13: Black Secret

I awoke at around 7:30 at night, and I started looking around for Falcar. He was not in the guild hall, so I assumed that he was out on the town. I was feeling very refreshed, and went down to the makeshift practice room that the guild hall had. I went through some more basic summoning, and refreshed my Alteration with some shield spells. By the time I had depleted my energies it was 9:00, and I went to look for Falcar again. He was still nowhere to be found, so I decided to ask Deetsan if she had seen him.

“Oh, yes. I’m afraid you must have slept through it all. You must be a deep sleeper.”

“What happened, Deetsan?”

“Oh well… It’s my fault really, I just couldn’t believe Falcar had given the same task that he had given to Vidkun! I didn’t want to lose any more associates. I confronted him after you got back, and well, one thing led to another, and he stormed out.” Deetsan said this casually, as if it were normal for a guild head to simply walk out of his guild hall.

“Deetsan, I have some bad news. Vidkun isn’t missing. He’s dead.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. He was gone for several weeks after all,” she sighed “what a horrible way to die…”

“And what about my recommendation?” I realized that if Falcar was gone and wouldn’t give me a recommendation, I might never be able to get into the Academy.

“I was getting to that. Listen, I want you to go into Falcar’s quarters and see if you can find anything… unusual. While you’re in there, look for a recommendation. I don’t know if he filled one out for you or not, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Alright, but what if there is no recommendation?”

“Don’t go jumping to conclusions. We’ll cross that swamp when we come to it.”

With that, I set off for the basement. Falcar’s room was locked, but my skills with a lock pick would be enough to pop it open. I glanced around to see if anyone was watching, and, satisfied that no one was there, I picked the lock.

Inside Falcar’s room was everything a Guild Head would need to do his business. I closed the door and searched through his desk and drawers, but found nothing more than an ink well and some shoes. The only place I had left to search was his personal chest, and that was locked. Once again, I was able to pick the lock, and started rummaging through the papers and clothes in the chest. I looked at all the papers, but none of them were a recommendation. As I got to the bottom of the chest, my hand closed around something smooth and very warm. I pulled it out and examined it. It was a black soul gem. Black soul gems are used in the field of necromancy, and I immediately dropped it onto the ground. It seemed to ooze evil power, and I nudged it away from me with my shoe. I then continued to search through the chest, this time more carefully. I found another black soul gem, and wrapped them both up in some blank pieces of paper.

I returned to Deetsan bearing the grim news. “Oh my, It’s worse than I feared. And no recommendation? Hmm, give me the gems, I must include them in my report to the council.”
“And my recommendation?”

“I’ll explain the situation to the council. Under the circumstances, I think they will accept it as a recommendation. After all, I am now the ranking guild member here.”

I returned to my bed, and read a few books from the rather sparse library. I mulled over what Falcar had been doing. Black soul gems! I thought those were only used for very powerful necromancy! I wondered what Falcar had been doing during his frequent absences from the guild hall. I closed my books, and practiced a few shield spells before falling asleep.