"I can't really bring out all the newspapers from the last year... are you looking for something specific?"

"There's someone in particular who I'm looking for;" she got Kiri's last name from Jenny, right?

Yes - Kiri Dermot.

"Dermot, Dermot..."  the librarian muses.  "I think I heard about a young person by that name somewhere start of last summer?  I can get you the papers from back then, if you want to dig through them."

"Yes, please.  ...Want to is rather a too-strong claim, really, but it'll have to do."

"...Actually.  Let me see if I can just..."

...She'll consult her astrolabe really quick, for divinatory purposes!

"...Should be able to narrow it down a bit further."

The librarian has already taken the excuse to vanish to the back room, so this girl won't have to actually make up results from whatever superstitious ritual she's pretending to do.

Several minutes later, he comes back pulling a cart with two large plastic crates full of newspapers.  "Here's the Etinnsberg Herald for last May and June.  I think you want the "C" pages?  It'll still take a while to get through, but good luck."

Annnd she double-checks the astrolabe, consults her internal awareness of the stars, and...

Pulls out the paper for June 13th.

The front page says something about the state governor, and something about a new bridge opening.  It's not the thinnest newspaper.

The librarian watches with good-natured bemusement, and then helps pull the cart over to a free table.

She checks page C.

The paper doesn't mention Kiri inside, either... but back in section "C", the chief of police is quoted mentioning recent "sad disappearances."

Several minutes later, Lila comes over.  "What'd you think, this library has our school yearbooks, but nothing about the Etinnsberg schools.  Still, I found Kiri's photo."  She plops open the yearbook from the year before last.

"You found anything?"

"The Chief of Police going on about 'recent sad disappearances'.  Plural, apparently.

"Don't like that."

She'll check back a few more papers, from here.

Lila picks some of her own, also from a little before then.

Before too long, Diana finds it on June 7th:  Kiri Dermot reported missing; last seen leaving home the night before last to meet up with her friend Catherine Baker.  Catherine herself also reported missing, last seen leaving home the morning before Kiri vanished.  The next day, someone reportedly saw someone they later recognized as maybe Catherine.

...Well, that sure...is.

Heeeeeere Incubator Incubator Incubator, she has a question for you about past magical girls!

So does Lila!

"I'd wonder if she just ran away like Jenny was trying to convince her to - but then why wouldn't she have told Jenny!?  It could've been a witch, or..."

"...That 'turned into a witch' '"joke"' that that one girl Jenny knew made," she airquotes, "is sounding less and less funny with everything we find out about this."

The Incubator is still, and perhaps somewhat pointedly, absent from this scene.

"Yeah."  Lila shivers.

She glances down at her magic dress and magic gem-in-ring to reassure herself.  Her soul gem is still sparkling.

"I want to find out more about the magic... but I'm sure there's something else we should be able to look into while we're here in the library."

Diana wordlessly leans into her supportively.  Her own gem still shines as bright as it ever has, no matter the gloom in her thoughts.

"...The question is, what?  There's too many questions.  Maybe historical myths of or involving the Incubators...If they have arbitrary magitechnological supremacy over us - and they probably do, because why wouldn't they, they talk like a superintelligence and fucking hell that's terrifying - then we probably want to look for books that were published before digital publishing really took off, too easy to tamper with a file as it goes to print.  Much harder to 'disappear' distributed notes.  Assuming that they need - augh, this is a fucking mess.

"And I'm going to sound like a fucking paranoid schizophrenic if I ask, though at least..."

Her thumb rubs over the warm surface of her soul gem, taking reassurance from the way it swells in her hand.  "I do have evidence of a sort, if I need some.

"...Anyway.

"Can't really trust the computers but we might still get somewhere by looking at what is in the system and seeing if there's anything that those sources mention that isn't.

"Though it's...rather a longshot.  It assumes that they weren't capable of keeping their Masquerade as 'up' as they need it to be at any point in their history of operations, and considering that I damn well suspect we'd have never been allowed to know about Jenny if it weren't for our own potential...

"This is still a mess.  And we may well have to get lucky to solve it.  It's not impossible, though.  That would be breach of contract.  I'm facing challenges, you know?"

The tight grin on her face is positively feral.  She is full of radiant DETERMINATION.  She stands up, and heads back to the Information desk.

"Hello there.  I'm looking for books documenting anecdotal, folk, or historical belief in magic that probably predate the advent of digital publishing and may or may not be accurately filed, and especially any of those that -"

She'll just sketch a fucking Kyuubey -

"- mention a creature that looks something like this."

"Folklore about magic?  That would be in the 390's" (he points to one shelf) "or the 800's" (he points to another shelf.)  

He looks down at the drawing.  "... Cat spirits?  I remember some mentions in Japanese folklore?  Maybe European too?  But I'm not really familiar."

Lila catches up to Diana.  "I've been through about half that shelf already.  We could try, but... if you're looking for really old stuff that just hasn't gotten scanned into computers, there's a lot of it somewhere, but not here.  Old folktales and chronicles, but also everything down to graffiti and shopping lists that nobody's gotten around to yet.  My dad was grumbling last year about ancient star catalogues.  And most of it isn't in English - I've got okay French, but not much else."

"I'm looking for things that happened after the Industrial Revolution and its population booms, but before electronic records tampering.  It's fine - or at least, not as likely to have had a mysterious accident - if they got digitized after the fact."

In this matter Diana overestimates the capabilities of the Incubators - far too many are quite busy with what's already become obvious.