The door creaked ever so slightly as Cobal closed it behind them. He didn’t lock it, knowing Eliana would be here shortly and he put the key on a table next to the door. He looked around at the cozy room. Four beds were set up against the back wall. Two on one side of a door and two on the other side. There was enough space between each set of beds for a person to stand. Each bed was made with fresh sheets. To the right of the door they entered through were two small desks set up with inkwells and quills ready. In the center was a small table with four chairs around it. There wasn’t a ton of room to walk around everything, but it made for a great room for a prolonged stay. “Not bad,” Cobal remarked.
Mana nodded in agreement and walked over to the door that was between the two sets of beds. This door wasn’t locked with a key but instead barred from the inside. She lifted up the bar and opened the door, walking out onto the adjacent balcony. Cobal followed her. To their right, an older woman was sitting near the edge of the balcony painting what looked to be the fountain on the square below them. She looked up from her work and smiled. “Good day neighbors,” she said.
“Good day,” Cobal replied and Mana nodded politely. “How’s it coming along?”
The woman sighed. “Never quite as pretty as you want it to be, but not too bad.” She stretched her arms and continued painting. After peering over the bannister for a minute or so, Cobal went back inside. He put his bags at the end of one of the beds and laid down. A few minutes later Mana came back inside and did the same. “What’s the plan?” She asked.
Cobal didn’t answer for a while. He gathered his thoughts. “There’s so much to worry about, I barely know where to start,” he admitted.
“Let’s take it one step at a time, not every problem needs to be solved by me and you,” Mana reminded him.
Cobal sat upright on the bed and nodded. “You’re right. One step at a time.” He thought for a little bit longer. “Mirgia, Kimi and the other people who were teleported away will be okay. Assuming they’re teleported to the same place, that is.”
“And Kimi and Mirgia would be fine on their own as well,” Mana added.
“For sure.” Cobal scratched his beard. He hadn’t shaved in a while, so he should probably find a nice bathhouse in town. “The skirmishes at the border haven’t been getting much worse from what we’ve heard, so I think it’s safe to surmise we still have time to find my brother. That’s our most important task here, figure out where Sapher is and who is holding him captive.”
“For that we probably have to scour the library for information on those magic circles.” Mana said. “I get a feeling that’ll mostly be up to me.”
Cobal smiled. “I’ll try my best to help as much as I can, but I’m not a quick reader.” He counted on his fingers. “Then there are two other problems we need to solve that are more straightforward. We need to find Grac’s wife and free her from the bandits who may or may not be in league with the cultists we’ve been dealing with. On top of that, we need to figure out how to unparalyze Dylon and the members of Eliana’s crew that were paralyzed. The first will primarily be up to Eliana and Grac.”
“Grac shouldn’t be in town just to be safe, and Eliana isn’t the reading type,” Mana agreed. “And then the two of us try to get entry into the library through Eliana’s contact,” she added.
There was a knock on the door. “Speak of the devil.”
Eliana came in with some fresh pastries she picked up on the way. “The atmosphere here is as pleasant as ever. This city feels like its own world at times.”
“You’ve been here before right?”
“A long time ago, yes. It was a different place back then. Not tremendously different, but definitely smaller and less tidy. It feels more rigid now.” She paused for a moment. “Rigid isn’t the right word. What am I trying to say here?”
“Plastic?” Mana suggested.
“What’s that?” Eliana asked.
“Oh, right, that’s not really a thing here. Then ignore me, it’s a saying from my own world, it means that things feel a bit inorganic. When something is overproduced and is shaped to look like something more so than that it actually is that thing.” She looked up at Eliana. “Am I making sense?”
“Not at all.” They all laughed.
“I think I get what you mean though,” Cobal said. “It feels like a nice atmosphere because that’s what it’s designed to feel like?”
“That is what I’m trying to say, yes,” Mana said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get used to the difference in our worlds. Certain concepts from my old life don’t exist here and a lot of things that do exist here didn’t exist in my old world. It’s giving me headaches at times.”
“I can imagine. If it helps, there’s tons of things in the world that I’ve never seen either,” Cobal said. “A lot of what we’ve encountered in the past year or so has been completely alien to me. Elves and fiery beasts, pirates and cultists, magic circles and Irkans. You’re not the only one having to get used to things.”
Mana smiled. “That makes me feel a little bit better.” She turned her attention back to Eliana. “So, where do we find this contact of yours?”
“I don’t know for certain but when we parted ways it was because he wanted to become a researcher at the library here in town. He said he wanted to document the shift in cultures of this country over the last few decades.”
“So he’s an anthropologist?” Mana asked.
“An anthrawhat now?”
“An anthropologist is someone who studies humans and their change throughout the years. We have people who study that in my world as well.”
“Never heard of it, but if we do find Kayzel maybe he’s familiar with the term.”
Mana shook her head. “It’s a word that comes from Greek back in my world and I doubt that language exists here, so there’s no logical way of the same word being used here.” She fell quiet for a bit. “If it were to also exist here, that would make for a lot of questions I want answers too. Now I’m wondering if there are other words you use here that are similar to our world.” She opened up her notebook. After flipping through a couple of pages she shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve encountered any so far, your language is far different than the ones I’m used to. It’s still strange that I somehow knew your language when I was brought here, that’s something I should probably look into in the library as well.” She sighed. “There’s too much to do.”
“One step at a time,” Cobal reminded her. “Don’t get stuck worrying about too many things.”
Mana nodded. “Of course, one step at a time.” She looked at Eliana. “Speaking of which, how do you plan on finding your friend?”
Eliana shrugged. “I figured we’d just hang out in front of the library until he showed up.”
Cobal chuckled. “Simple but efficient.”
“Unless you have a better idea.”
He shook his head. “By all means, you’re the one that knows him, so we’ll take your lead on this.”
“We could also just go into one of the three libraries and ask for him,” Mana suggested. “Do you know which of the three libraries he would be at?”
Eliana thought for a little bit. “Probably the Ruby Observatory.”
“Let’s go there in the morning and see if someone can help us.”
“This is why you’re the smart one,” Eliana said, slapping Mana on her back. “Want to get some drinks tonight?”
“That does sound good,” Mana agreed.
Eliana opened the door. “I’ll ask the innkeeper for suggestions.”
Cobal and Mana fell quiet for a little bit. Cobal was quite tired after the long journey and they talked a lot on the road, so there wasn’t much to talk about right now. After a few moments, Mana got up from the edge of her bed and put her bag next to one of the desks. She sat down and pulled out the book that Dionil had given them as well as a quill. It looked much more used than Cobal’s book, which was basically still pristine and this was confirmed when Mana opened it up to one of the last empty pages. Cobal had tried to write in it a few times, sometimes just a name or some information he needed to remember, but properly writing things down wasn’t his thing. Mana on the other hand would write in it almost every day as if it were a diary. Perhaps that’s how she was using it. He didn’t think it apt to ask. She started writing away and Cobal laid down on the bed, slowly dozing off to the sound of a quill scribbling on a page. It seemed like Eliana took a little while and there was still time before dinner.
Cobal woke up a little while later, not sure how much time had passed. He heard Eliana and Mana softly conversing.
“So you’re saying that you’re still worried what will happen to you if you outlive your usefulness and are deemed dangerous?”
“Not as much as when I first got here, talking to the king in person has given me a little bit of trust. But I’m sure Might never thought something terrible would befall him either, so I can’t be too careless.”
“But you trust Cobal, right?”
“Of course, I trust him completely.” There was a pause. “Well, you should never trust anyone completely, but that’s just semantics.”
“You have to use more common words sometimes,” Eliana complained.
“It doesn’t matter. I just worry a lot about what is in store for me. I don’t want to tell Cobal this, but I’m glad we’re taking some time to stay in a library, the constant traveling was not helping my anxiety. I know that you’re built for adventure and Cobal also seems to thrive, but we killed people just the other day. Our friends are in danger and we’re trying to stop a war from happening. Reading some books is much closer to my expertise than any of the other things I mentioned.”
“Well, take your time here. Fareh always tells me that knowledge is vital to success. Not sure I agree, but she is old, so she probably knows what she’s talking about.”
They both laughed.
Cobal felt a little bit awkward listening in on this conversation but they did know he was in the room so he couldn’t be blamed. Nevertheless, he continued napping for a little while longer before getting up, so it didn’t seem like he was just laying there listening in.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Eliana said.
“Good morning mom,” Cobal replied a little bit grumpily. Naps were nice at first but he would often get a headache if he laid down too long. “I could use some food, did the innkeeper have any recommendations?”
“She did, as a matter of fact.” Eliana sat down opposite of him. “Apparently there’s a famous storyteller in town and he’ll be telling stories on the square right below the inn. If we get out on the balcony we can sit there and eat, drink and listen to his stories. I’m curious if he’s going to talk about any places or stories I’m familiar with.” Eliana pointed at Mana, who had gone back to writing. “She’s curious too.”
“Well it doesn’t sounds like a bad time to spend an evening to me either.” He stood up and stretched. “Let’s go get some food downstairs then.”
Opal Kaharis 