“I think I figured out why there’s no [Inquisitor] chapter house,” Rakesh says, swaggering up to me a few days later when I return from a day of glass-making at the Orpheus House.
We’re still outside on the cobblestone street, where someone might overhear us talk, so I don’t react. I beckon for him to follow me to a more secure location. I lead him inside our inn and gesture around, pointing toward my ear. He winks at me and sets up his inverted [Echoes of the Songbird], not chagrined in the slightest by my long-suffering expression, and stands with his hands on his hips, just waiting for me to praise him.
“Good news. Great, even!”
“You will not believe what I went through for this discovery,” Rakesh crows. He grabs his collar and straightens his robes, looking incredibly pleased with himself. Just like Ezio, he starts to pace around the common area in the suite of rooms we’ve rented.
“Not another bakery stakeout! Rakesh, my man, I don’t think Gilead’s pastry scene is ready for you,” I tease, breaking into a chuckle despite my earlier misgivings.
Rakesh gives me a flat look. “How droll.”
“Hey, I try. What did you uncover?”
“First of all, it’s with great pleasure that I must announce I’ve acquired access to a library. While it’s a fairly small public place of learning, and not connected with an Academy, it should still serve my purposes.” He leans against the wall, suddenly looking drained. “Oh, do we have any food? I’m famished. Forgot to eat all day; I was too excited by my findings.”
“Well done,” I tell our [Researcher], guiding him toward a chair and getting leftovers out of a box enchanted to keep food cool. He pounces on the food ravenously, not even waiting for me to heat it up with my best Skill. “Is that how you figured out where to go? Or, wait. You said there’s no chapter house here for the [Inquisitor]?”
“Not at all!” Rakesh says around a bite of cold noodles and spicy grilled chicken. “That’s the strangest part. I was on my way back after looking into irregularities in succession plans in Densmore, thinking that perhaps I could untangle a web of conspiracies, similar to the attempt by that dastardly [Lady] Saphora. I’m making progress on that front, I’ll have you know.”
I nod patiently, knowing that Rakesh takes a while to get to the point sometimes. “Do you think she’s part of a larger conspiracy? I’ll bet you’re close to cracking the code.”
“Quite true. I’ll have it sorted within the week, I’ll wager,” Rakesh boasts. “And, yes, she’s working with a group. There’s no doubt in my mind. Too many oddities across the country for her to account for each one. My research Skill [Pattern Matching: Overlooked Commonalities] is working overtime, I assure you. But! That’s not what I wanted to tell you.”
“The chapter house?” I prompt.
“Precisely! As I said, I was returning from the library when I discovered an anomaly. The tenement buildings and storefronts are extremely regulated in Gilead. They’re built in repeatable and clear patterns. Spacing between them, occupancy levels, allowed business—it’s all laid out in the city statutes and bylaws.”
“I have no doubt you’re already an expert in Gilead law,” I reply in a dry tone, a grin starting to form as I imagine our earnest [Researcher] reading through dusty old tomes to feed his insatiable desire for knowledge.
“Passable,” Rakesh says, pausing from chewing on his food to waggle his hand in front of him. “I don’t think I’d like to try to cross wits with a [Lawyer] just yet. I’d still likely lose; there’s simply too much local context I don’t know.”
“You said ‘likely’ lose, not certainly lose. That means you’re more confident than you’re letting on. We’ll go with calling you an expert until you prove otherwise,” I say, grinning even wider at Rakesh.
I can tell he’s uncomfortable with the label. It’s not because he doesn’t like praise, but because he thinks he hasn’t earned it yet. His standards are impossibly high sometimes. When he’s convinced that he has a legitimate reason to call himself an expert, I have no doubt that he will be the first to tell us. There will be no end to the references from him on that front. In anyone else, I’d call it bragging. In Rakesh, it’s just the sheer joy of learning and teaching.
Rakesh waves away my flattery. “Quibbles. Unimportant. The point is that I passed by an empty lot. In the middle of a busy street in Gilead!”
I pull out a second chair and join Rakesh at the table, leaning my chin on my propped-up fist. “An empty lot is that exciting, huh? Wow. You gotta get out more, buddy.”
Rakesh shakes his head at me with his lips pressed thin. “Very funny, Nuri. Make fun of the out-of-touch scholar holed up in his ivory tower. How original.”
“Hey, someone’s gotta provide the common man’s perspective. I thought you liked the chance to see things from a different angle? Ezio always claimed that talking with me helped him reframe the world in new ways, since I had such a drastically different upbringing and set of guiding principles.”
“Master Ezio is known for his novel methods,” Rakesh replies. “But I will indulge you this time. The reason the empty lot seemed so strange is two-fold. First, because it should not exist. It’s a waste of taxable land. No one benefits from undeveloped property in the middle of a busy district. Granted, an expansive park might be acceptable for the positive impact on the general public’s mental outlook, but truly empty space is useless. Second, and more significant to you, I’m sure, is that I was the only one who seemed to notice.”
“I wouldn’t have noticed.”
“No, you probably would have,” Rakesh says, surprising me by disagreeing so readily. “Your Domain would have swept over the emptiness and alerted you that not all is as it seems.”
I sit up straighter, intrigued despite my earlier teasing. “Oh! An illusion?”
“Possibly. I’m more inclined to think it’s a mental effect, rather than a trick of the light. It seemed at first that buildings occupied the space, but I never once saw anyone go in or out of the doors. Everywhere else, people went into shops, descended from apartments, or lounged in cafes. Here, they simply passed on by. That confused me enough that the second day I passed the anomaly, I stopped and stared at it, trying to figure out a solution to the mystery.”
“And? What did you deduce?”
Rakesh sighs, frowning at me in disappointment. “Has anyone told you that you lack a flair for the dramatic? Let me build up some tension first!”
“You’re worse than a street performer,” I grumble, but I’m secretly enjoying the way our [Researcher] has developed such a fondness for telling stories.
“A low blow,” Rakesh protests. “Now, for your sake, I’ll cut down my account and give you a version with greater brevity.”
“Your calling card,” I tease.
Rakesh tuts, then dives into his story. “A man approached me as I stood opposite those strange, unused shop fronts in a row, catching my eye and making absolutely certain that I knew he was on his way to speak with me. As I turned to engage with him in conversation, his gaze seemed to slide past me, and he bumped into me shoulder-first, nearly knocking me off my feet. By the time I righted myself, he was gone, vanishing entirely from sight and mana-senses alike!”
“So, you got pickpocketed?”
“Just the opposite!”
I snort in disbelief, drawn into Rakesh’s story. “What, he put something into your pocket? That’s ridiculous.”
“Strange, yet true,” Rakesh insists. He pulls out a folded piece of paper and sets it down on the table in front of me, pointing at the odd swirls of ink in triumph.
I squint. “Squiggly lines? Interesting.”
“Nuri. I’m disappointed,” Rakesh says, frowning at me again. “You of all people ought to know what this is! Look more closely.”
“Ah. I see what you mean. His kids got into his papers and scribbled everyone,” I say gravely. “How tragic.”
Rakesh opens his mouth to refute my claim, then catches on to my teasing and rolls his eyes at me. “Very funny.”
“You are pretty funny. Of course I know exactly what it is,” I reply with a smirk. “But why did he give you a rune of vision?”
“You’re incorrigible.” Rakesh sighs. “I think he wants me to see what’s really there, not the illusion blocking the way.”
“Curious theory. How do you propose to do that?” I ask.
“By searching out the rest of the clues. This is only the first of three, if the numbering in the lower right hand corner is accurate.”
I look again, this time more closely, and see what Rakesh is talking about. There’s a tiny box in the corner with a one followed by a slash and three. Either the number is a fraction, or it’s an indication that the paper is one out of three. Rakesh’s theory of two missing notes makes far more sense than assuming it’s a fraction, I have to admit.
I tap my pointer finger on the number box. “Two more scattered around Gilead. How do you propose we find them?” I feel bad pressing the issue, but I’m not sure how we’re going to sift through an entire city for two pieces of paper. I heard a children’s tale before about a boy sent on a fool’s errand to find a single grain of sand in the desert. The moral of the story is to develop patience and perseverance—or maybe it’s that not every goal is realistic; I still don’t know exactly why Ember read it to me when I was young—and this seems just as hard.
“Glad you asked. I suspect that it’s within our capacities to figure out, or else the man wouldn’t have bothered. Besides, you haven’t seen the back of the paper,” Rakesh says with an air of mystery.
I squeeze the back of my neck with my right hand. I forgot how theatrical Rakesh has gotten these days. “All right, I’ll bite. What’s on the back of the paper? And what does this have to do with your announcement about the [Inquisitors] earlier?”
Rakesh waggles his eyebrows at me, flourishing his hands in a complex pattern. With a tremor, the paper lifts up from the table and flips over in the air, drifting back to the table top like a falling leaf in autumn.
The accompanying pulse of mana makes me take a look with Viewing, and sure enough, Rakesh has earned another Skill. At this rate, he’s going to have a difficult time ranking them all up to develop the required potency to push through the Second Threshold bottleneck. I suppose that’s his problem.
He winks at me, as though guessing that I’m peeking into his inner world to figure out what he earned. “It’s [Paper and Ink: Art of the Scholar]. I know, it sounds pretentious and a bit vague, but it essentially means two things. First, I can create simple disguises and blend in by sketching out what I want in ink beforehand. I’ll show you later. Second, I can manipulate paper that’s nearby. I estimate the sphere of influence is about ten strides.”
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“You’ll have an army of birds at this rate. Maybe we should race them if I can create a flock of glass birds to match,” I reply, grinning.
“I’ll take you up on that sometime, Nuri. Now stop stalling! Look,” Rakesh demands, his excitement palpable as he points to the message printed on the back of the paper.
A simple message is stamped in place, clearly applied mechanically—or through a Skill of some sort—instead of written by hand. I wonder if it’s an obscuring tactic, so the writer can’t be traced as easily.
Explore the [Researcher]’s haunt.
“Yep, sounds like you met an [Inquisitor]. He clearly knew who you were. So, he wants you to look in the library for more clues, right?”
Rakesh nods, which makes me relieved that I guessed the library, and not an altogether different place of research, although that still doesn’t narrow it down much. Libraries are rather infamous for containing an abundance of paper and words, after all.
“But why the song and dance?” I ask, drumming my fingers on the table top. “They’re usually the boldest people I know, unafraid to announce their presence anywhere they go. Can you imagine Casella pulling a move like that instead of just summoning you to a meeting?”
“Aha! But that’s just it, Nuri,” Rakesh replies, his eyes aflame with the light of a grand conspiracy. “Not all is well in Gilead. While technically part of Densmore, they’ve been debating secession according to the information I’ve uncovered. Thus, the [Inquisitors] are banned from Gilead. Who would allow spies in your midst?”
With that, a final piece of the puzzle clicks into place for me. I’m not an actual [Inquisitor], since I was never inducted into their order. I don’t bear the infamous Class. And, to top it all off, I was recently on the run as a fugitive from an overzealous [Adjutant] with documented ties to the [Inquisitors]. Even if there are rumors that I’m working with them, chances are quite low that Gilead is on the lookout for little ole me. Besides, I have two compelling and legitimate reasons to seek out the Menders between my missing hand and fractured core, so I’m not likely to be turned away from the city or from the Menders.
Well played, [Chief Inquisitor] Xharrote. Well played. You’ve found someone to do your dirty work in Gilead for you. I hope this is worth it for each of us in the end.
=+=
For the next few days, Rakesh locks himself in the small library in a desperate search for clues. Helping him keep track of the activities around our inn while he’s gone is a great challenge for training [Arcane Domain: My Eyes Shall Pierce the Veil], a Skill that constantly surprises me with its developing nuance.
The sheer amount of information I’m taking in is more than I can process with my current abilities, which often leaves me feeling like I’m standing on the edge of a precipice and about to plummet. It’s disorienting, making me hold onto the wall for balance at odd moments when too many people enter my Domain, or when I try to expand my range of awareness.
Nonetheless, parsing the mana signatures and movement of people around us is good practice. My fine control creeps forward by small degrees, even though I’m draining my glass cores at an alarming rate. I’ve taken a few days break from the Orpheus House, leaving most of the mundane contract work to the Linas since Ozana doesn’t want to flood the market with my imbued pieces.
To help me process the information more smoothly, I try to recall what I can about how Azariah’s smoke-based scrying mirror worked. While the concept is simple, the underlying runes are dizzyingly complex, and my plan to merely copy his scrying magic isn’t going as well as I’d hoped. I have too many unanswered questions. The runes required to display what I’m sensing simply don’t exist in the current iteration of my Skill. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll rank it up anytime soon, which is usually when modifications occur, so that means I’ll have to figure out a way to learn the runes and then modify the Skill manually.
Learning the concepts behind it shouldn’t be difficult, but deciphering the runes is a far more daunting prospect. If not all of them are in our dictionary, then I’ll reach a dead end. There are probably some optimizations I can make, but it’s not the same as a full overhaul of the Skill. If we had a library of runes, then that would make my life infinitely easier, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.
Maybe Rakesh can revolutionize magic when he publishes his findings. Assuming that the [Inquisitors] allow him to publish the runes, of course. They may recognize that I’ve quietly carried on Scalpel’s legacy and only gave them an edited version of her research. Something tells me that they may not take kindly to widely disseminating information that they worked so hard to acquire.
Of course, they may simply opt for redacting portions they don’t want the general public to know about, and allowing Rakesh to publish a tamer, more limited version of his graduate thesis. That’s my hope at any rate, though I have to be careful not to tip my hand and reveal that I learned more from Scalpel than they did. I doubt they will approve anything more substantive than that, but it would be nice if they don’t take away his project entirely.
While contemplating how to improve my runic understanding and upgrade my [Arcane Domain], I suddenly sit up and snap my fingers. I don’t have to decipher the unknown runes that Azariah had. I can duplicate the ones I already have if I can compress a portion of the potential floating around me. I certainly have enough spare material to invert the activation and direction of the runes once I add the duplicates to my Skills.
I sit down in an overstuffed chair, prop my feet up on a small stool, and get comfortable while I peer inward to review my soul space. Like a [Diver] leaping off a cliff, I plunge down into the sea of my soul.
Submerging myself leads to instant shuddering. The void of my inner world is haunting now in its enormous emptiness. The headache-inducing complexity of the tiny, interconnected runes that make up my Skills is only visible when I will myself closer to the crystalline structures. Otherwise, the space is immense, leaving me disoriented as I search for my usual targets.
Ever since I survived channeling the shocking power of the Oletheros core, my soul has expanded a hundredfold at the very least, and maybe more. It’s difficult to measure accurately, honestly, but it’s clear that my potential is far greater than I’ve seen before. I’ve never heard of an inner world so vast. If Scalpel tried to invade my inner sanctum now, she might not even be able to find my Skill structures anymore before giving up out of sheer boredom.
Something about the experience is deeply unsettling, as though I’m in a stranger’s soul. I barely even recognize myself anymore. Even though I know I’m inside my own soul, and there’s no one else around, I keep glancing over my shoulder as though I’m afraid someone is spying on me. Surrounded by so much emptiness, I find myself shivering. I can’t shake the fear that I’m adrift in a terrifying sea, unmoored from the things that make me who I am.
Focus, Nuri, I tell myself sternly. I’m here to review the functions of my [Arcane Domain], not to wrestle with existential dread.
I drift closer to my Skills, searching for the runes related to vision, detection, movement, and displaying what I perceive. There’s got to be a way to mirror them so that my team can see what I’m seeing. Theoretically, I can use them to declare instead of detect—I’ll have to figure out the exact terminology after I get it all working. But I should be able to show my team what I’m observing in the world around me.
Identify. Duplicate. Invert.
Those words become a guiding map, steadying my mental state and leading me onward as I finally approach the cluster of new Skills that I’ve gained since that fateful day in the lesser Rift over a year ago. Locating the massive structure of my [Arcane Domain] doesn’t take long once I arrive, and I immediately begin reviewing and cataloging the esoteric runic arrays.
One by one, I find the runic arrays I’m looking for, tracing the flow of mana as I activate the Skill and monitor everything in the world around me. People passing by show up as lights in my mind, triggering a specific sequence of linked runes. I don’t understand the meaning of each one, but I painstakingly memorize their shape and apparent use. If I can write them down later, then I hope that Melina and Rakesh can help me decipher them.
The longer I’m inside my inner world, trying out different functions of my Domain, the more I piece together the puzzle of the runes in the Skill. Time seems to lose its meaning. Rune shapes, recursive and intricate, fill my mind. All else fades away as I investigate and theorize, until a growing headache breaks my concentration, jarring me out of soul.
“Unnhh,” I groan eloquently. I drag myself over to the counter and get a cup of water. I’m shaky and cold, and my muscles are cramping up, which tells me that I need to eat something. The shadows through the lone window in the common room of our suite are lengthening, which is proof that I’ve been submersed for far longer than I intended.
While I help myself to a simple meal of yogurt and jerked meat, I ponder what my path forward might be to share my Domain’s surveillance abilities with the team. Maybe I’m thinking too narrowly, I tell myself. Maybe I can use [Glass Animation] to forge connections to each of the glass animals I’m making for my teammates. Then I can pass the information along the link so that they’ll get a sense of what’s around us.
“Huh. That might work,” I mutter aloud. Mirroring whatever I see is much simpler than inventing my own illusion runes.
“That’s it!” I yell, jumping right out of my seat and knocking over my cup of water. It’s almost empty, thankfully. “Rakesh’s new Skill is related to ink drawings that overlay him with an illusion. I can’t believe I didn’t make that connection earlier. When he’s back, I’ll have to pester him about taking a look. We might be able to figure this out!”
=+=
That night, the team gathers in the common room after a hearty meal, lounging in our seats and discussing the upcoming week’s activities. The Linas are bubbling over with reports of progress at the Orpheus. Based on what Melina’s experimenting with, there’s a strong chance she might make her own imbuing breakthrough soon. I promise her that I’ll join them soon, once Rakesh is free to resume his guard duty.
Right on cue, Rakesh bustles into the inn. Our favorite [Researcher] storms up the stairs and rushes into the room. He slams the door shut behind him and deploys his favorite paper birds with a flick of his hand; they fold themselves in the air and take up residence in the corners of the room on their own, hovering in the air thanks to his [Paper and Ink] Skill. He’s bouncing on his toes, fairly vibrating with excitement. Something is clearly on his mind, and he can’t wait to share with us.
I wonder what could have happened while he was at the library that could possibly be so invigorating, but that’s just what [Scholars] are like, I guess. New data distribution systems are a cause for celebration. Revolutionary research is hard to define for us normal folk.
“Nuri!” Rakesh booms, rubbing his hands together as he paces. “Remember I told you about that mystery man I bumped into last week? I finally found the other two pieces of paper in the library, tucked into books I reviewed. Like clockwork, he accosted me in the street on my return to the inn. He invited me to join him for a cup of tea at a cafe across the street from the illusion spot. I was so startled by his sudden appearance and unusual offer that I accepted without thinking.”
“Undone by politeness?”
Rakesh smacks his hands together in a loud clap that makes Lionel jump. “Precisely! My mother raised me far too well, apparently. The next thing I know, I’m seated with this odd fellow and drinking a bitter tea not to my liking. It was compelling, I’ll give it that; I downed three cups during our meeting, trying to puzzle out the flavor profile.”
Lionel rests his chin in the palm of his hand and nods at Rakesh from across the table. “I see that you really hated it.”
He doesn’t acknowledge Lionel’s snark with any response, which only makes Lionel, Mikko, and me laugh all the harder at Rakesh, who appears as dignified as ever. He’s always had an uncanny ability to ignore distractions.
“While we ate, he drew portions of a simple rune on a napkin. I recognized that it was missing pieces, so naturally I sketched out the rest of it.”
“Naturally,” Avelina murmurs.
“Then he started doodling on other napkins in the cafe,” Rakesh continues, unfazed by Avelina’s interruption. “He shared some of the silly drawings with the kids around us, but a few he slid across the table to me. If I didn’t know as much about runes as I do—largely thanks to you, Nuri—then I never would have recognized what he was doing. Don’t stick your tongue out at me! I never said you had nothing valuable to add the other day.”
I burst out laughing. “You walked into that one, you know? No need for the perspective of the common man, hah! I’ve been waiting to get you back for insinuating that I lacked refinement when we last spoke. You’re welcome for the runes, though.”
“Nuri, you’re incorrigible.”
“I try,” I say happily.
Rakesh buries his head in his hands.
I nudge him. “Go on. What happened next? I wanna know how it all turned out.”
Rakesh strides over to the counter and pours himself a drink from our communal pitcher of water. He slakes his thirst, lets out a satisfied sigh, and returns to pacing instead of taking a seat opposite me. Maybe he feels more like a true storyteller this way.
“Right. He definitely knew that I could tease out the meaning of the fragments based on the associated runes. It’s quite possible that Mel, you, and I are the only ones in the city besides him who could reassemble the runes and solve the puzzle. Certainly a complicated plan. I’m not sure why he didn’t just give me the finished ward, instead of waiting for me to fix each part of the runes. But, when I completed stacking the sketches in the right pattern and revealed the runes, combined with the three pieces I got from him previously, the illusion fell away.”
“What did you see? Was it a secret stash of artifacts? Perhaps a hidden safehouse with [Inquisitors] spying on the populace?” Melina asks, her eyes bright. The rapid-fire stream of questions betrays her own excitement, and I can’t help but smile.
“Did he take the ward right back and disassemble it?” I ask, considering what I would have done in that situation.
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
I hum to myself. “He probably didn’t want to risk it falling into the wrong hands. Smart to keep it well-hidden.”
“Hm, perhaps. He sent me home with half of the bifurcated runes. Enough to recreate the ward if needed. He gave away the other half. In between our conversations, he occasionally handed out doodles to passing children, as I said, which probably distracted onlookers from his true purpose. Perhaps that will scatter the pieces to the four winds.”
“Rakesh! Answer my sister’s question. What did you see?” Avelina interrupts. Her arms are crossed, and she’s leveling a fake glare at the [Secretarial Researcher].
“That’s the beauty of it,” Rakesh says, an impish smile on his face. “Nothing at all. It’s a meeting place, but only for those who have the ward. That way, they don’t leave any evidence of their presence. There’s nothing there but an empty lot.”