Lunor Faust's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Lunor stood at the edge of the Whispering Forests, where ancient trees stretched toward the sky. This was the place her uncle had visited three times in one month. She gripped her satchel strap and stepped into the shadows between the trunks. The forest path wound deeper into darkness, but after an hour of walking, sunlight broke through ahead. Lunor emerged into a clearing where the trees gave way to a town road. A green metal sign stood at the intersection, its white letters reading "Bureau of Scholarly Magic Research Reports." Her ears perked up. This was exactly the kind of place that would have records about magical artifacts. Maybe her uncle had come here to file his findings before everything went wrong. She turned toward the direction the sign indicated and picked up her pace. The bureau building sat beside a small plaza where a marble statue rose from a granite block. The carved owl gazed out with stone eyes that seemed to follow her as she passed. Lunor paused to read the plaque at its base. The Owl of Minerva marked achievements in magical scholarship and lost knowledge recovery. Her chest tightened. Someday, when she found the grimoire, maybe they would add her name to this monument. The thought pushed her forward through the bureau's front doors. Inside, shelves stretched to the ceiling, packed with leather-bound reports and catalogued research. A clerk directed her to the archives without asking questions. Lunor spent the afternoon pulling files about magical artifacts discovered in the Whispering Forests region. One report mentioned an expedition that had uncovered traces of ancient protective spells near the exact coordinates her uncle had visited repeatedly. The file was incomplete, marked as pending further investigation. She copied the details into her notebook and left the bureau as the sun began to set. Tomorrow she would return to those woods with new information. The grimoire was closer than she'd thought, and now she had proof that others had sensed its presence too.