Diana wasn't around then, but apparently someone just thought it'd be cool. There are lots of types of popular entertainment fake magic that have some sort of analogue, if not a very close one. Hers is based on modern constellations, too; so it's not as if it's descended from a practice based on smoke signals before European contact or anything.

How the originator got it to work she has no idea. No way should the effects have been this dramatic when it was just light backed by one practitioner's request.

And they have no records of why they thought it would in fact work or anything? A diary perhaps?

Doug would know; he learned from and worked with her; but she didn't leave notes on why. Just a lot on what.

Nor on how? That sucks.

Some of how! But mostly the mechanics, the stuff that'd be useful to successors. So more on how to stay on good terms with the relevant spirits than on how she got them to associate earthbound constellations with particular effects in the first place.

How does one stay on good terms with them? That might give them clues.

Well, there are offerings, mostly zodiac-themed, in particular times and places. Some weirder things, like "retell a certain myth at this address." The way to add a new light to the network involves going around to all the existing points, getting the spirits' attention, and telling them what the plan is, then visiting the site and performing a ritual involving scale diagrams of all the constellations you're picturing using it. None of it makes no sense; it's just hard to picture bootstrapping up from a standing start.

So it probably wasn't a standing start. The lack of magical history books is annoying. Perhaps he'll ask Isadora or Conquest.

Should probably make it Isadora. Not that either would be more likely to know than Diana was, but at least the Sphinx is less dangerous to talk to than the Lord.

Oh he means ask stuff like whether there was some practitioner who disappeared shortly before this astrology thing started, or anything that could've served as a base.

Sounds like a long shot, but Isadora's definitely the person to ask if it's worth asking.

Yeah he'll probably do that then. Can't hurt.

It can't hurt if he's sufficiently careful and doesn't get eaten for lying or answering a question wrong or whatever. (Did she mention she's less than thrilled about Sadde dealing with potentially dangerous Others? Because it's not like it should stop him or anything, but that's a thing.)

He'll be careful. Isadora isn't even the most dangerous thing he's gonna face, although that part he doesn't mention.

He should probably do some research on what exactly makes Isadora eat people, though.

Telling a lie is the quickest way. Being confidently mistaken when asked a direct question. If you are like really obviously doomed, she might want to give you a clean death. Breaking from a tradition can do it, but it'd have to be a tradition that already established in 1200 BC and she doesn't go around killing people very much, so that's probably not much of a risk.

How much leeway someone gets depends mostly on how much she likes them, which depends mostly on their karma. Sphinxes in general are very sensitive to that. But anyone can navigate a conversation just by watching what they say.

...hmm. Karma. Right. He'll wait until he's more sure that that demon thing isn't gonna bite him in the arse to go talk to Isadora.

No hurry. Isadora does mostly think on a human time scale despite being thousands of years old, but this genuinely isn't urgent.

Yeah.

In the meantime, he and his cabal have heard about this extremely dangerous goblin...

Relatively. The Hyena is dangerous enough that Conquest had his minions ward the area a long time ago so nobody driving past decides to stop, but not powerful enough to be worth binding. Or so everyone so far has apparently thought. The Hyena itself is just an unusually powerful goblin. Most of the danger is from the half-alive Others and mutilated ghosts of its victims. They'll probably evaporate or something if someone removed the monster.

Which no one has done, probably for the cabal's reasons. It's more or less contained, capturing it could be tough, and what you get at the end is basically just a rabid animal on a leash. They don't want in on this.

...it's still finding victims every now and then and killing them. That's. Like. Bad.

Very few. These days it's just whoever wanders into a segment of national park that's clearly labeled as dangerous and is also magically warded against being wandered into. Maybe not none, but it's basically taken care of.

Hmm.

...he might want to suggest doing this anyway to the Lord. He has a suspicion.

Conquest is easy to find. Boredom isn't part of his incarnationly portfolio, so when he isn't actively Lording he's probably available.

"Hello, my Lord," he greets Conquest when seeing him again.

"Sam. Welcome. What brings you here?"