Sorry for how late this is, I'm the worst, time is fake, the usual song and dance, etc. Does the Chantry do excommunication? Unsure, probably something like it at least for big stuff? But for this let's just say that they've been kicked out of lay orders and had their work silenced and repressed. This plus their irresistible powers of Charm and Acting will be enough to get them access to the archives, where they will find several promising-looking entries in the card catalog, but no corresponding books.
A bored librarian will be happy to be given a chance to gossip about how a number of books, including some very old volumes from the most secure sections, have been removed from the library over the last year in compliance with a government order. He won't recall precisely what justification was given, only that it was a lot of bureaucratic nonsense that he found suspicious and thinks is probably some well-connected scholar trying to get a leg up on rivals somehow, which is a thing that's happened before, like in 9:42 when Livian Harestim tried to have his uncle destroy every copy of Orrenti's Florinarum because it disproved his thesis on— etc. He'll also mention offhand that they keep getting annoying letters from some bureaucrat because there are a few volumes included in the demand that they weren't able to find. He'll give them the related cards, and they can make note of the names of the scholars who last checked them out—one of whom is Nastasia Sellic, the other a Haroldus Locrusin.
Nastasia is not one for socialisation and in fact by all accounts (including their own after observing her presentation) is extremely socially awkward, and tends to stay in and write and read and research and avoid talking to people directly. But she possesses a dog whose breed resembles an Afghan hound, named Riabald, who is her pride and joy. She walks him twice a day and occasionally attends kennel club-type gatherings, so this could be a great meetcute as necessary. As for potential seduction (if you were serious about that, we're unsure) she is, as we said, quite awkward, but a dog lover who is also some sort of renegade scholar-monk will turn out to be a romance novel forbidden passion set-up she could get into. If you'd like to do some Cyrano-style shenanigans with this, we can also offer a brand new beta version set of discreet earbud crystals for them to test drive.
Nastasia lives in an apartment in the middle of Minrathous with only the most basic security (locks on doors, nosy neighbors, etc.), so getting in to poke around and/or plant bugs won't be tough for them. Her full lecture notes can be easily found there. It will be hard to immediately piece together what exactly she's on to, if anything, because they're both esoteric and very scattered. But they can at least also find a marked-up copy she received from the committee detailing precisely which portions she was to cut from her presentation. These too are hard to follow, but it will be clear that a significant portion deals with recent research findings related to the study of rifters and some other magical experimentation, including a reference in a footnote to work by "Volaris" conducted at a place called "Ascalon." There are also some sections cut that are incomprehensible without a strong working knowledge of Ancient Tevene, but which appear to relate to the volume she's kept from the Orentius library, "Dumat's Children, or An Accounting of the Reigns of the Archons of the First Blight and Their Deeds," which they can find "hidden" behind a stack of other books on her shelves. It's very old and not in great shape, with some fun illumination-style illustrations.
While getting crystal bugs into her office on campus or home won't be too hard, it will be kind of a temporal needle in the haystack to get a useful conversation out of it, so they may want to try to prompt her in some way, either through interactions with her, or getting her nervous somehow, or whatever. Or, if you'd like to focus on other stuff, you can also just say they dug deeper into her schedule and find a convenient upcoming meeting with another name of note to listen in to.
no subject
A bored librarian will be happy to be given a chance to gossip about how a number of books, including some very old volumes from the most secure sections, have been removed from the library over the last year in compliance with a government order. He won't recall precisely what justification was given, only that it was a lot of bureaucratic nonsense that he found suspicious and thinks is probably some well-connected scholar trying to get a leg up on rivals somehow, which is a thing that's happened before, like in 9:42 when Livian Harestim tried to have his uncle destroy every copy of Orrenti's Florinarum because it disproved his thesis on— etc. He'll also mention offhand that they keep getting annoying letters from some bureaucrat because there are a few volumes included in the demand that they weren't able to find. He'll give them the related cards, and they can make note of the names of the scholars who last checked them out—one of whom is Nastasia Sellic, the other a Haroldus Locrusin.
Nastasia is not one for socialisation and in fact by all accounts (including their own after observing her presentation) is extremely socially awkward, and tends to stay in and write and read and research and avoid talking to people directly. But she possesses a dog whose breed resembles an Afghan hound, named Riabald, who is her pride and joy. She walks him twice a day and occasionally attends kennel club-type gatherings, so this could be a great meetcute as necessary. As for potential seduction (if you were serious about that, we're unsure) she is, as we said, quite awkward, but a dog lover who is also some sort of renegade scholar-monk will turn out to be a romance novel forbidden passion set-up she could get into. If you'd like to do some Cyrano-style shenanigans with this, we can also offer a brand new beta version set of discreet earbud crystals for them to test drive.
Nastasia lives in an apartment in the middle of Minrathous with only the most basic security (locks on doors, nosy neighbors, etc.), so getting in to poke around and/or plant bugs won't be tough for them. Her full lecture notes can be easily found there. It will be hard to immediately piece together what exactly she's on to, if anything, because they're both esoteric and very scattered. But they can at least also find a marked-up copy she received from the committee detailing precisely which portions she was to cut from her presentation. These too are hard to follow, but it will be clear that a significant portion deals with recent research findings related to the study of rifters and some other magical experimentation, including a reference in a footnote to work by "Volaris" conducted at a place called "Ascalon." There are also some sections cut that are incomprehensible without a strong working knowledge of Ancient Tevene, but which appear to relate to the volume she's kept from the Orentius library, "Dumat's Children, or An Accounting of the Reigns of the Archons of the First Blight and Their Deeds," which they can find "hidden" behind a stack of other books on her shelves. It's very old and not in great shape, with some fun illumination-style illustrations.
While getting crystal bugs into her office on campus or home won't be too hard, it will be kind of a temporal needle in the haystack to get a useful conversation out of it, so they may want to try to prompt her in some way, either through interactions with her, or getting her nervous somehow, or whatever. Or, if you'd like to focus on other stuff, you can also just say they dug deeper into her schedule and find a convenient upcoming meeting with another name of note to listen in to.