Shahar, World's Greatest Detective IC: A Letter from a Friend

[Xihirli]

Gaaki stared hard at Shahar.

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Gimme persuasion!

[Valmark]

Shahar stared back. Not very aggressively.

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I just realized I don't have lockpick proficiency so if this roll fails it'll be worse then I thought.

(1d20+5)[17]

[Xihirli]

Gaaki stood. "I'll see if I can go get it," she said, and unlocked a nearby door.
After half a minute, she came back out with a brown, chipped and aged scroll. She passed it to Shahar.
"I hope you succeed," she said. "Neil was very kind when... not many were."
She didn't jump into details.

[Valmark]

Shahar decided that it was not the time to pry into her business, probably.

Seeing that the scroll looked old, she was careful in unfolding it to examine the contents.

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Does it feel old to the touch? Anything weird about it?

[Xihirli]

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Make an investigation or Intelligence (Forgery Kit) check

[Valmark]

"Kotra, Tanya, know anything about scrolls?"

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Could I get advantage from working together with the other two?

Investigation (1d20+1)[9]
Potential advantage (1d20+1)[8]

[Xihirli]

Kotra glanced it over.
If it was a forgery, it was a good one.

"Will you be checking it out?" Gaaki asked.

[Valmark]

"Yes" Shahar unfurled the scroll to read what it actually said after examining the exterior.

[Xihirli]

The text is in a very old styling of Common, which Kotra helped Shahar parse.

From the pen of Deneir, the First Scribe

It was in those days when the connection between elves and men were first severed. The elves, at first seen by the settling freedpeople escaping from the remnants of the Aboleths' Empire as helpers guiding them to live on their own, soon became distrusted by humans.
Humans, unlike elves, sought to settle, till soil, burn forests to make room for more crops, and build castles of stone. Elves sought to dissuade them from these practices, and thought that if humans understood magic, then they would be able to see the natural world for the beautiful thing the elves did: something to live in harmony with, not conquer.
The first humans to be taught this magic became known as the Netherese.
As for how the Netherese rose to power and created their empire: Is it not written in my annals of the book of the emperors?
But after the rise of their cities, as humankind showed that they saw magic as just another natural force to conquer like gravity or the forests, the Netherese severed all ties with the elves who would no longer share magical secrets with them, calling them traitors.
This work shall explore all known exchanges between the Netherese and the Elven Civilizations during this period, as some of the Netherese defied orders and visited the elves, and more human farmers turned toward the elves rather than the Netherese as they grew to fear the cities flying above them, claiming to protect them.

Firstly we shall discuss the Netherese City of Aquessir, which under the rulership of Grand Arcanist Requiar, maintained friendly, if tense, relationships with the elves. The other major enclave that continued dealings with the elves was Mazzel, under Grand Arcanist Vecna, though these visits were more tense as he attempted to partner with the elven magic users to take on the Phaerrim, which the elves preferred to avoid.

Secondly the cultural exchanges forced upon the Netherese, as the farmers on the surface world they depended on to feed their cities more and more sought out elvish help when under attack by orcs and Phaerrim. This shall make up the vast bulk of...

It's a long document.

[Valmark]

"Contents check out, I think. Though it wouldn't have been hard to make a fake document with Neil's words" Shahar frowned "Where was this document? The exact place I mean. Maybe there's something to be seen there"

[Xihirli]

"I am not the one who found it," Gaaki said. "But it was in one of the most recently sorted parts of the library, nearer the back."

[Valmark]

"Who exactly found it?" Shahar asked, and stood up to go inspect the spot the scroll had been found in hoping there was something.

"And thinking about it... How could Neil have copied from this scroll if it was lost before now?"

[Xihirli]

"Not lost," Gaaki corrected. "Unsorted."
"The library has been in use for generations," Kotra explained. "But we've only just recently been resorting it under the Brooks Numerical System."

"Yeah," Tanya said glumly. "He could have found it at any point he was a student here."

[Valmark]

"I hear Brook mentioned awfully often uh" Shahar said "He's also the guy very interested in other people's works right?" she was starting to be a little suspicious "You all know him well?"

She went to inspect the sorted out sections.
"How does the System work?"

[Xihirli]

"Not well," Tanya said. "He's the head librarian."

Gaaki passed her a sheet on the desk.

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Brooks Numerical System

000-099........Human relationships
100-199........Mathematics and Numbers
200-299........Natural sciences
300-399........Social sciences (Macro)
400-499........Social sciences (Micro)
500-599........Language

[Valmark]

"Mmm... Brooks isn't in his office, she said" Shahar murmured, though keeping that thought to herself as she checked the list.

"When you say unsorted you mean that it had a different pattern from the one you're using now or or that there was no sense to the books' locations? I'd guess even if it was unsorted there was a criteria to it" she then smiled reassuringly at Tanya.

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Basically Shahar wants to know if the document should have been where it was found, or if it was apparently randomly placed there.

"Unless he was considerably dumb when he was our age I think he'd have destroyed the incriminating document if he had copied from it, no? And probably could have had published it much earlier. Besides, who copies word for word when trying to pretend other people's work is theirs?"

[Xihirli]

Gaaki leaned forward. "You don't have to convince me," she said almost in a whisper. "Neil wouldn't do this."
Tanya smiled at that, and the librarian went on.
"It was unsorted before, there was no place for anything, really."

[Valmark]

"Alright... I know this is a lot to ask, but couldn't we check out Brook's office? Since he found it and all?" Shahar asked "Scroll looks legit, but this doesn't tell much coming from me. It was appraised by somebody expert in it, right? Or at least identified in case it's magical?"

[Xihirli]

"If you want a record of the testing of the document, follow me," Gaaki said. "But I can't let you into his office." She stood and started walking for the back of the classroom.

"There's not all that much access to magic here," Tanya explained. "The big magical provider around Waterdeep was the Church of Pelor. And... well," she shrugged.

[Valmark]

"Mmm... Then it could be magically counterfeited. And yeah, I'd like that" Shahar hurried after Gaaki, meanwhile thinking how to sneak into Brook's office without lockpicks.

[Xihirli]

Gaaki took her into a back office where a table was set up seemingly to test old documents. There was a brief outline on the table for determining ancient papers' authenticity, the first being a comparison of the browning of the parchment with other works of the same age.
Others included a comparison of penmanship and diction with other writers of the era, and luckily Deneir had enough preserved works that they could compare it directly.

The document had passed all tests of the kind.

[Valmark]

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Who's Deneir?

"Who conducted the tests? How long does it take to test a paper for autenticity?"

[Xihirli]

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History check

"Leland. Not long, perhaps a half-day of study," Gaaki said.
"We don't exactly have an expert in forgery on hand."

[Valmark]

"The same person that found it also checked it's autenticity?" Shahar clarified.

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If Leland isn't guilty I've been completely bamboozled.

History check! [Rol1d20+1[/roll]

EDIT: It's a 10.

[Xihirli]

"That's right," Tanya said.
"Why do you ask?"

[Valmark]

"It's all kinds of suspicious" Shahar said "It is extremely unlikely that Niel somehow wrote exactly the same text Leland found. Assuming Niel's innocence means that the text was counterfeited somehow- this takes us to Leland. It was him who claimed that Niel copied his work off of the document, document that Leland found- and Leland was also the one that tested its autenticity. If he made a forgery it would obviously pass the tests he himself 'administered'. And according to you your father said that Leland has a lot of interest in other people's work- that makes it quite likely that he had been inquiring after Niel's work" Shahar concluded.

"It could be all a coincidence, of course. Or... It could not" Shahar looked pensive.
"Also, are there records of ex-students? Or records of when books and the like became part of the library? Could we puzzle out wether Niel actually had the chance to copy from it or not when he was a student?"

[Xihirli]

"I can get you the student records for when Neil was attending tomorrow morning," Kotra offered.
"And I can lead you to Leland's house for snooping," Tanya said. "Whenever you want."

[Valmark]

"Very well" Shahar gave the incriminating document back to Gaaki "I can't think of anything else to try in the library. Is Leland's house outside the campus?'

[Xihirli]

"Yeah," Tanya said. "He doesn't live too far from me and Da."

[Valmark]

"Then let's go check it out" Shahar nodded "Lead the way. Hopefully he isn't home. And yeah, I'd like those records, Miss Yousafzai"