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THE THIRSTY MINNOW - LATE AFTERNOON
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Aelia sits in a booth with a little appetizer tray of celery and carrot sticks, idly dipping them into a few sauces as she reads through a stack of books, most of feeling rather like nonsense to her, but the stack is pretty high, and there's bound to be something in one of these books that she and Ninell were recommended. They bear titles like "Elemental Transference" and "Curse Breaking and Adaption" and "Homonculus Theory"
Ninell is reading through some books as well, looking perhaps a touch more scholarly as he leafs through the pages with one hand, and the other hand occupied taking occasional notes whenever he thinks he finds something of interest. Thus far, though, their search has been turning up relatively empty, but their remaining stack of books - and their chances of finding a lead - remains quite sizable.
Aelia smiles up at Ninell, "Thank you for helping me with this research. I know it's a lot and I know there's a lot better things you could be doing tonight."
Ninell chuckles as he looks up from the book and smiles at Aelia. "There are several things I could be doing, but none better than what I am doing now, I feel."
Scilla walks in, carrying several thick books in a way that she can barely see ahead of her, having stayed behind at the library for a while. The genet vaguely makes her way towards the table with the others, mildly sways and almost trips in her step before actually managing to drop the books on the table without much damage to them (or the table, more likely). She gives the others a small grin: "Perusing through these impossible books isn't a favourite pastime, then?"
Aelia scoots over to give Scilla room at the booth, "Not that it's not my favourite, but it's not not my favourite..." She shakes her head, giggling quietly, "I'm much more used to excercise and practice, not study. That's all."
Ninell laughs a bit as he makes some space for Scilla's books. "This feels something like when I was a knight-in-training in Eukune, truth be told. Not the specific subject, but the sense of studying neverending piles of books for information."
Scilla shakes her head as she sits down, end of her tail swishing in mild annoyance as she picks up the first book, 'Rituals for Every Use'. "Yeah... I much prefer to fix things with my trusty hammers than... this. But I don't think I can fix this with 'em."
Aelia raises an eyebrow at Ninell as she finishes flipping through the index of her book, which, doesn't need much more than a basic look, as she is fairly confident that 'Necromancy: A Forbidden Art' is not what they should be looking for, "Huh... Knighthood requires a lot of study? I wouldn't have guessed that."
Ninell nods at Aelia as he goes back to taking more notes on the book he's perusing. "It does, at least in Eukune. Knights are not only expected to be capable in combat, but must also be sharp in numerous other areas of life as well. Medicine and the arts are a couple such things."
Scilla looks at Ninell: "Huh. Guess it would be too demanding for me, then. Not that I'm good at the combat stuff either, I leave that to you." She flips through the pages: "These rituals in no sensible order whatsoever. This might take a while."
Aelia watches Ninell with a little bit more respect in her eye, "I just assumed it would all be fighting, and... well, anyways..." She grabs the next book in the stack, nodding to Scilla, "We just grabbed every book that seemed like it might by some off chance have something to help. Curses, rituals, magic solutions, anything that even remotely makes sense, we'll take a deeper look into."
Ninell hums as he scratches his chin for a moment, then closes the book and moves on to one titled How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Transformation. "Mmh... the librarian seemed a little dubious at how many books we were withdrawing. But he seemed content that we had a reason that wasn't malevolent."
Scilla looks askance at one of the rituals on the pages: "...at least I hope none of this ends up being malevolent. Can never know with magic, and like, do any of us actually have the experience?" Not that lack of experience has exactly ever stopped the genet...
Aelia blushes a bit in embarrassment, "Err... magic experience? N-no? They test kids for it in Sarn, but I flunked every test... they um, s-said I get performance anxiety? Ha ha... c-can you imagine that?"
Ninell chuckles again, but shakes his head. "Then that makes two of us, Aelia. I have absolutely no magical aptitude at all."
Scilla blinks, and hums: "Well... I have a little bit." She glances aside; no one nearby, safe to talk further. "...when I'm like this, anyway. When I'm Prachi, I have nothing."
Aelia purses her lips, then nods at Scilla. "Well, more than the rest of us regardless. I'm pretty sure Phoebe doesn't have any magic?" She glances at Ninell as if for confirmation.
Ninell meets Aelia's look and shrugs. "Not that I am aware of. Unless she has been hiding some thus far unknown reserves even from herself, that is." He quirks up a smile, clearly joking.
Scilla looks between the two, then shrugs: "Well, worth a try anyway." She squints at her book: "At least I'm pretty sure I can draw these sort of runes if need be. How different can it be from doing schematics?"
Aelia shrugs, shifting over to glance whatever Scilla is looking at. "It all looks foreign to me... I can probably try to help trace them, but I don't know the first thing about actually performing this kind of stuff. I mean... as a performer, I can follow instructions and memorize lines at least? Does that help?"
Ninell leans around to see what Scilla is looking at, then nods. "I suppose as long as we follow the instructions to the letter, we will be fine? After all, the whole point of rituals is to be repeatable, yes?"
Scilla nods: "Why else write them down like this?" She blinks, glancing at the page again: "Not that this particular ritual will likely help. Unless Ninell needs help in the endowment department." She shrugs, moving onwards in the book without further comment.
Aelia raises an eyebrow at Scilla this time, then shakes her head with a sigh, looking back into her own book. "Whoever writes these kinds of books is... strange, to say the least."
Ninell likewise raises an eyebrow at Scilla, only to shake his head. "Nnnnot that I am aware of, no, Scilla. Let us... look elsewhere, I think."
Scilla shrugs as she continues flipping the pages: "...dehydration, hydration, moustache growing (ew), cursing the target with mild inconveniences... nope, nope, nope... you guys have any luck?"
Ninell rifles through his book a bit before he just gives up on it and grabs another. "A couple of potentially tangential entries to what we need... but nothing definitive. One of these dozens of books must have something in it..."
Aelia shakes her head, "This one is mostly about 'the magic of twins'? Not exactly what we're looking for either..." She pauses, flipping the page to something that seems to catch her eye. "Huh... Well... this one looks kinda interesting? Though there's not really much description... just... a few diagrams?"
Scilla tilts her head towards Aelia's book: "Twins? I mean, yeah, not... quite what we're after but..." She waves a hand: "Honestly who even knows. Worth a shot."
Ninell hums curiously and scoots around the table to look at the entry Aelia's inspecting. "Found something of interest?" He pauses as he gets a look at the diagrams, then furrows his brow a little, "...Not a lot of information to go on, is there?"
Aelia traces her finger over it, "It's got a lot of arrows... But look, this looks like there's two forms here, and then arrow shows it splitting out over to here?"
Scilla hums, tail swishing slightly: "It's... it might work?"
Aelia: "I don't really know where this part comes from? It looks like there's a big circle, and I'm guessing I'd be in the center of it, right? And then whatever the ritual does, it takes out this other part and puts it here? Am I reading that right?"
Scilla scoots over to read the diagram: "Mmm... probably? It's the thing that makes sense."
Ninell scratches his head in thought, clearly understanding nothing about what he's seeing. "I wish I could say if you were correct or not, but none of my studies involved magical diagrams..."
Aelia sighs, "Me too... but it's the best idea we've got? So, set that book aside and keep looking? If we don't find anything else... what do you two think?"
Scilla shrugs: "Find a few more options, try and home down to the best one fitting this... this odd scenario we're in."
Ninell shrugs with a nod. "That sounds like the best possible path we can take right now, yes. Here... I have a book marker we can use to save the page." He leans to the side and rummages under a small stack of papers and pulls out a rectangular piece of metal with smooth, rounded edges, then passes it to Aelia.
Aelia nods excitedly, taking the bookmark and carefully slotting it against the spine of the book. She flips a page to examine the other side, then carefully closes the book. "Ah, thank you Ninell. It's a start at least! Maybe an end too! If it can actually give Phoebe her own life, ah, it'd be wonderful! And then we can all help find something for you, Scilla!"
Scilla hums: "Well, can always hope..." She glances aside, sighing under her breath before looking back up with a smile: "L-let's focus on getting your problem solved, first. It's way worse anyway, so needs to be dealt with."
Ninell nods. "One step at a time, and we can solve this conundrum. The more information we collect, the more likely we will succeed."
Aelia frowns, thinking back to Scilla's story of her missed childhood, "Worse... is debatable. But yes! More learning is better, right? And there's still a lot of books here.
Scilla gives Aelia a bit of a look for couple of seconds, before shaking her head and picking up the next book, the ritual one clearly not being of use. "Magic of the Body... I hope this is not some kind of sex improvement book."
Ninell hums as he glances between Aelia and Scilla for a moment, only to blink at the book Scilla picks up. "...Why in the world are there so many books dedicated to the improvement of just... sex?"
Aelia very carefully sets the lauded book aside, looking over the cover carefully, 'Magical Transference - The Magic of the Mind'. "Well, 'Mind' magic seems to be the right stuff, but maybe some 'body' magic stuff will let us be sure we're doing things right?"
Scilla opens the book: "...well, it's not a sex book." She looks almost disappointed. "Let's see... I think if I'm reading this right, this is kinda focused on how to er, prepare your body for accepting all kinds of magic? I didn't even know that was a thing."
Aelia tilts her head a little, "That'd... be good right? Or maybe not? What happens if your body rejects the magic? Is that bad?"
Ninell hums thoughtfully. "I suppose it could be something that makes one more susceptible to all effects of magic, good and bad."
Scilla frowns as she looks through: "Can't tell at a glance... this is hard to read. Whoever wrote this didn't bother hiring an editor."
Aelia glances at another of the books, sliding it off the pile, "These things have editors? They all seem pretty confusing to me. Still... would that be good for us? Or just something that... I don't know, seems like it might end up hurting more than helping?"
Scilla sighs: "I... it might help? At least it feels like it would. Amplify what we are trying to do, make it more likely to succeed, yeah?"
Ninell frowns a little as he flips to the front of his current book out of curiosity just to see if there happens to be any sort of accolades or acknowledgements in addition to the byline of whoever wrote it. "...Perhaps some books might be written and edited by the people of Sarn? I heard that many people with magical capabilities help at the university there."
Aelia considers, "Amplifying the effects of that ritual would just make it easier to um 'remove' Phoebe into a new body, right? Seems worth the risk..."
Scilla hums, flipping the pages of her book: "Yeah... it should work? Just need to read this like... four times or so, so I know what I'm chalking on the ground."
Ninell grows a little more serious. "Yes, repetition and practice attempts will ensure that we keep errors to a minimum. We are doing this to help you, Aelia and Phoebe without any troubles."
Aelia nods in agreement with Ninell, "Yes. No rush, Scilla. Phoebe and I have gotten this far, we can go a bit longer if you need the time to figure this out."
Scilla leans back and shrugs: "Well, I have a lot of time in my hands..." She looks around; still safe to talk. "...since I kind of can't do half my jobs as Prachi and the other half as myself."
Ninell nods. "Well, with all these books, given enough searching, I feel as though we will find something that fits our needs."
Aelia chuckles a little awkwardly, "And um, not any 'sex' stuff, right? At least, none that we're going to use. Right?"
Scilla tilts her head: "...that's probably not the goal, no. Just uh, separating you and Phoebe... however some ritual allows us to do it." She's trying to not get her own hopes up after so much time. She's really trying...
Ninell shakes his head. "None of the sex things we stumble across, no... We have more important matters to work on, after all."
Aelia breaths out a little sigh of relief. "Okay, good. I uh, yes. Yes, we do. I just..." She blinks, then shakes her head, "No, nevermind. More important things to deal with."
Scilla gives Aelia a look before continuing reading. "Let's try and get some actual reading in. Pipe up if you find something."
Ninell likewise gives Aelia a curious look, but simply nods and goes back to his note-taking. "Of course. There are a few interesting things I have found already, but nothing precisely what we require..."
Aelia opens up the next book, seeking anything else that might help as well, the three sharing their findings as they put together a completely full proof plan to execute this ritual.