Jareth (uncult) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-05-09 19:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !thread, jareth monaco, peony min |
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, disasters in the sun
Who: Jareth & Saint Peony the supposed Cultist
What: Jareth is doing some research on his own. What a surprise! So is Saint Peony!
Where: The Mages' Tower library
When: Today
Rating: PG
Status: Complete~
Finding information relating to cultists was far more difficult without formal Guild connections, but the Guild's bylaws were by far the most pretentious pieces of crap he had ever heard of. Three straight days of doing nothing but reading the rule book had done nothing for his temper and had gotten him no closer to where he had wanted to be, not that he knew where that was anymore.
With a sigh, he tossed the book on the dirty floor of the room he was renting in the tenement district. It had seemed the smartest thing to do - the murder had happened in the district, and the lonely and poor were far more likely to be victims of a passionless crime of death than someone in any other district. He could be wrong, but after so many years of tracking them - before, during and after the Onyx Guard - he doubted it.
He needed to do something to clear his head. The obvious solution was to head to the guild hall, get some more training in, but after that last bout, he wasn't keen on running into anyone. It was something he was going to have to deal with - there were, he was beginning to realize, a lot of things he was going to have deal with - but now wasn't the time. He needed to acquire a map of the town and surrounding areas still, maybe buff up a little on the history of the city. Cities as old as Emillion often were scrubbed clean of anything wholly untoward, but it would be a place to start.
Cities as old as Emillion were also more likely to have the types of tomes he had only heard of, books about the occult and arcane. Books that he would very much like to see.
Which meant he needed to find a library. Asking around the rundown part of town wouldn't bring him any decent results; he doubted that most of the people he saw on a daily basis would know where he could acquire history scrolls and books, let alone knew how to read. The Bazaar or Commoner's District was more likely to lead him to where he needed to be, so he strapped his ax to his back and left the room, leaving the bylaws lying on the floor where it had landed.
It didn't take much time to find someone who could lead him to the library, which was housed in the Mages' Tower. "You know," the girl accompanying him started, looking up him through her eyelashes and wrapping her arms around his bicep, "I don't think I've ever seen a Fighter go to the library before. If you're looking for something... particular, I'm sure you could find that outside of the dusty books."
The words were casually uttered, but insinuation stung nonetheless. He knew it was an attempt to pick him up - he, unfortunately, wasn't clueless enough to not recognize an attempted flirtation - but the line soured his already bad mood. He could see the tower looming ahead of him - he'd be able to make the rest of the trek on his own without getting lost. "Thanks," he said curtly, pulling away from her, "but I can make it the rest of the way."
If she said anything, he didn't hear her.
As soon as he'd reached the tower, a flurry of helpful mages quickly pointed him to the transport crystal, giving him very clear directions before sending what they probably assumed was their toughest looking mage with him. The mage was taller than Jareth, but whip thin and could barely look him in the eyes, instead preferring to stare at the ax on his back. Fools, he thought irritably. I could kill this kid before he could take a breath in to cast.
He had to keep reminding himself that he'd be at the library soon enough, and then he could ditch the kid and settle into some research. The library was enormous, which he'd expected, with a placid looking woman stationed behind a desk. "You'll have to sign in," she informed him. "And we do not allow weapons in the library."
Shrugging, he detached the ax and placed it on the counter, caring little of the blade bit into the polished wood. The mage leveled a glare at him, but he rolled his eyes and neatly printed his name and affiliation on the sign-in sheet. As soon as he'd put the pen down, the woman tightly informed him that a guild member would accompany him at all times. His mage escort - a woman who stammered and blushed when he looked at her - led him to the history section.
He grabbed a few tomes from the shelf, and started towards another part of the library, the mage on his heels. It took some time to find it, but he was in the middle of the Arcane stacks.
And it was picked over.
Glaring at the holes on the shelves, he stalked the rows of the section until he came across an open area with a table and a mousey-looking mage surrounded by stacks of books. A quick skim of the titles told him these were the books he was looking for - histories of the dark arts, tomes on cult activities, things he couldn't find in the barely-existent sections of smaller towns.
He took another look at the mage at the table, carefully committing her features to memory. She was thoroughly engrossed in a tome with yellowed pages, a stack of paper and a quill to the side of her. She had dark hair and wore light colored, flowing clothing.
It would be too easy, he knew. Cultists wouldn't so boldly sit in the Mages' Tower, pouring over black arts without notice. Still, it was odd enough to catch his attention, and he sorely wanted to get his hands on some of the tomes she was in possession of. His escort whispered something hurriedly to him, but he brushed it off and took the chair across from the reading mage.