Sebarius takes a small break from telling his story, picks up the bottle of water, takes a hearty gulp and looks at the other two expectantly, but neither Aiko nor Crystal seemed to want to react to what he just told them.

"Seriously? Nothing?" he finally asks.

"I don't know what you're expecting, actually," Aiko admits and Crystal merely nods.

"I just told you how fate itself knocked on my door to keep my on my trail and—"

"Bullshit, that was dumb luck and not fate," Crystal interrupts him.

"Listen up, I don't believe in fate. I believe in chance, circumstance and decisions. Yeah, I admit it was mighty convenient that you stumbled across the Spirit orb like that, but know what? That you went there was not 'fate', but your curiousity to see what kind of stuff this collector had hoarded. Not 'fate' decided you had to go there. You did."

Aiko puts her hand on Crystal's shoulder and explains in a more calm voice, "Crystal doesn't think very highly of the concept of 'fate', as I'm sure you may have noticed."

"No kidding..." Sebarius mutters, clears his throat and waits for Crystal to calm down again.

After she did, he continues, "Of course I did not storm on the stage and grab the thing."
Crystal chuckles and replies, "Now wouldn't that have been a sight to behold. If you had gone all 'It is mine, all mine, my preciousssss', that would've earned you a place in the looney bin for sure."

"Very funny, really," Sebarius retorts with a smile, while Aiko tries to stifle her laughter.

After the end of the auction, I made a beeline for the local public archives of the scholar's guild.

They had labelled it a 'Spirit orb', meaning that the artifact must have been researched before.

When I asked the librarian on duty—

"Hold on, hold on. Wasn't that action held in the evening? Wouldn't after the end of the auction be in the middle of the night? Which library is open 'in the middle of the night'?"

"The scholar's library is open around the clock, actually, because scholarly studies often take days to complete. In fact, the libraries are well equipped with separate kitchens, restrooms and even sleeping quarters, so the scholars don't have to waste precious time commuting. Though the kitchens and the sleeping quarters are reserved to the scholars of the local branch. It's not an inn after all. May I continue now?"

"Yes, of course, just asking...you scholars sure are a strange bunch."

"Not any stranger than people who wear fox tatoos on their shoulder."

"Touche."

So yes, when I asked the librarian on duty, she didn't take long to set me up with the required literature.

According to the research papers, the first spirit orb was found on a pedestal in a ruin to the far east.
It was shining brilliantly at the time, illuminating the entire room it was propped up in, however as it was moved, the light quickly faded and eventually it died altogether.

The recorded runes of the room identified the ruin as final resting place of a great spirit lord, hence it was given the name of 'Spirit orb'.

Following a hunch, the head researcher of the time carried the orb to other places which were supposedly connected to these 'spirits' and, sure enough, the orb started glowing each time they entered the central chamber.

It was also him, who took a tiny shard of the Spirit orb and placed it on a still surface of water, you know, much like you'd build a makeshift compass and he observed, that the 'needle' would orient itself towards said central chamber.

Unfortunately he fell prey to a trap while investigating this phenomenon and nobody ever picked up his research again, considering it worthless and a waste of time and ressources.

Unfortunately, the papers failed to mention, where the spirit orb or the 'spirit compass' as this scholar's contraption was called, were located.

But even if the papers had told me that, I was sure that 'getting it' was next to impossible.

I assumed, that the spirit orb itself was placed in a museum, where it was certainly well guarded.

As for the spirit compass, it could have been anywhere in the world and without a solid lead on where to look, it may well have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"Wouldn't the compass have been in the same museum as the spirit orb?" Aiko asks, but Sebarius shakes his head and explains, "It is 'frowned upon' to damage artifacts for whatever reason. Displaying the spirit compass openly would be a lot like admitting, that we don't care about the intactness of our findings."

"But they still wrote about it in those research notes, right?"

"Yes, because those must not be altered either. The scholar society is a bit...controversial like that. Besides, it is rare for someone to look at the research notes of another scholar to begin with, so the risk of 'exposing' the society was low to begin with."

"Or, with other words, those who are responsible for distributing copies don't even bother reading what they are distributing, huh?"

"That too, I guess," Sebarius admits with a wry smile at Crystals astute observation.

The coming days, I spent keeping an ear to the ground to learn, who purchased the spirit orb.

Fortunately the tattletales of the city did not fail me and I quickly learned that the spirit orb was purchased by a rich collector by the name of 'Lord Shackleforth', who had a mansion in a nearby town.

The plan itself was simple.

I intended to repeat the experiment of the scholar before me and create my own spirit compass to aid me in my search.
For this, all I needed was a tiny speck of the spirit orb, so small, that good 'Lord Shackleforth' wouldn't even notice that a part of his trophy was missing.

But as they say, no plan ever survives the first contact with the enemy.