Collected notes on Noira Langevin's necklace

See also Noira Langevin's necklace, Phineas Strauch, etc.

A valuable sapphire necklace was reported stolen by Noira Langevin during the Festival Days of 2195. The guards questioned Maze Olivier and his sister Jess in connection with the theft, and later recovered the necklace. They returned it to the address they had been given and delivered it to a young woman there. The house may have been a drop-point for Nouel Izaguirre's criminal syndicate, and the group later came to suspect that the "theft" was deliberately orchestrated by Noira in order to deliver the necklace to Izaguirre.

At some point, the necklace evidently passed into the hands of Tatiane Corriveau, who was rumoured to be one of Izaguirre's mistresses. In 2247, her grand-daughter Ninon de Quercy approached Medan Conquaine about selling the necklace. He consulted with Alma de Béziers and Altheo Renaud over the issue, and they both examined the necklace. Altheo detected great evil, and Alma observed that it radiated very powerful magic. Medan purchased it and it was taken to the Antiquarian Society for further study. Vianca Belden examined it, and also asked Reverend Mother Mayne to divine on the matter. Before their studies concluded, however, the necklace was stolen from the society by two men, one a spellcaster. Tiphaigne Deverara was injured in the course of the theft.

It is believed that the necklace contained the Wyrm released the night Emperor Marl was chosen by the Great Council, and that when it was brought within the range of the Disenchanter's Stone at the election, the spells that bound the creature within it were broken. The remains of the necklace have not been located, and it may have been destroyed in the fire that consumed the Hall of Worthies.

Object reading

• Owner: The owner (Tatiane Corriveau?) is the grandmother of the woman trying to sell it, Ninon de Quercy. It was given to her by a lover
• Owner-1: Her lover acquired it as a payment for murder. (Nouel Izaguirre?)
• Owner-2: The previous owner (Noira Langevin?) acquired it from her father (Marcau Langevin?), but had it stolen.

Notes: The interim thief is not considered an owner. There is no indication that ~Noira was aware it would be given to the next owner, ~Nouel.

Divinations (Annotated)

• From Vianca Belden's Legend Lore: "The soul-eater's (Serpent, as per Arch plane) servant (Kavreshar), bound against its will by a blessing under flames (Adrius Blessing?), is confined within the stone of [black hope (likely a reference to the Duke of Blackhope)."
• From Reverend Mother Mayne's divination: "The star-crossed (the order?) seek the key to the serpent's prison, while unknowing silence (Disenchanter's Stone? or something else?) opens the door."

Marl Kizer's Thesis

M. Sanadhil Orecalo's notes on Marl Kizer's thesis.

Marl's thesis is a historical analysis of various instances when binding spells have been used or attempted. He discusses each of the variants on the spell and tries to explain why one version would be used instead of another in various circumstances. I'm assuming these are mostly of limited interest to San, so I'm not going to bother to make them up ;) The one you're interested in is the discussion of the binding of Kavreshar in 2128. He describes the wyrm as being responsible for the great fire of that year, as well as the deaths of several prominent government figures, and discusses some of its apparent powers - notably its heat/fire aura and (imperfect but fairly convincing) shapechanging. Divinations were employed to learn the creature's name, and the Chief Sorc., Charlette D'Angremond, gathered together a group of six other casters to assist with the spell in order to make the Binding as difficult to resist as possible. The Emperor at the time, Adrius Blessing, was one of those involved. The other five casters were Arlessa Deverara (Treasurer), Emil Frythe, Biala Marchese (Head of the Castalia), Tobias Rademacher, and Vallenar Feld. It seems that the reason Marl was consulting with Theonee was because he was looking at Arlessa Deverara's notes on the matter, which were in her family's possession - he also was able to find notes from Rademacher and Marchese, though less detailed/helpful. The decision was made to bind the demon into a gemstone rather than one of the other methods of Binding because they wanted to keep it close (not send it to some mysterious extradimensional prison) and make it difficult to know what was in the stone (as opposed to the jar method). The stone was put into Deverara's possession, as the Treasurer, and she was the one who had it set into a necklace. They also cast a spell to alter the stone's magic aura so it would appear mundane, and a spell to obscure divinations on the stone. Deverara reported in her personal notes that wearing it made her have unsettling dreams, increasing paranoia, etc. but wasn't sure how much of that was because she knew what was in it and how much was some other magical effect emanating from the stone. In any case, she eventually felt unable to keep it close to her, and with the Emperor's permission, she deposited it in the Treasury. Marl's thesis reports that he attempted to gain access to examine the necklace as part of his study, but was refused permission.

M. Orecalo informs that D'Angremond's notes are complete for her tenure as Chief Sorceress, except the volume for 2128, which is missing. The notes from this time ARE referenced in Kizer's thesis, so he must have seen them.