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Little Scriven Scrivener's Library

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"I don't necessarily need to find them directly," Nova said, taking his paper back. "But it'd be nice to find something concrete to show Betel." He paused. "Or, better yet, Powehi. Betel seems... young. I'm not sure how much knowledge he actually has about this kind of stuff." He glanced at the ceiling. "I tried asking the other day when the birds came up. Didn't get an answer."
 
Isidora shrugged. "Powehi has a perpetual stick up his ass. You'd probably have to weather a lecture on tryin' to 'meddle in affairs outside our scope,' first. Buuut I'll concede he likely knows somethin'." She scratched the side of her head, suddenly unsure. "But how do we get into contact with him? We've only talked once."
 
"That I'm... unsure about." Nova laughed nervously. "Maybe if we try to go to sleep stewing in negative emotions? Or fuck around with one of the mystery dungeons. He did get pretty pissed when we had Betel help us escape the Timeless Oasis with the Relic Fragment."
 
Isidora chuckled, imagining Powehi's reaction to them blowing up a dungeon just to ask a question. "That sounds like a recipe for suffering two lectures. But it might be funny for a couple seconds, at least."

She closed her eyes and brought a paw to her chin as she considered it more. "I'm sure if we got drunk enough on Shadow, that might prompt a visit. But it'd also be risky as hell, so maybe not worth it." She waved it off. "I'm sure we'll figure out something."
 
"Hopefully." Nova exhaled deeply. "But that's, uh, enough about me. How have you been? I can't imagine this Cipher stuff's sat well with you." At least, if Nova recalled what he'd heard about Isidora's world correctly.
 
Isidora's feathered ear perked up. "Huh?" The past few days had given her a lot of things to be stressed about, truthfully. As well my entire time here...

Of course, she just shrugged it off. "Eh, I'm holdin' up fine. Cipher pisses me off, don't get me wrong, but we're doing somethin' about them, and I'd say we've done well so far." She crossed her arms and tried to seem nonchalant. "I'm just worried about what they're planning. We still know very little, and Ein seemed pretty confident before he died."
 
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"Well, we know about their other base," Nova said, trying not to sound nervous himself. "Don't think we get to waltz our way in like last time, but who knows what could change?"

He hesitated before continuing. "There are a couple of human saying: 'pride goes before a fall' and 'overconfidence kills.' I feel like Cipher could be there. The admins seemed confident they'd take us down and look what happened."
 
"I've heard sayings like that before," said Isidora with a small nod. "And serves them right. The admins took us on directly when they had barely half a reason to believe they stood a chance. I bet you that was the first serious battle they ever had in those bodies."

And yet it wasn't as if they hadn't posed a threat. Isidora had fought tougher battles with lesser stakes, but their strength as opponents was still impossible to deny, and by the end it was only thanks to Radiance that they pulled through so quickly. She could say it was easy in hindsight, but it sure hadn't felt that way in the moment...

Isidora found herself scratching her left arm. "...Circling around, even though they weren't summoned, do you think being human made them stronger?" She shook her head. "Or, offworlders."
 
"Yes. I think it's baked into the fabric of Forlas itself." Nova gestured toward a window. "It doesn't matter how you get here. If you're from another world — or descended from someone who is — you're blessed with abundant strength that can grow expontentionally."

His expression hardened. "The most charitable interpretation I can make is that, at some point, something disrupted Forlas' nature and led to this happening."

Nova sighed. "And in the worst case scenario... this was intentionally baked into Forlas' inner workings." He shook his head. "I'm really hoping it's closer to the former. Regardless, I think it's related to the 'deeper problems' that we're really here to fix. Cipher's just a symptom."
 
Isidora stared into her paw. She was 'blessed' in a way back home, and her advantage could hardly be called fair. She'd been told so. Several times. And oftentimes she feared they were right. But no. I still had to work for that strength.

"I don't think it's that strange for some pokémon to have natural advantages over others," she said carefully. "But nothing about this seems 'natural.' Not if it lets you skip all the hard effort regular 'mon put into getting stronger." Her claws unsheathed and she clenched them. "I hope you're right. Maybe if we fix that, organizations like Cipher and the Covenant won't have a leg to stand on anymore."
 
Nova nodded. "And maybe... this 'rising instability' stuff Powehi's going on about will give us an opening. At the very least, I want to try and find more of these Divine Dungeons. Hence the research."
 
Isidora perked up at 'research.' "Right, and you'll definitely want my help for that." The sneasel reached into her bag and took out a notebook and pen. She wore a confident smirk. "And I'm not taking no for an answer. This is, like, my thing. Y'know, besides being good in a fight."

Maybe Isidora would've been embarrassed to admit that at one point, but she actually felt good about this. A way to contribute outside just fighting, and a chance to learn something that could make a real difference here...!
 
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Nova laughed. "A bookworm, are you? Yeah, I can definitely use the help, then."

He looked over at the rows upon rows of books. "Haven't been much of a reader in a looooooong time. So this'll be... an experience." Nova reared up on his hind legs to attempt jazz hands with his chitinous claws.

Dropping down to all fours, Nova jerked his head in the books' direction. "We better get going, then. I'm not much of a midnight oil burner these days."

Burying his beak in books would at least be bearable with someone else to help. Nova trotted off toward the history section, thankful for the assist.

Hopefully, their search would yield something.

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