Private Tales Old Connections, and New.

[Erren Serris]

Despite all the misfortune that had befallen him for the last few years, even now it seemed that not all was truly lost. Erren Serris was leaving the office of Hieronymous Pangloss with a considerably brighter outlook than he'd had when first trudging into the old castle of regrets and mistakes that loomed over him even when he was miles away from it. Throughout all of his trials; the stripping of his title, the cover-up of his brother's untimely demise, and the growing needs of his son, he still had an ally, and Hieronymous was a powerful ally indeed.

Promising to return the next day to formulate further plans, Erren carefully made his way through the back halls of the Arcanomancy wing, grateful that Hieron had offered to let him use the exit leading out towards the rear gates to avoid the inevitable crowd of students and Professors whom he really didn't have any desire to speak to. Most of them believed the story spun by the Foard about his actions, and to say the looks he received were dirty would be a massive understatement. Still, the empty, torchlit halls and the sounds of only his own boots against the stone floors gave him time to think about everything, about Pangloss, and about this Prism...

If the Prism was as powerful as the rumors stated, it wasn't something that Serris truly wanted in the hands of the College. It wasn't something he wanted in the hands of anybody, really. Still, it wasn't as though the mage had much of a choice. He was beholden to the establishment, and if he did find the Prism, he could at least then keep it out of far more nefarious clutches.

The warm midday air aided in easing his mind at least, as the old wooden door leading into the rear courtyard squeaked open with age. Students rarely used this yard, and many Professors forgot it even existed. Blinking the sun from his eyes, Serris took a seat on one of the old benches lining the courtyard wall. It would be a shame to waste the chance to enjoy the fresh air for a moment...

Though there was something odd about it.

Veliata Eründalis

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

"Oy; stop! Aye, ye there!"

The unpleasantly nasal, whining voice came from towards the courtyard's exit. Unfortunately, it was also a voice that Erren would almost certainly recognize as belonging to Rogier L'Meaux. Sure enough, was Erren to glance to his right, he would have an all-too-clear view of the grossly overweight Maester in his tastelessly gaudy yellow-and-pink robes, short arms awkwardly crossed in a manner that he probably thought looked officious and imposing, but which instead came across as impotently pretentious.

L'Meaux's pallid, greasy face was set in a toadlike frown of distaste; however, to Erren's likely relief, the pompous fellow's attention and ire were—at least for the moment—directed elsewhere, towards someone just outside the door (and thus, as yet, still out of view). "This area's reserved fer Maesters, elf. Ye'll have t'go 'round, t'the main gate." This last remark was punctuated with a barely-suppressed smirk. Of course he, of all people, would be lurking around a special exit not known to the general public ... L'Meaux might never have had the talent to reach beyond the Second Order, but that had never stopped him throwing his considerable weight around as if he owned half the College.

"How very peculiar." The cultured voice that answered was somehow at once both exquisitely polite and coldly dismissive in the same breath. There was something about it that immediately grabbed one's attention; perhaps it was the accent, faint but present and difficult to place; or maybe it was the way the words seemed almost to linger in the ear after they were spoken as if the sound itself carried an unnatural weight. "I don't seem to recall the northeast courtyard being a restricted location. In fact, I believe the purpose behind its initial construction was simply to alleviate congestion through the main halls. There should be a note on the specifics in the 38th bi-annual college finance ledger under section four, subsection three; in the chapter on architectural renovations, if memory serves."

L'Meaux's eyebrows slammed together in startled perplexity, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he sputtered an indignant response. "W-well ... ye can't ... that ain't relevant! I'm a damn Maester of th' Second Order; ye best show some respect!"

"Oh, but of course. Sincerest apologies, I should have introduced myself." Scarcely ever had a more insincere and carelessly dismissive apology been heard. As she spoke, the second voice's owner stepped at last through the door, somehow managing to look down her nose at her puffed-up adversary despite being only an inch or so taller. "Veliata Eründalis; Maester, Fifth Order."

Erren Serris​

 

[Erren Serris]

Truthfully Erren had been unfortunately aware of L'meaux's presence. Even as he lounged in the midday sun he couldn't ignore the haughty throat clearing that the rotund Maester made a habit of doing whenever he saw somebody who wasn't paying attention to him. Serris would continue to pay him no attention to him, too, because L'meaux knew better than to try and big league him after the last time he'd done it. It was true Erren was no Maester anymore, but that also meant he couldn't be too terribly punished for threatening his former colleague with nasty hair-loss spell.

Still, to hear him doing his best impression of somebody important to a wandering passerby wasn't an uncommon thing, even if it was obnoxious. Erren was content to lean back in his seat and perhaps drift into an afternoon nap before headed home and spending some much-needed quality time with his son. That is, until he heard the unlucky soul that L'meaux was targeting talk back to him.

"There should be a note on the specifics in the 38th bi-annual college finance ledger under section four, subsection three; in the chapter on architectural renovations, if memory serves."

Never mind. Suddenly whatever was happening at the gate to the courtyard was far more interesting to the former Maester. The resting eyes hidden beneath windswept hair opened to search out whoever it was that had just beaten the pig-like man at his own game. Through the glint of sunlight off of the shining surface of the iron bars making up the fence around them, he saw a slender robed figure in front of Rogier, postured with all the poise of a Royal from Dalraida.

"A woman? This I have to see..." Not only was L'meaux wielder of an ego bigger than Elbion itself, but he was also known to be a bit of a misogynist, and the one dressing him down looked to be a lovely sight, not that he was taking stock. A wide smile split his lips as Rogier struggled and stammered against her reasoning, perhaps the gods above had seen fit to repay him for his woes with a bit of entertainment?

"Veliata Eründalis; Maester, Fifth Order."

Any thoughts of humor quickly left the Ex-Maester, his boots hitting the stone beneath him as he rose from the bench and stood up straight. Eründalis? Here? Erren had never met the Elven Artificer himself, but he'd heard the stories. Veliata's work was revered by any student of the Metaphysical, and to this day her reports on Ythenite were regarded as the definitive source of information on the topic.

Erren had assumed that she'd retired, or that she'd been vanished by the Foard as they'd did to his brother. Yet here she was now, passing a baffled and speechless Rogier L'meaux and now passing directly in front of him.

Without hesitation, he bowed his head.

"Maester Eründalis! It's an honor to meet you, Madam. Erren Serris, Maester of the Second. Er... former Maester, rather..."

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

Ebony eyes slid smoothly over to Erren, flitting briefly up and down, seeming to see all of him, to see through him, striking almost like a physical blow as the elf slowed mid-stride. Somehow, despite being a good inch or so shorter than he was, she managed to look down her nose at him.

"Dispense with the groveling, former Maester Serris. There are better things to do than wasting both our times with 'honor' this and 'madam' that." Her piercing dark eyes narrow, and one of her pointed ears twitches, ever so slightly. "Did you want something of me?"

Behind Veliata, L'Meaux made an exceedingly rude gesture as she spoke, glaring daggers at both her and Erren, before impotently slinking off, his helpless humiliation practically hanging over him like his own personal raincloud.

 

[Erren Serris]

Her words were cold, biting, and to the point. Not exactly the reception he'd been hoping for, but nonetheless better than how the glaring impudent behind them had fared. Still, Erren couldn't help but wear the faintest hint of a smirk on his lips as he rose from his bow. Not one for pleasantries then.

"Well, with the way you were educating our colleague back there I assumed you were one who stuck to the rules. Am I not supposed to show deference to a Maester of higher order?" Were he still a Maester, he would have never offered the playful jab, but what exactly did he have to lose? The chances that somebody as important to the College as Veliata would help him were already virtually nonexistent.

Virtually, indeed. There was, however, that chance....

"Banter aside... Perhaps I do have an interesting proposition for you. Do you remember Maester Pangloss?" Erren crossed his arms over his chest, shifting uncomfortable. The student in him was screaming for him to stand down, speaking to somebody of such high renown in such casual manner. That part of him would need to get over itself. " If the two of us are ever after a powerful, one-of-a-kind artifact, perhaps somebody with your interests could be convinced to aid us?"

Quickly he added. "Of course, all hypothetical. Nothing the Foard needs to be aware of,"

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

One silver eyebrow rose slightly from behind an ornate monocle. "A bold one, aren't you?" Her hand fell to her side, the pointed metal tips fastened to her fingers drumming idly against what seemed to be a bona fide ythenite orb fastened to her belt. The tapping of metal on crystal rang with a faint resonance that hung in the air oddly, the crystals below shifting to and fro and echoing the sound in a fashion almost akin to that of wind chimes—that is, if they shifted of their own volition. "... or perhaps merely desperate."

As the soft ringing of the ythenite chimes echoed quietly through the courtyard, there was a sudden odd feeling in Erren's ears, almost like an abrupt shift in pressure. The elf leaned in a hair closer, dark eyes inscrutable, her expression giving away absolutely nothing. "I wonder—what would you do if I were to take this intelligence you have bestowed upon me and go at once to the Foard?"

 

[Erren Serris]

Standing toe to toe, the two of them painted a picture of two opposite ends. Veliata was adorned in the garb of a powerful and respected member of the Arcane, her time away not compromising her presence or demeanor. Erren stood across from her in clothes that were certainly once splendorous before they'd met the sands of the Savannah, the snows of the Spine, and the salt of the Black Bay.

Yet Erren took her words as a compliment. Bold he was, but then he had nothing to lose. A coy smile rested on his lips and his respectful, deferring posture relaxed into a casual shrug of his shoulders when she presented him with an interesting hypothetical of her own. Serris wouldn't blame her for going to the Foard. By all means, it was her duty as a Maester to do so. "Well, I would be forced to flee the city for the rest of my life. The Foard would investigate Hieronymous and find nothing, and you would never know what this mysterious and powerful relic I speak of could be."

Erren's only hope was to target the Ythenite Witch's well-documented curiosity. To dangle the carrot of knowledge in front of any mage was a very effective bargaining chip. Serris crosses his arms, angling his view downward to look slightly up at her. "Certainly, you can see how a temporary partnership could be a win-win scenario for both of us..."

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

A tense second passed. Then another. The elf's eyes were as unreadable as they were searching, her expression revealing nothing of what she saw in the former Maester; those few seconds passing might as well have been an eternity.

And then, abruptly, she gave a curt nod. "Careless, perhaps, but earnest. It's a start." Veliata lifted her hand from the ythenite orb; at once, the crystalline chimes beneath it stilled their motions and the uncanny, muffled heaviness in the air subsided. "I will hear you out. I promise no more than that, but that much I will do. Come."

And then, without another word, the elf turned away, striding swiftly back into the College without so much as bothering to see if Erren would follow after her. Though her dismissively curt manner gave nothing away on the surface, there was a distinct feeling that Erren had just been somehow tested ... and what's more, that he had seemingly passed, although for better or worse yet remained to be seen.

 

[Erren Serris]

It wasn't the first time he'd been called careless and it would in no way be the last. The eyes that Veliata stared into were ones devoid of care for the consequences. Not out of recklessness, but born of loss. For what did Erren have to lose? So much had been taken, it was difficult to fathom things falling further than they already had.

"One moment is all I seek, Veliata." She didn't want him to grovel, so he would speak to her as he would any other. "That you lend an ear is more a boon than you realize." Serris took a smaller bow and stepped aside as she moved past him to lead the way back inside the College.

Erren could only wonder if that piercing gaze of hers could see how broken he was already. Would she take that too as a weakness? Not as though he could blame her. If he was half of who he'd once been, he'd have asked much more firmly, no doubt.

Tailing close to the stride of the Witch as she weaved her way back into the large bastion of education, Erren remained silent. Whatever she'd been searching for in him, she seemed content with what she'd learned. Best not test things any further.

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

The Ythenite Witch moved with measured, decisive steps down the winding corridors and long hallways of the college, a certain self-assuredness in her bearing. The occasional students and maesters that she passed quickly stepped aside to make way, leaving a collection of bemused, irritated, baffled, and irate looks in her wake staring after her—and after Erren as well.

Despite Veliata being a bit shorter than Erren, and the unrushed deliberateness with which she moved, she somehow walked swiftly enough that he would be left struggling to keep pace; indeed, she was moving at that awkward speed that was too slow to match a jog but too fast to keep up with while walking. This doubtless did not help with the awkward feeling of having questioning eyes upon him. Fortunately, however, they soon passed out of the more heavily trafficked main halls, and down narrower side passages that were far less immediately familiar.

At the end of a particularly long hallway lined with narrow, dusty windows that looked only towards a windowless wall a few feet away, Veliata turned off and through a heavy wooden door whose hinges screamed like a dying animal as it grated open, revealing a short, dimly-lit staircase leading down into a long, dusty hall almost entirely devoid of light except for a single sputtering torch partway down one side that looked as if it would soon join its numerous neighbors in being completely burned out.

The old office wing. Well, they certainly wouldn't be overheard here; no one had used this wing in longer than anyone could bother to remember. It had probably once housed the majority of the upper ranks of the Maesters, but these days it was only a place for dust to gather, undisturbed except for the occasional mischief-maker in hiding or lovers seeking privacy. But ... why would she lead him here specifically?

A visible layer of unbroken dust covered the black-and-white tiled marble floor. Cobwebs hung so thickly in the air that it was almost like walking through smoke, and the elf's lip curled slightly in distaste, waving a hand in front of her to dispel some of them as she strode forward, the lone torch flickering in the wake of her passage as she stepped past the weathered old doors that lined either side of the hallway at regular intervals.

Finally, Veliata stopped at the very end of the hallway, facing a stone brick wall. The dust on the walls and floor lay thick here, almost entirely obscuring what it covered, and matters were not aided by the near-total darkness; the dim light filtering down the hallway from the dying torch and the door at the top of the stairs was scarcely visible this far in.

 

[Erren Serris]

Erren did his best to match pace with her, although it was clear that she had little regard for his own comfort. She was going to listen because it interested her, not out of any sort of pity or sympathy. Serris understood that, and in some ways he preferred it.

Hieronymous pitied him enough, and while the ex-Maester appreciated such sentiment, it did little but make him feel even smaller than he'd truly become. No, this was business, and Veliata made that perfectly clear with her actions. That honesty was appreciated.

Weaving through the more crowded hallways, lined with busy students and watchful Professors alike, Erren kept his head down and eyes on the legs of the woman ahead of him. It didn't really upset him; he'd been getting dirty looks for years now, so the reception was expected.

Even so, he'd learned not to make unnecessary eye contact with the staff. More than a couple of them took such looks as an invitation to try and make an example out of him, and butting heads with Professors didn't make him look any better.

Ducking through a side corridor and into the musty halls that ran perpendicular to the main passages like veins through a body. Erren had all of this mapped out in his head at one point, years and years prior. Now it was all hidden under a thick veil of far harsher memories, and after only a few turns he found he'd no idea where the elven lady had taken him, a layer of age coating every surface, the air itself weighing down his shoulders with the saturation of dust and Gods know what else.

Even if he'd been here before, such recollection yielded to curiosity. What use did she have for this old aging wing of the School? Perhaps her old office still resided here?

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

As she paused before the wall, Veliata coughed slightly, waving a hand in front of her face to further disperse the dust, muttering something under her breath in what sounded like her native elven tongue. Shaking her head, she reached into her robe and withdrew a small, perfectly round disc crafted from solid silver and bordered by a thin band of pure gold, engraved with curiously angular patterns of interlocking runes that collectively formed a labyrinthine pattern around the disc.

A pattern that, now that Erren saw it, looked markedly similar to that of bricks on a stone wall ...

Even as that realization struck, the elf lightly tapped the disc with the metal-capped tip of one of her fingers, letting out a pure, crystalline ringing that echoed through the dusty old hall with incongruously brilliant clarity. A second time she tapped it, and as the chime sounded, a faint blue light began to gleam along the runes set into the disc, illuminating the darkness with a faint, unearthly glow.

When she struck it a third time, another sound answered: a deep ringing, a heavy knell many octaves below the ringing of that tiny disc, so deep and resonant as to send faint tremors echoing tangibly down the very spines of the listeners. Now, Veliata simply held the tiny device by the golden band, resting it carefully between the tips of her fingers as she held it up to the wall before them, and yet the ringing continued, at a slow, regular rhythm, matched by the low, heavy, gong-like pealing of ... whatever it was.

Before Erren's eyes, the silver disc gradually began to rotate within its golden ring; and as it did so, the wall in front of them slowly began to do so as well, matching the motion one for one. Nary a sound beyond the tolling rings but a faint grinding of polished stone against itself was audible as the dust-covered wall slowly spun into the ground, with bricks polished clean by their long immersion circling up to take the wall's place.

After a long moment, the silver disc finally clicked to a halt, tolling out a final long bell-like chime, with the opening of the runic "labyrinth" now stationed at the top of the disc. The wall itself, likewise, ground to a halt. Where once there had been but dusty stone bricks ahead, there now was a wall of polished stone, in whose center stood a silver-bound door of finest aged mahogany. Curiously, the door had no handle, but rather a single circular depression set into the center precisely the size of the disc the ancient Maester now held.

Without hesitation, Veliata stepped forward, pressing the disc into the depression, and at once the door swung soundlessly inwards with nary a squeak of its still-untarnished hinges, beams of genuine sunlight streaming through onto the dust-strewn floor beyond. There was a certain air of satisfaction about her as she stepped inside, with a nod to Erren to follow.

The room beyond simply boggled the mind to witness.

Directly before the door was a wide landing, with a polished banister in front of it overlooking a lower level. To each side, the landing extended out into narrower platforms along the bases of the curved walls, which were lined floor-to-ceiling in bookcases filled to the brim with countless tomes and scrolls, interspersed with curious tools and figures and models and knickknacks of every imaginable shape and description, fashioned from everything from brass to crystal to gold to glass to silver to polished ivory. Rune-engraved prisms and curiously-shaped skulls stood in company with compasses and astrolabes, fantastical statues of unknowable creatures sat next to bizarre diagrams and decanters filled with brightly-colored liquids, and coils of chain and rope shared space with alien insects suspended in amber and twisted knots of metal and glass that defied description. Clawlike silver sconces stretched forth from the shelves at regular intervals, bearing not torches, but cloudy crystal globes that—at a metallic snap of Veliata's fingers—gleamed with soothing light, as pale blue flame sparked slowly to life within each. A short way around the room, doors just like that which had granted entry to this place were set into the shelves, one on each side, doubtless leading to further rooms full of mysterious and unidentifiable paraphernalia.

Just ahead, the landing extended further forward, and to either side, a curved staircase spiraled down, leading to a circular floor adorned with an elaborate mosaic in countless brilliant shades of blue, white, silver, black, and gold, each in more varieties of the shade than might have elsewhere seemed possible. The mosaic featured an abstract spiral of twisting, coiled vines, elegantly circling out into a dark border from a starlike, brilliant shape in the center whose shape was somewhere between that of a stylized flower and a gemstone. Arranged around the floor below were various small wooden tables and stands holding strange instruments and devices whose functions could only be guessed at. In the far back of that lower floor, between and beneath where the landing and bookshelves ended to either side, sat a fine mahogany desk engraved further with a swirling vine motif akin to that seen elsewhere in the room.

A thin veil of dust hung in the air over it all, though far less than that which lay rotting over the foul hall just beyond, and the reason for that lack of dust was at once evident, as it was by far one of the most striking features of the room: from floor to ceiling on the far wall, and extending over the entirety of the ceiling itself, the room was enclosed not by stone, but rather by polished glass, crystal-clear, allowing for a gorgeous view out over the nearby ocean that lay just beyond the mountains on which the college stood and permitting unfettered access to the cleansing rays of the sun.

It was into this wonderous chamber that Veliata strode with easy confidence, for once the faintest hint of a smile crossing her stoic face as she reached the railing, with the distinctive air of someone arriving home after a long departure.

As intoxicating as that might have been, however, the elf allowed herself but a moment to enjoy it before turning back, her face serious and emotionless as that of a statue once more as she fixed her gaze upon Erren with a hint of impatience. "Well? Come in, then; I've no time to waste on senseless gawking."

 

[Erren Serris]

Erren had heard rumors, whispered even in his first year, but... This was beyond anything he'd believed was truth. The first inkling of it that came to his mind occurred when he saw the disc that she carried. Or, to be more precise, its design. He'd seen those runes and patterns before, and the recognition brought a bright smile to his face even as the ludicrously complex door that Veliata opened should have been playing hell with his mind.

Many years ago, when Erren was still fresh-faced and new to these halls, he'd found himself as part of a group of young, curious-minded students who made it their mission to explore every nook and cranny of the ancient building they studied in. Naturally, this was discouraged, and more often than not the group found themselves in hot water with the College staff, but it was all in good fun, and they persisted, even devising their own code and symbols to communicate with one another.

That labyrinthine symbol Veliata carried was their logo, taken from an old piece of parchment dog-eared and forgotten in this very wing. The winding and interlocking lines seemed a fitting representation of the college itself, and they all had figured it was nothing more than an old drawing ripped from a book.

How things come full circle.

As Erren watched the wall begin to rotate and heard the sound of bells as they began to harmonize, he couldn't help but wonder what his peers, wherever they were now, would think of the sight before them. The legendary Veliata Eründalis, unlocking one of the oldest secrets of the College right before their eyes. And the chamber beyond was full of even more wonder, colors, and lights of all shades and hues baking the walls, old but vibrant as things beyond the imagination lined every surface, every shelf of Veliata's chamber.

To Serris, it was far too much to pick apart now. All of it begged for his attention and study, and now simply wasn't the time. Maybe if he could get on the Elven Witch's good side, he could convince her to let him poke around a bit more thoroughly. For now, Erren followed her inside with a low whistle of appreciation towards the view on offer.

"Incredible. I knew there must be a way in this section looking at it from the outside, but I never imagined..."

He shook his head. To the point, Erren. Eründalis wasn't known for her patience.

"Maester, what do you know of soul magic? Of influencing one's very life being?"

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

Maester, what do you know of soul magic? Of influencing ones very life being?

The elven maester had already begun making her way down the rightmost of the two circling stairways that led down to the central mural-adorned floor below, one hand trailing idly along the polished mahogany of the railing. At Erren's words, however, she paused, head turning back to survey him with slightly narrowed eyes. "... very to-the-point. It's a start, at least. But even yet, it would seem that—former Maester or not—you have yet to shed this instution's infuriating proclivity for endowing the linguistics of its students with ambiguities and imprecise platitudes to cultivate mystique over method."

With that cutting rebuke now delivered, Veliata resumed her descent, stepping swiftly over to one of the tables on the floor below when she arrived there and beginning to sort through the table's contents with casual efficiency, pausing every now and again to study a curious gemstone or brush accumulated dust off a lens. She continued speaking as she did so, apparently confident enough in her work to hold a conversation simultaneously despite her seeming attention on her sorting.

"Granted, I know more than a few things about what you might call 'soul magic.' But in what sense of the soul?" Picking up a small golden astrolabe that somehow seemed at a glance to have more moving parts than should quite be able to fit into it, the elf twisted at a small knob on the side a couple times, then set it aside with a faint grimace. "You mention 'influencing one's living being.' But influencing in what capacity? Through what medium? Is mentalism or participatory psychosomatic consent a required or even relevant component? Is this via a device or some form of direct manipulation by the wielder?" Stepping sideways around the table, she lifted a small telescope with an oddly elongated, prismatic lens with countless tiny, triangular facets dividing its surface in a complex array of orientations, peering through it with her unmonocled eye for a moment, before setting it back down with a slight shake of the head—evidently still not what she needed. "For that matter, what do you mean by 'living being?' Clearly, the influence of this 'living being' is what you refer to when saying 'soul magic.' But what is it that is influenced? The chemical and alchemical energies of a still-living body? The metaphysical patterns of mentalistic encoding? The runic or sigillographic means via which either of those may be analyzed, duplicated, resonated, encoded, or otherwise affected?"

As she asked this, Veliata finally seemed to find what she was looking for: a curious metal device of countless interlocking circles of slender gold wire, fixed with tiny blue gems at the junctions, with so many little threads going here and there and every other which way that it was impossible to see where one circle ended and another began. Carefully aligning the whole thing between her hands with the casual ease of long practice, the imposing woman held the center up to her eye—the monocled one, this time—as she turned briskly back to Erren. "Hold still a moment—there, that's good." She leaned forward slightly, eye narrowing as she studied him, the bands slowly turning of their own volition and the tiny blue gemstones flashing with curious little sparkles of light in regular, pulsing heartbeat patterns that shifted around the edges of the device.

"You see, these are the details you omit when you simply speak of 'soul magic' or 'influencing a life being' in general." With a faint nod of satisfaction, Veliata turned away again, looking back to the table, where she set the device back down. There, she slowly and carefully began to turn the axes of the wires that comprised it, gradually assembling the still-flashing gems and the wires that bore them into the spokes and skeleton of a complex, multifaceted, and multilayered quasi-spheroid of sorts. "They are labels that you have applied to the subject of your proposed discussion, and thus you are the one to know what they mean. So my question to you, then, is this: given that I know of things in my area of expertise and beyond that most likely relate to what you have hinted at, can you elaborate further?" She glanced back up briefly, dark eyes revealing nothing. "Oh—you may move freely again, apologies."

 

[Erren Serris]

Erren had heard a great many things about Maester Eründalis in his time. The accolades and reputation she'd built over her many, many years at the College were nothing short of astounding. It was only now, though, that he made an observation that none of the grandiose tales of her had seen fit to mention: She would never settle for ten words where one hundred could also be used. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise that she would be so expectant of more intricate details of his plight, but her tone left the former Maester rather unamused, to say the least.

And it continued, every time Erren would open his mouth to answer her question, she would compound it with more and leave him waiting for her to finish once again, all the while digging through her various tools that Serris admittedly wouldn't mind having a moment to explore himself and examining him with a particularly odd one, peering through its complicated as she scanned him up and down. It was as though he'd come seeking her help and had instead become another experiment.

For some reason, he didn't feel that was a good thing.

Erren prided himself on being an attentive listener, but by the end of Veliata's spiel, it was difficult to hear anything but gibberish. The moment she gave him the okay to move his hands raised to his temples, eyes squinting shut for a moment. "Miss Eründalis, please." An opportunity to interject finally presented itself as she stepped away, Erren himself taking a few steps over to the golden, blue-dotted device she'd just used on him, tilting his head to get a better look without laying a hand on it.

"A simple 'Elaborate, please." would have done, all due respect." It may have sounded rather sassy towards a woman of her stature, but it was spoken with a smile; Erren was going to make jokes whether she could take them or not. "Besides, you're assuming I know exactly what aspect of the 'soul' this is in regards to. If I had the object we seek in front of me I could likely give you all of those answers, but alas, finding the catalyst is the issue at hand." Erren reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling out a small rolled piece of parchment and handing it to her. "What I do know is written here. Reaka's Prism."

This was the do-or-die moment. If Eründalis found no interest in the artifact he sought, there was no reason for her to help him.

"Heavily rumored, but never confirmed by the College to exist, it's said this Prism has the ability to store and transfer a 'soul'. What exactly that entails is unclear, but the College has expressed a very sudden interest in finding and taking it for themselves. My colleague and I are of the belief that if this Prism does what we suspect, it must not find their hands."

 

[Veliata Eründalis]

An opportunity to interject finally presented itself as she stepped away, Erren himself taking a few steps over to the golden, blue-dotted device shed just used on him, tilting his head to get a better look without laying a hand on it.

"A simple 'Elaborate, please.' would have done, all due respect."

Was that the faintest of approving smiles that flickered across the elf's face at the reprimand? Hard to say; if it was, the expression was gone in an instant, and Veliata's eyes never left the inscrutable device held so delicately at the tips of the metal claws that capped her fingers, even as she listened to Erren's words.

When the former Maester presented the parchment in his outstretched hand, Veliata made no move to take it; instead, she continued her work, listening to what he had to say in full. The elf might have been wordy on a whim, but she could undoubtedly listen without interruption, at least. At the mention of the college's sudden interest in the Prism, a slight frown creased her brow, and she finally looked up again, pausing the spinning of the many-threaded device with one hand as she extended her other with a slight flick of the wrist.

Swifter than a striking snake, a slender metal chain darted forth from the voluminous interior of her robe. Thin hooks at the end, almost like elaborate oversized fishhooks in design, curled with all the graceful elegance of a musician's hand about the proffered parchment, before the chain coiled back, neatly carrying the scroll back to its mistress. With a flick of one of the hooklike "fingers," the device unfurled the parchment, holding it suspended steadily before her eyes as Veliata turned back to her work, her eyes now flitting over the written contents even as her hands continued their work with the unerring ease of long practice.

Beneath her hands, the dynamic skeleton mesh of the arcane spheroid gradually slowed and stilled. The tiny blue lights that pulsed at its edge aligned, and a hollow center gradually expanded and opened from within. Within that center, a hovering, translucent, multi-faceted, and three-dimensional glyph gradually began to take shape in the intersections of the inward-facing beams of azure illumination, though its meaning was—to all intents and purposes—as yet indecipherable. As the glyph grew fully clear, the spinning fibers of the device finally ceased their motions, and Veliata carefully pulled away, crossing her arms as she now gave her full focus to the parchment in front of her. Her lips pursed slightly in thought as the chain holding the parchment turned it over and she briefly skimmed the back. Her frown deepened further in the greatest display of emotion she had yet shown.

"... this is a most indubitably disturbing design you present me with." Although the elf's tone does not change, there is a new gravity to her words. "A device such as this ought to be impossible to construct without risking immense instability, both to the artifact itself and to the mediums of its operation ... at a glance, such a design presents barely the remotest hope of long-term functionality that does not ensure its own inevitable and rapid self-destruction. The creator must have been either utterly mad or an absolute genius of artifice—and frankly, I'm unsure which option perturbs me more." With a mild grimace, she tapped lightly on the parchment with one finger, the metal talon rasping against the parchment. "Judging by the ill-construed scrawlings on the rear of this excerpt, your source was wholly lacking in confidence regarding what precisely this device was even meant to do. I would hope for their sake that they didn't actually attempt to make use of this artifact, but—given the lack of further information—I can only surmise that they must have been somewhat lacking in that particular brand of self-restraint ..."

With a shake of her head, Veliata turned back to the table, crouching down somewhat to study the glyph now contained within the shell of the device she'd aimed at Erren and then so carefully adjusted. The chain, meanwhile, darted back toward the former Maester almost as if with a mind of its own, apparently offering the parchment back. "... you possess a rather unusual potency, former Maester Serris. Pray tell, what is—or, perhaps more appropriately, was—your field of specialization?" Her expression remains as stoic as ever, offering no hints to explain the sudden change in topic.

 

[Erren Serris]

It was refreshing that, for what was perhaps the first time since their initial meeting in the courtyard, Veliata was constrained to saying things that he already knew. When she wasn't exercising the vast mental high ground she held over himself and likely everybody else in this massive institution, she was actually somewhat fascinating to watch; he'd never seen anyone move in such a way that no motion was wasted for any reason. If any of the muscles in her body so much as twitched, it was for a specific purpose. You could have convinced Erren she was some sort of beautiful machine in the way she examined the parchment, and the mechanical appendage she used to do so seemed to support that fantastical theory.

Truthfully, that scrap of parchment was but one page of a large notebook, and this was evident by the small perforations along one side of the paper that Veliata now inspected. The rest of the notebook was yet to be found, but what little they had was worrying enough as it stood, something that the Maester seemed to be in agreeance with as she finished her initial appraisal of the work written in front of her. What remained unspoken was his strong suspicions as to why the College held such a strong desire for curation of this cursed creation.

"You see now why it has Maester Pangloss and myself concerned, no?" Erren carefully retrieved the parchment from the strange chain and claw, rolling it back up into a tube and tucking it into his satchel. "The idea behind the artifact's use is sound enough, but the execution without any sense of precaution or addition to the process... It's entirely too haphazard to be safe. I believe personally that the Prism could indeed be used in such a manner as described, but not without a bevy of extra measures and improvements." Curiously, he leaned over her as she examined the instrument she'd just been using, a brow raising as he continued. "And honestly, even then I don't think I would support such an experiment from an ethical standpoint."

There wasn't any signature on the one page they possessed, but Erren did pray that whoever had written it hadn't attempted to actually go through with such a brazen attempt to circumvent the known laws of magic. It reeked of desperation, and desperation drove men to do horrible things. Much worse than tampering with the soul.

The Ythenite master soon turned her queries back to him, in a rather sudden shift in the conversation. Serris could only surmise that the instrument she'd been examining was a means of gauging his 'potency' as she referred to it. Flattering as it was to hear he was above average; he couldn't help but smirk somewhat sophomorically at her phrasing. "Well, coming from you I'd say that's high praise for my 'potency'." He joked, before crossing his arms and growing a shade more serious. "In my time here, I pioneered the study of using one's magic to alter the fates. Probability adjustment, you could say. I've developed techniques to make a less likely outcome of an action more likely, and vice versa. It's all dependent on the power of the user and out in the world there are far too many variables for it to be foolproof, but it works."

Perhaps a simple demonstration was in order? Yes, that was doable.... It was such a lovely day outside, the cloudless sky visible through the ceiling of this grand chamber... Clearing his throat, Erren raises a hand skyward, muttering a few incomprehensible words under his breath. For a minute it seemed like nothing had occurred, but then, a single cloud floated across the sky, as black as night, pouring down a thick sheet of rain as it meandered by.