“Lady Mage!” a boisterous voice called all too loudly through the temple.
Pellen looked up. The swordsman from Lord Kohen’s party waved at her as he walked up.
“Sir Daidyn?” she asked. Was everyone here today to pray for their lords? She once again wondered if she should do the same, though, again, she wondered who that lord would be.
“I thought that was you!” he said, still too loudly for the temple. A few people shot him dirty looks, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You here with Miss Cass?”
Pellen shook her head. “She asked me to wait for her, but it seems something came up, and she left without me.”
He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think she’s come out yet.”
Pellen blinked. “No. The priest said Miss Cass left before she talked to anyone.”
He shook his head again. “No, a Fortitude Priest was chatting with her right here, and then they went downstairs. She hasn’t come back yet.”
Pellen frowned. Was the priest she spoke to mistaken then? Perhaps another priest came and spoke with Cass before the one he sent her had a chance?
Or maybe something else is going on, a dark thought whispered at the back of her mind.
But why? What?
She didn’t have any good explanations.
Pellen stood and walked back across the temple to the priest’s door. She knocked. A moment later, a different priest opened the door.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“Did a slyphid woman come through here?” Pellen asked. “About this tall,” she stood on her toes and held her hand up, “Dark hair, fair skin, very blue eyes, blue robes? Carrying a staff?”
The priest, an acolyte of Strength, frowned. “I did not see. May I ask why you search for her?”
“Can we go back and look for her?” Daidyn asked.
The priest recoiled. “No. Only those with business may enter this way.”
“You mind looking around for her, then? I saw her go this way. There’s only so many private rooms for talkin’ with patrons, right?” Daidyn said.
The priest reluctantly nodded. “I can do this. A tall slyphid, was it?”
Pellen nodded.
The priest nodded and retreated into the back.
Cass would be back there. This worry was unfounded. This was a temple. A sacred place. Was there a safer place in all the city?
He returned a few minutes later, shaking his head. “I saw no such woman that met your description. Perhaps you missed her?”
Daidyn shrugged. “Maybe we did.”
“Thank you for checking for us,” Pellen said with a shallow bow.
“May you walk your patron’s path with pride.” The priest closed the door.
Pellen picked at her skin. Was that all it was?
Sir Daidyn said he saw Miss Cass enter. She might have left while Pellen spoke with the appraiser in one of those private rooms, and he may have missed her leaving.
But the timing on that seemed wrong. Pellen’s business had taken little time, and, by all accounts, Miss Cass had gone in second. Could Miss Cass have handled what she needed and left again in less time than it had taken Pellen to get her compatibility checked?
It seemed unlikely.
Something didn’t sit right with her. A gut feeling she couldn’t shake.
“Whatcha thinkin’?” Daidyn asked.
“Are you sure it was Miss Cass you saw?” Pellen asked.
He nodded. “Not many with her looks around these parts.”
That was true. Pale skin like Miss Cass’s was uncommon in this part of the Continent. Combined with her shocking blue eyes, it was difficult to mistake her for anyone else. If Sir Daidyn said he saw Miss Cass, it was all but certainly her.
“Do you have a tracking skill?” Pellen asked the big wolf man.
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He shook his head. “That’s outside my wheelhouse. I’m more about hitting the stuff in front of me than findin’ new stuff to hit.”
Pellen pursed her lips. She was probably worried over nothing. And yet.
She hurried out of the Temple, stepping off the path into the bushes outside.
Daidyn followed her off the path. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Pellen kept walking until she found a clear spot, then pulled Ehribak’s Elementals 7th Edition from its pocket in her robes. What page was the ritual she was looking for again? Chapter 8: Scrying? Or was it 6: Divination?
No. It was chapter 9. Ehribak classified it as dowsing, not divination, in all editions after the 4th. Silly really. Obviously, it was divination. The addition of the dowsing chapter was entirely unnecessary.
There it was. She found a stick and drew a circle of runes in the soft dirt. She scribbled an approximation of the city within, a wide line running just off the center representing the river and a circle on it representing the temple. She added a few other marks for other prominent landmarks: the Palace, the Academy, the lower city Plaza. It wasn’t a good map, but it would be good enough for now.
Pellen skimmed through the reference one more time:
Dowsing Ritual #26: Find Friend
There is no shortage of spells for locating lost objects or people. The fundamental difference between most forms is cost and prerequisite. This is a comparatively weak rendition of this concept, focusing on quick and minimal. Unlike many Divination versions of this spell, no focus from the target is required; instead, only a map of the expected area and a personal connection to the target. The closer the connection, the more effective this ritual will become.
Colloquially, one might say that the better friends one is with the target, the better this spell will work, hence the title.
Instructions:
- Draw the illustrated rune circle upon a flat, solid surface.
- Place (or draw) a map of the area you wish to search for your target within the ritual.
- Chant the activation sequence below, keeping the image and essence of your target at the fore of your mind.
If the target is within the constraints of the map, their location will glow. If they are outside, the circle will instead light up. If the spell should fail (the practitioner’s connection to the target being insufficient, the target dead, or the target rendered imperceptible through other means being the most common failure reasons), the circle will flash twice before falling dark.
Remarks:
- The more detailed the map used in this dowsing will result in higher fidelity in locating the target but also require a greater Focus cost by the practitioner and a deeper connection with the target. Greater fidelity can be achieved while mitigating these penalties by using low-detail maps and repeating the ritual to narrow down the target’s location until they can be found via mundane means.
Everything looked right. She held a hand out over the circle and read the chant from the textbook. She focused on Miss Cass. Her careless laugh. Her simple outlook. Her light spirit. Where was she?
The last word of the chant left her lips, and Pellen looked down at the circle. It would glow, she whispered to herself. The lower city. The upper city. Something. It would glow.
Mana coalesced around the circle, the dark blue of her mana shifting into the pale green characterizing this flavor of divination magic. Quietly, the spell asked the world where Cass was. And quietly, the world answered.
The circle she’d drawn to represent the temple glowed.
Miss Cass was still here.
That should be a relief. Miss Cass hadn’t left without her. If Pellen was patient, Miss Cass would surely be out in no time.
Except, where was Miss Cass then? She wasn’t in the main room or with the priests.
“What is all this?” Daidyn asked.
Pellen jumped, having forgotten about him entirely. “Oh. I was just divining Miss Cass’s position.”
“Where’d she go?” Daidyn asked.
“Well, you can see,” Pellen paused. The light had gone out, the spell ended. “She appeared to be in the temple.”
“So she hasn’t left yet?” he said.
Pellen nodded. “Seems that way.”
“That’s neat you can do that with magic. Kinda thought it was just for blowing stuff up.” He laughed. “Can you tell where in the temple she is?”
Pellen frowned. Wasn’t that the question? She didn’t have a map of the temple, but technically, she just needed a representational map, not a specific one. “Maybe. One moment.”
She scrubbed out her city map with her foot, then sketched a rough representation of the temple, this time drawn from the side rather than the top. It looked like a house (representing the temple proper) on top of a triangle (representing the spire and the basements within). Outside the house, she sketched a tree representing the gardens they currently stood in. For good measure, she added a bridge on either side of the triangle and some squiggles beneath for the river.
She repeated the activation chant and watched as the triangle lit up.
She pursed her lips, her fingers picking at the skin around her nails. “Miss Cass appears to be in the basement.”
That was not what she had expected. Of the options she’d drawn, that made the least sense. She had expected the gardens or one of the bridges to light up. Maybe the main room. It was easy enough to believe Miss Cass had snuck out with a stealth skill, avoiding Pellen’s Perception skills.
But, for Miss Cass to have gone deeper into the temple… Pellen couldn’t think of a single reason Miss Cass would have chosen to do so.
However, the triangle representing the private spaces of the temple was clearly lit. Cass had to be down there.
She must have some reason, even if Pellen couldn’t think of one. Miss Cass—
The light of her spell went out.
Then, the circle flashed.
Once.
Twice.
It fell dark.
A bolt of panic ran down Pellen’s spine.
“What did that mean?” Daidyn asked.
Pellen was already repeating the spell. It had to have failed because her concentration had lapsed. Never mind, it hadn’t done that the first time. Or maybe Miss Cass’s stealth skill was interacting poorly with the ritual. Or…
The spell activated again. The ring lit up, then fell dark. Then lit up again and fell dark.
“Lady Mage?” the swordsman asked.
Pellen shook her head. Miss Cass couldn’t be dead.
“Come on,” Pellen said, climbing out of the flowerbed and back onto the temple path. “I need proof.”
“Proof of what?” Daidyn asked, following her, his legs stretching further to keep up with her rapid steps.
“That Miss Cass is in trouble.”