Tristan and El Sid stepped forward, but with a quiet wave of his hand El Sid warned everyone to silence. He smiled and with consummate diplomatic politeness continued. "GoodElf, how we have come to be in possession of the scroll is a matter of some... delicacy," conspicuously choosing his words with precision, "Could you please first tell us the exact translation of the scroll, including proper name references if present, and a brief background summary on the state of Elvish ten millennia ago? Does this scroll appear to BE ten thousand years old or written recently? Would you know which individuals or groups would possess the erudition to frame such a document today?"
Prenanala looked at him curiously. "It is clearly relatively new, having no preservation spell on it. There is no real translation of a spell; it is merely a conduit that, by using resonance set up in the mind of intelligent being, can result in release of a spell. The fact that they are words is simply because it is easy for the mind to interpret the information; the real "force" behind the scroll is the magic used to encode it. If you were to write the words down with paper and pen it would appear nothing more than gibberish. The elvish people of ten millennia ago were much as we are today, although perhaps a bit more localized. We were new in this area at the time. And as to who could have written it, there are any number of scholars who can read the older elvish writings, for historical purposes. Many of them are also spell casters of high enough level to write scrolls."
"What level is the spell? What would the exact effects be?" continued El Sid.
"Fifth level. It provides a visual and auditory rendition of the event, a very complicated bit of combining the pattern left by the event and illusion spells."
"Would it be detailed enough to, say, recognize a person?"
"It depends on what the items with the pattern are, and how many of them you had, and how connected to the event they were. Also, whether they were involved in other events... there can sometimes be enough background noise to make it impossible to make sense of anything you see. But come, these are odd questions. Where did you get it, and what was it to be used for? It isn't something that one would normally find outside of Evael."
El Sid frowned in deep thought at the Elf's response. He retrieved the scroll. Paced. Studied it as if by force of will he could make the parchment reveal its secrets. He abstractly gestured, "As to why we have THIS... wheels within wheels... wheels within wheels... As to what it was to be used FOR," he looked up and smiled sardonically to the Elf, "We were hoping YOU could tell US."
He rolled up the scroll and tucked it into his belt. "It would appear that answers will be harder to come by than we had hoped. We will continue to investigate." He raised his eyebrows in inquiry and inclined toward the Elf, "Should we learn more, would the elves be interested? Are there lines of inquiry you should initiate?" He rounded on the group. "Questions?"
Tristan spoke up. "I don't think it would do any harm to tell..."
El Sid quickly broke in. "I really don't think we need to bother this honorable elf with boring details about our personal problems."
Tristan moved forward a bit, frowning at El Sid. "Prenanala, we found the..."
El Sid put his hand on Tristan's shoulder and squeezed hard. "Heh, heh, Tristan, you do carry on so. Come, we shouldn't bother our host with trivial details."
Tristan, beet red and gritting his teeth, turned and made a slight bow to Prenanala. "Excuse us for a moment, will you? I'd like to talk with my... associate alone for a moment."
Prenanala looked between the two. "It appears to be a complicated issue. Well, you must all be tired of the road. Why don't you avail yourselves of the refreshments and confer in private. I have something interesting to show Krinn, anyway. We'll be back in a while."
With that, the tall elf and the smaller woman turned and walked up the stairwell.