Chapter 4-2

“Animals retrieved,” Anjanette said, dumping the bodies on the floor of their inn room. Leonas fretted at the read stain spreading out onto the carpet. “Damn, that goat is heavy.”

“Why do you smell like hay?” asked Milly.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Leonas had already prepared the rune circle, sketching it in chalk on the stone floor of the washroom. The stone made it much easier to draw a circle on. Milly gazed at it with unbridled enthusiasm, taking in all the small details that she recognized from the drawings of epic fantasy. Somehow they looked much less precise and beautiful in real life.

“All right, knife,” ordered Leonas. Anjanette cheerfully produced a butcher’s knife from her bag. Leonas didn’t know why, and was scared to ask, but Anjanette always seemed to have any sort of weapon you could ask for handy.

He held up the chicken first and sliced it quickly across the stomach. Its entrails spilled out onto the spell circle with a wet plop. Immediately Milly rushed from the room and the sound of vomiting could be heard from not far away.

“Hey! I said I didn’t want to pay for that carpet!” Leonas yelled, only partly in jest. Milly responded by hacking out another spray of vomit.

Anjanette scoffed. “For a ‘battle librarian’, she sure can’t take the sight of blood.”

Leonas shrugged and pulled the cut wide open, shaking it to get all the guts out. He moved on to the cat, and then the goat, which proved the hardest of the three. Lifting it up while keeping the hooves out of the way of the blood proved to be difficult indeed. Finally, there was a nice collection of steaming animal guts in the circle, and the bathroom looked like a murder scene.

“You know, I’m not like Miss Squeamish over here, but I really would appreciate a less messy way to do this,” admitted Anjanette.

“Suck it up, princess.” Leonas turned to shout behind him. “Hey Milly, can you get me paper and a quill.”

“Sure thing,” she muttered. A clammy hand offered both to him, moments before she rushed back to the main room to empty the remaining contents of her stomach.

Leonas placed his hands at the mouth of the circle. Anjanette was still, knowing that the ritual required silence. Even Milly quieted down in the throes of her sickness. Leonas began to recite, in a voice that was his and not his. “Great demon lords, I appeal to you, grant your power to a mere mortal. I call upon the house of Iziam, keeper of secrets and lies, he who can see the shape of time and space. I offer to you these beasts and their slaughter in exchange for knowledge. Please, O great one, tell me the locations of the seven shards of the Lightblade.”

A wind coursed through the room, snuffing out the torches and leaving only the faintly glowing spell circle as a light source. The temperature plummeted. The taps and toilet ran without control, spilling over onto the ground.

Leonas jerkily peered through the entrails of the animals, scanning them carefully, capturing every detail. Using their blood as ink he wrote on the parchment. His motions were awkward and alien, as if he were a puppet. Finally, he jerked awake, and everything returned to normal. The animal remains and their bodies were gone, snatched up by Hell.

“And after all that, what did you get?” asked Anjnaette, as soon as any one of them had the presence to speak again.

Leonas, still shivering, held up the piece of parchment, lines written across it in fine cursive. The blood sparkled.

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Chapter 4-1

The three of them didn’t bother leaving Linebar immediately. They had no idea which direction to go in, and Linebar was a nice enough dutchy, if a bit old fashioned. The result was an impromptu war council held in a small room in the local inn, the Name’s Noun. (Apparently it was a chain.) The room was old, and a crack in the wall let a chill wind through, but it was at least tidy and had some furiously jury-rigged plumming.

“Okay, so that? Can never happen again,” said Anjanette. “Any suggestions as to how?”

“Well, I really think that we should use more reliable sources,” suggested Milly.
“I mean, instead of guys in bars, we should be looking at news reports, seeing if there are any reports of what’s going on. If we research we might be able to find the history of the books as well, which would give us a place to start—“

“Too long, too boring,” said Anjanette. “Leonas, do you have any suggestions?”

“Well, Milly’s right in general, but her method would take a lot of legwork,” said Leonas. “I guess we could do it magically... an augury would do the trick.”

Anjanette beamed. “Well, why didn’t we do that in the first place?” Leonas started to answer, but Anjanette cut him off. “Yeah yeah, only use magic when absolutely necessary, yada yada. Now whose soul do I have to sell for decent info?”

Leonas shrugged. “The traditional spell involves gutting some animals. Nothing fancy... some sort of bird is a must, maybe a goat, and a cat would be good.”

“Consider them gutted,” said Anjanette.

* * *

The farm hummed with the buzz of rural nothingness. Crickets chirped, and Anjanette swore she heard some tumbleweed blow by in the dark night. She remembered many nights on her home farm, staring out at this same unchanging landscape, too bored to sleep. A large red barn sat slumped over in the dark, a house lurking in its shadow.

Of course, back then Anjanette didn’t have a bludgeoned stray cat slung over her shoulder. She snuck through the long, browning grass to the chicken coop, where a few of the chickens were wandering around, doing whatever it was chickens did to pass the time. She grabbed the nearest one and plucked it out. It only got a single squawk out before she neatly snapped its neck.

“Okay, now all we need is a goat...” she said to herself. “It’ll be a bitch to carry, but one solid hit to the head and it should be out, entrails in tact.”

She was halfway to the goat pen when a torch caught her. She glanced up to see a lanky pubescent boy, covered in pimples and tan, gawking at her. “What are yah doing on mah farm?” he said, his rural drawl unmistakable.

“Um, stealing some animals,” Anjanette said.

“Aw,” he said, not expecting that response. “Uh... don’t. Or I’ll hafta fight you, even if I hate fighting girls.”

She sighed. “I wanted to do this the easy way, but you had to make me do it the hard way.”

Anjanette whipped her top off.

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Chapter 3-4

They survived the next day and a half with little incident. The edge seemed to have been taken off their previous mood, although Milly was still quiet and buried in her books. Eventually, they reached the Dutchy of Linebar, a mountainous and moody place. The main village, appropriately called Linebar, was a rather ramshackle place, an old city that had not so much grown as diluted, spiralling in random directions. Small, claustophrobic stone houses dotted the town at random. As such it was rather hard to get directions.

“Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find the old druid around here?” Leonas asked a woman in the streets.

She chuckled and stepped past him.

“Yo, chumpstain!” Anjanette yelled at a shopkeeper. “We’re looking for a druid.”
She got a similar direction.

“Um, why are people laughing at us? Did we both do the kick-me sign thing at once again?” said Leonas

Anjanette shrugged. “Because people are dumb?”

An old lady, bowed over but brimming with the kind of enthusiastic charity that made both Leonas and Anjanette nauseous, tugged on Milly’s arm. “I’m sorry young folks, but did you say that you were looking for the druid?”

“D-do you know anything about it?” asked Milly.

The old lady chuckled a bit. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. The druid of Linebar is a local myth, a fairytale parents tell their kids when they misbehave. There’s no actual druid.”

Anjanette stood there, jaw unhinged, face twitching with bubbling rage. “Okay, Leonas? If we see that smarmy wizard prick again, I’m wringing his fucking neck, understand?” The old woman looked agahst at the langauge and quietly shuffled off.

* * *

The door creaked open in the scenic Edgemont Castle. Martin di Edgemont spun around, drawing his rapier on reflex, but he relaxed when he saw it was the beautiful Belle Bloomeaux. “My apologies, milady. I thought you were your brother.”

“My brother... and also your cousin, remember?”

Milly stared at the ilsc with undisguised contempt. “This is so bad.”

“I know,” said Leonas. “Why did you decide to start watching this again?”

“Because I felt like it, okay!” Anjanette said, not quite leaping down Leonas’s throat but coming damn close to it.

“Okay, you can have your coping mechanism,” Leonas whimpered. After the past few days, starting a fight with Anjanette was the last thing he needed.

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Chapter 3-3

In the books, it always said that when you were about to die, your life flashed before your eyes. But when the dinosaur came their way, Milly had no such flashback. Instead, the only thing she had on her mind was that she would never get to find out what happened to Jayn in The Courts of Avanthar. And then there was a blurry patch in her memory, with a lot of screaming and panic. The next thing she knew, Milly found herself in a tree with no idea of how she got there, and no dinosaur in sight – but foot-deep imprints of giant feet and trees strewn about like toys on the floor of a child’s bedroom.

A dark form rose from a muddy pond nearby. Milly shrieked in panic before she saw it was Leonas, covered in mud. “I’ve chosen better spots to hide, but you don’t have to be so terrified about it,” he said. He looked with dismay over his ruined dress shirt.

“Y-you’re alright,” she said, aware that her voice was high, cracking with uncertainty. “Where’s Anjanette?”

“Shit,” Leonas said. “Milly, get down from their, I’m going to go looking.”

“Wait! I can’t climb trees!”

“Well, you did a good enough job getting up there,” he yelled, hurrying out into the distance.

Milly frowned. Leonas’s concern for his partner was admirable, but it would have been nice to get her down from there. How had she gotten up here, anyway? Probably just some latent survival instinct that she was unable to replicate now.

She decided to head back on her own, and stared at the ground below. The ground far, far below, which seemed to be spinning and uncertain. Her head snapped back from fear. Okay, that was a bad idea. Stubbornly keeping her eyes on the wooden bark right in front of her, Milly began to inch her way down the trunk.

* * *

Leonas gasped when he saw Anjanette. She was laying face down on the ground, her
red haired splayed around her head like a halo of blood. Around her was the impact of a dinosaur track. Leonas immediately rushed to her side.

“Anjanette, are you okay?” No response. “Are you alive?”

“No,” Anjanette answered. She rose, perfectly intact.

“You... y-you...”

Anjanette laughed in his face. “The thing missed me by a mile. You blinded it, remember.”

Leonas stared at her, looking torn between hugging her and hugging her throat with his hands. Hard.

“Oh come on, you should have seen your face. ‘Oh Anjanette, what will I do without you? Why, cruel world?’ Ha! And you say that you’re the master thespian here.”

Leonas continued to give her an iron stare. He couldn’t hold it for long, though, before bursting into laughter. “Okay, my bad. That was pretty nice.”

“Why do you think I did it?” said Anjanette.

“Okay, good show, we’re all alive. Now let’s get Milly out of that tree.”

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Chapter 3-2

A heavy air accompanied the trio as they rode the following day. Except for the smacks of the horse’s hooves against the dirt road, there was little noise. Anjanette was still upset about what she had learned last night, and at Leonas for never sharing it with her. Milly was feeling the familiar terror of not fitting in. And Leonas had been in a foul mood since they began the quest.

To amuse herself, Milly took to staring at the landscape as they passed. It was not a very good amusement. The plains of the Dutchies stretched on for leagues, ordinary farmhouse after ordinary farmhouse. From the distance of the road, she could see the farmhands and animals in miniature, always going about the same lives, every place and every day.

Leonas abruptly stopped, pulling back on the reigns sharply. His horse reared back but quickly calmed down. The girls stopped a little further down, noticing his haste.

“What?” snapped Anjanette.

Leonas dismounted and pointed at the ground. There, too light to see well in motion, was a giant footprint. The feet were round and had thick spiky claws.

“What... is that?” asked Milly.

“Some sort of dinosaur,” said Leonas. “They must be in the area.”

“Are we talking the friendly, peaceful type of dinosaur?” Milly asked.

“With our luck?” Leonas laughed. “Anyway, keep riding... but keep an eye out for anything large, reptillian and hungry.”

“I always do,” said Anjanette.

* * *

Milly felt the thorns piercing through her robe, and the cold dirt crushed up against her chin. Anjanette and Leonas were next to her, squashed even worse under the bush. Anjanette had ditched her oversized sword by the roadside, but still seemed to be fretting over getting dirt on her.

Fortunately, what lay outside was a much greater inconvenience – a triceratops, lazily chewing at tree leaves, stomping around like it owned the road. Which, in all practical terms, it did. The green-scaled beast was close to them, and seemed impossibly large. To try and fully think of its size was to cause madness. Leonas had a faceful of pulsing leg muscle, while Milly couldn’t stop staring at it’s horns, as large as a man, glinting sharply in the sunlight. The foilage vanished into a maw of swords, never to be seen again.

“What did I tell you,” whispered Leonas.

“I think this kind just eats plants,” said Milly. She scrunched her brow, trying to come up with certain information – but the one time her useless knowledge would have proved valuable, she couldn’t come up with it at all.

“Well he’s leaving our horses alone...” said Leonas.

“Yeah, can you guys be quiet? ‘kay, thanks,” snapped Anjanette.

The triceratops turned towards them. Whether drawn by their whispers or something else, it slowly ambled over to the bush the three adventurers were hiding under. Its movement was slow and deliberate, a rumble coursing through the ground with each step. Even the earth seemed frightening, shrinking away from its mammoth feet. With a gluttonous lunge, it swallowed the bush in one mouthful.

The three stared up at the dinosaur, surprised to be exposed to him. It looked down at them, equally suprised, although it was hard to read a dinosaur’s expression.

Their was a brief moment of calm, which is known in most circles as “oh shit”.

The triceratops roared, a deafening sound like a thousand waves at once crashing down on one’s ears, and flailed back. The three dashed off as fast as they could, a mad and formless scramble to get the hell out of there. Leonas had the presence of mind to mutter an incantation and shoot a stream of sparks into the triceratops’ eyes, blinding him momentarily. And then he, too, ran like hell itself was on his tail... because it was.

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Chapter 3-1

They moved quicker on horseback than they did by cart, but still not as quick as they would have liked. Between the three of them someone always seemed to need to go to the bathroom or have a bite to eat, and by nightfall they hadn’t even made it a third of the way. Worse yet, it had recently rained and so there was no dry wood to light a fire with. Leonas used a light spell in its place, but wasn’t happy about it.

They made camp in a quiet glade off the side of the road. Leonas’s quick light spell bobbed against the ground, providing an unnatural white light. All three pulled bedrolls out of their packs and sat down on them, forming a scattered circle around the campfire.

Milly produced three packs of trail rations from the sleeve of her robes. Anjanette remarked “Wow, that thing’s more handy than I would have thought.”

“Uh... thanks,” said Milly.

They dug into the trail rations with an obscene hunger. Despite being dry and tasteless, the rations were all they had to eat. After a while your senses flipped around so that they were delicious.

“So tell me about being a... what was it, battle librarian?” asked Leonas.

Milly blushed, shrinking away from the light spell and into the shadows. “I basically just search for rare books and artifacts. I hope to open up a big library one day, with all these treasures and stuff, but that’s a long way in the future. It’s really not as interesting as it sounds.”

“Really? Because it sounds pretty fucking dull,” said Anjanette.

Leonas ignored her, even if Milly didn’t. “If you don’t mind me prying, why?”

Milly apparently found an ant crawling on the ground supremely fascinating, but talked anyway. “I guess I’ve just always loved books. Fiction, histories, poems, advice books... like, anything I can get my hands on, really. And, uh, these ancient books that have been lost... I mean, how could I not go looking for them? I just really want to know what’s in them, you know? It sounds really dumb, I know.”
There was a brief hesitation, which Milly used to immediately change the subject. “So, what about you guys? Why are you in the questing business.”

“We’re not,” said Anjanette. She leaned back on her broadsword, planted in the ground behind her.

“We’re con men by trade,” said Leonas. “We figured it was a much better way to make a living while keeping all the adventure and travelling of questing.”

“But doesn’t your conscience bother you?”

“What’s that?” said Anjanette. She and Leonas shared a chuckle.

They talked a bit more, trading road stories over their dry rations. Eventually Anjanette ventured into her pack and pulled out an ilsc.

“Oh no,” said Leonas. “Please don’t tell me...”

Anjanette cracked a sadistic smile. “That’s right. The brand new ‘Noble and Beautiful’. Suck it.”

“Come on, Milly,” Leonas said, turning to her like a doomed princess looks at her shining knight. “If you agree with me that Anjanette can’t watch her stupid soap opera out here, then she can’t, right? Majority rules! The principal of modern life!”

“Um... wait, you still watch ilscs?” gaped Milly, ignoring Leonas.

Anjanette looked at her as if she had asked “You still breathe?”. “Uh, yeah. Don’t you?”

“Well, I’m more of a book person, but since I, uh, learned how they were made...”

“How they’re made? Some sort of magic mumbo jumbo, right?”

Leonas shot Milly a dirty look which seemed to miss by a mile. “Yeah. It was, like, a deal with demons like all magic, but I think that it was particualrly severe. Um, do you not know?” Anjanette shook her head, and Milly launched into scholar mode. “Well, about two centuries ago, shortly after the War of Enlightenment, a group of demons appeared before the A.O.K. Council. They offered the Aokians the spells to make as many ilscs as they wanted, recording their ideas in illusions that could later be released. The Aokian government wanted this technology badly, to help with trade and, as many scholars suspect, placate the masses. But the demons wanted a high price – they wanted a generation of mankind.”

“A generation of mankind?” asked Anjanette. “What does that mean?”

Milly lit up, carrying the air of a passionate professor. “Basically, the apocalypse, whenever and however it happens – and the demons seem pretty sure it’s going to happen – will happen one generation sooner. In the tree of humanity, the top layer of branches got cut off. After conferring with themselves, the Council made the deal.”

“That’s the fucking stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Anjanette. “You expect me to believe that conspiracy theory bullshit?”

“It’s true, actually,” said Leonas.

Anjanette swivelled her head to stare him down. “What? Why did you not tell me this?”

“It usually tends to ruin them for you,” said Leonas. “ I figure now that the deal’s done, ignorance is bliss and I’d just let you enjoy your soaps.”

“So what, a generation isn’t going to get to live, so that I can veg and watch soaps?” said Anjanette, aghast. “How dare they fucking decide that for us? I should guess this doesn’t just affect Aokians.”

“The demons have always communicated with the leaders of the greatest nation at the time, assuming that they speak for mankind,” said Milly.

Anjanette got up and tossed the ilsc away, pacing around the light source furiously. Leonas, a somber expression on his face, said “Personally, I was more disturbed knowing that there’s an end to all this. It could be tomorrow, it could never happen in our lifetimes... but mankind isn’t going to last forever. Of all the creepy shit I learned in the Academy, that’s got to be the creepiest.”

“Um...” Milly wanted to have something thoughtful to say, but she didn’t.

Leonas looked at the ground. Anjanette continued her rampage, crushing all the anthills and plants that got in her way. Milly still felt like she should say something.

“I’m sorry... I thought you would know,” she said. “I mean, I know that the AOK covered it up, but there’s a pretty big part on it in the Historica Arcana, and...”

Anjanette pivoted to glare at Milly, before breaking out into laughter. “Girl, I can count the number of books I have read since leaving school on one hand. And you can bet your ass that none of them were the goddamn Historica Arcana.”

It was Milly’s turn to stare forward with abject horror.

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Chapter 2-4

Leonas and Anjanette sold the caravan and most of their merchandaise on the cheap – it would just slow them down in the long run. Their packhorses were replaced with thoroughbreds that could travel great distances. They kept what was needed to run some basic cons for money, but their packs definitely felt a lot emptier than before.

“You’re sure about this, right?” asked Leonas as they lead their horses out of the stable.

“A little late to turn back now,” said Anjanette.

A small white horse trotted up next to them. Atop it was Milly, her hair pulled back into a bun but otherwise identical to earlier. “Uh... so where are we headed first?”

“Pardon?” said Anjanette.

“I mean, where’s the closest book. Did you find out? Um, I tried to do some research, but it all contradicted itself and, well...”

The two partners in crime shared skeptical glances. Leonas frowned but decided to say it, generally being more polite than his counterpart. “Milly, sorry, but we were going to tackle this on our own. Thanks for the help and all, but we don’t really need a... battle librarian, did you say?”

She looked like a struck puppy. “Um... that’s really okay I guess... I was kinda looking forward to it... but you don’t have to take me... it’s just, you know, I know a thing or two about finding books and I’m a black belt in Durobian arts, but that’s probably nothing, so I’m, uh, sorry...”

Anjanette shrugged. “Eh, you would make decent enough bait, I guess.”

Milly’s face lit up like a dry field that had a match dropped on it. Leonas gave Anjanette a surprised look, to which she responded with another shrug.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” Milly exclaimed. She tried to hug Anjanette, but quickly disocvered that it was awfully difficult on horseback.

Leonas, on the other hand, was agile enough to manage to lean over enough to whisper into Anjanette’s ear. “Uh, what the hell Anj?”

“Hey, she could be fun to have along,” she whispered back. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Leonas gaped at her words. Didn’t the gods normally take that sort of phrase as a challenge?

As it turns out, yes.

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Chapter 2-3

Across the bar, Anjanette had already picked out the big-time player. He was physically unremarkable and his curly unwashed brown hair and awkward manner would have made him normally repulsive – but he had a huge crowd of adventurers hanging on his every word, which together with the out-of-place scar across his cheek, confirmed that he was a big-name adventurer. Cementing this fact was the ornate robes he wore and the glitzy staff that leaned against the table. Exactly the guy she needed.

“Stegosaurus aren’t nearly as big as people think, you see,” he was explaining. “I mean sure, they’re big, but to hear some of the tales...”

Anjanette sat down next to the big shot, parting the crowd like a knife parts butter that is in awe of the knife’s sex appeal. She put one arm around the adventurer, immediately cutting off his story, and trailed her free hand down the front of his ornate robes. “Are you...” she said.

“Orlin of the Seven Stars, mage of the sixth circle?” he answered for her.

“I thought so,” said Anjanette. Of course, she had never heard of the guy before. She put on her best ‘sexy’ voice, copied from countless pornographic ilscs. “I’ve heard so much about you... I’m sort of an adventurer too, and you’re just such an inspiration for me...” Twirling her hair into knots, she gave the look of meek lust that virginal adventurers went crazy for.

“Really? Are you a mage as well?” he asked. She noticed that all the surrounding men were watching closely, as if taking notes from the master in action.

“No, more of a warrior,” she said.

“Well, uh, my group is actually looking for a warrior...” Orlin said. Apparently he thought her chest would prove perfect for the warrior position.

Anjanette giggled girlishly. “That would be great. Oh, but I’m sort of busy with a big quest at the moment.” She moved closer, until she was practically sitting on Orlin’s lap. “I’m looking for the Tomes of Rendai. You know anything about that?”

“The Tomes?” Orlin gasped. “You shouldn’t be going after that. It’s too big a quest even for me.”

“I think I can take it,” she said. Anjanette was trying not to let her mirth seep into her voice. “So, have you heard anything about them?”

“Well... the rumour around here is, that there’s an old druid up in the Dutchy of Linebar who’s guarding over one. You know, keep it out of the hands of those who would use it for evil, and all that.”

“Thanks,” Anjanette said, greatfully skipping away. She resisted the urge to insult the guy, if only because he probably was a good mage if nothing else. Instead, she muttered something like. “See ya later” and grabbing Leonas by the arm.

The rest of the group gave Orlin a round of high-fives and thumbs up. “Adventurer girls are hot!" one of them said nasally.

“We’ve got our lead, now let’s get out of here,” Anjanette said, wrinkling her nose.

“Can’t I finish my drink first?” Leonas asked, but by that time she was already out the door.

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Chapter 2-2

A day late, a dollar short... okay, more like two days. Sorry, 5 readers, life has been hectic. I'll make it up to you. Here's the part.

Their quest began, as mosts quests do, at a tavern. The tavern in question, the Adjective Noun ( a more upscale version of the one downtown), was one of those antiquated places that still referred to itself as a “tavern”, and appealed largely to the adventurer crowd. The room was brightly lit. Murals of ancient heroes covered the walls, and the waitresses all wore traditional dresses for maximum ogling. It was the last place Leonas and Anjanette would normally drink at, but it was a good source of information about these things.

The stench hit them immediately. Smoke, frying grease, and the odour of dozens of would-be-knights on the road came together to make a concoction that could make the foulest of beasts turn around and decide to get something else for dinner. It almost did the same for Anjanette.

“Anj, is there a way to hold your nose while being minimally sociable?” asked Leonas.

“I wouldn’t worry about social graces with this sort,” said Anjanette. She gestured at a nearby oaken table, where a group of overweight and thickly-bearded youths were arguing about who “poned” the most in their recent encounter with some bandits.

With a heave of resignation, Leonas settled into a barstool. The bartender was a mammoth man who Leonas would have bet any amount of money was a former adventurer himself. “Welcome to our fine establishment. I haven’t seen you around before, good sir. Would you perchance a drink.”

“Perchance a drink... ‘sir’, that doesn’t make any sense,” said Leonas.

The barkeep looked guilty, like a twelve-year-old boy whose mom had just caught him trying on her underwear. Leonas cracked a forgiving smile. “I’ll have some rum, please.”

The bartender now looked like his mother had just taken him aside and explained to him that experimentation was perfectly natural. Leonas got his rum in quick order.

He took a deep sip. “So, anything much happening around these parts?”

“Well, there’s a gang of bandits around these parts that the duke just put a bounty on... go by The Lethal Seven. Good money if that’s your sort of thing. And there are rumours of a treasure in old Clovis’s Tomb going around.”

“Uh huh,” said Leonas. “I’m looking for a book... or multiple books... really old, indecipherable ancient writing, that sort of thing?”

“Plenty of books like that around. Now, maybe if you let me see it...”

Leonas cut him off with a smirk. “It’s in a safe place. You aren’t getting near it.”

“You won’t get anywhere if you’re that paranoid, boy,” said the innkeeper.

Leonas rolled his eyes and downed another sip.

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