Advent of Eternity - Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Knell awoke the following morning to Stix prodding him in the side. He sighed, glancing out the window to see the sun rising from over a harbor at the edge of Chrisford, and pushed himself upright.

“Is something the matter?”

“You were oversleeping,” Stix replied. “There’s no sense wasting perfectly good daytime.”

“And was there something you needed to get accomplished today? I thought you only wanted to gather Yin energy for your Path Upgrade Stone.”

“I – well, I guess I do. But you can’t possibly mean we’re going to sit in here for the next few months, can you?”

“I promised to keep you safe, didn’t I? What if we get into a conflict in the city?”

Stix stared at him, her eyes wide in horror. Knell let her suffer for a few moments before chuckling.

“Of course we’re not going to stay here for months. I have goals to accomplish as well. I just wasn’t particularly pleased about getting up so early, so I was in a foul mood.”

“Sure got over it quickly,” Stix muttered.

Knell grabbed his staff and planted it on the floor before rising from the bed. “I trust you don’t have any other pressing issues we have to deal with?”

“Not unless more people come after my stone,” Stix replied. “And there were more than the ones here today. I don’t know where they are, though.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. We won’t be waiting for them to make the next move. It’s our turn, and I need to continue growing my own goals.”

“Of becoming a pirate? You’re going to be looking for more crew members, then.”

“I will be,” Knell said. “I need someone to absorb the damage. You are an apt fighter, but I am not. Physical combat is very dangerous for me, so I need someone to stand in front of enemies and take the blows for me. I was able to get away with yesterday because your assailants were bumbling incompetent idiots.”

“That better not be how you approach new members, or you’ll never get another person to sign up,” Stix laughed.

“Honesty is important.”

“So is phrasing. You could at least make it sound a little more glamorous. Nobody is going to want to take an arrow for somebody when you treat them like a living shield.”

Knell grunted. “Perhaps not, but that is what I need. I will search until I find someone that fits that description.”

“Well then, Captain, where are we searching? The sewers, for someone so hooked on Leaf that they can’t refuse an offer?” Stix asked sarcastically.

“The library,” Knell replied, his staff clicking against the wood as he led her out of the inn.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Stix said. “You could ask a librarian to hold a big book in front of you.”

He cracked a grin at that. “I have seen a fair few book that are thick enough to block an arrow. It’s not entirely unreasonable.”

Chrisford’s library sat just a short distance from the waterfront, nestled between a restaurant and a bath house. The unassuming building rose two stories tall and looked like it had seen better days.

Rot had worked into the wooden posts and what brick the library had was chipped and covered with moss.

“This place is a dump,” Stix said. “I take it back. If the inside is anything like the outside, you couldn’t even use a book to block an arrow. It would probably just disintegrate.”

“There can be some valuable information stored away in places like this,” Knell said, pushing the rickety door open and walking inside with Stix on his heels.

A lone librarian sat at a run-down desk in front of them, her head dipped low and a half empty mug of beer by her hand. She let out a loud snore.

“Right,” Stix said. “Treasure.”

Knell ignored her and slipped past the librarian to the uneven rows of shelves behind her. He stepped over books scattered over the floor and walked around, scanning titles as he went.

“So what are you looking for in particular? You can’t just be hoping to stumble across something.”

“Prison records. Specifically old ones.”

“Why - oh no. You’re that desperate? Come on, we can find someone capable that isn’t lined up for the noose, Knell.”

“I’m not going to settle for just any prisoner,” Knell replied, pulling a ratty scroll from the bottom of a shelf and unfurling it. He scanned its contents, then tossed it aside.

Stix threw her hands up and surrendered the idea of questioning him, instead opting to help him hunt.

They shuffled through the contents of the shelves for several fruitless hours. Whenever Stix found a book or scroll that looked promising, she handed it off to Knell.

It wasn’t until they had worked through nearly every shelf did Knell finally allow a slight grin to cross his face. He unfurled an ancient ledger that had been buried under a huge pile of worthless paper.

“What’s that? Doesn’t look like prison records,” Stix observed.

“It’s not exactly what I wanted, but it helps,” Knell replied, turning the paper toward her. “It’s the expenses for Chrisford about fifty years ago.”

“And how does that help us?”

“It doesn’t. Not yet, at least. Fifty years is too recent. But it does prove the information we’re looking for might be here. Help me search for anything at least a hundred years old in this pile.”

Stix shrugged and obliged him. They ruffled through it, setting aside the worthless papers to clean the workspace up a little.

“What about this?” Stix asked, handing Knell a dry piece of parchment. “One hundred and eight years ago.”

“Perfect.” Knell studied it for a moment, then nodded to himself. “It’s a start.”

“Are we moving into accounting now?”

“Perhaps. This shows me just where expenses were spent long enough that everyone has long since forgotten about them.”

Stix pursed her lips in thought. Her eyes lit up as realization struck her. “You’re looking for prison expenses? Ones that have been forgotten?”

“Exactly.”

“But what’s the point of that? Anyone in a forgotten prison is going to be long since dead. That’s kind of how they get forgotten.”

“Most people would be,” Knell agreed. “But there are legends of a warrior that was imprisoned in the Shattered Sea about two hundred years ago. He was known as Cyll the Unyielding.”

“You’re kidding me,” Stix said, her mouth dripping open. “You’re trying to find a sailor’s legend, not a living person. Cyll probably never existed. If he dead, he’s dead in a cell at the bottom of the sea.”

“I’m not so sure,” Knell replied. “I’ve studied him. Not to any significant degree, but he was believed to literally be immortal. He cannot die, not by age nor by sword.”

“If the legends were true, then he’s also a bloodthirsty murderer with hundreds of lives on his hands.”

“We aren’t all perfect.” Knell rolled the scroll up, cracking it in a dozen locations in the process, and stuffed it into his pocket. “We’re done here.”

They headed out of the library and back to Stix’s room. Knell took the scroll back out and tossed it on her bed.

“According to this, there were boats sailing to an undetermined area somewhere in the nearby waters,” Knell said. “They remained there for less than a day before returning. Why would they do that?”

“If they were delivering supplies,” Stix admitted. “But it doesn’t say where they went, does it?”

“Unfortunately not. We’ll need more detailed information if we want to figure that out. Charter logs are kept in the Ruler’s estate.”

“You really think the Ruler of Chrisford is going to let us leaf through personal documents, no matter how old?”

“Of course not. We might have to do a little convincing.”

Stix crossed her arms. “You’re planning to rob him.”

“I never said that.”

“You certainly implied it.”

“Do you think we could get away with robbing a Ruler?”

“Absolutely not,” Stix said flatly. “We’d both be dead and hanging from his gate that same day if we tried.”

“Then we won’t be robbing anyone.” Knell said. “But there are other ways to get into the Ruler’s mansion legally.”

“The only ones I can think of are challenging the Ruler or being employed by one,” Stix said. “The first is off the table, so you want to get hired?”

“You know, it’s very difficult to find accountants,” Knell said. “You said it yourself. Who would want to be one? One mistake and the local lord chops your head off.”

Stix sighed. “I hope you’re good with numbers, because I’m barely passable.”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Knell said with a wry grin. “I more than enough to get us to an interview. We’ll play things by ear from then on out.”

“When do we go, then?”

“Tomorrow, I should think,” Knell replied. “They aren’t going to take us seriously if we show up too late. I think the break of dawn should be good. If you don’t mind, I’ll be commandeering your chair for the night.”

“You’re going to stay in my room?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t even peep in your direction. Besides, it’s not like you couldn’t take me if I tried something.” Knell shook his staff.

Stix grunted, but she didn’t refuse. Knell laid his staff out across the desk and rested his head in his hands, quickly drifting off into the embrace of sleep.