The Arundel Information Caper (RP)

Emma stepped aside as the three men walked past her. She recognized two of them; the silent, non-talkative driver, and the man who crept up behind her when she arrived at the castle. Both men unsettled her with their vacant expressions, and she did her best to avoid looking into their dead eyes as they passed.

She did turn her head once to glance behind her to make sure they were truly gone rather than sulking in the shadows, before allowing herself a quiet sigh of relief and stepping into the church, still holding on to Benji's arm.

"Thank you. I'll let Mr. Parry know how efficient you were," Jacob adds, hoping that dropping Elliott's name will dispel any lingering doubts. Plus, there's the advantage that they can't directly verify their alibi with him.

"Come on, Cr... Hali. Stop pretending to be offended; the path is clear now," he says once the Servitors have left. Stepping onto sacred ground is far from pleasant, akin to a hundred needles pricking his skin incessantly, and Jacob must fight the impulse to flee the area.

"What do you mean 'they don't normally gather in groups like that'?" she was a bit more apprehensive about the three men after Benji's comment, and more thankful she wouldn't need to ride back home to London with one of them. She took the opportunity to unhook her arm from the vampire's elbow, brushing her hand over his shoulder in appreciation before turning to take a look at the small Chapel, and the figure of stone lying on the granite table.

"They are??" Emma tried to process the new information. The mention of the 'Servitors' sparked a whole new set of questions. The treasure hunt took a backseat for a moment: "Who made them? What purpose do they serve? And how many of them are there?"

While Benji seemed to have an unusual sympathy for them, Emma didn't share his sentiment. The 'Servitors', whatever they were, made her uncomfortable. They just felt wrong. They were a mockery of life itself, and she found them eerie, almost in a monstrous sort of way.

Following closely behind the vampire, she missed the details that he, with his sharpened vampiric senses, had picked up. She didn't immediately register that the floors in this area seemed cleaner than the rest of the chapel. But when the vampire crouched near one of the tables her curiosity piqued again "You think something’s hidden underneath the floor?"

Emma fought to stay calm as the vampire effortlessly lifted a stone slab that probably weighed a metric ton without breaking a sweat. Maybe she should have been more cautious around him than she had been; Shelyna Artmitage’s warning about ‘accidents’ was suddenly feeling all too real.

"Wizards" she murmured, still in a shocked haze.

For a moment, she considered turning back to the castle instead of following Benji and the mysterious woman into the dark crypts beneath the chapel. But there was no one waiting for her at Arundel. Eliot wasn't there to protect her, and she remembered how the vampires had eyed her like she was their next meal when she first entered the ballroom. With a resigned sigh, she slipped off her high heels and left them by the stairs before following the others barefoot into the shadows.

"Okay, ladies, mind your step," Jacob says, while he switches on the torchlight in his smartphone and follows Benji.

"Please allow me," Jacob says, looking around both chambers and the tunnel. "I have a good nose for finding things of value."

Emma is not sure, but she would have said that Jacob's eyes glowed red for a second. That must have been some weird reflection from the smartphone's torchlight, right?

Using his demonic powers, Jacob tries to sense the presence of any objects that are a repository of power due to their antiquity or magical nature.

Why were all those antique weapons and armour stored in the crypt underneath the chapel? Shouldn’t they belong in some museum, or on display at the castle’s armoury? She didn’t know much about the earthenware, but from a quick glance those too looked ancient, some of them likely dating from before the castle was ever built. She was tempted to open one of the vessels and take a closer look, to satisfy the curiosity, but managed to hold herself back. It wasn’t her place to disturb what had been left undisturbed for so long, and besides, it was better to wait and see what the others would make of all of it first.

He knew he should just keep going, but Jacob couldn't help but take a closer look at the armoury. This was his life, after all. That's why he had chosen to stay on Earth, because he had this never-ending curiosity for rare books and antiques like this.

One of the weapons stood out from the rest because it seemed out of place. There, among the medieval English swords and suits of armour, a curved dagger seemed to whisper in Jacob's ear.

He took a closer look. The blade had an intricate design depicting a scene of some kind of leopard attacking an antelope while a large bird flew away from the fight. These daggers were called jambiyas, and the craftsmanship of the blade was usually a sign of the importance of its wielder.

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