You had high hopes when you went to sleep, on the sixth day of your third week, that your lovely new manse and its multiple delightful doors would provide some barrier against the insanity of wizards and star-addled folk.
This hope proves forlorn this morning as from the street came Johanna's exultant bellow.
"It's an Eliptical! An Eliptical! Eureka, blessed be Verena, for the truth lies in numerical proofs!"
In response you promptly roll over and snuggle a little fiercer into Rapunzel in hope that whatever in the hells is going on would proceed on without you, for it certainly sounds like Johanna was having a rambuctious enough time by herself outside. Yet that hope would prove forlorn as less than a dozen minutes later a tentative knock comes upon your bedchamber's door, a rattle of the handle preceding the adorable tone of Simony, your latest servant, as she calls to your attention.
"Sir, Governor Sir? Ms Kepler and Mr Tollender are here to see you? They seem... Enthused."
You yawn and huff into Rapunzel's chest before stirring, calling out to the girl at your door before she can mistake your quiet for sleep.
"I'll be up shortly! Take them both to the front room and put out some small ales plus sweet-rolls. My thanks."
Rapunzel favours you with a kiss as you move to make real that promise, getting dressed in a satin doublet and fine breeches with simple slippers before heading for the front-room with your love at your right elbow. As you walk Rapunzel purrs into your ear in her own enthused way.
"It sounded like good news, no? Johanna is not normally so fond of shouting."
You snarkily snap back
"she gains the ability only when I'm in the middle of a nice calm morning or night, it seems."
Earning a light ribbing whilst heading down the stairs.
Your manse is quite humble -as it should be for a structure only placed down in a week-, yet the clever use of pre-packed frames and panelling made for a comfy luxury that was nowhere more evident than the front room, a combination lounge and study which now houses two wizards, One elven and sullen while the other is human and vibrating with enthusiasm.
Johanna Kepler looks like a woman halfway in the grip of mania still, with her hair stuck out oddly and her clothes dusty-smudged as if she has been locked in her room for the entire week. On your low table she keeps a hand upon a thick sheaf of paper covered by numbers, lines and copious notes, her eyes glinting as you enter with Rapunzel at your flank.
"Governor!"
"Governor Flynn!"
Both wizards speak in unison, Thyriol crinkling his nose as he glares Johanna's way before barking.
"Governor! I must insist that whatever you hear, my name not be associated with this nonsense, the barking insanity Journeyman Kepler has associated with her astronomical theory."
Kepler rounds on the other wizard like a slapped viper.
"You cannot deny the matching data! The proof is in hard numbers!"
Thyriol, meanwhile, has the air of a cat being offended by a small dog.
"Your mathematics are inspired, your proof is quite ironclad, even by my standards! It is the literary madness linked to it with which I have issue."
Kepler scowls.
"It's not madness! It's simply connections of rhyme-"
"Which do not rhyme."
Interrupts Thyriol.
"-and connections through wordplay and symbology."
Kepler finishes with a growl, throwing a sweet-bun at Thyriol as you rub your temples and sigh.
You decide upon diplomacy instead of swatting both wizards with rolled up paper, putting up your hands as you rifle through the densely coated papers presented by Kepler before leaving them to Rapunzel.
"Journeyman Kepler, I can scarce understand mathematics of this caliber without my brain melting, yet I am a student of stories and verse, let us hear these connections you have made."
Kepler grinned as she nodded and steepled her hands in the manner of altdorf academics before speaking.
"So the first hint in the pattern is the centrepiece of the second sky shown, that being the asur Alai Eloach constellation, for given its position and relation to other constellations can only mean it was in the northern imperial sky, sometime near Hochwinter.
That's a clue, given the constellation of the Bretonnian Lady's cup also visible, to pronounce Eloach with the Bretonnian hard C on ch, rhyming it with Place of Shining Rock, and that gives me the first direction to follow."
At this Thyriol groans, and Rapunzel seems almost equally poleaxed with confusion as you slowly run through the sequence. Then you make Rapunzel blink as you brighten and speak.
"North Empire, Shining Rock, Hochwinter... So, South? South-South-East?"
Rapunzel and Thyriol both stare as if you'd grown a second mouth while Kepler claps.
"Exactly! South-South-East, with the degrees of arc to the wolf's fang giving a hint as to distance."
Rapunzel challenges this proclamation weakly.
"My love..? How could that make sense? The rhyming, it not only does not rhyme, for eltharin does not have a hard C in that place, but it makes no meaning I can discern."
You twist your lip as you wiggle your hand, trying to explain.
"Sweet Rapunzel, it makes perfect sense in the gaps between meanings. Hochwinter in the northern empire can only mean Middenheim. Alai Enok, Shining Rock. The Place of Shining Rock, of the ulricans and sigmarites both, lies south-east of Middenheim."
Rapunzel if anything looks more confused, so you settle for giving her a comforting cuddle as Thyriol makes a face like you've stamped on his foot.
Heedless, Kepler continues.
"The next sky presented a puzzle of inference with Rhya's Cauldron most prominent, a few signs such as Mannslieb' procession leading to it being a Farmer's Sky in the evening, somewhere just around Araby.
That points north-east, if considering that The Mother from Mootian folklore is also visible, placed unusually."
The two asur at the table look increasingly lost as you and Kepler share a moment of understanding, the astrologer scribing out the directions she has gleaned from inference and reference onto a map of the lustrian coast. She grins like a loon as she finishes, and you feel excitement at the look of it.
"Sigmar's Comet!"
You exclaim!
Thyriol stares at the collection of lines without a single hint of understanding on the wizard's face, though Rapunzel by now looks thoughtful.
You help her, tracing the curve of the coast and purring "If you imagine the isthmus as the top tail, and follow down... Just tilt your head, and can you see the shape in the gaps? The lines all arrow in toward the centre."
Rapunzel squeaks, rubbing her temple.
"And the significance... Is...?"
Kepler grins as she gets out a page from her sheaf, tapping a tightly scrawled list of dates.
"All the symbols and the order give me more than directions, they give me a pattern of timing, which tells me that whatever the Slann sent me, whatever they wish for me to find or see, it will become clear Here, just off the coast to our north-east. Sometime soon, within the next three months."
You felt yourself halting your enthusiasm a touch as you comment.
"Isn't that... Underwater?"
Kepler shrugs
"Some sort of underwater ruin, perhaps? Revealed at a particularly low tide."
"And the mathematical things? All the proof and screaming about eclipses?"
You can't help but ask.
"Oh! That is my proof of planetary motion, in the early stages at the moment. The pattern of skies gave me inspiration through the ascension of Verdra, and I found evidence in the data that the celestial spheres orbit in eliptical fashion. It's what I spent most of the week on, honestly."
Kepler explains and for once Thyriol nods in agreement, though you feel an ache in your own brain as you try to cognate what little of the math you can parse.
Rapunzel saves you here with a massage on the shoulders and a distracting smooch, though she still looks lost when looking at the map and its mass of scribbled lines.
Thyriol, meanwhile, looks as if he has chewed through something unpleasant after someone shot a valued pet, he stares at the tangled mass of lines, which bare only passing resemblance to a comet with twin tails, with a mixture of personal offense and resignation to his point being disproven.
You estimate that there will be many angry missives swarming between here and Saphery in the near future, likely griping about human insanity and its unfortunate ability to get results.
Wizards.
Johanna Kepler has exited her Mania earlier than expected.
Special Discovery Expedition Lead 'The Starmap's Ruin' unlocked.
Apologies if this seems rough, I may rewrite this soon-ish, or if I get an editor.
