Indiana stands in the middle of the room. His jacket is off. His hat is tilted back on his head. His sleeves are rolled up. Laid out on a table (and the stack of mismatched books on it) is an unrolled sheaf of parchment with a leathery texture. More sheaves are tucked into a corner. The parchment has strange sigils and Latin text crisscrossing it, along with a few copies of monastic illuminations.

Holmes has been out a /lot/ since Seishi's shooting, and he doesn't tell her much about where he's been or what he's been doing. He's been spending a lot of time standing at the window playing the violin and neglecting his PI work, at least according to the endless voicemail messages his clients are leaving him. He now enters, disguise-less for once.

There's the tapping of a stick on the stairs - it doesn't take Holmes's deductive skills to figure out that it's Jack, apparently feeling his old wounds again.

Lara leans over a small, round-top table to one side. The Gem of Amarra, set into a ring, rests in the very center, and Lara is very carefully copying the sigils sketched on a sheet of paper in one hand onto the table's surface around the ring with the other.

Kate pushes the door open, and comes inside with the mysterious (or not so) tapping Jack.

Whisper has been around a lot, especially since the shooting. Just over, no particular reason. This is an exception to the "no reason" rule, but her figure on the couch appears like a natural part of the room. The worry on her face is also nothing out of the common way.

Seishi occupies the couch next to Whisper, watching the preparation with a faintly wistful look, as though she'd much rather be helping somehow than just sitting. There's a sketchpad in her lap, but the visible page holds nothing so esoteric as arcane symbols or foreign text--it is, in fact, covered with a series of "super-deformed" anime caricatures. Someone's had some time on her hands lately.

Indiana bobs his head in a nod to himself, then points to a line of text, mouth moving as he reads. He mutters "Okay. I think I get it now. He's...he's connected gypsy lore, prayers dating back to the Crusades..." He taps the line of text. "And this, which I'm not entirely sure I want to know about." Looking up to the two Englishmen and the pilot, he says, "We're just double-checking Constantine's math."

From afar, Kate starts giggling at the SD, and sees our little League characters jumping up and down on the bad bad gem. Then, the Gem grows into a monster and roars at the frightened Leaguers. Lara shoots the gem, it dies. Party!

Kate says "I'll be sure to leave that to you."

Jack holds up his hands, after settling himself decorously in an armchair. "I fear I’m entirely out of my depths - it's beyond any lore I know. Just let me know what I should do?"

Holmes nods curtly and picks up his pipe, lighting a match with a practiced flick of his fingers and a little puff of smoke comes from his lips as he starts it up. He looks like he's a million miles away.

Lara chimes in, "Would someone mind coming over here and double checking these symbols? I don't want to make a mistake and have us all turn into little white mice, or something equally inconvenient."

"I can, Lara," Seishi offers, though the 'coming over here' presents some small difficulty. Still and all, Sei's eager to have something to do, and after setting aside her sketchpad she pushes herself up off the couch, not putting much weight on her right leg.

Whisper cradles her guitar in her lap, not quite tuning it, not quite playing any particular song, but shifting from one melody to the next, bits of half-recognizable tunes flowing into one another. "Well," she says in response to Lara's comments, "it *is* nearing midnight. I can check math, sort of, but not mystical symbols."

Indiana tosses a box of wax candles and one of matches to Jack. "Here. We need a circle, from about here..." He points to the end of a couch. "To right around there." He points to a night-table. "Doesn't have to be perfect; just...y'know...a circle."

<OOC> Indiana plays with our souls.

Holmes looks up. "Am I required?" he asks drily.

Jack nods, and limps slowly around the circuit, setting out the tapers.

Lara speaks up. "Indiana? Do you recall that passage you passed onto me for translation?"

Kate turns to Holmes. "For Moral Support, I daresay."

Seishi limps her way over to where Lara is working, and eyes the symbols. "What exactly needs double-checked? Just to make sure you've copied them exactly?"

Lara nods to Seishi. "You've a good eye. See if this is nice and accurate enough." She offers the paper.

Holmes nods a little and moves his armchair to more or less one side of the nightstand.

Jack looks up. "Shall I light the candles?" he wonders.

Whisper is Morally Supporting too, since nobody asked her to do anything yet. The song slowly goes into the tune to "Say Goodbye to Hollywood."

Indiana cleans up some of the demi-mystical quasi-religious paper work, rolling it up and stacking it by a bookend in the shape of a Lion. He looks with a slightly amused expression at Holmes. "Yeah, there is that. But there's more to it." He nods to Lara, adopting his lecture tones. "This is the ritual of a pilgrimage of knights. This is the end of Our Quest. The Nail'll only work if we're worthy of its power. Normally, it'd be a Holy Paladin doing this, but - Constantine seemed to think we could make up for our mutual skepticism with sheer numbers." He glances around to take in the group. "Lara starts with a line of prayer. Like all pilgrims, we then have to make an offering."

Jack's lip curls a bit, in unease. "Perhaps I'd best sit this one out. I rather doubt I'm pure enough to meet the Nail's standards," he confesses.

<OOC> Indiana says "By the way - after this, we're all Baptists. No pressure."

Holmes says "What sort of offering?"

Kate shakes her head. "Jack...you've striven as much as anyone for this. Don't beat yourself down like that."

Seishi takes the paper from Lara and leans against the table to study the copied symbols, absently beginning to hum along with Whisper's guitar. "And you can just speak for yourself on that 'mutual skepticism' thing," she comments Indy-wards with a faint grin. "I think you've got these fine, Lara. I don't see anything misdrawn..."

Whisper alternates chords with one hand. /Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes

I'm afraid it's

Time for goodbye again.../ She waits for the answer to Holmes's question.

Lara says patiently, "The information on the nature of the sacrifice is what Indy had me translate. According to this, we must each give of ourselves...something that is powerful in our own...the closest term is personality, or animus - to contribute to the group as a whole. It's more a metaphorical offering really, but the words in and of themselves, the intent of the offering made, that's what's important."

Jack reaches over to pat Kate's shoulder, but he doesn't look anymore certain than before.

Kate looks fairly certain, however. She goes to join the loose circle, and holds out a hand to Jack expectantly.

The tall blonde Brit accepts her hands, shyly, and steps a little closer.

Holmes lids his eyes slightly. "I fear I'm dreadfully unpoetic." At least recently. "Can you give an example?"

Seishi's brow creases, and she looks up from the table and the symbols. "That sounds... kind of frightening, actually."

Indiana nods slowly to Lara's words, taking in the looks on the others' faces. He then turns and lifts a case that has been mostly untouched since the departure from Balaton's party. Unhinging the lid, he opens the top, revealing the rusty looking Nail from its resting place. "Constantine said we'd 'find the words'. Couldn't get him to pin it down much more than that."

Whisper looks over at Seishi and Holmes, nodding. "Giving up yourself? Yeah, that's--not really reassuring. I mean, I'll do it if that's what needs to be done, but..." She falls silent as Indy explains, smiling wryly at the mention of Constantine. "Lovely vague man he is."

Lara nods, walking over. "Seishi might offer balance. Celliers might offer resourcefulness. Kate could offer tenacity. A quality of ourselves that we wish to give as a gift to all of us."

Kate murmurs, "And Lara can offer peace through Superior Firepower." But she smiles as she says that.

Jack chuckles softly, as he inclines his head in acknowledgement.

Holmes makes a little displeased moue, in an almost feminine manner, then leans forwards and says, "How do we give what we imagine we want to give?"

Dr. Jones looks distracted as he eyes the object now in his hands. He turns it around slowly in his fingers, then raises it to show. "Words. Just say whatever you think covers your contribution to the Quest. Doesn't have to be pretty. Just honest." He furrows his brow, showing his own doubt seeping through. Then he shrugs. "We pass it around as we say our peace. Last one in line - " He makes a jabbing downward motion. "Drives it into the Gem." He carefully passes it to Lara.

Lara accepts the Nail, weighing it in her fingers. "This I give of me to my boon companions: I give the gift of confidence and assurance in one's self. To know when it is time for right action, and to perform the tasks necessary with all the focus required." She offers the Nail to the next person.

Seishi takes the Nail from Lara, standing, at least for the moment, squarely and unsupported at her place in the circle, with the focus of intense concentration in her expression. She speaks quietly, a little hesitantly. "I give, of myself, to my friends... whatever clarity of spirit I possess, whatever balance of spirit I have achieved; to understand when it is most important simply to be still..." Her voice on the last word is so soft as to be barely audible, and after a moment's pause, she presents the Nail to the next person in the circle.

(Log fragmentary due to Seishi's network being Evil and the rest of the League being gits who forgot to log.)