Alacryan Arthur

Chapter 19

Reynolds Leywin POV

It was a nice morning. I slept in, I had earned it. The things I had seen yesterday had been quite disturbing. But this wouldn't let me distract myself from this beautiful day of nothing but freetime.

I walked downstairs to the dining room, where I grabbed some bread and sat down. The singing of the birds outside made for quite the relaxing atmosphere.

I looked out of the window and discovered a small nest on one of the trees. A small bird with a red dot below its beak flew there with some twigs, continuing to build it. I watched it use its beak to put the twigs in place and then it flew off, probably to get more twigs. I let my eyes wander.

The street was filled with a lot of people, who decided to use this day to visit the market or go to work.

I saw a couple walking toward the market together. They were holding hands and it seemed like they were having fun. The woman just laughed, probably about a joke the man had told her.

"Also slept in?" Vincent had entered the room.

"Hmm" I mumbled. I wasn't much of a morning person.

"I completely forgot to ask yesterday. What was the scroll for?" he asked.

Oh right, the mysterious scroll the police chief had given me.

"I don't know. He just said that he was told I would like it. Wait, I'll go get it." I said and got up to get the scroll. I had laid it beside my half of the bed. It was still there and I grabbed it and went back.

I laid it on the table and started to unroll it. It was about 40x30cm big, with an ornate rand. Whoever sent this, one thing was clear. He wasn't poor. Vincent also noted that.

"Reynolds. A scroll of this dimension must be worth quite a bit. I will call an appraiser here. Never hurts to know a bit more, right?" I nodded.

After 15 minutes an artificer entered the room. He began to examine the scroll.

"It's a two way scroll. The duration is quite high, but the range is extraordinary. It would reach multiple times over the entire continent. Not sure though why an artificer produced it with such a high range, since it only drives up the price.

It also seems to have been set on a particular other scroll. It will only work with its counterpart, I am sure. But there is more. It has far to much mana stored in it to just allow that"

He continued to analyze the scroll. After a few headshakes of confusion, he seemed to have understood what was so weird about this scroll.

"It has multiple uses!" he exclaimed. Even I knew how rare and expensive these kinds of scrolls were. They weren't really common, since it was much cheaper to just buy five singular scrolls, instead of one with five uses.

These scrolls were only used in tasks with minimal equipment and/or in tasks for spies, who had to reduce their incriminating objects.

But why would someone send me such a scroll?

Wait, there was another reason to use such scrolls. They were also used, when it was pretty difficult to deliver such scrolls. Since the other things were out of question it must be that whoever sent this scroll must be at a difficult location to get to.

Again the question of, who sent me this scroll, was only getting more difficult to answer. I didn't know any people who were in places difficult to reach. So unless this scroll was from a complete stranger, I was clueless.

"It already has a time engraved." the artificer continued with his analysis. "It will start a communication with the owner of the other scroll at 18:00. I recommend you get ready by then. That's all there is."