>"That's all right, thanks."
>Depart the library.
>Time to conduct an experiment.
>Stand aside from the library doors, produce dousing rods, and scan the campus grounds for fairies.
>The woman gives you a polite nod.
>You leave the library and decide to try dowsing for fairies - something iffy at the best of times, but perhaps not entirely futile. While fairies are distinctly magical and thus something you can theoretically detect, they are also fundamentally manifestations of nature and so tend to resonate in similar ways to the environment around them. Most of the time this makes them very hard to sense at all, though this seems to vary somewhat from fairy to fairy; you guess you'll just have to hope that this Dai stands out better than most.
>You take a few steps away from the library and off the beaten path, so as to let the flow of people pass freely by, then take your dowsing rods in hand, take a deep breath, and focus your senses. Your immediate reaction is almost to wince and then immediately to grumble; the magical resonances in just your immediate area are multitudinous, of a dozen different sizes and shapes all ringing dissonantly on top of one another in a clamour of arcane vibrations. Probably ought to have expected that, but it's still annoying. Sifting through them is certainly
possible, but it'll be a slow and painstaking process if you're going to have any hope of finding something as faint as a fairy among all this noise. You take another breath and steel yourself to the task, starting with one narrow arc of the campus in front of you and scanning it exhaustively before moving onto the next one. If you had the luxury of idle observation, you might even find it interesting to note how the flows of magic vary from one building to the next, the shape and flavor of each different brand of spell. This could even be a good spot to hone your sense for fine discernment of enchantments - there's certainly enough ones active here to use for reference! - but at the moment, it's only making your current job harder. You find yourself stifling a dark grumble. This is probably already a lost cause, but you press on stubbornly; what else are you to do? You absently note the inquiring glances your activity is drawing from passersby, but their opinions are the furthest thing from your concern at the moment. Let them gawk if the want to.
>You shift your focus another degree. Someone casts a spell 27 degrees north-northeast, maybe 800 feet away. The spike was sharp, but brief - probably fire-based. Irrelevant. You turn another degree. More wards and ambient magic - fireproofing, security, who knows what else? Hard to tell. Also irrelevant. Another degree. An odd pulsing sensation, perhaps 900 feet away. Same building as the last, you think. Faint. Distinct only because of how it fluctuates. Possibly an enchantment being woven. Feels slightly unfamiliar, but not altogether alien. A flash of gossamer and gold passes the edge of your vision. Another degree. The pulsing is oddly distracting. You find yourself wishing they'd stop it for a few moments. Another spell: 28 degrees north-northeast. Less sharp than the last, wavers slightly - feels weaker and less focused, but otherwise similar. Then there is another. A short green-haired girl waves at someone. Another degree. This sector feels oddly quiet. Funny, that. You sigh and shift again. ...wait a moment.
