But I'm just a humble academic. Lila is—was, she amended, blinking back the sting of tears—a high ranger, one of the elite. She’d expected her to have a room of her own here, or maybe even an apartment in the private accommodations located just off-site.
Focus. It doesn't matter.
She pushed her braids away from her face, pinning them back in place with the makeshift lockpick, then massaged her temples. Yet another night spent among the library's records had left her gritty-eyed and muzzy-brained. And for what?
The Guild's library contained a host of texts that were off-limits to residents of the Academy. Tiri had practically salivated at the thought of sneaking in and gaining access to them.
However, most of those she'd spent the night perusing had been little more than picture books. She didn't need to know how armor designs among the warriors of the northern civilizations had evolved over the past few decades. Nor did she care that the color of a scrying mirror changed depending on the user's elemental alignment. And she certainly wasn't interested in which parts of the human anatomy you should stab to most effectively disable your opponent.
She needed answers. Answers to the questions that had been burning in her breast for nearly a month now.
Why had the Guildmaster seemed surprised—no, outright dismayed—to see them return in one piece? Why hadn't he seemed surprised (or dismayed) to learn of the tragic demise of both Lila and Cassandria?
And why had he refused to send a larger force to deal with the red God Core and its army of kobolds?
It didn't add up. He'd sent them to investigate rumors of a hostile Core in the area, one which was potentially responsible for recent raids on the surface—raids none of them had heard word of until then. When Tiri, Benin and Coll returned with confirmation of the kobold Core's presence, the Guildmaster had looked flustered, almost alarmed. He'd stammered assurances that there was nothing else they needed to do, and very forcefully suggested they each retire to their own rooms and await debriefing from one of the senior adventurers.
Together, the three of them had decided to ignore these downright suspicious orders. Instead, they'd tried—and failed—to recruit allies to their cause, then raided a supply cupboard and set off on their own.
The gnomes had been a surprise. Helping them above all had convinced her they'd chosen to do the right thing. The world thought them extinct—which was perhaps the only reason they weren't—and their primitive existence in that cave was a puzzle. It was so close to the surface; so close to the Guild; so humble, so unprotected, and was clearly not the ancestral home of what had once been a thriving race of artisans and engineers.
It wasn't safe. They had to be warned. Hence the dual nature of Tiri's research these past couple of days: the history and decline of the hill gnomes, and how to communicate with God Cores.
She'd found a few spells in the Guild library that Benin might be able to repurpose to help with the latter. The gnomes, however, were trickier.
She recalled only a few basic facts from one of her cryptozoology lectures. Gnomes were benevolent, and focused on innovation and cultivation. They were a secretive race, kept themselves isolated in self-defense, because of their size but also because they feared that their inventions, if discovered, could be stolen by other races and used for violent means.
A century or so ago, a mysterious catastrophe wiped out all known gnomish civilizations. Some said it was collateral damage, an unfortunate consequence of the devastating war with the gods, and that the gnomes were unintended casualties. Others believed the little folk had been deliberately targeted—that their technological advances were deemed a threat to organized religion, making them some of the first targets in the gods' war on progress.
Tiri had used the limited additional information she'd uncovered in the libraries to plot out areas that might contain the ruins of their lost civilizations, but it would need a lot more work before she could confidently present it to the Core and suggest it uproot its denizens from their current home.
So why was she wasting what little research time she had by breaking into a dead woman's bedroom?
She'd told Coll and Benin she'd be in the Academy library, where she was much less likely to be accosted. As far as she knew, it was only the Guild that wanted them.
But something had drawn her to this place. First, she'd followed her own instincts to the library, where she wasted several hours perusing books intended for students of the physical and magical spheres. Eventually she'd realized the same feeling that drew her there was pulling her to a different part of the building.
And now she was here, and the same sense that had drawn her to the room was now pulling her toward the bedside table. It felt similar to her Orientation skill—a perk of the Cartographer profession that allowed her to read, say, a travel diary, and then triangulate the area described by the writer on a map; or to sense the intent of a map’s creator, so that even the most abysmal maps could be deciphered by high-level cartographers.
Right now, she was drawn by a sense of secrecy, and of suspicion. Someone had hidden something in those drawers.
She knelt and brought the chemsphere in closer. Both drawers were empty. But something was still pulling her toward them; toward the back.
She tilted her head. The movement brought the light lower, and something flickered at the very back of the empty drawer.
A shadow. A... keyhole?
New skill unlocked!
Startled by the sudden appearance of the glowing text, she froze, then silently
