Fragment Seven

**Fragment Seven: Furomaris**

## Overview

Fragment Seven led through famous works of literature and, spoiler warning, ended with quite a bang. Sullivan's third journal began to display an intricate triptych of pages talking about his feelings about his life, and the lengths he went to to protect his young daughter, Deirdre. Mixed in with this outpouring of his thoughts and fears, however, were mysterious clues and and a request to follow him to 'the first location.' There were words crossed out several times, only to be repeated and underlined. No rhyme or reason was readily apparent but one clue was solved quickly. A single word in red, Study led The Mountaineers to look into the very first Sherlock Holmes story, a Study in Scarlet.

Using the clues and the story as reference, the recruits were able to identify key words within the text that Sullivan clearly had meant for them to find. It took quite some time to figure out what to do with this information until a lucky post from Lauren talking about the readiness of The Cagliostro's final performance and floor plan included the simple addition of a UTM location code. When recruits took the word counts, they discovered and used them in this format, the first clue led the recruits to Gansu, China.

More text from Sullivan started coming rapidly with more to his story, and more clues underneath. As he talked about how he longed for his daughter to one day see the truth, even while he sought to hide it from her, he left the recruits more stepping stones along their path. The Call of the Wild led the recruits to Brierley, England. The Red Badge of Courage found them in Mor, Hungary, and Love and Freindship by Jane Austen sent them to Lye, France.

While recruits pondered what to do with this information, one of their members had the revelation that these locations were not stops on an itinerary, but segments of a whole. Mor, Gansu, Lye, Brierly....these locations were hints at a place not unknown to Mountaineer history - the Morgan Library. Clearly, that was the location Sullivan had hid the spell he used to hide Deirdre from the world, and the means to free her from the prison he built.

Lauren had not been idle during this time. She was desperate for some means to protect her mentor, the Cagliostro, from the imminent end of his life at the hands of those that pulled his strings. Because of this, she also sought the means to shield someone from magic, as Sullivan had done for one he cared for. Seeking the spell for her own reasons, she quickly also came to the conclusion it rested at the Morgan Library, which it turned out was an ideal spot to hide magic, as it inherently interfered with the abilities of magic practitioners.

On a cold Tuesday morning, both Lauren and Cole Sumner arrived at the Morgan Library to check out a very special book. Recruits discovered one of the lost Ackerly Green tomes, Seven Cradle Songs, was the book they sought. Cole, with the recruits' help, and Lauren, aided by magiq and her mentor from afar, came upon the book at nearly the same time. When Cole valiantly broke the book out of it's locked cage, Lauren used her magic to steal the book and create a diversion by setting the library on fire to make her getaway.

Seemingly defeated, the Mountaineers worried about Cole, but not only had he come through unscathed, he also managed to find a handwritten note from Sullivan to Deirdre in the book and manage to keep hold of it in the chaos. Within lay Sullivan's instructions for how to break Deirdre's spell and the seventh fragment, the word Furomaris.