Despite her frustration at her apparent failure, she listened aptly to what "Ipius" had to say. Even if she hadn't managed to summon Zargga, that didn't change the fact that there was currently a grandmaster of the arcane standing before her. For an initiate sorceress, to say that it was exciting was an understatement. Perhaps she could convince him to share some of his centuries of wisdom with her. Studying at the foot of a true master would be incredible--imagine what she could learn! Assuming she could convince him that she was worthy of it, anyway. Trying (and then failing) to summon a fallen warlock likely hadn't given him the best impression of her prowess. This was made all the more evident as he brushed off the binding charms she had attempt to place. Valena swallowed nervously as his words, giving the charms a worried glance. Perhaps it was for the better that she hadn't managed to summon Zargga, then, if trying to bring him to heel was so difficult. As power-hungry as she might have been, Valena had no desire to release an unbound evil sorcerer on the world.<br/><br/>The fact that Ipius himself had no idea where Zargga was was concerning, though. Surely if some poor oaf had already released him, whether purposefully or not, then news of it would have spread like wildfire--it wasn't the sort of thing that would have been easy to gloss over. He seemed confident that Zargga's spirit was locked away<i>somewhere</i>, but without the proper measures, it was possible for a trapped spirit to influence the physical world around their prison, or even to escape outright. In her efforts to ensure that Zargga never returned, Ipius's apprentice may have made it all the more easier for him to find a way back to the physical world.<b> "I'm sure she thought that she was doing the right thing," </b>she murmured quietly, wondering what the girl had been like. Valena had never had a proper mentor herself--everything she had managed to learn thus far, she had learned on her own.<br/><br/>She turned to follow Ipius's point, cocking a brow at what appeared to be a shamble of wood half-buried in the ground. Valena glanced upwards to the rafters and floorboards that formed the "ceiling" of the cave, privately doubting that anything that fell from the tower above them would have survived the drop intact, let alone the centuries of sitting in a dank, dark cave. Still, it was at least worth a look. The spectre drifted past her, only for him to come up short, as if checked by an invisible chain. She didn't miss the way his form flickered like a dying candle flame, growing dimmer the further he got from the summoning circle.<b> "I'll get it," </b>she piped up, walking past him to investigate the splintered desk. If she wanted to help him ensure that Zargga was still sealed away, she would need to find a way for him to be able to move past the ritual point. There were methods of facilitating that, some more taxing than others. Once they had the book, she'd see what he thought was best.<br/><br/>The carved wood of the ornate mahogany desk may have once gleamed, but now it was dull and moldered, covered in centuries of dirt and dust. Carefully, she pulled one of the drawers open, the only one visible above the soil, finding nothing but most dust and a few scraps of paper. Valena hrmmed in puzzlement, stepping back to examine it again, then shut her eyes and focused. Mumbling a few words, the air around her soon hummed with magic, and the desk began to shudder. Slowly, carefully, she pulled it from the dirt with a kinesis spell and set it down nearby, releasing the spell with a gasp. Now that she could reach the drawers that had been buried in the muck, she could continue her search. Sure enough, after sifting through the desk a bit longer, she stepped back carefully clutching a leather-bound journal, heavily soiled and aged but still in one piece. It was a good deal smaller than the tome, and the writing on the front had long since faded away.<b>"Is this it?"</b>she asked, returning to Ipius and holding out the book for him to see.<b>"It's, well, seen better days, but it looks like most of it is still legible."</b>