NationStates Jolt Archive

In the days of great imperial expansion under the warrior emperors great stretches of land where conquered by the imperial legions bringing untold areas of land and peoples under the emperor’s jurisdiction. Yet all these new areas where still sparsely garrisoned by imperial forces and not well explored. To answer this, the emperor ordered an imperial expedition with a 360,000 captured soldiers to mine gold, silver, and precious stones deposits in a southern province only a few miles from the coast.

The expedition successfully established the mines using information from locals. The mines produced unrivaled amounts of high quality gold, precious stones, and silver in the world. So great was the amount mined that to answer the need for a more efficient form of transportation that a new port had to made and treasure ships had to be created. Thee port and ships were built within a few months. As well the first fleet departed within a few weeks of its construction. The gold and silver were either wrought into bars or made into coins before they left. As well the precious stones were already masterfully carved in the city before export.

After many years of the mines operating, new laborers being brought, and the fleets sailing to the Scandinvan homeland one fleet would at last meet a terrible fate. This fleet sailed forth from the port was one of the wealthiest fleets to ever depart. As well the fleet was carrying the payment for the imperial legions to finance the wars of expansion. Yet the fleet was doomed because to the east a great storm was brewing. The fleet in its second month of sailing encountered the storm and was utterly destroyed save for a few men who survived by swimming to a chain of nearby islands.

The current imperial government has decided that the fleet’s treasures should open to people from outside the nation to go to the site. The awards will be that the person will be allowed to keep 15% of whatever they find and as well they will be fully reimbursed for up to 95% of the remainder that will go to the imperial government.

Fleet’s Manifest:
180 Tons of Gold
270 Tons of Silver
20 Tons of Emeralds
18 Tons of Sapphires
15 Tons of Jet
16 Tons of Rubies
16 Tons of Diamonds

OOC: This is basically a international treasure hunt.

bump for takers

I am willing to take part in this said "Treasure Hunt". New Found Vendetta would gladly come to your aid with open arms. This was your doing and achievement to prosper and find such wealth. I ask not 15% of the said finding as you have offered but only 10%. I shall ask only that. My nation is in need of funds for its growing population but I would rather have the feeling of helping a nation and gaining an allie by my side.

Freedom is Fragile And We Shall Protect It.

Vendetta for Life

A telegram with further information of proceedings of this hunt would be appreciated and your need of assistance will be spread throughout my nation.
Aid will be sent

Hello,
We may have one of the ships from your fleet. At Beauty Arcology, we have a Museum of Recovered Sea Objects. This is funded by the International Underwater Salvage Cooperative. The ship looked to be a supply ship for the fleet. There were big jars of wheat, salted fish, fish paste, olives, olive oil, and dates meant for the sailors in the fleet. We have two intact suits of armor with javelins and heavy swords from two soldiers on the boat.
We are interested in this treasure hunt. We ask permission to send a ship, divers, commercial uuv-- unmanned underwater vehicles and minisub to the site. Our crew will send archaeologically trained divers who will take pictures and video of the sites as we recover objects from the site. We are not just interested in the treasure. We wish to create a new exhibit for the public to view the objects we recover them. We may even make a documentary for the Wilderness Channel on television.

Regards,

Mimi Ohyay, Minister of Culture

OOC: The water that the ships are most likely in is about sixty five meters down and the water temp on the surface is 74’F and where the ships are probably is in the 50’s.

New Found Vendetta:

We though thank you for only agreeing to take 10 percent of what you we do not need help in salvage operations because currently we already have a sizable fleet of ships and personal already working on ship sites recovering what they can form the ship wreaks. As for friendship with your nation I am sure that we can easily come to an agreement favorable to us both.

OOC: I am sent you a telegram with some more info.

Commonalitarianism:

Yet, it is not the most likely of scenarios of one of our treasure fleet’s ship heading up sunk in your water, we do agree that to your description of the ship we think it very possible that the ship was blown hundreds of miles off course and in the end sank in your waters due to server damage. As for allowing your search for the sunken treasure fleet we agree to allow to search the fleet’s ships and gather artifacts for your exhibits, but in turn we wish you also air a series of reports of your excavations on air waves within the Scandinvan Empire so that the empire’s citizens might look as our past is being uncovered.

Signed,

Imperial Steward Edward of the House of Inonia

We are first going to visit your museums and maritime libraries for maps of the trade routes which the ships followed. We will show how people lived and sailed on the ships in computer simulations which will be broadcast as well as live video of our visits to the cultural institutions. We will also show our exhibit as well.

Once we have locations and trade routes from the museum we will have a copy of an ancient ship built by local Scandinvans which we will sail to where we think the treasure is. Then we will use sonar sounding ships provided by the International Undersea Salvage Corporation to locate the wrecks. We will also send down commercial salvage UUVs with underwater video cameras to help find the ships. http://www.sontek.com/guide/guidepix/rovs.jpg

A second group of explorers will go the islands and search for the location of the dead sailors. They may have left tall tales still told by the local populace. We will record these tales for posterity, both selling them to the general public as a CD set and providing it to your museums and public airways. We may have to go to some spooky locations. There is a rumor about a graveyard by the seashore where one of the sailors is buried. He is said to walk at midnight...

Once we locate the ships we will send divers. All of this will be on film for the public to view.

The Imperial authorities of the areas you visit will provide with any aide that you desire. As well the museums and libraries will allow you to access any books that are in a condition where they will be not damaged by a person reading from them carefully.

As for the reconstruction of the ship will begin construction as soon as you want it to begin and its construction will be based upon traditional and historic methods in order for the ships to the most authentic the can be. As well the ship will be decorated according from information gathered from documents and pictures from the time period of the treasure fleet.

On the islands the people, may not for sure, posses reliable information because the currents brought the sailors far off course and as well carried them away from their ships.

We thank for agreeing to provide the filming of the salvaging and the recreation of our old customs.

Professor Ming looked at the vellum map. The coastlines weren't quite right. It was a map of what was then called "The Silver Coast", the main trade route of the Scandinvan empire. Because it was old, the coastlines weren't quite right. The islands where the ships sunk were on the map. He compared it to the current coastline on another map. He was trying to figure out how closely he could map the routes so he could have a better idea of the exact route of the ships.

The ship was being commissioned from a craftsman who built old boats. His family had been building boats for generations. He told them that occasionally people had seen ghost ships near the Isle of Iron and that it was haunted and dangerous to search for this treasure, but he would build the boat anyway.

In another room at the Maritime Library, Olaf Cruonis was looking through old clippings about treasure findings in Scandinvan. There were several clippings of interest. One from the 1930s described a small boy Pietr Obedient finding several gold ancient Scandinvan coins on a beach on the Isle of Pearl, this was about 300 miles off course from the original Scandinvan trading route. It might be a clue. Another described how a fisherman found a silver urn in his drag nets. To this day he refused to tell where he found it. His widow is still alive. She lived on the isle of Irondale. This was not far from the Isle of Pearl.

After further looking it was revealed there was a deep drop off in the ocean near the Isle of Pearl where most regular divers could not go.

They would send sonar sounding ships near the Isle of Pearl to see if there was anything on the bottom as well as the Underwater vehicle to check to see if they found anything on the bottom.

The local people did not speak any languages except an obscure form of ancient Valgardian that had been adapted from Valgardian nobles coming to rule over them from the Scandinvan home lands and a language mixed between Valgardian and Latin. Both of these languages required great skill in order to speak them unless if they had been learned and spoken daily for many years. As well the islands that the researchers from Commonalitarianism visited were not exactly friendly to non-natives.

In the library a few people in black suits began to follow him around and keep track of Olaf Cruonis movements as they were part of a secret order which sought to prevent foreigner from possessing things they believed belong to the Valgardians. Yet they kept this distance so as not arouse any suspicion.

Olaf Cruonis kept looking over the books. He coughed. He did not know why people with a military bearing were walking around in the library. This is a side effect of military training which is very hard to hide, how you move changes. They were probably just some soldiers on leave. Rather odd, but not anything suspicious. He gathered up photocopies of the documents. Then he used his cell phone. Please meet me in the library, Dr. Ming. Just in case he went to the library computer, pulled up a copy of the article from a historical newspaper database, copied it into an email and sent it to his colleagues.

Historical Background: Like all Commonalitarianism citizens they had been through military conscription. Olaf Cruonis had helped locate the Scorpion SSN a sunk nuclear submarine and recover certain special parts of it while he was working for the International Underwater Salvage Cooperative.

The men in the suits did not want the local authorities to catch wind of their operations and so two of them left one, while one remained in order to keep an eye on Olaf. Yet, despite his efforts he was not able to get a glimpse of all that he was looking up so he pulled out a laptop and began to follow Olaf’s internet viewing from the library’s main tracking system. For all this work he knew that if he did anything more now he might threaten the whole operation.

As for his constitutes they had went inside their black SUV to wait for Olaf to come out, so that they could immediately follow him once he left the library.

A small and rather rickety jeep pulls up from one of the main roads pulls up abruptly in front of the Maritime Library, emitting a strong smell of weed, and the doors open, spewing forth a small cloud of motley figures. One is wearing a monkey suit, another blue belted shorts with no top, a third dressed in a full BDSM uniform, yet another a full business suit. As the one in the business suit slams his door, it begins to fall off, but he is past noticing, sweeping forwards in front of the group.

Upon entering the library, the dusty travellers seek out the information desk, and the man in the business suit says, "Hi, I'm Jake... I'm leading the treasure hunting expedition from, uh..."

"Czardas," the man in the S&M uniform volunteers.

"Uh, yeah, Czardas."

"Are you representing the Czardaian government?" Polite confusion from the receptionist.

"Well, not really. But that's because there really isn't a government... if you know what I mean." Nervous laughter.

As Jake talks, members of his group are already browsing the library, talking in rather loud, annoying tones of voice, comparing notes, and generally causing havoc. They are obviously either drunk or stoned, or both. They will also probably regret attempting to undertake such an expedition with little practical experience later on, but all that in due time.

The island explorers have found an old tourist brochure. It talks about one Karl Redbeard, from Germania nicknamed the mountain who used to raid the shipping lanes. He was supposed to have succeeded for awhile until they caught him hung him and put his head on a spike. His camp was supposed to have been excavated and turned into a tourist spot which very few people attend. There are ten crew. They have had to pay $300.00 for a man to read the brochure. They are not 100% sure if the directions they are getting are correct. Two of the crew read latin.

Olaf leaves the library. He gets in the car with Professor Ming who has finished copying the map. All of the material has been put away except for one small newspaper clipping which slipped off the table. The computers are shut down. The car is a big luxury car manufactured by Dynamic Motors, the main automobile company in the Commonalitarianism. They are driving down to the harbor where several boats are waiting.

Czardas:

The receptionist fearful of how the group was just tearing up the library and of the unusual behavior ran a quick search if there was permission for any Czardas government personal to be able to be in this area of the country. After a minute of searching she found the Imperial leadership had done no such thing. So she pushed a button that was linked to the local police.

Within two minutes five police officers had assembled and now had burst open the front room to the library. The police, without their guns showing, began to advance to the three persons in their corner of the library and when they were relatively close to them one of the police officers said,” I am sorry you will have to come with us down to the station in order to go through some paperwork. This is due to you have net been guaranteed permission to enter the empire under government uniform of to search for the treasure of the fleet.”

____________________________________________________________________
Commonalitarianism:

The locals knowing that they had the permission of the emperor of the Valgardiansa and Scandinvans would not dare to harm any of the expedition due to this. As well they were in part willing to helping the explorers. The man they had hired to translate the brochure had been able to translate most of the it will relatively good accuracy. As well he had supplied the names of some of the locals who did have some hint to where the location of the fleet was, but did not talk about it to any others except their closest friends and families.

The men in the black suits had turned on the car and would follow the Dynamic Motors car wherever it should go, but would not openly do anything to them. As well they had learned that these explorers were not treasure hungry as so many others had been before them and thus would not do any harm unto the crew, but decided that at the most would prevent them from leaving the nation with any huge amounts of treasure.

The explorers reach the site. It has a few interesting things. There is an old scandinvan ship, the pike which Karl Redbeards head was put on, a big old log house, an ancient Scandinvan kitchen and cooking garden, a small museum with some armor, old documents, and nick nacks. There are two items of interest in the museum. We film all of this stuff talk to the museum curator and staff about Karl Redbeard and do a 40 minute segment for television.

One is some fragments from a Captain De Vris who sailed the "Silver Coast", it is old.

One of the fragments reads:

It is Thorsday, we are about to set sail. The wind is blowing to the east in heavy gales. We will pass close to shore near the Isle of Pearl. I would not set sail this day, but the emperor orders it. Three of our crew have refused to go, saying there are ill omens, a seagull flew around the church steeple. Marlin Bearsteeth, one of the few crew that follows the old religion still in secret claims that he had a vision that he was a skeleton walking on the bottom of the sea. He has left his spear and shield on the deck signaling his resignation. Our crew are too few. I will leave this journal with my family. We will be sailing in a few hours. All of the gold is put aboard, and precious gems. We fear attack.

Karl Redbeard has been reiving the coasts. He has acquired a strange viscous substance which he burns ships who refuse to surrend to him. He throws it aboard the enemy ships using a small catapult. I have seen the charred remains of one of those ships floating on the water... The journal entry ends here with a big water stain...

There is also Karl Redbeard's personal map which is annotated with a neat cribbed script and has much finer details than the other maps we have seen. There are even pictures of porpoises in the corners.

Olaf Cruonis boards his ship with Professor Ming. They sail toward the Isle of Pearl. They are escorting the smaller wooden vessel which is built from local materials so it won't sink or get caught in the storm. It will follow as closely to the map as possible to get an idea of the route of the "Silver Coast." This is being filmed. They receive an email with a digital photo of the note from the captain and Karl Redbeards map. They have a slightly better idea of where they might search.

Two ships start sounding the bottom of the ocean near the isle of Pearl with sonar mapping tools. It is following a spiral pattern systematically outward from the coast. They will also do this with nearby islands. Once a large object about the size of the ship we built is found we send down the UUV-- unmanned underwater vehicle described earlier to search the sea bottom and photograph or video anything there. Then we will send divers.

Note: As a precaution against piracy or interference from other powers, we are going to put several armed guards aboard each ship. 6 per ship. They will be inobtrusive, wearing a simple one piece black jumpsuit with light body armor underneath and carrying high power AA-12 automatic shotguns. There is also a weapons locker. We will also have two satellite uplink warning buttons one which the crew can see, and one hidden which only the officers know about. Piracy safeguards will be put in place as well, doors that lock from the inside to the inside of the ship, high intensity deck lighting, 2 water cannons, a siren system, and a razorwire edging which can be added to railings. We will ask the coast guard to monitor the ships from a distance while we are hauling up treasure. Not visible in the camera spotlight but there.

The two seahook ships, the Walrus and the Carpenter find some of the ancient ships on the sonar. They are very deep 70-90 meters deeper than human divers can normally go. 50 meters being the limit for wetsuits. There are a few ships in shallower water, but they will be less well preserved. These ships are untouched by human hands.

The ROV- Remote operated vehicle, descends. Picturing wrecks which are still partially preserved. It will first pick up loose material, giant wine jars, incense bottles, large gold bars, and other easily graspable items with its manipulator arms. A large padded cage is lowered into the depths with a winch. The two ROVs, one for each ship makes many trips to the padded cage slowly filling it with larger items, silver, gold, and easily graspable containers. It will have a hard time getting at the diamonds and smaller gems unless they are packed in containers which it can reach easily. It does not just go for treasure but material items, old swords, spears, helmets, pieces of anchor, bowls, chips of pottery and other rare treasures from the deep. Everyday items in addition to the treasure. It cannot take the heaviest items.

Cameras show the ships and how they are laid out, the masts, the oars, the benches for the oarsmen. It gives an excellent view of how the ships are actually built. It is different than what is expected. The ship which was sent on the trip is slightly more modern, a little less sturdy. Some of the ships show burn marks from fire. The ROV scrapes off a strange greenish gew and puts it into a large container. It may be the legendary greek fire.

Two skeletons are locked in combat spears sticking through each other. A skull with an axe in it is lying on the ocean floor. It wasn't just a storm. The ships may have been attacked...

The location of the site is put on a map and sent to the central government. All of the treasures will be registered, cataloged, and identified for museums, libraries and other places.

Strange flora and fauna are on the sea bottom. An octopuss darts by. Tube worms with orange tongues sticking out are not far from the ships. Green lichen is covering some rocks. And endless sand with rocks jutting out of it.

A second trip will be made to the shallower areas to recover the less deep treasures. These will use dive teams which are much more systematic.

The crew went and visited the two people who had been in the newspaper articles. The old fisherman had passed away leaving his wife who did not know where he went sometimes to look at the "treasure". She remembered hearing that he sometimes went to Strawberry Cove, but this led nowhere. There was no treasure there.

The young man who had found the coins was now in his 60's he was retired after becoming a successful executive. He told us that he had indeed found a couple of the ships and used the gold to buy a furniture and durable goods business which he managed to turn into a very large successful company. He showed us where he had found the gold for the good of the country. He asked us not to waste it on greed. We went out in a boat to approximately where he went diving in his 20s to get some of the treasure. He no longer needed to search for the treasure. He was a wealthy man.

We send divers down to this location near a place called "Ocean Beach". Most of the treasure is gone, there are still some gems, and a few trinkets which were missed. We attempt to raise the two ships he found using special equipment to dig under the ships and get them loose. Then we use an inflatable pad to lift the ships to the surface. We now have two complete ships which we are donating to a large museum in Scandinvan.

People are gathering on the beach to watch us in the distance, digging out the ships. We search the surrounding area and find another ship, this time fully loaded with treasure. This we carefully excavate sending dive teams to surround the vessel and bring it up intact with everything on it in one place exactly as we found it. We will take salvage rights, but not keep the gold and jewels for the most part.

Something which the International Underwater Salvage Cooperative has learned is that transferring large amounts of valuables in an easily identifiable ship is a bad idea. We go to the main bank and ask to sell them the nonartifact valuables which we have found. We will transfer the money to our accounts in the Commonalitarianism, but not physically ship the goods.

The Commonalitarianism has brought in two new special diving suits for deep water recovery. We had to have these flown in for us. http://www.oceaneering.com/uploadedImages/Subsea_Projects/Diving/Pages/wasp_01.jpg These will allow us direct access to the sites. Instead of having two part manipulators, there are four part graspers slightly more advanced for getting materials. We send them down to recover more material from the deep diving spot. We also use them in combination with the two ROVS to systematically map out where each piece of ship lies. We also start planning on raising the ships we have found. An AIP-- Air Independent Propulsion diesel transport (nonmilitary) submarine will be sent down to fully excavate the find carrying several of the ships to the surface. They ships are deeply buried in mud so they are very well preserved.

We have found 6 Knarr --30 ton transport vessels
2 Drakar Longships-- Fighting vessels with no cargo-- lots of weapons, armor, and other materials for war. 100 Swords, 100 shields, 100 rusted iron chain suits, 342 Javelins and other materials.
The Knarr contained a 180 tons of cargo--
60 Tons of gold
80 Tons of silver
10 Tons of emeralds
12 Tons of sapphires
6 Tons of jet
6 Tons of rubies
6 Tons of diamonds.

Most of the treasure is still out there, but it will take us a long long time to recover what we have. We are going through cataloging, identifying and recovering tons of material which we are sending to museums, libraries, and historical societies in Scandinvan. This will take at least 4 months to do all of the paper work and research.

With the crew of 2 ships this is a lot of work.

We also have provided over 8 hours of documentary film, broken into 1 hour episodes. A book is on its way written by Olaf Cruonis on the expedition with photographs of all the different treasures. Professor Ming is the editor.

Other groups probably will rush in to try and get at some other still not found treasure.

The news of their success inspired many of the local citizens to board their own ships to either watch the explorers as they uncovered artifacts from the treasure fleet or to seek out some treasure of for themselves. Yet, some of the locals were killed due to them running out of breath of getting the bends. This caused many of the locals to abandon their recovery efforts, but there were a few with the proper equipment to continue with their efforts.

As for the recovered items there was speed, after they had all been recorded and labeled, to places all over the empire due to a little help by government officials. With this as well the imperial government moved in to prevent any unapproved persons from going to work in on the wrecks.

OOC: Sorry, for the long wait I was taking a short break from rping.

Because we do not know everything the other salvagers know we are going to offer a franchise, the right to use our name-- International Undersea Salvage Coooperative and specialty equipment in your country for a flat percentage of the treasure they recover. Marianis Industries-- RUS-- Registered Union Syndicate our submarine manufacturer will offer to provide a company who joins the franchise two panther plus ROVs-- with gripping arms and dive rates up to 600 meters, 2 hard shell diving suits, inflatable lift pads, padded winch cages for putting artifacts in, a seahook ship, and a diesel lift submarine if they can provide a proven location for a treasure find and have no registered legal or business problems-- sonar actually registers lost ships. Basically a 50/50 split. This will allow your countrymen to gain access to very deep dive sites to find some of the remaining ships. We will have the agreement signed and sealed in front of a government lawyer and track all obligations. We are also going to offer specialists for cataloging artifacts which they may not be interested in or technical help.

The empire responded with this email,” Alright, then we will allow you to split the amount you keep 50/50 with the locals and in turn they will give you information and details, as well they shall work with you on the excavation if you need their help with anything.

As for the franchise we will let you set you set if up in your country if you want to, but the only reason that the locals are not able to get the equipment that you have is because our empire keeps strict control over all submersibles and deep diving equipment because in the past a terrorist group nearly launched a nuclear device that could have killed millions if they had been able to put it in a very deepwater docks that out military had stopped using.”

Several of the local divers come forward. They tell us that they know of three more ships that have sunk in deep water near where many fishermen go to catch sardines. They were unable to get the treasure because of the depth of the ships. Legends spoke of one of the ships being a ship from Roman Germania part of Karl Redbeards fleet. It is near the Isle of Iron where Karl Redbeard had based his small fleet of ships. One of them shows a pair of leg irons which had passed down in his family. His great great great grandfather supposedly many generations ago had been a slave in Germania who had escaped to Scandinvan. We may find these on the ships.

In the history books, Karl Redbeard was said to have sold his captives as thralls to some of the local lords.

We sound the deep waters. There is a galleon and two 30 ton knarrs. The knarrs are filled with leg irons and chains attached to the rowing benches. It appears that the knarrs were captured and the captives were chained and ironed to the oars. The holds are filled with silver, rubies, and jet. There are still some skeletons in irons. A total of 50 tons of silver, 5 tons of jet, and 5 tons of rubies. The locals are thrilled with the treasure.

The galleon is a warship with a tower on it where a catapult containing greek fire or rocks can be fired. There is a second tower for bowmen. There are sixty square shields found on the ship and heavy swords and axes. No spears. There is a double row of oars to make the ship go fast through the water.

Some of the locals brought forward a number of different artifacts to share with the foreign explorers. These artifacts ranging from things such as armor to journals written by one of their ancestors. As well they gave them information about stories they had heard given to them by their forbearers of whom some of their ancestors actually served in the treasure fleets and survived.

Yet, the men of the black suits who had followed them earlier began to show themselves and terrorized a number of people who worked with or helped in the salvage efforts.

We will record the incidents with the black suits quietly, gathering stories. If there are places where the black suits are recorded like being terrorized in stores with cameras, or public spaces with cameras we will quietly give the location to the government secret service. We will leave everything exactly as it is, so they will gain confidence and draw them out.

Our first objective will be to get pictures which the government can use. There will be no attacks initially, but eventually they will become overconfident and make mistakes. Cars will be photographed and licenses recorded. We will quietly feed this to an offshore data haven and pay a fee for each person to be identified with basic public information, so it would not look like we were hacking them, just that they slipped up and gave their name, said something about where they might be going, or other simple mistakes..

Our security tightens on the ships so nobody near the complex can be molested, regular security guards in the dock area are partially replaced by hard men who served in riot police units from the Commonalitarianism. We pay the regular security men two years salary if they want to leave and keep the men who wish to stay. We add extra weapons lockers on the ships...

We continue talking to the people who wish to show us the material, but we quietly arrange to meet them in anonymous places with extra security. We also offer to do anonymous interviews if anyone fears for their safety. We record the journals, reading through them carefully. When we are done with them we return them to their owners or if they wish return them to local museums and cultural institutions.

A journal is received with a necklace consisting of a gold chain with a wolfshead medallion with ruby eyes. It tells an unusual tale.

It is the journal of one Erin Wulfram who was a captain under Karl Redbeard. It recalls how Karl Redbeard was captured. It is a different story than what is in the history books.

Erin Wulfram helped capture three of the knarrs during the storm with Karl Redbeard bringing them successfully to shore. This was enough for Karl Redbeard to retire permanently. However, Karl became very greedy. He decided that three days hence he would take the Abbey of Roses treasure, specifically the anklebone of St. Thomas to tide his luck over in retirement.

Fearing attacking a religious shrine, Erin Wulfram betrayed Karl Redbeard to the empire. Erin sent a message by courier to an imperial outpost he notified them of the plan of the attack.

The day before the attack he and some of his crew took some herbs which made him appear sick for a short time with the complicity of the local doctor payed off with two sacks of gold. That night after Karl Redbeard left to attack the abbey, they sneaked out and took two of the knarrs loaded with gems and sailed away.

Karl Redbeard was captured at the Abbey of Roses and hung within the week. A large fleet was waiting for him. Erin Wulfram escaped with two ships full of gems and gold, eventually using his wealth to become a very rich titled man under a different name....

There is a letter with the journal. It says that at least two noble families are connected to Erin Wulfram's treasure, they do not want to be revealed in this matter, but will not interfere if they are never revealed in the documentaries. They fear that it would cause a terrible scandal.

The Commonalitarianism takes this journal and letter to the imperial embassy.

The men of black suits continued more discreetly, only using threat letters and a few other techniques to scare the people that worked on the wrecks. As well, they began to bribe a few of the workers to attempt to sabotage the efforts of the foreign devils. Yet, despite the bribes some of the workers were to afraid to continue with their efforts, even two of them stepped forward and told the employers the plans and that they had received hard cash from unknown persons to do so.

At the gate to the imperial embassy the majesty of the Scandinvan Empire, ruled by the Valgardian emperors, was truly, Inside the embassy was made of the finest pure white marble, gardens of exquisite beauty covered the area within walls. Inside of the embassy the floor was covered with magnificent mosaics, the walls with live like frescos and paintings, and the ceiling with runes made of gold and silver.

Those who were afraid were offered a quiet deal. A chance to find new employment. We outplace them for four months allowing them to find new jobs with the help of a search service.

We take some letters and have them analyzed for fingerprints, dna leftovers, handwriting analysis, and similar things. We also check the return addresses to see where they are coming from even a post office box has a location or a mail drop. We will hire a discreet private detective, a little old lady or someone who looks very plain to check the return addresses if there are any. We will make sure this is done anonymously. The gathered information goes to the secret service.

Olaf Cruonis enters the embassy with two bodyguards. He is wearing a simple blue high collared silk padded jacket, a blue tricorn hat, blue cotton slacks, and black leather shoes and a leather belt, the traditional Commonalitarianism dress. Accompanying him are two large Ming men in similar dress. They are impressed with the opulence of the embassy. Before entering they try to get an appointment to let the imperial embassy know they are coming through official channels. The objects are being carried in a steel padded case handcuffed to his wrist.

Olaf heads to the front desk. He blinks staggered by the amount of gold. He says, "Hello, we have an appointment with the ambassador on an important matter for ten o'clock." The secretary indicates he should wait in a secure office with plush furniture and paintings. They sit quietly in the room. Two guards with rifles are stationed stiffly outside the secure room. There are oil paintings of the imperial family on the walls.

A few of the locals who had been hired did accept the offer to quit, but the vast majority chose to remain on the sites and work due to them wanting to see this project to the end. As well many of the workers actually worked harder and cooperated more with the foreign employers just to spite these men in black suits. To deal with the black suits a number of Imperial soldiers were stationed outside warehouses and the docks which were used by Commonalitarianism.

The waiting room was made of solid Corinthian marble, the seating made of cherry wood, and there were a number of original paintings that were worth millions. Yet, despite this man in a causal business suit walked out of the door and said,” The Lord Mayor will see you now.”

Olaf Cruonis entered the office of the Lord Mayor, his two bodyguards waited for him.

He briefly clasped the lord mayors hand and bowed slightly. Then he said. "It is an honor to meet you, Lord Mayor. We have an item that may be of considerable significance. I think it may be an internal matter of yourempire. We received a journal and a medallion. After identifying the age of the medallion and journal we believe they are authentic."

The Lord Mayor, "Yes, please sit down and make yourself comfortable. Would you like a drink. We have Tilean brandy, Scandinvan wine, or simply pure mineral water." The mayor sits down.

Olaf Cruonis, "Mineral water please."

The Lord Mayor, "Hans get this man some water." A servant enters the room and brings Olaf some mineral water.

Olaf, opening the mineral water, taking a short sip then putting it down. He opens the steel case containing the journal and the silver medallion with ruby wolfs eyes and a gold chain and brings them to the mayors desk.

The mayor leans forward intrigued, "It looks like a chain of office, but there is no chain of office in Scandinvan that looks like this. Wait, while I was in a museum, there was something that looked like this, a silver dagger. I saw it in passing. It belonged to a warrior cult, they called themselves vargr, but were merely men with berserk fanaticism. But, there are no vargr, it is merely a legend in passing. It could be of interest to us if such men still exist...(pause), I may know where to send the journal."

Olaf Cruonis, "Is there anything we can do?"

The Lord Mayor, "You must keep quiet about this until we have a better idea of what is happening. Continue your work. However, it would not be in the interest of the empire to have a scandal. Let the history books stay the same. I suggest you review your finds before releasing them. Let no mention of the vargr out." In his thoughts, the mayor thinks, "this should go to the special division, they would know what to do with it."

Hans the servant seems very tense at the mention of vargr.

The conversation drifts off for a minute to other things, how the excavating is going, the treasure, the television special, and what they intend to do with the treasure. Olaf Cruonis leaves cordially, leaving the book and medallion with the lord mayor.

The lord mayor looks at the medallion coldly, a slight frown on his face, "special division, a place where his cousin Thomas had disappeared into." He packs up the items and has them sent there.

A lead that has to do with the wolfs head: On the isle of Vineyards about five hundred miles north of the Iron Island there was a detachment of the Varangian guard, fierce fighters known for their berserk rage, trade routes with the Slavs and Rus, war dances, and absolute loyalty to the emperor. They were supposed to have served as imperial bodyguards. The wolfshead with red eyes is a symbol of one of their units which exists to this day. Professor Ming discovers this lead in an old military history book she is browsing at one of the research institutions.

Further research by Professor Ming shows that there was once an imperial shipyard on the Isle of Vineyards that was on the Silver Route which the ships sailed. It may have been where ships would attempt to go if they got lost at sea.

We receive a story from the Isle of Vineyards about three different peoples ancestors having been washed ashore after their ships were wrecked during the storm. One has a journal entry describing how one of the sailors desperately clung to a piece of the mast for hours until he washed ashore on a rocky beach near a tall cliff. His future wife found him there exhausted and nursed him back to health. There is another account about how a man was rescued at sea, found unconscious clinging to a chest of silver and emeralds attached to several lashed together wine casks.

We send our ships to the Isle of Vineyards. There is another find it is fifty miles off the coast. It takes us over a week of circling before we reach it. But it is there.

Note: The International Underwater Salvage Cooperative, sells 60 tons of gold and 3 tons of diamonds recovered from the salvage efforts and puts over a billion dollars into developing space salvage, and space junk clean up ships changing its name to: International Underwater and Space Salvage Cooperative.

The find consists of 6 Knarrs and 3 longships.
The longships contain fighting men, some of them who may have been berserkers with spiked round shields, hand a half swords with wolfshead pommels, and heavy horned helms. There are several large double headed axe blades also among the longships. These longships have the remains of arrowheads from bowmen as well. There are several wolfshead medallions among the finds as well. Two of the longships have ballistae, and what looks like barrels of pitch for fire arrows.

The six knarrs contain a large amount of treasure:
85 Tons of gold
85 Tons of silver
5 Tons of jet
5 Tons of rubies

A lot of the remaining treasure was taken by Erin Wulfram from the 3 nonrecovered knarrs. Also some had disappeared from the other treasure seekers who had recovered some of the gold and jewels, spreading throughout the economy. Half of the find is shared with the people who gave us the location so it quietly spreads out throughout the empire.

A further note: A considerable amount of this find will go to the foundation of my next thread-- building the Final Encyclopedia.

OOC: By the way to just to say Vikings did not actually have horned helms, due to them being an unnecessary burden in battle. The real idea of the spiked helm arose due to public opinion in the 17th and 18th centuries/

IC: The black suits now beginning to use their own skills begin to sabotage the efforts of the International Underwater Salvage Cooperative by damaging their equipment and terrorizing the workers. Yet, they work so silently they leave no evidence that it was due to them not being directly responsible for the it because they were not the ones to perform the action themselves, instead they had hired professional mercenaries to do the dirty work for them.

The descendents of the survivors of the treasure fleet did not have the any of the original treasure, but they were quite wealthy still having a good deal of money from selling the treasures that their forbearers had brought from the sinking fleets. As well, the native of the island of Vineyards were not at all friendly to the foreigners and in fact in many cases would openly ridicule the workers and explorers them in their own ancient tongues.

The Lord Mayor quickly covered up the scandal and had the medallion and the book containing the information about the families hidden deep in one of his personal mansion deep secret chambers where it had been locked up and the people who knew where it was were even aware of what it was and who it belonged to.

The professional mercenaries are very good. We end up killing a few of them in a firefight because of the floodlights on the decks, but then they sneak men on board with ninja style outfits and machine guns through some of the portholes. They gas some of the people inside the ship and escape with over $5 million dollars in cash from some of the gold transactions. We have to seal up the porthole entrances and every opening in our ships.

They also get to a Knarr before we do, take the 30 tons of treasure finishing up the remaining treasure completely. They set up explosives leaving the ship intact. They blow up one of the ROVs when it goes down to check the ship.

A mercenary road hijacking crew intercepts some of the treasure on the way to a bank. They use a radio jammer to stop incoming signals. Then they use deadfalls to seal off the roads. This is followed by a sleep gas attack knocking out some of the drivers when they stop. A short firefight occurs, but the hijackers have many more men than are in the convoy and they are well armed. They transfer some of the gold and gems which would have gone to people in the country to trucks and speed off. Now the convoys have to be better protected.

A bomb goes off on the docks killing three of our security men when they check a food package suppposed to be going onto the ships.

There is a rocket attack on one of the ships damagaing the side of the ship. Luckily it is double hulled with the inside hull being armored. The ship is stuck in the docks for a week for repairs.

A few of the workers disappear and reappear on drunk and disorderly charges having been found hungover naked near a house of ill repute. They can't explain what happened and are sentenced to six months in jail. (Their drinks were spiked with a memory loss drug.)

High bills affect several members of the crew. Their bank accounts have been hacked and they need to clear up their financial losses with security personnel from the banks.

Several men and women get beaten up by local thugs in their neighborhoods who have been paid off by the mercenaries.