Chad/Raymond/Salem)

[ImpInTraining]

Lucius repeats, "Considering?" He looked to Raymond and asked leaning inward, "Considering what, exactly?" He was wondering if there weren't more of those little blue boxes roaming the timeline.

[CrackheadC.]

Raymond smiles at Lucious, "Well I mean I know very little of history considering my uncle raised me. He was a bit of a history buff."

[Mr. Handy]

"Ah, well, you're in for a treat, then," Amelia told Elizabeth. "I'm sure you'll learn a lot, and your students will probably be interested to learn about Dunwich too. We have educational materials available that you might like. I can show them to you afterwards, but let's resume the tour now." She motioned to the model of the fort. "When the Romans arrived two thousand years ago, the shoreline was a mile further out, but it was already suffering from constant erosion. Dunwich had a bay in those days, and the Romans built a port there for the purpose of trading with the Continent. Many of their roads led to Dunwich then as well. It was an important center for commerce. They built a fort here that would have looked much like the one in the model." She gestured to the window. "Right outside is St. James's Street. Back then, Romans would have walked up and down it."

Spoiler:

Lucius, please roll Insight.

[ImpInTraining]

[dice]1d100[/dice]

Spoiler:

Insight(63%) (1d100=51). Strange how the dice buttons are there in the message editor even if the forum isn't set up to use the code.

Lucius nodded, seemingly accepting Raymond's response, and then looked back at the fort with growing interest. "To think, my relatives could have been teaming in the streets. How interesting it would be to see the fort first hand. I wonder just how different the inside would be to what I am accustomed to." He asked Amelia, "Do you have a drawing of the rooms interior to the fort? The way it might have been? And do you think the fort remains intact under the seas?"

[yockenthwaite]

Elizabeth smiles as Lucius talks, pleased that he is finding the Roman discussion so engaging.

[Thorn]

Brook wanders deeper into the museum, grimacing a bit when she thinks of that time in Rome. She stops at the first monter she comes to, waiting for the others to catch up.

[DetectiveSocks]

Realizing the time was going faster then imagined, Salem quickly exits the museum through the front door.

[Mr. Handy]

Spoiler:

Raymond had been a little too quick to try to explain what he had meant about not knowing much about history, "considering." There seemed to be some other explanation for what he had really meant.

"Well, Roman forts were fairly standard," said Amelia. "One looks much like another. While we don't know what the inside of this particular fort looked like, we have a pretty good idea from all of the Roman forts that are not submerged. If you walk around to the other side of the model, you can see a cutaway view." She led Lucius behind the model fort, where he could see that the rear wall had been cut short so that he could see inside. Tiny pieces of furniture and interior doors were visible. "As you can see, this is the fort commander's room. The main barracks are over there, and while they're larger overall, each individual soldier had far less room. I don't know what if anything remains intact of the actual fort under the water, but any wood would have rotted by now. Still, there may be metal artifacts intact down there."

Brook walked over to the Saxon exhbiits, where she saw a stained glass panel. A placard indicated that it was a portrait of St. Felix, the first Bishop of Dunwich.



Salem stepped outside and headed east down St. James's Street. He reached the Ship Inn a few doors down, at the intersection, and the beach was visible off to the east.

Spoiler:

Salem, please roll Spot Hidden.

[DetectiveSocks]

Spoiler:

5%

[yockenthwaite]

Elizabeth wanders over to join Brook, and looks at the Saxon exhibits with interest.

[Mr. Handy]

Spoiler:

Salem spotted Leonek, Tobias, Valerie, and Elliot out on the beach near the shoreline. They were clustered around a square depression in the sand where something heavy had apparently once stood. A furrow was gouged in the sand leading from the impression to the sea. In the sand were footprints. One set looked normal, and led across the beach from one end to the other. Another set was a bit too large to be human, leading to and from the water's edge. The furrow seemed to have eliminated most traces of them, but he was just able to make them out. The tide had come in somewhat since they had arrived, but it still hadn't reached the spot. The tracks were vaguely foot-shaped, though they seemed to be clawed, as if they were left by an animal. This was belied by the fact that they were bipedal. Whatever had left them had walked upright.

Tobias turned and waved to him.

"Are you ready to follow me to the exhibits on Saxon times?" Amelia asked Lucius. "It looks like your friends are already over there."

[ImpInTraining]

Lucius took one last look at the Roman exhibits and then to the museum guide and said, "Certainly Amelia." Although... there was something obviously sad in his eyes, a look of regretting to leave the familiarity. "I am given to understand that over time, coral can affix and grow on submerged boats. Is it not possible that the wooden beams could have been encased and thus kept the integrity of the interior of the fort?"

[Thorn]

Brook reads the plaque about bishop Felix, then looks to Elizabeth. "Weren't Robin Hood a Saxon? We should go visit sometime. Merry men seems a lot more fun than scary mermen."

[yockenthwaite]

"Not sure Robin Hood was real," laughs Elizabeth, "although it would be fun to be able to test that theory."

[CrackheadC.]

Raymond followed along with the others, "I've heard that Robin Hood was something of a moniker given to outlaws during the time - it's possible that the story of Robin Hood is an amalgamation of many outlaws' stories." Raymond was more interested in the new arrivals than the museum at the moment, but the closer they got to the more contemporary history of Dunwich the more it interested him again.

[Mr. Handy]

"I suppose it's possible," Amelia told Lucius, "but I'm not sure if coral grows around here." She led him over to the Saxon exhibits where the others were gathered. "I've also heard that Robin Hood was a composite," she said to Raymond, nodding. "In any case, this was still before his time. After the Roman Empire declined and the Romans withdrew from Britain, the Angles and Saxons began plundering the east coast and eventually settled down. Like the Romans before them, the Saxons recognized the area's potential for commerce. It became a great centre for trade with the Continent. In the seventh century A.D., the Saxon king of East Anglia decided to convert to Christianity, and he brought his friend, a monk named Felix, to Dunwich from his native Burgundy to convert the people. He became known as Saint Felix, and he was the first bishop of Dunwich. Here is a portrait of him." She indicated the panel of stained glass. "It was from that point that Dunwich became a centre for religion as well as commerce, and the construction of churches for which the town became famous began. Aethilwald was the last bishop of Dunwich, in the ninth century, and his seal can be found in the British Museum in London, but we have a replica of it here." She pointed it out.

[ImpInTraining]

Lucius pulled out the book he had received earlier that day and started thumbing through it looking for Saint Felix or the first church of Dunwich.

[yockenthwaite]

"Dunwich must have been quite populous to have had a bishop between the seventh and ninth centuries," muses Elizabeth. "Do you know how many people lived here roughly then, even at a guess?" she asks Amelia.

[Mr. Handy]

Spoiler:

Salem is moving to the thread linked below.

On the Trail

Spoiler:

Everyone else is moving to the thread linked below.

History Repeating