I handed half the stack to Jin and we walked back to Researcher. “Anywhere we can sit to look at these?”
“Toward the back of the room, left corner.”
We followed her instructions, found chairs, and sat.
The first thing I found was a copy of a Caelford Passport. In specific, a Diplomatic Passport indicating she was here in Valia on government business. I wondered why we had a copy of it here. Maybe this Divinatory served as a general information repository for the whole city?
That document didn’t have anything specific on why she was there, but there were several other type-written pages in the folder.
One of them was a copy of her documentation for entering the Serpent’s Tower. Glancing over that was much more enlightening.
Name: Vera Corrington
Age: 26
Ethnicity: Caelford
Attunements: Analyst
Reason for Entering Tower: Accompanying multi-national climber force for confidential research: Code Q-STN.
There was a bit more info on there, but nothing nearly as interesting as her reason for going in there. I’d have to see if I could find out more about that research project.
I showed Jin that page. He just said, “Interesting,” and went back to his own reading.
I dug a little further, finding a list of the people who had accompanied her into the tower. Lawrence Gold, Rochelle Gold, Carter Bishop, Echion Valden, and one name that I actually recognized: Elora Theas.
That’s the Summoner that was feuding with Derek, and also the same Theas that was in the Council of Lords with my mother. Could she be the one who’s preventing Vera from being arrested? If she’s a council member, she’d probably have sufficient influence.
House Theas was an old family. They were one of the founding families of the city, much like House Hartian. I didn’t know how far their influence extended, but either she or one of her relatives was definitely a council member.
I pointed her out to Jin. He seemed more interested this time. “If House Theas is involved with whatever this research was, you’re going to be in for some trouble.”
I rubbed my temples. “More than I’m already in?”
“You’d be surprised. Still, we should dig into this more. I haven’t found anything of interest in this pile. I’ll go see if I can find anything on Elora Theas or that code name.”
I nodded, continuing to read more about Vera. I found references to her coming into the city with her brother — Aloras — so I’d been right on that regard.
More references to that secret project, but nothing concrete on what it was about, or if she had any sort of sponsors.
Jin sat back down a few minutes later with a new stack of papers. “Researcher informed me that we’re not authorized to know about that secret project, so she couldn’t help. She did point me at the files on Elora Theas, though.”
We dug through those. Elora Theas was a Lorian Heights graduate and long-time climber. There were records of dozens of visits she’d made to the Serpent Spire, as well as at records of her leaving the country to visit other spires. That meant she might have foreign attunements in addition to local ones.
Derek had accompanied her in many of the tower visits with earlier dates. Those seemed to have stopped… right before the time Elora had entered the tower with Vera.
Now that was interesting.
I’d known they had some sort of falling out. Could it have been directly connected to whatever this secret project was?
I’d have to tell Professor Orden about this; it seemed like a potentially significant lead.
I did have one final thing to look into before we left, though.
I returned the files that I’d been reading through to their proper places and walked back to Researcher. “Can you direct me to any files on Tristan Cadence?”
She grinned. “Of course! They’d be in Row 20-A.”
I withdrew the single file with a shaking hand.
Name: Tristan Cadence
Age: 17
Ethnicity: Valia
Attunements: None
Reason for Entering Tower: Judgment
And I read further.
Date of Entrance: 4-13-55
Date of Exit: Not Applicable
Status: Presumed Deceased
It hurt to see the words, even though they didn’t differ in any way from what I’d expected.
There were other pages in the file — old records from his schools, a record of his pre-Judgment practice test…which had been a rousing success.
He’d been brilliant, from everything I could see. Physically fit, amazing grades in all of his classes.
How had he failed?
There were no hints here. No signs of any conspiracy. No records pointing at secret projects or hidden agendas.
Just another ordinary seventeen year old, lost to the tower.
I set the files back in the box and walked back to Jin. “Let’s go.”
He set his own papers down. “I did find something else, actually.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“One of the records on Elora referenced her leaving an item at this facility for research. Could be connected to this secret project.”
I grinned. “Nice find. What is it?”
“Files called it the Jaden Box. Let’s go ask Researcher about it.”
We put Jin’s files back and moved back to the center of the room.
Researcher was floating in a cross-legged sitting position, and rotated toward us as we approached. “Oh, hello again! I trust you found everything you needed?”
Jin nodded. “For the most part, although I did find an unusual reference. What can you tell us about the Jaden Box?”
Researcher’s eyes did the creepy white thing again. “Jaden Box. Attributed to Wrynn Jaden, sorceress of the Pre-Attunement Period. Artifact demonstrates remarkable storage and summoning capabilities beyond the scale of all other known items. Deposited here by Elora Theas on 6-12-51. Research in progress.”
Jin nodded. “Is the box connected to this secret research project Q-STN?”
Researcher shook her head. “Unrelated. The box is simply a powerful item. It is not classified as secret.”
“What does it do, exactly?” Jin continued.
“The box is capable of storing items that appear to be too large to fit inside an extra-planar space. In addition, when an object is placed inside and a specific command word is used, it is capable of performing a summoning spell that will attempt to summon the person connected to the object.”