Read by Chatull Aventari Chapter Ten. Where’s the Egg? Central Brittany is the biggest city of them all. As we traveled north through the region of Midmaer, all roads led to Lady Arabella’s city of Central Brittany, right in the middle of Novia. Lady Arabella kept her castle well. All trade and commerce in the land flowed through its mighty stone walls, and one could become lost in the great city’s countless varied and twisting lanes and alleyways of shops and dwellings. Arabella took great care to educate and care for the teeming population in her city, and it showed in popularity as a destination. The road we followed crawled with farmers bringing their goods to the markets, travelers out for pleasure, and many who obviously travelled alone for other business. Whisking by at a quick pace, these strangers did not pause to exchange pleasantries. So, we put our backs into it, and joined the throng. The journey to Central Britanny was a blur of grueling motion, unsettled sleep, quick bites of bread and cheese, and more walking than any of us liked. Kitty didn’t seem bothered by the pace nor the distance. She was tireless and focused. When the imposing heavy wooden Southwest Door of the city came in view, I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t enjoy walking this far and was fairly grumpy about it. A boat or a balloon would have been far easier on all of us except Zyrina. Since I had made a promise, we walked, because it was the only choice left. So, we walked. And I kept my grumbling to myself. My feet hurt, and my pack didn’t seem to fit right anymore or get any lighter, but seeing the city getting closer and closer gave me a good boost of energy, and the last bit of the trip to the city flew by. We slid inside the door just as it was closing at the end of day, and didn’t even have to declare our business. The darkness of the countryside was almost entirely missing from the brightly lit city and it was fairly easy to make our way over to the Byrd Boardinghouse. After settling into our rooms at the boardinghouse we met in the street outside the front door. “Ready to go find Elnoth’s Cartage and Storage?” I asked pointing down the lane. Elnoth’s was close to my family boardinghouse, just as I said it was. “What’s that?” Zyrina’s keen hearing alerted us to the booming sound. “I don’t know,” Lucy cocked her head. “Sounded like an explosion to me.” Aslinne nodded in tense agreement. We headed toward what we’d heard. As we drew nearer, we could hear other sounds of alarm. When we were almost to Elnoth’s, we saw a small group of guards coming out of the building and we heard them grumbling about miscreants and firecrackers. The last of them stomped away not looking pleased. They shouted at us to stay out of trouble and went on their way. I looked up at the tall sturdy building and wondered what we would find here. Then I grinned because I had no idea what would happen next. Searching for this elusive magic book had become one of those illusive challenges of my life, and had consumed decades in Novia in the blink of an eye. As much as I longed for home, this adventure was exactly where I wanted to be. “Come on,” I encouraged my wary friends. * Earlier that same evening… Bellis the acolyte raked his thick greasy hair out of his eyes and looked up from his reading. He had been drawn reluctantly from the book he clutched protectively in his lap while he lay curled in his small, rumpled bed, tucked up with hot rocks in the bottom and a steaming blue mug of tea beside him. A pounding at the front door of the Cartage and Storage where Bellis was the night watch cut through the page of adventure that he did not want to stop reading. He knew he would have to answer it, but he did not hurry to the task. There were some strange comings and goings from the secure storage area, and Bellis was not sure Elnoth knew that he was sheltering a small group of Obsidian sympathizers from the Southern Red Branch, who used the third floor of the building as their secret meeting place. No one else was allowed up there. That’s where the magic portal to the secure storage area was located, too. Bellis may have overheard snatches of conversation from the Southern Red Branch, but he didn’t think it was his job to inform anybody, and the Branch gave him treats now and then to deliver messages or small packages over to another location in the city. They called him an acolyte. It sounded important but wasn’t. Bellis liked the arrangement just fine. As much as he wanted to ignore the knocking until it went away, the pounding did not taper off and just would not end. He sighed heavily. Bellis, the only one there, finally got out of his bed, unhurriedly found his slippers and old cloak, then took the flickering lantern with him down the narrow stairs to open the barred wooden door. Bellis didn’t recognize the mage who had knocked, but he would not soon forget him. The robed, tattooed stranger barged in and immediately demanded “What took you so long?” Without waiting for an answer, the mage headed straight for the third floor as he commanded, “Bring me candles, salt, and wine!” When Bellis gathered these things and brought them to him on the third floor, he was muttering to himself in runic as he poured over a tattered leather book of magic that looked ancient. Bellis may have been an acolyte, but he was not a very ambitious one. After providing what was called for, the youngster was asked to hold the chalice while the mage ground yet another herb. Uneasily, Bellis shifted from foot to foot and impatiently held the full silver goblet as his arms ached from the weight of it while thinking about his warm bed and good book. Now he was certain that he would not get back to his reading tonight at all and he was feeling grumbly about it, too. He could hear the mage muttering as he ground the fragrant herbs. Bellis didn’t actually care for magic and had no patience for the slow creation and meticulous bindings necessary for the powerful forms of the art. He was more interested in the porridge that he was given at the end of the day, and the books that he was allowed to read when he wasn’t sweeping or wiping or mending or fetching. But tonight, he was the only one here, and he could not fade into the background and be ignored in the way he tended to do. Even Bellis could see that this mage had no idea what he was doing. He had to reference the book he carried for every word of power he spoke. He spoke the magic words in a shaking voice; he was doing it anyway, but not very well either. The secure storage was not easy to get into and the spell took time to mature. Accessing the hidden entrance to the secure storage – via a large book that was not a book – was not for beginners. The storage was so far below the building in the dark of the earth that magic could not be detected, not even Obsidian magic. Bellis had overheard the others talking about how they would never be detected, and had the protection of “a dark shard of the moon.” Opening portals to other places was not an easy spell to begin with. Then Bellis found himself in the sort of predicament that the Southern Red Branch had warned him about. With the portal only part way open, a translucent ghostly lich slipped out of the blue of the forming, shimmering portal. The lich caught the attention of the mage, who lost his train of thought partway through the last word of the spell he was incanting. The lich receded, disappearing back into the shimmering part opening in the large book-that-was-not-a-book-but-a-portal just as the misspoken magic word ignited an explosion. The building rocked. Bellis was thrown against the wall, the wind knocked out of him. The billowing smoke didn’t make that easy to get back, and his eyes streamed with tears. He could see the strange high-ranking mage had escaped the worst of the blast, and was hurriedly gathering all his belongings into his bag. Bellis had a headache, and the ringing in his ears had him fearful of deafness. He saw the mage had managed to conjure a newly opened magical entrance to the secure storage area. It wasn’t pretty – there were jagged bits of blue light glowing around the edges – but before he could call out, the mage jumped in, and was gone. The portal remained, and the tome behind the Chairman’s place in the secret meeting room now glowed blue with the light of magic. Happily, Bellis was not deaf; unhappily, he knew this because he could hear the city alarms. Barely over the shock of the explosion, his heart jolted again – here he was all alone, left to clean up the mess this strange mage had made – and where there were city alarms, there would soon be the city guards. Bellis knew he couldn’t make it out the door before the city guards would stream into the building, armed, and looking for troublemakers. He flew downstairs and scurried into the clutter of boxes and barrels on the main level, looking for a good place to hide. He froze motionless as the guard came trooping in through the door that he had left unbarred after the strange mage’s entrance. He shifted his position from shadow to shadow as the city guard did a cursory search of the building from top to bottom. Bellis could taste terror; was sure it would have been easy for anyone to see the wildness in his eyes. Would he be caught? Could he lie his way clear? Should he go to the other location and tell the someone? Bellis was forlorn, and utterly certain of only one thing: no matter what or who, he would be blamed. Silent, in the shadows, the city guard missed him when they did their last search of the main floor on their way out. Having found nothing amiss, they began filing out of the building, grumbling about firecrackers, and griping about the miscreant youths that they assum
