Welcome!
Carthago! is a game by G.M., louisxiv just made a site for it.
Carthago! is a game by G.M., louisxiv just made a site for it.
Thursday 19th November ’26
7:45pm for 8:00pm GMT
From: Sammus’s Boast:
Once Agripinus had returned and learnt of the theft, he tried to augur the direction of his missing casket and his results agreed with what Si'aspiqo had found.
Agripinus met with Harpalus and told him we were using our own resources to investigate the theft. He asked Harpalus for extra guards and asked whether we could be moved to different chambers. Harpalus thought the guards would be sufficient because there were plenty of soldiers within 30 seconds if an alarm were raised.
He asked how we had got our leads to follow up. When he understood, he agreed to leave it to us to pursue. Agripinus asked about the local laws on pursuing the criminals. Harpalus told Agripinus that if we took action to retrieve our property and caught the right people and recovered our property then there could hardly be any question. It would be better if we took the criminals alive to be questioned. He was particularly interested in Otis. He didn’t exist but had been in the palace for a year – this spoke of a more organized intelligence purpose. Harpalus warned that if we burst into a house, slew everyone and didn’t find our goods then it would be a diplomatic incident. A scintilla of evidence would be enough for him to act, however. He also reminded Agripinus that if we left the palace and were not back at dusk then there would be additional security on re-entry. He added that he could make arrangements so that we were expected to be back. Agripinus agreed and was introduced to the captain of the night guard and gave him the names of the rest of our party.
Agripinus returned to our quarters and soon after two soldiers arrived. One was placed at the main door and another by the gallery. They would be replaced every few hours.
We discussed how we might proceed. Mery, who had now awoken but looked hungover, suggested that one or two of us should go door to door in the building had identified, with food for sale, to see if any of the rooms and occupants looked suspicious. Si'aspiqo told the party that he suspected that the thieves had been searching for something particular, as he had heard them complain about how much stuff we had. This seemed an odd complaint for thieves. After discussions we decided wine would work better than food as we had some available along with containers to transport it in.
We left Mery in our quarters, and the rest of us headed to a taverna in the neighbourhood of the building we wished to investigate. We all had some food and a beaker of wine each. Agripinus, Diophanes and I waited in the taverna, while Si'aspiqo, Mago, Amphius and Toxoanassa went to investigate. It was now in the half-light before dusk. Amphius and Toxoanassa lurked in a nearby arch to watch the back door of the building, while Mago and Si'aspiqo began knocking on doors and selling their wine.
After an hour or so, they all returned to the Taverna to report. The building was an insula with four floors, with four apartments on each floor, apart from the top floor, which had just two. Mago and Si'aspiqo had found nothing suspicious until they reached the top floor where one of the apartments had the only heavily bolted door, they had seen. An attractive young woman opened that door and purchased a small pitcher of wine; through his arcane senses Si'aspiqo thought her voice quite similar to the one he had heard while drugged the night before. Her perfume also stirred memories, and both he and Mago thought there was a trace in the air that seemed somehow familiar.
Diophanes and Agripinus returned to the palace with their news and the guard there called the officer of watch. Agripinus told him what we had found and a guard was sent. He returned after 15 minutes with Harpalus and a senior officer.
Agripinus explained that we had found the den of the kleptai, that we believed that our goods were within and that Si'aspiqo had recognized the voice of the female thief within. The officer asked Harpalus in Greek whether this was all on the level. Harpalus nodded and explained that we may have Persian methods and pray to different Gods, but no stone should be left unturned in pursuit of these kleptai. The officer assembled a squad of an officer and 12 Macedonian soldiers in leather armour, armed with shortswords and carrying lanterns. They were ordered to arrest all the suspects and bring them back to the palace for questioning. Agripinus would show them the door of the apartment. Harpalus would wait at the palace with interest.
Agripinus and Diophanes led the squad to the Taverna and any populace on the streets kept well out of the way. Amphius and Toxoanassa had already left to watch the back door of the insula. Mago led Agripinus and the squad to the insula and then up to the apartment. Si'aspiqo followed, while Diophanes and I went to join Amphius and Toxoanassa near the back door to the building, in case the thieves tried to escape that way. The squad stomped up the stairs, and all the occupants kept their doors closed and stayed inside out of the way. The officer hammered on the bolted door identified and demanded entrance. There was no reply and the soldiers began trying to batter it down. It took a minute or two and by the time they broke in, the kleptai had fled through an inner door which led out on to a roof terrace. When the soldiers followed, there was no sign of them. Amphius had seen figures jump from the roof of the insula to a neighbouring block in the darkness, but when he tried to follow, on the streets below he had run into a watchman and lost them.
He returned and led some of the soldiers to the next building, but there was no sign of the kleptai here and they must have fled on. Meanwhile the other soldiers checked the abandoned room. Here they found the smashed remains of Agripinus’s chest and Diophanes chest still intact. There were clothes and bedding, a pouch and a strange brass device; a disc within a disc. The discs were strangely engraved with Greek letters all jumbled up. A mechanism of some sort, roughly the size of a hand. It looked to Agripinus as though it was a military cipher. Si'aspiqo found no traces of magic in the apartment or the device. The pouch contained 102 Carthaginian gold coins, which we guessed were the share of the dead thief. There were beds for 5 people. The soldiers packed everything into improvised bags to be carted back to the palace.
We returned and reported to Harpalus. He was disappointed that the kleptai had escaped. He was interested in the device. He would get the causeway shut immediately and would have ships searched in the morning. Harpalus returned the smashed chest, the bag of money and Diophanes chest to us. Si'aspiqo thought he might, through arcane means, be able to find some trace of the kleptai via the clothes that they had left behind and Harpalus was interested in what he might find.
Date: 20 Ptolemy II: April 08
The party & company:
Met: (named persons)
Places:
Party Loot:
Party Resources
From: Si'aspiqo’s wheeze:
Once the initial hullabaloo of the watch and ambassadorial arrivals died down Agripinus brought Tanit’s grace to bear on the drug that incapacitated us, which improved matters. Toxoanassa, Mago and Amphius were irritatingly springy once Tanit bestowed her mercy upon them. Perhaps I had had more wine than I’d thought for I was still a bit ‘morning after’. Bleah. Agripinus, not wishing to try Tanit’s patience too often, left Mery sailing on Ra’s Barque. The young fellow probably needed his sleep.
When dawn arrived the guards were still with us and swooped on the two regular domestic staff when the arrived, on suspicion of poisoning. There was weeping, wailing, denials and pleas for mercy. One of the women was on her knees before Agripinus begging him directly, in something close to the Punic tongue, to save her as an innocent and a true worshipper of Ba’al, Tanit and Melqart.
It was to no avail, for Agripinus had no authority over the palace guard, whom I suspected would quickly torture a confession out of one or both, for all the good that would do us. A quick word to Agripinus, as the wails faded into the distance, set him to suggest, diplomatically, to Harpalus, who did have authority, that
After some debate Agripinus persuaded Harpalus and the guards to allow me to use what they called “Persian” methods of interrogation on the two domestic staff. Persian?! Ha! Is it ’coz I is black? But I said nothing out loud. Diplomatic, you see.
While the debate was going on, Diophanes and Sammus returned from their vigil at the temple of Melquart-Herakles. We handed Sammus a dropped bag of loot easily identifiable as from his baggage by familiar things like the cobra circlet. Agripinus and Diophanes had each lost small but heavy chests. Diophanes seemed unbothered, Agripinus perhaps less so. It seemed the thieves had found and plundered the unoccupied bedroom Agripinus, Sammus and Diophanes would have been sharing then were interrupted by my shouts before they turned to investigating the snores of Mery and Mago in the second bedroom, or Toxonassa on the balcony.
Regarding the domestic staff in a dank and dingy dungeon; I was able to encourage, in the name of Aset (Isis), the two women to answer truthfully and without reservation, despite their stressful circumstances, and thus to dismiss them from suspicion to my satisfaction. There was no hint of deception nor signs of knowledge of any plot. It seemed to me that torture could only bring false confessions. I reported so to Agripinus and the guards.
Back at the accommodation Harpalus called on Agripinus again a little later and handed over the intriguing little wrist-light we’d noticed on the dead thief’s arm, just before he’d been carried away. It was a bronze, crystal and leather construction, redolent of cunning Greek artificers and attracted Mago’s particular technical interest. A very professional tool for a burglar and likely not cheap.
Harpalus also brought news that a member of the wider domestic staff was missing this morning, one Otis. Enquiries, he said, were being made. I mused that were I a ruthless palace plotter I might arrange a random disappearance as a diversion… but we should wait for evidence. I didn’t wait to suggest that if wider enquiries are being made it would be interesting, perhaps, to discover who assigned Agripinus’s party to this particular residence on the vulnerable exterior of the palace complex.
We then spent time establishing what we had to work with and what we knew. While I had been inclined to blame something in the wine for our intoxication, the others reckoned the wine was, is, fine, but there was an exotic, strongly-spiced fish dish, of which nothing remains, that could have been the cover for whatever it was laid us low; certainly we had all eaten of it.
To further investigation, we had to hand:
All these pertained to not just the dead thief, I reasoned, but likely a gang, an association, similarly equipped – for I remember several small lights, even allowing for seeing double – from the same sources, all joined together for a mission. Could I perhaps draw on all these factors? This could not be a detection, I had no applicable spell for such a vague target and likely not the reach, but perhaps a seeking of signs and portents might guide me in a fortunate direction to make enquiries?
First pointer. So, with the Hermes token, the wrist light on the bloody cloth I called for good fortune in the hunt and then for a Sign to some common link, a source, a home… and tossed down my divining teeth. Their pattern directed me towards the stairs to the roof. To ensure I missed nothing I further called on Djehuty, He who is like the Ibis, whom the Greeks name Thoth, to Reveal Secrets to me, that I might miss no clue.
The intricacy and craftsmanship of the wrist light had my full attention; this was no petty, insignificant thing. The Hermes token was not significant in Djehuty’s sight. Ascending to the rooftop I found an overlooked caltrop lodged in a corner. The hooked-on escape ropes Amphius reported had been removed by the guards, but there were some faint, fine scratch marks on the balustrade, likely from the grapple for the initial ascent from the gardens below by the scratch pattern. Beyond the gardens, the bulk of the temple of Melqart was obvious in my sight.
(It should be said that even without the assistance of Djehuty/Thoth there was also long track of the guards’ sandal-prints leading towards that temple after the alarm and investigations in the night.)
Agripinus closeted himself in a room and sought further guidance from Tanit. To him she revealed that the people involved and the stolen chests were still within the walls of Tyre not, as he had feared, passed across the causeway to the coast.
It occurred to us that despite our first inclination to assign blame to Melqart’s machionations, the temple is a large structure[1], and much of the city lies beyond it – Melqart might just be in line of sight of our true target, when looking from our roof top. So, with Mago and Toxoanassa to look after me in case I became distracted from my surroundings as I worked, we took to the streets to look at the problem from another angle. We initially thought to take a boat around the island city would be the quickest method, but the stiff breeze from the south-west and the white tops to the waves dissuaded us.
Second pointing. So we went up onto the walls. As I worked my cantrip, facing into the city with the southwest wind at my back, the divination twigs were blown from my hand, spinning just slightly more northerly of Melqart’s fane than the direct path of the wind would suggest.
Third pointing. By the east, landward, gate is a statue of Alexander and an inscription celebrating his building of the causeway to the coast. A muttered incantation hidden, I hoped, by gestures of worshipful respect to the God-Emperor, brought an eddy in the wind to snatch a sheaf of small straws from my hand, whirled them up and then scattered them away towards the west. An indication towards, but perhaps slightly aside from, the Temple.
Fourth pointing. At the north end of the city-island is the Tomb of Agenor, an ancient king of the Phoenician city. There were people praying to the city-god, so with a sacrifice of a few silver coins I joined them to ask for his favour for my quest. In answer the wind swirled some loosely held threads of cloth around the monument to fall behind us, to the south.
Fifth pointing. Feeling we must be closing on our goal I asked my companions to guide my footsteps south as I focussed, with Djehuty’s assistance. A small roadside shrine to a Phoenician goddess caught my attention. Well worn, unrecognisable, she still merited a small, dusty, drying garland of flowers. A few minutes diversion to the stalls of a nearby market gave us refreshments for ourselves and I could make an offering to the little goddess: wine and a fresh garland, then asked for her favour in my seeking. Which I undertook there and then with some offcuts from the flower garland. The wind gusted, carrying the cuttings up and up and landing them on the roof of a nearby tenement, carefully noted by Mago and Toxoanassa. The little goddess got a further thank-you of wine.
We returned to the palace apartment by mid-afternoon to hear the news from Harpalus via Agripinus that the missing servant ‘Otis’ does not, in fact, exist. No one of his name or description is known where he supposedly lived. He had served in the palace staff for at least a year.
Aside: Diophanes commented that the Temple of Melqart, where he and Sammus were praying at the shrine of Herakles all night, was large, a dark place for a dark power, with the voice of Herakles far away and no prayers to Zeus there.
Date: 20 Ptolemy II: April 08
The party & company:
Met: (named persons)
Places:
Party Loot:
Party Resources
From: Si'aspiqo’s wheeze:
(The day after the new moon.)
The dawn wind was light, but adverse, so I was again asked to beg Kymopoleia to grant us her Favour of an adjustment of its direction, calling the wind Notos from the south to replace Caecias’ northerly-of-eastern breath.
We saw first a merchant galley coming from the southeast likely hugging the coast on its way north, soon the coast itself, then hints of the smokes of a great city. Late in the afternoon our ramship entered a harbour at the south-eastern side of the walled island city of Tyre. We could see the famous causeway running some half a mile from the coast to the city walls – built by Alexander for his siege, seven decades ago.
After a sharp left turn on entering the merchant Harbour of Egypt, we came to dock in the southwest corner, divided off by breakwaters forming the military harbour: a few warships, but no merchant vessels.
We encountered the infamous stench of cooking, rotting sea-life, attendant to the production of the famous purple dye, which hung over the city and alongside the walls. I was almost inclined to beg Kymopoleia for a breath of relief, but it seemed the natives did not heed the smell; so best to sniff deeply and numb the senses…
Seeking distraction from the one sense, we tried to concentrate on the others. There were the cries and bustle of a busy marketplace over the nearby city wall, in which were visible a large public gate and a smaller, closer one we were told was the military gate to which we would disembark. We waited. And waited. That disembarkation was delayed until dusk. There was no word, but it seemed likely this was some ploy of security by obscurity. Carts and escorts arrived with the twilight when the ship’s captain, Diomedes the Navigator, came to thank Agripinus for my assistance with the wind and wish him and his party well.
Various Greek soldiery escorted us ashore, straight through the darkened market quarter to the citadel-palace, then through a maze of internal alleyways to our accommodation. Agripinus relayed from Xanthippus that arrangements for onward travel would take a few days, so this was our stop-over. He enjoined us not to speak of our further mission; we were here as his, Agripinus’, entourage of guards and advisors as he made pilgrimage to the places of origin of the Punic race. We were free to go into the city while he was making formal visits to the great temple of Melqart and other significant sites, and generally give the impression we were visitors, soon to return to Alexandria and Carthage. There was a curfew; we could come and go from the citadel by day but must be back by at dusk. Seeking to return after dusk would involve long waits for verification by Commander Xanthippus personally. We all saw that he was not likely to be happy, nor speedy, if that came to pass…
Our accommodation: A flimsy door from an alley on the edge of the citadel complex opened to a three room apartment: two bedrooms, one close to the entrance, another up stairs, and a large common room in the form of a Greek andron with a ‘U’ of couches around a large crater of watered wine. A door from the common room opened onto an enclosed balcony, with shutters, overlooking a strip of open ground dotted with olive trees and herb bushes. Stairs up from the common room gave access to the second bedroom and a rooftop terrace directly over the balcony, looking over the open ground and the tops of the olive trees.
An evening meal, a deīpnon, of bread, oil, cheese, olives, garlic, fish, dates and nuts was prepared by domestic staff in the small cooking area off the common room, while we argued over who slept where and where to stash our bags and bundles. Though we were travelling ‘light’ with only a pair of saddlebags each, eight of us and the capacious bags were a bit crowded in two bedrooms. Toxoanassa relieved the pressure somewhat when she nobly volunteered to camp out on the balcony. So some bags were stashed there and others in corners of the common room. Agripinus, Sammus and Diophanes shared the ground floor bedroom, Mago, Mery and I had the upstairs bedroom and Amphius notionally took the doorkeeper’s stool for a night watch place then could sleep where he chose by day.
(After that night I resolved to sleep on my blanket on a common room couch, and what matter if I’m woken at the pre-dawn by the arrival of the domestics. Ha! Little did I anticipate…)
Agripinus went to make show of Taking-In the Roots of Ancient Punicity. Sammus and Diophanes were away for, I assumed, Manly Rites at the Great Temple of Melqart, whom the Macedonians see as Herakles.
(There is some discussion of the opinion of ‘true’ Greeks on this point, but if Diophanes is agreeable to the theology I’m not inclined to disagree with him and his Patron…).
Mago and I took a stroll around the South and North markets, he with an eye to trade, remarking on purple-dyed and other luxury textiles, glassware of remarkable clarity, garon – a fermented fish paste (with almost no apparent odour, here), woodworking from shipbuilding on down to simple timber export, smith-work from tools to weapons to fine jewellery. Meanwhile I mostly took in the ambiance, though noting there are many of the same basic materia available as I’d brought with me from Alexandria and, indeed, from Carthage. Amphius too, once he woke from his morning nap after the night watch, took a stroll around the city markets and various gates, and made sacrifice at the Greek shrine to Herakles within Melqart’s temple. In the accommodation Mery read a scroll or three and Toxoanassa hugged her stones…
Those of us casually about the city – Amphius, Mago and I – managed to return before the ban. Agripinus sent word that he was unavoidably detained by a diplomatic symposium with his fellow ambassador Harpalus, Ptolemy’s representative. Of Sammus and Diophanes we had no word, and I pitied any citadel guard who had to try to bar their re-entry.
The lack of our principal Agripinus seemed to deflate our host domestics somewhat as they had provided a full symposium for this night; a singer and a lyre player, a more formal meal, glass(!) kylix drinking bowls and the crater was filled with wine “in the Carthaginian style” in honour of our absent patron…
The wine was very rich, sweet, and flavoured with unfamiliar, perhaps eastern, spices, but of the general style of wine in Carthage. Mago and Mery retired to the upper bedroom early and Toxoanassa to her draughty balcony, all feeling sleepy after taking the wine. I was strangely drowsy for the amount I had imbibed and even Amphius, a toper to his very Greek core, was looking as if his eyes were not quite tracking. After thanking and dismissing the staff and musicians we two tried to get a grip.
Amphius took water while I tried to prepare a purifying draft using my herbs and a cantrip. I was becoming very suspicious of the wine, but finding it difficult to focus. I took my draught then put my fingers into my throat induced a vomit, but it did not serve well, for the symposium had lasted long enough for many small sips to pass beyond my stomach, into me. To stave off sleep I tried to stand, propped, at the doorway to Toxoanassa’s balcony for the fresh air and in the hope that literally falling asleep would wake me on impact with the floor… The waking on impact with the floor idea worked in part, but the corollary: getting to my feet thereafter, did not… I dreamed a while. A gentle dream of softness, warmth, comfort, worrying about nothing… Until a desert perfume came over me and I heard Astarte’s voice sighing “Wake up, Si'aspico, wake up…”
I was half sitting, slumped against a wall at the doorway to the balcony, in darkness. No nightlight lamps burned. I heard voices, Greek voices, whispering. Someone was moving above me, up the stairs, and a whisper came from the common room. There were small flickers of light that were not just those behind my eyelids. Footsteps came down the stair so I grunted and snored in case the hand lights had caught my open eyes. I was inspected, but passed as sleeping. The footsteps continued to the common room and there was a low conversation. Behind me, Toxoanassa stirred in uneasy sleep, but did not wake. There were rummaging noises from the common room.
Then came a man’s voice from above, up the stairs, slightly louder than before. “There’s no reply.”
A girl, or young boy, agreed or acknowledged with a simple "Yeah."
He above urged speed, and she replied “There’s lots of stuff!”
So I shouted. “Well if you’d asked politely I might tell you what's there. THIEVES! THIEVES!”
There was a squeak from the girlish voice and a man called “LEGGIT!”
As they wouldn’t know, in the dark, who shouted, I slumped down again at the foot of the stairs in hope of being an inert trip hazard for those fleeing in the dark, and brought the pattern of the Shocking Grasp into my mind’s eye…
At least three small lights arrived in the passage from the common room, with the girl’s voice leading “C’mon! C’mon!”
She jumped right over me and up the steps. The second too passed me easily, so I grabbed at the last figure. My hand only brushed his leg briefly, but was enough to cause him to stumble on the stair, where his bare leg was in easy reach of a pinch as I muttered the key word: “Scorpion”.
He screamed. “They’ve got me!”
And fell on top of me while I was calling “GUARDS! GUaamph…”
Once I had my head clear of writhing thief I changed my cry to call my nearest comrade “OIORPATA! OIROPATA! ARISE! Oiorpata! To me!”
There were stirrings at the other end of the balcony, but I was distraced from my calls by the strong thud of something hitting the stair beside my head. I scrabbled for another grasp on the thief on top of me. A loud whisper from above urged my opponent to “For fuck’s sake! Get on with it!”
So I let him go in the hope he’d leave quickly and perhaps entangle the one I feared was coming down; going one against two did not seem likely to have a good outcome for me. But instead of taking his leave the damned ungrateful thief spitefully turned and hit me a body blow with a club!
As I gasped, the scent of wine and horse presaged Toxoanassa’s arrival, confirmed by the crunch of an blow into the wall beside my head, followed by a loud exclamation, which I took to be a pithy Old Scythian prayer for victory in battle. The thief took this opportunity to break contact and take his leave, but stumbled the steps on his numbed leg. Hoping Toxo wouldn’t make the same mistake twice I leant forward and goosed the thief again: “Fire-Ant!”.
To my immense gratification, he screamed “They got me!” and collapsed groaning on the stair. His comrade, “Fucksake”, jumped down the steps — a sword stabbed over my shoulder into the fallen thief just as Fucksake slashed him too; perhaps by mischance, but perhaps those that fall behind are left behind.
The thief’s body slid down the steps onto me, then something else landed on him. Cretan curses told me it was Amphius, likely the source of the sword thrust from behind me, but he scrambled to his feet again and took off up the stairs, attempting a pursuit. Then suddenly stopped, with a curse. “Caltrops!”
There were sweeping noises and metallic tinkles, but the delay made the pursuit vain. He came back to report climbing ropes hooked onto the parapet of the terrace.
Toxoanassa meanwhile had made it to the door to the access alley and called for the guard. Two arrived; she reported that we’ve been burgled, but they had to inspect the situation rather than respond immediately to a woman’s word. They were shown the dying thief, the ropes and hooks on the terrace and finally raised an alarm, blowing a whistle which was quickly answered by other whistles though the area. More guards arrived. I kept emphasising, slurringly, that we were drugged! (Mago and Mery were still asleep though all the row) and that we are part of a Carthaginian diplomatic mission! Our food and drink were drugged! This was an inside job! An hostile act against an ally granted favour by Ptolemy himself! Eventually I irritated the patrollers enough for them to send for an officer of the watch.
Once lamps were lit, we found a swag bag lying by the stairs, with lootings from the empty bedroom by the alley door. It contained some of Sammus possessions and some of Agripinus’s. We shall need to make a full check of all our bags when we recover from the drug…
The officer of the watch arrived. He found an amulet at the dead thief’s neck. “Hermes,” he identified, “patron of thieves for stealth, luck and getaway. Looks like this one has run out…”
Convinced by this and other evidence before him he sent messages to his Seniors. Before the hour was out Agripinus arrived with a guard escort, dragged urgently from his symposium, and then later Harpalus, Ptolemy’s ambassador, whom one presumed was senior enough to come at his own pace. Harpalus, like me, was unhappy at a lapse the palace security that allowed this to happen, but he may be able to make something of it.
It is not yet dawn of the 8th of April.
Date: 20 Ptolemy II: April 06 - pre-Dawn 08
The party & company:
Met: (named persons)
Places:
Party Loot:
Party Resources
I set as the era the year of the accession of the Pharaoh Ptolemy II, son of Ptolemy, so we begin in the year 18 of that reign, and I use a simplified system of twelve months with no regard for the multiple systems of intercalary days, weeks, months or moons of our own various cultures nor those we have passed through. I shall use the month names used by the main story-teller, a Gaul, Sammus the Strong, but number them to disambiguate their order.
–Si'aspiqo