<strong>Eshalu - probing deeper...</strong><br/><br/>Her eyes momentarily drawn by the flashing of the apparition's knife, glimmering the water, Eshalu's eyes instinctively focused on the curved blade. Metal mirrored in water, tremulous in the rustling flow of the current. She saw the phantasm carve images upon the riverbank and she recognised these to be the drawn-words of humans - the symbols through which they crystallised their speech. But these were in a style unlike any Eshalu had ever seen before. Aeryn and Reliyian were learned in such lore and would almost certainly have been able to understand, but the ranger felt a particular connection to this woman - or memory of a woman - whom she had only contemplated for a bare moment and whose mind she had only just glanced across the vast gulfs of time.<br/><br/>Though she had no knowledge of the meanings of the symbols - or any of the drawn-speech of humans - her memory for shape and definition was good. For a huntress, it was a question of survival to be able to grasp quickly the relative form of things and she recalled that she had seen symbols in a similar style and in similar threefold patterns on the broken pile of stones by the accursed garden. Perhaps the apparition had carved those symbols in a time when she was still flesh and blood.<br/><br/>Eshalu inched forward, on her hands and knees, the current wreathing her thighs and elbows, until she reached the place where the two - and nearly three - symbols had been etched into the soil, carved by a ghostly knife. Though the presence no longer actively communicated with her, she felt a residual imprint - a sensation of something melancholic and distant; an elegy to a forgotten world. Perhaps the symbols were trying to tell a story - like a painting in which the form no longer had to correspond to the subject - or were pointing her in the direction of where the story might be told.<br/><br/>Tracing her fingers over the symbols scrawled into the wet earth of the riverbank, Eshalu thought for a moment to connect it with the images the apparition had permitted her to see. This place hid something of value, something either lost or deliberately secreted away.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">Eshalu is illiterate and from a pre-literate society, so she's grasping at straws here. But a notice check is probably appropriate, since she's guessing that the there is something hidden in the river or by the riverbank that holds the key to the apparition's story. <br/><br/>Roll Result: Eshalu rolled: 4d3, adding -6to the total<br/>Comment: Eshalu - Notice check<br/>Result: 2, 3, 2, 1,<br/>Total: <strong>2</strong>, a <strong>Fair</strong> success</div></div>