NO

<No.> A relief.

Are the new castle residents entangled in 'Ced's misleading guidance plan?

YES

<Yes.> Hmm.

Is 'Ced's trust in the wizard she recently met based upon false premises?

UNCLEAR

<Unclear.> Well.

Should 'Ced convey information she now has to the wizard she recently met?

UNCLEAR

<Unclear again.> Wizard, hmm?

Is there a message from You 'Ced should use as she will her recent message from her wizard?

USELESS DIMINISH MOOT QUAVER INDISPUTABLE

She starts signing that out as she asks the last question.

Is there further information we should seek from You?

NO

<No.>

Mother sits for a while, doing nothing in particular. (Using a Commune to send information is better than a vision. That doesn't make it a convenient conduit, and Ulon was never a drow, or anything close.)

Useless diminish moot quaver indisputable? That seems like Morgethai's bank account address, not like actual information. This was only a Commune. It doesn't get that many words through. Is there really nothing better, though?

Ulon has reasons. She doesn't need to know them. If she returns again, those words go to Ulon, Morgethai's to their appropriate locations. Lots of things to remember.

She writes everything down, including the dwarf numbers (as Lhín remembers them, but she does check that they sound right to her, and they do) and the instructions for which of Morgethai's messages should go where. She needs to remember all of this, and it all needs to be exact. It's worth an hour a day just going over these so she doesn't lose anything.

Eventually it's time to actually deal with the day, though. And she might have mail. She hasn't checked in, well, a bit over a week. Anything?

Tencednil has a letter. It's from the Korvosan Guard and is a few days old. Detective Navarro and his squad did not return from an investigation. They are missing in action. Magic has failed to locate them. A bounty has been placed on any verifiably true information pertaining to this incident. She has been reassigned for future work. Her new supervisor is with the Office of Spells.

That... would be whoever it was that jumped on them out of nowhere, wouldn't it. For one reason or another, it must have gone badly this time. She can't even usefully give information here. Well that's delightful.

She should probably meet this new supervisor. To Citadel Volshyenek!

Citadel Volshyenek looms over the south of Midland. It doesn't seem to have changed much since she left the city. With the lack of endless beasts and monsters, and a cure for the blood veil already in sight, it seems things are calmer.

A receptionist leads her up to the Office of Spells. A different receptionist there goes to find her new supervisor.

A tall, burly man walks in from a hallway. He's paging through some sort of document. "Hello! My paperwork says you are Tencednil?"

"I am! I'm a first circle sorcerer, I have Color Spray and Silent Image and Ray of Enfeeblement and a trick for blinding people who get in close. I think it's called Dazzling Blade, but I haven't seen it from many other people." She runs up to shake his hand as she introduces herself, and is clearly excited to meet him.

Then she stops and droops a little. "Detective Navarro said I should call Silent Image spell six, so if I call that out you know I'm casting an illusion. I hope he's okay and just trapped somewhere for some reason."

The man shakes her hand and sighs. "I hope so too, but it gets less likely every day. I am Captain Gabriel Paras. I understand you were involved in the operation against the temple of Urgathoa."

She becomes even more downcast at the confirmation. "I know. Nothing we can do but hope."

Nod. "I was part of that, yes. I like to think my apparent Walls of Stone did almost as good a job as the real thing would have there. Nobody really wants to go through several inches of solid rock."

He chuckles. "This is true. I don't think we have any active investigations or operations needing your skills at the moment. You will be put back our list of active contracted spellcasters. Welcome back to the city."

"Thank you. I hope to..." She stutters over the next word, pausing and taking back whatever she was about to say. "I hope not to see you any time soon, if it means you don't need spellcasters. But don't hesitate to contact me if you do!" Nod, smile, and she departs, only slightly less upbeat than when she came in.

The Korvosan Guard will inform her of work by mail, as usual. They're happy to have her as an option. Skilled illusionists in the right places are surprisingly helpful.

In that case, her next priority is figuring out what was going on with the painter Ileosa had executed. She remembers only a few details, but hopefully that's enough. Being back in Korvosa means she now has a quite sufficient bank account as long as she doesn't plan to make any large purchases, so she—

actually buys an acid vial—

and then drops in on some of the more up-scale people she vaguely knows. She makes sure that when she drops by it's always a nice surprise, so she does need to take them out to decent food and ideally something else interesting. She has the money for that easily, and the Urgathoan cult story is a good one. Shouldn't be a problem. By the end of the day, or at least by the time she needs to get to sleep, she should have a decent list of painters in the relevant style. Tomorrow, she'll go through them looking for anyone with the right physical traits to have been the executed, and hopefully she can hunt something down from there.