"Fine, if you won't talk, you don't have to."
Jenkins spoke in a gentle tone. When she remained silent, he continued casually,
"I was only guessing that the five indentations on the slate are related to acquiring the ability. But like I said, I have no interest in such a bizarre power, so you don't need to tell anything about it. Instead, let's discuss the life of the Mad Poet, Kavendish. That, I am very interested in."
His goal wasn't to acquire the [Child of Disaster] ability. Now that he had confird it wasn't a Savior's Emblem, he was even less interested in the malevolent power.
The bespectacled woman, seeing that Jenkins was genuinely uninterested, breathed a sigh of relief and began to speak freely. She did, in fact, know a great deal about the Mad Poet's life, though most of her stories took place in the Northern Lands during the 15th Epoch.
She was aware of the strange machine that concerned Jenkins, and even knew the specifics of how the city was destroyed. However, she was less clear about the machine's origins.
"The Mad Poet brought it to the Northern Lands from what was then the central continent. I don't know where it originally ca from."
Besides the manufactured disasters, she offered more details about the Mad Poet's death. The account was highly dramatized; for instance, she claid that in the final duel between the poet and an outsider to the village, they fought atop a mountain for three days and three nights. Only when utterly exhausted did the outsider barely manage to kill the Mad Poet.
But in doing so, he failed to prevent the poet's disaster-fueled power from seeping into the village, which ultimately forced the mountain folk to abandon their hos.
"And the outsider's na?"
Since there were no leads to be found concerning the Mad Poet himself, Jenkins reasoned that perhaps the "hero" who collected his belongings might have left a clue among them.
"I don't know."
The woman shook her head.
"It's quite strange. Our sect was no match for Kavendish at the height of his power, so they had to seek outside help. Normally, a hero who achieved sothing so monuntal would have their na recorded in our annals. Yet, even in the most secret histories of my sect, he's only referred to by a simple moniker. I'm afraid this person left no na. Other than a nickna, there is absolutely no record of the warrior who killed the Mad Poet."
His Lie Godhood gave no warning, which ant she was telling the truth. But just as the woman said, the fact that this person left behind no records was truly strange.
"Does this an we're about to uncover another secret from millennia ago?"
Jenkins suspected, but he had no leads to pursue the matter further.
At this point, every lead concerning the Mad Poet had been exhausted. Still, there was nothing to indicate where he had acquired that peculiar machine.
The woman noticed Jenkins's concern and suggested he look for clues at the Church of the Sage. While she was confident the Church of the Sage knew no more about the Mad Poet than she did, they might possess other relevant records.
"Until the day he died, the Mad Poet was active mostly in the Northern Lands, which were beyond the reach of the Orthodox Churches in those days. It's possible the Church docunted the disasters he caused, and there might even be ruins that survive to this day. Since you are a Scribe, I imagine those records would be available to you."
It was an excellent idea, giving him a clear direction for the next phase of his investigation. That concluded his questioning of the woman for the day. He was certain she was still holding things back, but he wasn't in a rush to press her. After all, her secrets likely pertained to the Mad Poet and the [Child of Disaster], which weren't his primary concerns.
Dolores had anticipated this. Before summoning the woman to Ruen, she had already pulled so strings to have her job transferred to the capital, making it easy for Jenkins to question her whenever he needed.
Dolores was in dire need of capable people at the mont, so summoning an Enchanter from a remote region to the capital was hardly unusual. Thus, apart from those directly involved, no one suspected the ulterior motive.
By the ti he saw the woman out, it was already ten in the morning. The ladies had all left long ago to attend to their own affairs. After a mont's thought and another brief study of the stone slate, Jenkins took his cat and ventured into the thick fog of Nolan.
As he joined the flow of people in an alley near his ho, Jenkins found himself mulling over the events of his recent, sporadic visits to Nolan.
"Strange tobacco... a doomsday illusion born from a Mysterious Realm... exotic species..." he mused. "It truly feels like a storm is about to break."
He had co to Nolan today for three reasons. First, he needed to check the newspaper for the address in Mr. White Cat's notice about his missing cousin, then send a reply confirming his participation in the operation against the exotic species.
He figured Hathaway would have already told Mr. White Cat that the ghouls had appeared, so Jenkins, writing as Mr. Candle, omitted that detail from his letter.
Second, he had to continue the investigation into the strange tobacco. Through a series of calculations Jenkins couldn't begin to comprehend, Alexia had managed to trace the origin of the damaged suitcase he'd brought back.
Jenkins planned to follow that lead. While he couldn't eliminate the tobacco's influence across the entire continent, he could at least do sothing for Nolan.
"The third and final matter is a commission..."
He needed to hire the huntress again. Since the more primitive version of the Misfortune Poem was found in a Nolan post office—a building only twenty years old and damaged in a recent storm—the slate must have been embedded in the wall soti within those two decades. The Church of the Sage in Ruen could track the Mad Poet's movents at the end of the 15th Epoch, while his people in Nolan could investigate the slate's origins. A two-pronged attack would be the most efficient approach.
Even though he had more or less ruled out the [Child of Disaster] being a Savior's Emblem, he hadn't forgotten that the Enchanters who had tried to steal the slate that night belonged to the Tree House.
He had no idea what the Tree House was planning, and that worried him all the more.
He easily found the short notice in the paper looking for a missing cousin nad Kate White. Jenkins jotted down the address, mailed his letter from the bar that served as an entrance to the black market, and then settled in to wait for Mr. White Cat's reply.
Next, he entered the black market proper, found the middleman known as the Clown, and t with the huntress. She accepted his commission but was frank about his chances.
"I'll start with the building contractors from twenty years ago," she said, "but it's been a long ti. You can't even be sure of the exact date the slate was put in the wall. It could even be connected to sothing like A-03-2-4667, the 'Evil Soul in the Wall.' So, let's be clear upfront: regardless of the outco, the deposit is non-refundable."
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