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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guilt Puppy" data-source="post: 1853430" data-attributes="member: 6521">"I'm sure I can find you a job like that, if you need one," Aesop offers in response to Nurthk. "But I'd prefer for you to stay safe for now, until we have a chance to discuss that letter... In the meantime, I can foot the bills that need footing, as long as your tastes aren't too decadent."As decadence goes, Aesop's tour of the city leans more toward that than utility... Judging by it alone, it would seem that Eivanrach's principle features are its restaurants, tea parlours and theatres... Aesop's first bit of entertainment is a somewhat aggressively suggested trip to the tailor, for garments "more suited to leisure."Aerda, meanwhile, finds his host to be far less accomodating. Amre is a humorless, affectless man, more interested in getting the job done right than in the job itself, it seems. He works alongside three apprentices; two older gentlemen, and a young elven woman who explains her mentor's aloofness as such:"His greatest contribution to the arcane arts is Amre's Paradox: Simply put, that any question worth divining an answer to, is equally worth misleading, to another party. The only question is which party is more skilled: If it is the divining party, the answer should be trusted, and if not it should not. Unless you know a great deal about the other party, you have to assume that there's an equal chance of being mislead as of not -- so you may as well just flip a coin, and make your decision based on that.""Of course," she continues, "it doesn't mean divination is a useless art. But Sage Amre is of the opinion that, as a general rule, divinations should only be trusted when they confirm independently held suspicions, and disregarded otherwise. As a general rule."...(OOC: Feel free to backtrack as necessary, but I get the sense that there are no big plans for this time, so continuing onward: )After three days, the inquiry returns a result which Aerda has every reason to feel confident of: The letter is genuine, whatever else it may be, and free from any magic but that which confirms its authenticity, and one spell -- secret page -- which is presumably intended to conceal its content from anyone but the intended reader.With everyone assembled in his home, Aesop heads into another room to read the letter privately, and after only a few short minutes returns."Well," he begins, "I can't say it was very world-shattering. It merely recommended that the Jury of Sages, to the extent of its influence, make sure that the Free Cities remain free and ununited should foreign war reach our region -- that if we thin our positions of strength in defense of the weak, all should fall... Which, I can tell you, would be the Jury's position anyway."He seems, nonetheless, displeased."What troubles me," he says, stroking his beard roughly, "is the author. It was not signed by Exantrius. It was signed by Lord Thedoric."He sits after this, almost hiding in his chair."So, what do you make of this?"</blockquote>

Verification