The air popped as I quietly teleported into my rooms, without my usual fanfare. When an audience is not forthcoming, I tend toward the utilitarian. After all, I don't want to waste a good and spectacular teleport for simply returning to my rooms? Much better to save those when, say, appearing before impressionable family members.
I do, after all, have a reputation to maintain.
A quick dart of my eyes proved that someone had stopped by my rooms. For, in the banal words of that Earth shadow computer network, it seemed that I had mail.
I probed it slightly, found it free of trap, tracer or poison and examined the envelope in a more mundane fashion as I turned around. Purplish petal bordered. Fairly elegant, actually
The seal I recognized immediately, and I found my letter opener (or to be more precise, summoned it to me) and opened it carefully. I sat down in my favorite chair. I had the time and inclination and desire to enjoy this.
I began reading the message. Purple ink. Paper similar to envelope. It was indeed from whom I thought. I was inordinately pleased inside as I read. My suspicions, not only about the author of the letter, but of matters in general around its writer were on the mark.
Time to file this away. I thought, and rose from the chair. Or, to be more precise, tried to, since I found myself unable to get up. Spell? Attack? I raised my senses immediately, alert for what might come next. Nothing came. I examined the situation, and realized what was holding me. An adhesive of some sort! Simple, mundane and effective. But who had put it there, and why? I saw a few strands of hair...but they did not feel the same, psychically as the letter.A false lead, then, to boot. The glue was a practical joke. But how had its perpetrator gotten in? I extended a spell, illuminating the grid of magical lines of force. The more sorcerous inclined of you might wonder why I simply didn't extend my senses rather than illuminating the lines of force in real sight, but sometimes not concentrating on mage sight allows you to see subtleties...such as I had done several days ago, in the wake of the visit from Valerian.
It was too funny for words when Clarissa demanded that the illuminated traces of Dream Contact be removed. As if removing the display of them removed the actual traces. She was perhaps the one amongst the newest cousins I would not grieve over too much if she were gone. She was stupid, self-centered, and dangerous. I submit her tampering with a Door and nearly getting a fair portion of the family killed as evidence.
In any event, the grid showed few signs of distress. The intruder had NOT simply walked into the room. I also didn't see any signs of teleport. It was a neat puzzle.
Two thoughts, after a moment, came to mind. I still didn't see the practicality of the first, but the second...yes, that might work. And it seemed all simple. I glanced to the letter. Of course. The same person.
A little bit of conjured solvent solved the problem and I rose from the chair and filed away the letter. The combination of it and the glue caused a paradigm shift. I saw its author in a whole new light. Indeed, cousin, I thought, You are far more talented than many might guess. I briefly mused just how much other relatives knew what I had divined and shrugged. The family games go on.
My extended senses, however, as I was thinking about this picked up a small disturbance below me, on the first floor. A messenger, agitated and excited. Making their way toward the messenger were two new relations I actually had a measure of affection for, accompanied by a third, and the Deirdre wannabe head of the x-chromosome guards.No, I was not getting soft and addle minded, thank you very much. I had rational reasons for holding those two in some regard. Heck, the Sorceress I had engaged in a Wizard's Duel with, and the Trump Artist Mom had meddled with. The blond haired young woman with them I had not officially met. It seems that if it weren't for Dalt's even more cretin of a son throwing a dagger at me trying to kill Random, I would have last night.
Even better, the messenger was being pursued by yet another relation, one I had not had the pleasure to meet yet either.
I would just have to correct that deficiency. This was going to be too much fun. I winked out of my rooms and was there.
_End_