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The Autumn Hollow sits quiet; the trods have been -- mostly -- quiet lately during patrols, but the silver-threaded Helldivers still haunt the idle conversation of so many in Shackamaxon. Tasked with unearthing solutions? Johnnie.
Which routes will she take in her search?
Johnnie's been doing a lot of footwork. Talking to those who've encountered the Helldivers; travelling to the locations of their encounters to search for clues at each site; searching for materials that might have hints on how to sever a silver cord without undue harm to its bearer. It's an elusive target, this- to solve a mystery attached to two enigmas, but it's a challenge she undertakes with gusto, never one to back down from a hunt- even with her old title no longer bearing down on her shoulders.
It'd just be poor form to give up, after all.
Heading out to the various sites where the Helldivers have been spotted yields a scant amount of information, though it's very clear that as difficult as all of the sites are, if the searcher didn't have keen eyes and Autumn on her side, she might have found absolutely nothing at all, just faded snow and greenery.
At the first site, she finds only a fragment of steel that looks like it came off the edge of a forged sword. Her keen eyes know the hammer-strike pattern of Sigrun's work, and given the fragment's size and shape, can determine this slim flake of steel came off the edge of Glitch's blade, made for him by their mutual motleymate.
At the second site, where Sigrun and Storm -- among others -- encountered the Helldiver on the day Sturm got her wolf companion, she feels like she might not find anything at all. Hours of searching turns up only a muddy and torn raven's feather, a broken claw-tip that probably came off of Sturm's wolf, and then:
High up along the thorny wall that edges the Trod: the tiniest flutter of a scrap of paper, something like thirty feet in the air.
Johnnie takes care to claim each of the clues she finds. While individually they might not be much, they're still useful, if only for the aid of Relentless Pursuit. She'll have to speak to the others to check her story, but if the raven-Diver and the Diver whose thread broke the sliver off Glitch's sword are different, she has a reliable way to differentiate them to the Contract's magic now.
"H-uh," she murmurs, as she spots the scrap up above. It's quite a ways up. She spends a moment studying the environs- if she can get within about ten feet, she can coax the elements to fetch it for her (though she might need to use her pendant to attune to the right one), though simply climbing straight up could be doable... but not ideal. She likes the thought of volunteering for those Thorns only slightly less than she likes the idea of leaving that clue there alone.
flutter flutter flutter
It just kinda hangs there, as if taunting her.
"Well, fine," she mutters. "The fall will hurt less than the climb, anyway." A flick of her knife, and a leaf separates from the wall of thorns, caught midair by a quick flash of her hand- and she dissolves into Autumn's Glory, dissipating into her mantle and swirling up towards the scrap of paper. In a particularly pleasant surprise, the leaves are feeling particular generous today, and when she gets up there, she finds herself just the tiniest bit more solid than she usually is. Solid enough that she should be able to pluck the scrap of paper off the thorns...
... in theory.
A slip of paper, no bigger than a portion of a receipt, comes free: her dexterous fingers snatch that bit of paper away from the murderously sharp Thorns without shedding any of her blood on them. You know. In case anyone else comes here after looking for their own clues or information. You never do know.
Once she returns to the ground, she can see the writing is partially missing, smudged, torn away.
ok rí..a á hjalti hjörs,
sum.. á v...rimum,
sumar á ..lböstu..
She knows that handwriting. She knows it well, though usually sees it scribbled in notes left on the fridge.
Johnnie scoffs idly. "No, this won't do. I'd really rather have the whole thing. And seeing as how this used to be Sigrun's," murmurs the witch, "I think I'll have just that."
The clock rewinds on the scrap of paper -- parchment, maybe, it feels thicker under her fingers now as she restores it -- or perhaps just a very heavy-duty sort of paper. The lettering becomes more visible, and she becomes more certain this is not just any handwriting.
It blossoms back into a small square of paper with an incomplete text on it, as if the bits of verse flowed from one page to the next, and some of the verse is on the page before, and some on the page after. The piece of paper is about 4" by 4" and written in a careful, beautiful script by that handwriting she knows so well.
ef þú vilt sigr hafa,
ok rísta á hjalti hjörs,
sumar á véttrimum,
sumar á valböstum,
Satisfaction blooms large across Vorpal's face, her lips curling in delight. She's still new enough to solving problems with something besides the edge of a knife- with her wits and creativity and magicks- that it thrills to exult in such clever answers. Still... it does her no good in determining what, precisely, it says, or is. It is, of course, incomplete, and with any luck, Sigrun can tell her more about it... but this, she suspects, is all she'll find here.
Still. Not without profit. Trinkets to identify her quarry- hopefully two. And a mystery to seek out answers at home.
Or at least somewhere with Google Translate.
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