Viveca turned her gaze at the mention of The Vanquisher.  It wasn't unthinkable that he would come to the ball, certainly, but that doesn't mean he was expected.  Aleksandre was a busy man, he could have had any number of things to do.  She'd never seen him in person, but now that she had, something told her she didn't want to.  Then, Indira told her that she didn't want to.  Furrowing her brow, the newly ordained inquisitor looked to her mentor, confused.

"I don't understand," She stated outright, shaking her head, "None of what you just said, Mother, makes any sense..."  At least, it didn't feel like it made sense.  All she could put together was that Aleksandre was stirring something up involving the trio's sojourn into the future.  There wasn't time to explain, because Indira had to move on.  Pinching the bridge of her nose, Viveca shook her head, "Yes, yes, Mother...  Seek them out, find the book, don't meet Bishop Aleksandre..." She agreed, repeating the instructions back to show that she understood it, even if not the reasoning.

It was... a weapon?  How did Indira [i]know[/i] about the circle in the first place?  Viveca couldn't help but think she was getting involved in something far more dangerously political than she'd ever planned to.  She was here to fight an injustice that she'd lived through, [i]not[/i] to be a part of some kind of coup or secret society.  And this, of all things, felt dangerously heretical.  Her mind burned with questions, but she knew Indira wouldn't stick around to answer them, nor was this the place.

"Veshi'maru, vashi'mara," She repeated back, giving a solemn nod.

As the woman went inside, Viveca looked down, what were they going to do to her?  Where did she find the courage to face such a fate at the hands of the Varyan empire?  And now, Viveca would be following in her footsteps, following this trail of breadcrumbs that could land her back in an ether mine.  A life hooked to machines, staring down an endless hall of horrors and people just like her - tubes running in and out of her body like a web of nightmares.  She shuddered and pulled the sheer, glittering scarf from around her neck and wrapped it over her head, concealing her with what little she had to do so.  Slipping back into the ballroom while Indira spoke to Aleksandre, she stayed close to the wall, and any servers who walked by were used as another form of cover.  She kept her back to the duo, going so far as to stop at several tables to socialize pleasantly before moving on.

It seemed like forever before she could get back to her room, change into her uniform, and pack a few days' worth of rations and water.  She didn't have long before the deployment, and if what they said about those archives were true, she would have a hell of a time finding what she looking for.  This was worse than a needle in a haystack, it was like finding a piece of straw in a haystack.  Fastening her falchion to her belt, Viveca headed beneath the Seminary, using the key she was gifted to get inside and locking the door behind her.  If everything went as planned, nobody would know she was ever down there.

A small light rested on the shelf Viveca was examining, she'd been down here an estimated three days...  And still nothing.  Nothing that seemed remotely related to the Azure Circle or secret societies from Omestris...  There were things that probably wouldn't go over so well if they were made public, but it wasn't what she was looking for.  Viveca extinguished her conjured lamp and summoned a new one over her shoulder.  Her eyes peeled through the aisles of the archives...  These subterranean tunnels were killing her, they seemed to go on forever and she didn't have a map of any kind.  She wandered into a room that just... felt different than the rest of them.  It was ornately decorated, with beautiful vines and exquisite masonry.  Her eyes were drawn to the elegant pedestals in the middle of the room, varied slightly in size, and appeared to be more than simple posts or stands.  They were sarcophagi.  There couldn't be anything in there she was looking for - books belong on shelves.  But what could be inside?  Bodies? Why would the Varyan Administration keep something like corpses in the tunnels under their church unless they were ancient clergy who requested such a burial.

It might be disrespectful, but Viveca's curiosity got the best of her.  Respect the dead, but as an Inquisitor, she just had to open the coffins.  It took a minute, but she finally pried the first one open, revealing an adult man dressed in...  She covered her mouth, he was in Omestrian finery of overlapping blues and reds, just like she'd read in historical texts before.  It was even more beautiful than she'd imagined, her fingers softly stroking the fabric with fascination.  What she would give to see Omestris in its prime.  So perfect.  Perhaps the book Mother Indira had talked about was here somewhere.

"What are you doing here, old timer?" She asked with a small smile.  It might seem macabre - a skeleton in a gorgeous tomb under the church of a country that had laid waste to its homeland...  But there was something both pleasant and melancholy for her.  "If I could just find what I'm looking for, maybe it'd answer those questions as well."  Gently, she closed the lid to the sarcophagus and moved to the next, which held what she was certain was a female skeleton.  Closer examination didn't reveal much else.  The third coffin held the most interesting thing of all.  A child, in some kind of strange blue garment...  A child...  Viveca knelt low, resting on her knee as she fingered the robes curiously.

"This...  This feels wrong..." She muttered quietly until something caught her eye.  Lying at the bottom of the sarcophagus, beside the child's remains, was a book.  It was in shockingly clean condition, the pages were preserved well and the cover was hardly battered or torn at all.  Her brow furrowed, looking through the book's pages.  This wasn't written in Varyan, Muraadan, T'saraen, or Omestrian...  It was unintelligible, but there were a few pictures.  Maybe it could be decoded, given time and study.  Then she found it, her eyes settled on a circle of brilliant blue, scrawled onto a page that was nearly empty otherwise in a tool that was not the original writing utensil.  The letters in the book seemed akin to the dialect of Omestrian that she was familiar with, but not entirely, and it was certainly a different language.

"What is this..?"  She asked in a whisper, her finger tracing the circle and settling on a clumsily drawn silhouette of a man.  It made her skin crawl, but she could actually make out the letters below.  Only three days before, Indira had been telling her a story and had said this exact word.  It said grandfather, but the letters were written as a name, not a title.  She couldn't remove the image of the circle and man from her mind as she said the word aloud.

"Ashe-rahn," It surprised her, as well, when she said it almost as a command and not a curious reading.  With a resounding 'thud,' the book fell to the floor and Viveca doubled over in pain.  She let out a cry before her throat felt closed up and prevented her from making a sound.  Her hand clutched at her chest, she felt cold...  Her blood feeling like it was solidifying in her very veins.  The pain came in an endless series of waves, wracking her body with cold.  To her horror, upon looking down, ice was forming from her very palms, starting to encase her arms.  It spread quickly, and her eyes grew wide.

"No, no...  Why, why, what did I do?  [i]Mother Indira, what have you sent me to do?![/i]" She called out, betrayal gripping her stomach.  From everywhere and nowhere all at once, she hears laughter...  Was it in her head? In the walls?  Viveca couldn't tell, but the ice spread to her shoulders.  This was it, this is how she would go; on her knees in front of a child's sarcophagus, reading a book that the woman she trusted most in this word had told her to find.  A warm, salty tear rolled from her eye, "I can't...  Not like this, please Omestris, not like this... I'm not ready..."  How could somebody trained for so long to face death be afraid of it now that it was here?