The Quaesitor schedules her in for just after lunch, and is a woman who appears to be in her early 30's, with brown hair and a rather mousy demeanor. "How may I be of service?"
Salve sodale. My issue is that I feel I am being manipulated and duped into solving someone else's problem. On top of that I get the runaround. Go here, go there, blahblahblah. And this locator device I rented, it seems dangerous. I was thinking of ways to test it when I realized I was holding a potential weapon in my hand. Here...
Carmen hands over the arrow, carefully, and info dumps the entire story.
"Imagine, a manipulative Jerbiton dumping his problem on a flambeaux to hunt down! I would say your concerns there are well founded. It also sounds like you need to find out, if you do decide to continue with this despite being apparently manipulated, just how much it will interfere with the mundane politics before you hunt this man down. If he would simply be replaced without comment, there is no problem. If it would cause Fredrick to reconsider his pursuit of the war against the pope, it would probably count as interfering. On the other claw is the question of what about this hedgie is really at issue. He seems to be willing a lot of Fredrick's power, is he doing it on his own behalf, or Fredrick's? This command to exterminate non Christian magi could certainly be leveled against the order itself, though it has not been so far, and is very close to an order we would have to take action against even if it does interfere with mundanes. The fact that he appears to be using the order as a veil to organize what appears to be his own order of hedge wizards is something that has never even been given consideration before, and we may need to discuss this at the grand tribunal."
he sits back and thinks for a moment "My advice would be to transfer this burden to someone else, it has already been ruled that he can be investigated, and certainly you must have journeymen you can assign the task of investigation. Or if you prefer I can find someone in this tribunal to investigate. It might even be best if we have multiple investigations going on so we can present the findings of each to the grand tribunal and decide how to handle this situation there."
Sound advice, and most wise. I am irritated at having been duped, but that does not erase my concerns. And a casual multi-pronged approach as you suggest would work. Virtue united is stronger. I will hand over the knowledge I have to you, and you can designate an operative to follow up on these leads. Alsi, back home at Andorra, there s a journey woman of note that has yet to emerge from her shell and live up to her full potential. Kesara of Flambeau, who desires to one day become a Quaesitor. I will send her to you. As for me, I desire to get my mother and my Verditius journeyman out of the Levant and get them home.
"Go then, and I will have someone assigned from the Rhine within a season."
I'm going to call this as 9xp, 4 fortune points
I shall spend 3xp each in Bargain, Intrigue, and Order of Hermes Lore. I shall update Carmen when I get the chance. I accept the fortune points with gratitude and in return I would grant an equal number.
Closing this out with a final note. Carmen returns to the Levant to get her mother and Antoine and the rest. She gives the magus who sent her off some rigmarole abou having stirred up interest sparking and investigation, and how she has agents on the case.
As for the arrow, she leaves it up to the Q to investigate if it really was a weapon or if Carmen was just paranoid, with a request that it be sent via courier to the owner if it is clean.
Once back home, then the whole Stranger Danger story takes place. Is it too late to ask if Carmen can spont an InVi spell to check if the kid has the Gift?
She can, he doesn't.