That Freya had remembered what
they had looked at while in the Information Science Section the previous week
didn’t surprise Alexia. Once Freya had lead them to the area, she found a shelf
of the University blueprints that had been published over the last century. “I
hope you’re right,” Alexia said, otherwise we still won’t know where we’re
going.”
“That may be the case anyway,”
Janara said.
“Surely you don’t go blindly
into areas in your games?” Alexia asked.
“More times than you’d expect,”
Janara said. “Sometimes that’s the point, especially in early stages of Real
Time Strategy and Four X games.”
“I’m not familiar with that
latter term,” Alexia said.
“Explore, Expand, Exploit,
Exterminate,” Freya explained. “The acronym only makes sense in English of
course.”
“But it makes for a good
mnemonic,” Janara said.
“Of course,” Freya said.
It didn’t take Alexia long to
find a promising book. “Here we are,” she said.
“It’s from the turn of the
millennium,” Janara commented.
“Not too recent, but also not
too old,” Alexia said. “We want to be certain that it contains the information
we’re after.”
Freya sketched as she waited for
Alexia to look through the book. ‘We’re missing something else. We haven’t
talked to Talia and David today. Is that it? Or will Olivia?’
But it was Janara who brought
that up. “Should we fill the Library staff in on what we have found so far?”
she asked.
“We probably shouldn’t tell them
that you and Olivia sneaked into a staff only area,” Alexia said as she looked
up from the book.
“Of course not,” Janara said.
“That we went over Aurora’s
history and AAUA’s layout?” Freya asked as she continued sketching.
“We haven’t done that much, have
we?” Janara asked rhetorically “This would be barely ten to fifteen minutes in
an RPG.”
“That long?” Freya asked.
“Sometimes the lore is scattered
about the map,” Janara said with a shrug, sometimes in locked chests.
“We’ll tell them about our
meeting yesterday evening,” Freya said to Alexia.
“Sounds good,” Alexia said.
Janara found Talia in the Nordic
Section.
“Janara?” Talia asked.
“We still haven’t any idea where
the manuscript is.”
“But you have an idea?”
“Somewhat. That it could be
hidden somewhere in the hidden corridors beneath the campus.”
Talia sighed. “Those come up
sooner rather than later.”
“What do you know.”
“I have been in some, but my
experiences were when I was a student here, and it would be irresponsible of me
to tell you how to get down there. It’s certainly likely that it would be a
completely different part of the campus you and your friends would be sneaking
into.”
“I understand,” Janara said,
although with a slightly mischievous tone.
“Thanks for telling me.”
Freya saw Janara come back. “You
found her?” she asked as she bounced up.
“Yes. I kinda hinted at what
we’re doing, but it seems she did the same when she was younger.”
“Maybe most students sneak
somewhere they aren’t allowed to at least once.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,”
Janara said as she glanced at where Alexia was engrossed in her research.
Alexia found something. “Here we
are.”
“It shows the hidden corridors?”
Freya asked excitedly.
“It does,” Alexia confirmed, as
she showed Freya the page.
Freya looked at the page, and
turned to Janara. “So, show me where you and Olivia got to last night.”
Janara looked and pointed to the
spot. “Here.”
“It does show a passage there.”
“But not where the door would
be.”
“I guess we have to wait and see
what I might pick up,” Freya said.
“Or maybe Alexia will find a
blueprint with more detail.”
Freya looked and saw that Alexia
was looking through another book.
They spent another half hour
looking through the books. Alexia kept herself busy sketching her own maps of
the various levels of the Library.
“I think this is it,” Alexia
said. “There are contradictions, which is to be expected, but this is as close
as I can get at this time.”
“This is really good,” Janara
said. “We should be able to find our way.”
Freya looked more closely at the
map. “I’m sure I’ll be able to help,” she said again.
“I’ll tell Olivia,” Janara said.
Freya returned to Sigrun
Sigurdottir Hall at the usual time. She had already decided to fill Dana in on
the plan. But she would do more sketching before dinner.
At the same time, Janara caught
up with Olivia back in their room.
Olivia had had a long day of
classes, but was ready to hear what Janara had to say. “So, what did you three
find?” she asked.
Janara handed her several
photocopies of the floor plans Alexia had found. “Freya said that she’s sure
that she’ll be able to help.”
Olivia looked at the floor
plans, despite her dyslexia making the small print impossible to read. “This is
where we were?” she asked as she pointed at a spot.
“Yes. As you can see, there is a
corridor marked behind where we stopped.”
“And Freya did say that she’ll
join us.”
“She did,” Janara confirmed.
“And when?”
“The same time.”
