Find Text
Discern the location of writings made by a specific author. Can be used to unearth stashed evidence, or to assist with the discovery of long-lost tomes hidden away for centuries. Or just to impress a librarian.
Note: Chance of success is increased if user is in possession of an item belonging to the author.
Skill type: passive
Prerequisite(s): any scribe class
Required for: Detect Intent
Despite the tension of her current predicament, Tiri couldn’t suppress a small thrill of delight at having unlocked a new skill. She had a sudden urge to return to the library and—
Mind on the job, Moon.
Swiping the writing from her vision with a (somewhat reluctant) mental wave, she focused instead on using her fingers to probe the strange slot at the back of the drawer. It was too narrow for her fingertips to penetrate, but the mechanism inside was too large for her hairpin to negotiate.
Frowning, she looked around the room for something she could use. Then the text she'd just seen floated back in her mind's eye.
An item belonging to the author…
This time, she could not swallow the lump that rose in her throat as she reached into her satchel and pulled out an arrow. Tears prickled the backs of her tired eyes as she gazed at the now-ragged fletching, the smooth wooden shaft, and the finely whetted arrowhead.
All of a sudden she was back in the endless dark, lost in tunnels leagues beneath the earth, and Lila was speaking to her.
"This arrow didn’t begin its life as a sharp weapon. No, it was a hunk of stone, a broken tree branch, a bundle of bird feathers. Only after being put together and carefully honed to a specific purpose did it become dangerous. The same goes for people."
It's our experiences that hone us to our purpose. What was Lila’s purpose? What is mine?
She looked again at the arrowhead-sized slot hidden in the drawer.
Right now my purpose is to find out what Lila was hiding, and why.
Subconsciously thinking how unusual it was that Lila had chosen to use arrows with stone heads rather than iron, she pushed the arrowhead into the slot. It gave a soft satisfying click, and when Tiri went to remove it, the entire back panel of the drawer came with it. And there, behind the false panel, was a bundle wrapped in a blanket.
Tiri withdrew it reverently, placing the chemsphere on the floor so she could unwrap the bundle with both hands. They started to tremble when the edges of the blanket fell back to reveal a leather-bound journal.
The cover was cracked smooth, well-worn, and the edges of the pages were soft, as though they'd been thumbed through many times. A leather cord was wrapped around the book, presumably to hold it closed against the wad of loose pages that had been stuffed inside it. Tiri imagined them straining to get out.
Here, let me help you.
Undoing the cord was the work of a moment. She freed the jumble of loose notes from their prison and set them to one side, then turned her full attention to the opened journal. After flipping back a few pages to find the beginning of the most recent entry—and glancing over her shoulder yet again to make sure she was still alone in the room—she hurriedly began to read.
Ten
Trust Nobody
Tiri
85th day of summer, 521 PC
Today is the day. V finally handed me my death warrant. And, Lord of Light help me, I signed it.
The order? To travel, accompanied by a standard party, to the Subgardia cave system and investigate the possible presence of a malevolent God Core. This is in itself nothing out of the ordinary. After all, one of the Guild's prime directives is to identify and remove such threats before they become a problem for those of us on the surface.
However, the justification behind the order is... questionable. I've heard of no raids in that region, nor any other concerning activity that would indicate the presence of a Core.
Also strange are the companions V has assigned for the task. They are as follows: Cassandria Karst, a worker-caste assassin-thief; Collson Rutherford, a guardbreaker-class warrior; Benin Fitz, a fire mage (of all things!); and Tiriani Moon, a student at the Academy.
My own brief research into each of these individuals has proved less than reassuring.
Karst is the subject of no fewer than eighty-nine(!) complaints, mostly from those of noble caste, and is by all accounts a mannerless brute. Meanwhile, Rutherford has been charged with dozens of counts of injury and property damage over the last decade, and while every one of these is listed in the records as "accidental" he nonetheless owes Guild fines in excess of five thousand gold, which is... staggering.
That V would send an academic to do an adventurer's task is concerning, but one look at Moon's records are enough to explain his reasoning. Eliminating Arkasio Jr.'s only intellectual rival would certainly help V gain favor with the boy’s father, the Arch-Academic, despise him though he may.
The leather spine creaked as Tiri's hands tightened on the journal. She'd suspected—no, she'd known that her position as top of the field in theoretical crypto-entomology had been what drew the higher-ups' attention to her. That her entire life had been tossed away to satisfy one man's ego and another's social maneuvering made her grind her teeth with rage.
Her anger softened somewhat when she recalled explaining her situation to Lila, back when they were all lost beneath the earth. The red-haired ranger had clearly already known, or at least guessed, the basic facts, yet she'd listened sympathetically while Tiri told her, and then delivered a thoughtful speech to bring her spirits back up.
She sniffed and pulled herself back into the present. Lila had been a good person. The least Tiri could do was give her memories her full attention.
But by far the most worrying of my soon-to-be traveling companions is the pyromancer. If what I have long suspected is indeed true, then his presence
