Fairy waltz

[Nephrite]

Okay.

"I assume you don't know exactly what this is?" Moore asks. "Or am I mistaken?"

[Anastasia]

"There are elusive secrets," Is what the Adversary says at length.

Antenora goes to look at it as well, Sylvie hanging back. "So what is it that's so worth this trouble, Sammael?" Antenora asks, plainly. "Before you inevitably turn the situation to your profit."

The Adversary is merely silent for a few moments, letting it stretch out, before, "You are the goddess of truth, Bloodflier. You tell me."

The two stare each other down, stone silence in the room before, "The Adversary is a poor name, or have you chosen another personal name?" Antenora challenges back, voice strong. "Or has Violet's arts changed you that deeply?"

"Yes." The only answer the Adversary provides, Antenora's expression utterly unamused.

"The devil's answer," she says, flatly. "Are you so stupid as to waste our time when you request a favor from Moore?"

A hint of a smile - a flash of the Astral, of a battle and undead, of drowning in poison. Of choking on poison, of dying in poison. "I merely sought to prove your inadequacies, so that you may correct them."

"And yet," Antenora declares, "I'm the one will will have to correct you again," With a sharp, unkind smile, "But I'm resigned to it. A cowardly failure such as you, well, needs a great deal of correction. Though perhaps you'd prefer the current Lord of the Seventh's touch to mine?"

"Again? Violet was a gift," The Adversary retorts. "But I do congratulate you. You merely chose a more palatable butcher to serve in your escape from Hell, while I serve no one."

In one smooth motion the Black Horn Spear is in Antenora's hand. It is pointed right at the Adversary's face, not that it seems to quail him at all. In a dreadfully soft voice, "If you impinge her honor once more, I will kill you. If you insult her one more time, I will kill you. If you imply the tired old idea that she's just like a fiend? I will fucking kill you." Antenora's face is tight, her gaze ablaze with anger.

Meanwhile, Sylvie moves forward, tense but ready.

One finger comes up to push away the speartip from his face, pale white. It burns and sizzles from that momentary contact, but the wound heals in seconds, even as bright light is shed from the spear. "Hasn't Sylica made its share of mistakes from anger and hubris recently?"

Antenora takes a breath - a deep one, and slowly lowers her spear. "Get to the point with Moore."

[Nephrite]

He really is good at getting under people's skin like a poison, isn't he?

"Peace." Moore says - no force given to the words except his own hopes for it. He does not turn to look at Antenora as if to admonish her, instead his attention is on The Adversary.

"I think I may know what this is." He says. "But I'd like to verify it before we continue this discussion. Is that acceptable?" He asks - he's not trying to defer to The Adversary with his words, but if they are going to learn anything then he has to do it his own way.

[Anastasia]

'Do it," The Adversary agrees immediately. "As long as the means are not objectionable to me. What are they?"

[Nephrite]

"I know someone who may know what this, and I would like them to look and see if it is." He says. "It is no one from Celestia, if that matters. I would let them see it and verify if it is what they think it is. If that doesn't work, I have a spell that may work."

[Anastasia]

"Who is it?" A simple question again, but to the point.

[Nephrite]

"Oghma." Moore says.

[Anastasia]

"No," The rejection is immediate, "His presence is not desired."

[Nephrite]

"Hm." Moore makes a non-committal noise.

So either he knows what it is already and doesn't want Oghma to know, or there's more to it than that...

Is this something he presses? Well, if he can figure it out either way, then it's a moot point.

He considers for a moment before he shakes his head. "Very well, I will try on my own merits, but if they do not work then I will ask you to reconsider your stance. Let me try something." He says.

Moore reaches out to put a hand on the harp and focus the magic he knows!

So, what is going to try and do is focus his Commune with Knowledge spell entirely on the harp - basically foregoing the usual questions he'd get to ask in order to pull as much information from the harp itself to him. YMMV if you'd allow that to happen.

[Anastasia]

This is a way as written something the spell can do? Either way, just go ahead and paste the spell under the circumstances.

[Nephrite]

It's not, it'd be a modification of it. Here is the current one:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Commune with Knowledge
Divination
Level: Brd 11, Clr 13, Sor/Wiz 13
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Concentration

This spell contacts the platonic ideal of knowledge itself to obtain answers. This spell functions as contact other plane, except that the chance of a true answer is 1-96, the chance of a random answer is 97-100 and the Intelligence DC to avoid Intelligence and Charisma loss is 18, it lasts 1 day and a natural roll of 1 always results in a failure, no matter the total*. Certain questions, such as those that seek the secrets of deities, anathemic knowledge or knowledge protected by epic abjurations cause this spell to return a result of unknown instead of an answer. Unlike with contact other plane, the answers may be as long as needed and not only one word.

* Bards and clerics use Charisma and Wisdom in place of an Intelligence check, and lose their bard or cleric spellcasting in place of arcane spellcasting.

If need be to work with what we've got, it'd be something like

"This spell contacts the platonic ideal of knowledge itself to try and obtain answers from an artifact, or by drawing out the knowledge of the artifact itself for the caster."

Something like that. Obviously if it is Oghma's item then this probably wouldn't work anyway, but you never know!

[Anastasia]

Okay, list your SDAs real quick first of all?

[Nephrite]

Divine Bard (0), Divine Blast (1), Extra Domain: Inspiration, Song of Hope, Divine Shield

His other domains are Good and Hope.

[Anastasia]

Improvising spells on the fly is usually the domain of higher divine rank, magic domain, or the supreme eldritch knowledge/spontaneous spells SDAs.

You could come up with a new spell much faster than a mortal, but probably not on the make in on the fly level yet.

[Nephrite]

Okay. In that case we'll just go with the default and hope that he can get some answers by being so close to it. Maybe Oghma can sense him using the spell or something.

If that is the case - his first question would be

'What am I currently touching?' to which I am guessing the answer is 'unknown' but let's see.