Scourge Forty-Three - Start

Felix and Bianca are quick to agree to Esme’s plan.

Not that it’s all that complicated a plan. Follow the little compass thing to the books that were stolen, then beat the snot out of the Altum cultists that stole them. It’s exactly the kind of plan that I’d expect Felix to be onboard with.

“We’ll leave some of the monsters here,” I say. The wolves that have been accompanying us are pretty sturdy, and they’re big friendly fluffballs once you get to know them, so the next Archivists who show up won’t have to worry so much.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Esme says. “Just a few, to keep any riff-raff away. Although... do you think we can stop by a village on the way? I need to send a letter to the library in the capital warning them about the monsters and about Altum’s cultists.”

“So we’re not going to stop by the capital then?” Felix asks.

I hum to myself as I think. “I don’t think we need to. There’s not much for us at the capital that we need. Not that I can think of, at least.”

“I might have a few resources there,” Bianca says. “And a house we can use. But if you’re looking to continue looking for Altum’s people, then maybe we can skip the capital altogether.”

“If we go to the capital, we might end up involved with politics and the like,” I say. “Which is as good a reason as any to avoid the capital for now. Felix, how are we on food and such?”

Felix half-turns and glances at the few bags we brought in with us. They’re sitting on a shelf a bit above the ground. I’m guessing so that our stuff doesn’t get dirty. The floor around the entrance is kind of bloody. “We have enough for the rest of the day, I think.”

“So enough for three days if we prevent Felix from eating everything,” I say.

Felix laughs. “Come on, I love eating as much as the next girl, but I’m not that bad. I can curb my gluttony to make sure my friends have enough to eat.”

“I’m surprised you know that word,” Esme says.

“It’s one of my favourites,” Felix says. “It’s not everyday you find a word that describes yourself perfectly.” She pointed to Esme. “Like for you it would be dork.”

“I am not!” Esme shot back.

“Girls,” I say. It’s hard to sound serious when I want to laugh, but someone has to wrangle this bunch. “Let’s not fight, please.”

Felix grins and Esme crosses her arms, but they don’t look like they’re going to continue to argue.

“Alright, so if we’re done in the vault, let’s move on. We can stop at some village on the way to wherever Esme’s machine points us. Esme, did you want to write that letter now? It’ll be hard to do while we’re flying.”

She nods. “Good idea. There’s paper and ink here. I’ll get to work right away. Usually I’d say we should leave the vault the way we found it, but, well... it was a mess before we arrived.”

“I’ll order the wolves to start carrying the bodies outside. It’ll leave a trail all the way to the entrance but at least the next Archivist to arrive won’t have to deal with a heap of rotting undead,” I say. I reach over to one of the wolves and start scritching him atop the head.

“In that case, I’m gonna bring our things out. Think we can grab more supplies at that village?” Felix asks.

“We should be able to, I think,” I say.

“I’ll leave with Felix then,” Bianca says. “We can prepare something to eat before we head out. We might not be able to eat in mid-air.”

Eating while flying is a chore. You can’t eat most things at all. Sandwiches fall apart with the wind, and anything like a soup is right out. I don’t want to eat hard tack either. Even Felix complains about that stuff.

So, we split up. I order the wolves to get to work with some simple instructions, and soon enough the biggest ones are working together to drag the biggest undead out. Esme pens her letter in a little alcove by lamp light, and Felix gathers all of our things with Bianca’s help and heads out.

I wait for Esme to finish. As soon as she’s done and has sealed her letter with some wax and a stamp she finds in a drawer, she runs over and we head out of the vault.

“I wish we had more time to explore the vault,” Esme says.

“We can always come back after,” I say. “I bet the Archivists wouldn’t mind some help cleaning this place up.”

“It’s okay,” Esme says. “I mostly want to satisfy my curiosity. I don’t want to get caught up into becoming a vault Archivist. All they do is take care of places like these. And while that does mean you get to read a lot, it’s kind of... tame.”

“A bit too boring for you?” I ask.

“Well, yeah. It would mean that I’d spend the rest of my life in one cave or another instead of with you. A-and with Felix too, I guess.”

We’re quiet for a bit as we find our way out of the maze by following the blood trails left by the undead being dragged out.

Felix and Bianca are waiting for us outside, along with a few of the monsters that are too big to fit into the mines where the vaults are hidden. It’s nice to breathe in some air that doesn’t taste like salt. I fill my lungs, then bask in a bit of sunlight.

It’s nearing evening, the sky turning to orange on the horizon. “Do you think we’ll be able to make it to any village before night falls?” I ask.

“Maybe, if we leave soon,” Esme says. “Bianca, you’ve been around here before. Do you know of any villages nearby?”

Bianca shakes her head. “No. But if you were to follow the coast of the lake over there, we should be able to find one of my family’s estates. I’d be honoured to have you all as guests for the night. And we can fill up on supplies from our pantry.”

I weigh the options, then nod. “If you’d have us, then yeah, that does sound nicer than sleeping on the ground again.”

Bianca smiled. “There’s that too. I must admit that I hadn’t realized how much I depended on mattresses until I had none. There’s one other advantage. My father’s a very... informed man. He rarely makes a move without being well-informed, and getting that information means having a good network for information-gathering. We might be able to catch up on some rumours closer to the capital.”

“That does sound helpful. Mom often complains that she has a hard time keeping track of things going on inside of cities and such. It’s not too important for us to know, but it still annoys her. We have a network of spy monsters, but they’re not super reliable,” I say.

“I bet people freak out when they see one,” Felix says.

“Well, they’re not meant to be seen at all,” I say. “That’s probably why they’re so bad at gathering information. If you’re too far to be seen, then you’re probably not going to be able to see well yourself, you know?” I say. I’m not going to explain my plan for satellite monsters just yet. First I need to figure out some way to communicate at range, and then I need to figure out rockets.

“We can look into the Notari family,” Bianca says.

“Those are the ones in charge of Algecante?” Esme asks.

Bianca nods. “They are. A lot of things we’ve gathered point to trouble in Algecante. If there’s trouble there, then the Notari will know about it. Or be the cause of it. It’s hard to tell with some of the families in Caselfella.”

“Esme, your book thing was pointing mostly south, right?” I ask.

Esme pulls out the device, sets it on the ground, then slides a book’s card into the reader. It takes a bit, but eventually she pulls on the handle with that familiar and satisfying kerchunk. The dials spin until they lock up, but my attention’s mostly on the compass.

“Yeah, that’s south,” I say. “South and... a little bit east.”

“Which is about where Algecante is compared to our location,” Bianca says. “Though it’s quite far. There’s a lot between here and there.”

“We’ll figure it out once we head over. We’ll need a good map and a normal compass. We can triangulate using this thing, right?” I gesture to the machine.

“If we get at least two readings some distance apart, then yes,” Esme says. “More would be better though. I’m not sure how accurate the compass is if the book is far enough outside of the reader’s bounds.”

“It’s a start,” I say.

***