In a suite at a high-end hotel in Flottes, Dorothy sat upright on a plush, soft sofa, warming herself by the nearby fireplace as she studied the golden base in her hands, observing the phenona it now displayed with curiosity.
According to her understanding and speculation regarding the True-Sight Key, Dorothy had experintally infused her own Revelation spirituality into the base. Sure enough, the golden base—now lacking its crystal inlays—underwent a transformation, revealing a hint of mystical traits. Upon sensing this, Dorothy imdiately perford an appraisal.
Guiding Pedestal
Capable of binding and linking multiple True-Sight Keys simultaneously, forming a composite item known as the Guiding Display Key. In its current incomplete state (pedestal only), it retains only the ability to retrieve status information of the bound True-Sight Key as recorded in the Grand Library.
“It can retrieve information on bound True-Sight Key…”
Dorothy’s eyes lit up upon reading the appraisal result. Her prior guess had been spot-on. Items in the True-Sight Key series possessed extrely high spiritual conversion efficiency, which ant that once used, they left behind virtually no mystical traces—making them appear no different from mundane objects. Under typical Lantern detection abilities, such items wouldn’t show any special traits. However, once recharged—whether by the Grand Library or Dorothy herself—their mystical features would reerge.
And just as she’d expected, the experint confird it: the golden base revealed mystical properties and its function could now be identified—exactly the function Dorothy was hoping for.
“Hah… So according to the appraisal, if this base can read the information of the bound True-Sight Key, then I can use it to track the crystals—assuming the stored data includes location info.”
Clutching the golden base, Dorothy thought this to herself, then began testing its function to figure out how to operate it. Before long, she successfully activated the pedestal’s remaining mystical ability and was able to retrieve partial data about the missing crystals.
Dorothy then began carefully analyzing this data. Thanks to her formidable processing abilities, she parsed through the entire record quickly. After finishing, however, she frowned slightly.
The data did include records of the crystals’ locations—but only historical locations, not real-ti tracking. Dorothy had no way of learning where the True-Sight Key were now—only where they had been.
Frowning, Dorothy couldn’t help but feel puzzled. Why was the pedestal only able to provide the crystals’ historical positions, not their current ones? It contradicted the appraisal, which had said the pedestal could access the current status of bound Keys. So why this discrepancy?
“What the heck… This thing can tell where the crystals were, but not where they are now. What’s going on?”
Furrowing her brows, Dorothy muttered to herself as she stared at the golden base. She decided to examine the historical data in more detail.
The historical records included general status and location information for all four crystals, dating as far back as approximately 150 years ago.
In the earliest entries, all the crystals were located in Flottes, in central-northern Falano—most likely within the Temple of the Goddess of Beauty. For several decades following that initial point, the crystals remained mostly in the palace, with only occasional movents around Flottes or brief ventures to other cities in Falano—before quickly returning. Judging by the tiline, this likely corresponded to the period shortly after they were made into a necklace, worn by Queen Maria or her successors.
About 110 years ago—around the ti of Falano’s Cold Moon Revolution—the crystals abruptly left the Temple of the Goddess of Beauty and were relocated to the auxiliary capital Borget. According to Falano’s historical records, Borget was the residence of Robert the Greedy King. During his reign, Robert, distrustful of the Church after Charles's death, had moved the capital there to escape the influence of the Church’s archbishops stationed in Flottes. Maria’s Light was clearly brought with him.
During the Cold Moon Revolution, the crystals moved once more—this ti departing from Borget and heading east, toward the borderlands of Falano. They settled in a remote area and did not move again for a long ti. Dorothy believed this was when Frederico had taken the crystals and hidden them at a Dark Gold Society stronghold.
At this suspected Society location, Maria’s Light remained still for a full century—until last year.
Around April of the previous year, the historical record of the crystals suddenly went dark—they vanished entirely. From that mont on, Dorothy could no longer track any information about them. They had simply disappeared from their original location without warning.
About a month after this disappearance, the crystals resurfaced—but this ti in a completely different location, within a city in southern Falano. However, the record only lasted for two to three hours before disappearing again.
From that point on, the tracking record beca erratic. The crystals’ data would appear intermittently—sotis visible for several hours in a day, then gone for long stretches. This sporadic pattern lasted for nearly a month.
Afterward, the crystals began to change locations more frequently—moving from one city to another within Falano. During transit, no tracking data was recorded, but once they settled in a new city, the on-off pattern would repeat. This cycle continued, sotis even leading them beyond Falano’s borders—into Ivengard. In a few instances, they even returned briefly to Flottes and Borget.
This irregular relocation process persisted for several months. Then, in the latter half of the year, it gradually subsided. By the end of the year, the records ceased entirely. The last recorded location showed the crystals in transit sowhere within Falano’s territory, before vanishing during the move—and they have not reappeared since. During this erratic period, the crystals seed more “active” than ever before.
Using the transfer history visible via the golden base, Dorothy ntally mapped the entire route of the crystals—plotting them onto her internal map in hopes of detecting a pattern. Yet despite her best efforts, the result was only confusion. No clear logic could be discerned.
“This is so bizarre… Why would the crystal records behave like this? Was soone from the Dark Gold Society carrying them around constantly? And why would the data blink in and out during that ti? And more importantly… why were the crystals more ‘active’ than before whenever they did show up?”
As she analyzed the data retrieved from the golden base, Dorothy absentmindedly stroked her chin, deeply imrsed in thought as she continued to examine the golden base in her hands, trying to determine the reason behind its behavior.
“This intermittent recording behavior of the crystals… it’s highly likely soone from the Dark Gold Society is doing sothing to them—exerting so kind of influence. But the question is… why did this only start around a year ago? If they intended to tamper with the crystals, they could have done it long ago. Those crystals were in their possession for over a hundred years. Why wait until now?”
“Also—if the interference from the Dark Gold Society really is the cause of the disrupted recordings, then that ans they’ve beco aware the crystals have mystical properties. Otherwise, there’d be no reason for them to go through all this trouble over an ordinary necklace.”
“But here’s the contradiction: items from the True-Sight Key series only display their mystical properties after receiving authorization from the Grand Library or being infused with Revelation. After the golden base and crystals were separated in the Bourbon palace, they lost the ability to receive that authorization. Even Charles didn’t notice anything special about them and readily agreed to let Maria use the crystals for her necklace. So if the crystals never manifested any abnormal signs in over a century, why did the Dark Gold Society suddenly notice sothing unusual just last year?”
As she pondered this in silence, Dorothy suddenly caught a thread of insight—and her brows rose slightly.
“Wait… the irregular behavior in the crystal logs began around early April last year. If I rember correctly, I was in Adria at that ti—right after I successfully stole the True-Sight Key that originally belonged to the Corpse-Sand Society from the Pure Stream Cathedral. That heist happened in mid-March… and just under two weeks later, the Dark Gold Society’s stored True-Sight Key began to react strangely. Could these be connected?”
A cascade of ideas surged through Dorothy’s mind. Following that train of thought, she leaned back on the sofa and continued mulling over the implications. Eventually, her gaze drifted toward the Literary Sea Logbook resting on the tea table in front of her.
She picked it up, laid it across her lap, flipped to the page she used to contact Beverly, and began writing.
“By the way, I have one more question. That item the forr Corpse-Sand Society leader Azam possessed—the one that could locate the ruins of the Star Nurology Scriptorium, and was supposedly donated—does the Dark Gold Society know about it?”
Not long after she wrote the ssage, Beverly’s neat printed handwriting began appearing on the page in response.
“If we know about it, what makes you think the Dark Gold Society doesn’t? Garib got his throne because he collaborated with them. They’re the ones who pushed him to break his pact with us. They definitely know more than we do. In fact, I’ve heard they got their hands on a whole load of docuntation Azam left behind—through Garib, of course. Given their research capabilities, they probably understand that item better than Garib ever did.”
“Frankly, I think their whole alliance with Garib was fake from the start. They just wanted him to do the dirty work—steal the item from the cathedral’s exhibit, draw the Church’s wrath, and then they’d backstab him and claim it for themselves. But they never expected you to intercept it.”
Beverly’s response flickered across the page. Reading it, Dorothy touched her chin with a thoughtful expression, then continued writing.
“Got it. Thank you, Automaton Lady. I’ll treat you to premium motor oil when I get back—what brand do you want?”
“I brew my own. Just bring back a few top-shelf brands from the market, I’ll blend sothing special myself.”
Dorothy couldn’t help but internally snark at that.
"Mixing motor oil like cocktails? Isn’t that a bit dangerous? Won’t mixing brands ss things up?"
After the ntal quip, Dorothy closed the Literary Sea Logbook and went back to analyzing along the line of reasoning she’d just uncovered.
“According to my automaton neighbor, the Dark Gold Society definitely knows about the True-Sight Key—and thanks to Azam’s research, they probably understand it better than Garib did. In that case, all of this could’ve happened like this…”
“The Society knew about the True-Sight Key and planned to backstab Garib after he stole it. After all, Adria—where the Pure Stream Cathedral is—doesn’t have a Crimson-rank Archbishop stationed, so Garib likely thought he had an easy win. But they never expected him to not only fail, but also get caught by the Church.”
“Normally, the Society would assu the key ended up with the Church. But the local rumors in Adria said the chapel lost the Crown of Immanuel—a completely different item. That must’ve tipped the Society off that sothing was fishy.”
“So after the heat died down, they probably investigated the cathedral. They checked inventory reports, found out that along with the Crown, other items had vanished that night—including a crystal later identified via photos as one of the True-Sight Keys.”
“And based on their research from Azam’s docunts, they likely realized that the missing crystal could be the one tied to the Star Nurology Scriptorium. But lacking clues on where it went during the chaos, they had no leads and had to let it go.”
“Still, soone in Adria must’ve reported the theft details, and the photos made their way up to the Society’s upper ranks. Frederico… or another high-ranking mber who had once seen Maria’s Light... might have recognized it. If I noticed the resemblance between the True-Sight Key and Maria’s Light, then so could they.”
“And once they realized Maria’s crystals weren’t mundane, soone at the top ordered them retrieved from storage for study. That would explain why the crystals’ behavior changed shortly after I got the key in Adria—they began testing them. The Society had finally realized the significance of Maria’s Light and started experinting on it!”
With that conclusion firm in her mind, Dorothy once again glanced at the golden base resting on the tea table. A new thought surfaced.
“Right now, I’m searching for the crystals. But… could the Dark Gold Society be looking for the base?”
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