"Dunno. Maybe it'd all vanish again as soon as you walked back inside and then reappear somewhere harder to find, that sounds like him. Or maybe it just won't be there until we're done with whatever she thinks we should be doing in here."

"Well, that sounds worth investigating," says Tolfdir, walking past Ruby and back outside.

...well, fair enough. Ruby and the others follow him.

He's talking to one of the workers and when he returns he shakes his head. "They've seen no package appearing out of thin air with our equipment, so perhaps we do need to do, as you say, whatever it is we need to do inside. I asked them to look around, anyway, in case he did hide it."

"Should we... wait until they do try to find it first?"

"In my experience, when Daedra Lords are meddling it is often much easier to just play along to the extent we can, when it is not too costly."

"—you've dealt with Daedra Lords before, then?" That's some evidence against the whole "protagonist" theory.

"Not as much as you have, young man, at least not in such concentrated doses. But you cannot become a powerful wizard without attracting the attention of some other powerful things, and you learn their ways."

And without further ado, Tolfdir just walks back in.

"I'm really not sure most other people are as nonchalant as Tolfdir is about these things," Onmund says, shaking his head and following Tolfdir in.

"In any case," Tolfdir says as he leads the way down some more scaffolding that's been set up inside the ruins, "there are a few tasks worth doing. For the moment, our goal is exploration, and seeing if we find anything that jumps out to us as particularly interesting. Now, since the ruins are pretty extensive, we will be systematic about this and attempt to form a map. Now I'll distribute tracking charms to each of you—" And he summons them out of Deep Storage, little red amulets that can be worn around one's neck. "These will store information about your surroundings to then be compiled into an overall map. Should you find yourself lost, send a pulse of magicka into it and it will help trace back your steps."

The Erudites all accept their trackers, and even Erandur gets one.

Tolfdir starts assigning tasks to all of them (except for Erandur, since he's not from the College and Tolfdir's got the impression he'll be following Ruby around) and Ruby's task is to find Arniel Gane deeper in the ruins and help him catalogue enchanted items they find.

Sure, he can do that. The nice tracking amulet can show him how to get to the historian and after going down a ramp then up another then into a hallway and to the right and then left and then left and then right and cross a bridge over a large chamber and up another ramp and to the left there he is.

He looks incredibly absorbed by staring at something on a table and completely misses Ruby entering the room.

"Arniel?"

He doesn't jump, but he does blink a few times in surprise as if waking up from a dream. "Yes?"

"Tolfdir told me to find you and help you."

"—ah, yes, you're one of the new Erudites, I remember you. Very well, I do have some more areas I wished to explore..." He starts to cast a spell into his own tracking amulet and then realises he isn't wearing it anymore. It or anything else. "Huh. What happened to my equipment?" He looks up at Ruby and Erandur, only just now noticing their nudity. "And yours, for that matter?"

Did he really get so distracted by what he was doing that he didn't notice he was naked.

Lol.

Anyway, Ruby will explain again the whole shebang with Sanguine.

Arniel Gane listens to it all attentively, then says, "Well, lend me your amulet, then."

Erandur gives him his. If he'll be attached to Ruby at the hip he might as well.

Sure that works. He casts a spell into it which projects a low-detail illusion of the rough three-dimensional layout of the ruins as they've explored them so far. Little blue lights indicate each of the amulets, so the little room where they are has two of them and then the other Erudites and Tolfdir are over thataway. He modifies the illusion to indicate a couple of rooms that haven't been thoroughly explored as well as a direction that hasn't been explored at all full stop. "That way. Grab anything interesting you find and bring it to me."

"And if I don't find anything interesting?"

He gives Ruby a look like he's being extremely dense. "Keep looking until you do."

He thought so.

Nothing to it, then. He starts exploring.