Issue 1 Downtime

Ryan, doing his best to hide his anxiousness, knocked on the door to Nailah's office.

"Come in, Ryan."

Ryan, as always, shivered a little when she did that, but came in. "Hello, Professor. Do you have a minute?" he asked, reaching into his backpack for the notebook he'd put the sketch Melissa had done of the letters in.

"Good afternoon, Ryan. I do, more if necessary." she says, gesturing at one of the chairs for him to sit down.

He nodded. "I... actually don't know if we'll need more," he admitted as he took the seat. "I was just hoping that you could make sense of this for me." He unfolded the paper, smoothed it out, and laid it on her desk.

"I don't recognize it, at least. What is it?"

"According to Lemurian cultists? Something about the 'choral of the abyss' that I apparently stole from them. Melissa found it on some kid of... construct in my head."

"Interesting..." she says, eyeing Ryan with some scrutiny. "It's not just a mental construct, is it?" she asks almost rhetorically.

"I don't think so," he admitted. "It's... resonating with my power, it feels like. That's the best way I can describe it."

"The only thing that we could really get from the Lemurian's mind was that it was 'of the light' and it's the key to freeing Set. Well, in combination with a blood sacrifice, at least."

"Which is coincidentally part of why Mariuset sought refuge here. Which is good, that means they lack at least two pieces. Still, this warrants looking into, to say the least..."

"Why do I get the feeling that this is about to start getting more cryptic and making even less sense to me?"

"Because it's in the nature of these things to be cryptic and arcane, I'm afraid. Do you have time to go to the Lighthouse with me?"

He nodded. "I do. Kept my afternoon clear for this, just in case."

"Alright, let's go then." she says, opening a drawer and grabbing a worn leather carrying case and putting Melissa's drawing inside along with a bunch of other loose papers and books.