The man says…something, again. At the very least, it sounded like the last thing he said repeated, for the most part. He didn’t seem to understand what was being said.
Kimi catches up to Fred. “Have they talked?” He asks demandingly.
The bag falls from his hand. He pauses to go for it, but is yelled at, and just keeps running.
Jeffrey, starting to run out of breath, has to stop by the bag, taking a knee really quick. “I…hah…I’m really out of shape.” He huffs, taking a second to recover.
Eliza stops by his side, holding the light up to watch the grave robbers as they go. “Yeah, might need to work on that,” she says, seeming a bit better off than he is.
Alex follows, keeping a wide berth between herself and Kimi. Welding didn’t exactly seem useful if he decided to attack her. “Where are the others, weren’t they with you?”
“yeah, but I can’t understand them.” Fred frustratedly said. “Perhaps you can communicate better with them?”
Jeff nods, then looks down at the bag. He begins to rummage through it. “Now, let’s see…some of what they were trying…to steal.” He puffs.
The man talks again, but Kimi shakes his head. “I do not understand a word. Not any language I know.”
Zablex walks over, “Now, in English, what were you doing here?” He asks, his conduits glowing.
Alex coughs. “Hey, buddy, maybe if he knew how to speak English he would… speak… English?” She shrugs. “Just a thought.”
Eliza nods, her attention finally drawn away from the fleeing robbers. “I just hope we got all of it back.”
“As if every person in Saint Petersburg speaks English.” Kimi scowled. “But he isn’t speaking Russian or Finnish either, not a local. It sounds almost…Latin, in origin.”
Jeffrey shakes his head. “They had at least another bag.” He says, finally starting to regain his breath. “But I think this was most of it.” He pulls out what seems to be a gemstone in the shape of an orb, with a ring of the engraved metal used to make Conduits around the center of it. “Hm…” He says, trying to inspect what kind of gemstone it is. “…Carnelian, I think.”
(Would Zablex, from his studies of music, be able to puzzle out what language the robbers were speaking?)
“So, just to recap: we have random grave robbers looting a creepy grave with magic rocks, and they speak a dead language? Cool, cool, just what I needed today.”
Eliza holds her pendant closer to give him more light. “Is that a type of stone or a country? It gets kind of hard to tell sometimes.”
OOC: What languages has he studied music for?
“No, no, it isn’t Latin, it’s based from Latin. A…romance language, I think is what it’s called.” Kimi says, looking over the man. “…I don’t think he can give us any information. We should find where the others went.”
The stone would be a mix of milky whites, light browns and oranges, polished to a shine and almost perfectly round, as opposed to being a faceted stone. “Stone, but I’m not sure what it does. Let’s take it back to everyone else.” He says, putting it back in the bag and heaving it over his shoulder.
(Latin, a bit of German, stuff from the Conduit’s land of origin, English, a bit of Greek, some French and a touch of Italian)
OOC: Then probably a word here and there, but not enough to get what he’s saying. He’d probably be able to tell it is a modern romance language, but it isn’t either he knows. Probably a bit more western.
IC: Jeff walks up to see them holding down and interrogating the man. “Is he talking?” He asks.
Kimi shakes his head. “Not English. Some romance language.”
“It’s a modern Romance language but I can manage bits and pieces.” Zablex says.
Eliza follows him back, her conduit announcing their arrival. Alex jogs back over to her, moving as if to hug her but instead shuffling awkwardly.
“Are you guys okay? Did you catch them?” Eliza shakes her head.
“Jeff got one of their bags, but they got away.” She clears her throat. “Jeff, wasn’t there a Conduit that helped us translate with the Kunini last time? Maybe we could use one of those.”
“Good idea! Let’s see if we have one of those in here…” He said, rummaging through the bag. “I think it was Tanzanite…”
Kimi points the sword at the hostage threateningly, keeping silent.
Eliza watches Jeff’s search, holding the light so that it shines into the bag. Alex stands awkwardly at the edge of the group, unsure of what to do.
Jeffrey pulls out a small stick, with a gem in the middle, set inside part that was obviously a Conduit. “This looks about right.” He holds on to one end and pokes the other person with it. “Now.” He said, after it glows for a bit. “Why were you here?!”
The man cowers again. “W-we were told to come down here and steal this stuff! We didn’t know it was haunted!” He says in a thick accent, likely Portuguese or Spanish. “Or what these things did! We were just hired to steal them!”
Kimi doesn’t say anything, or move.
Eliza hands her pendant off to Alex, and the light flickers for a moment before Alex turns it on.
Eliza then steps in front of the convict, crouching so that she’s about level with him.
“Do you know who hired you? And did they ask for these things specifically?”
“N-no, I never met them, and they just gave us a list of places and told us to take the stuff inside! We didn’t even know what they were on about until after the news broke about this catacomb here!”
“Where are your associates going next.” Kimi demanded.
“Helsinki! They said there was another place in Helsinki.” The man cowered.
“Well,” Alex says, “if they wanted what was inside here they probably knew about the rocks. So if they knew about the rocks here…”
“There’s probably more in Helsinki,” Eliza finishes. “You should probably stay out of this,” she says to the man. “You’re already in over your head.” She stands, motioning for the others to back off.