Three doors led out of the office, just like the previous room. The door to the right was inaccessible, blocked by papers and books stacked on the floor. That was the direction of the empty room; Serenity thought they might well connect. That would explain why the current Headmaster (or perhaps he should call him the previous Headmaster since someone else was taking care of the duties now?) hadn’t cared about access to the room beyond.
The door to the left might well connect to the leftmost exit of the previous room; even if it didn’t, it was worth trying. Aide was mapping as they went but that was no reason not to make it as simple as possible.
The door to the left led to a bedroom. Like the office and the empty room, the bedroom was large; in fact, it was larger than either of the other two rooms, possibly as large as both combined. It was well furnished, with a large bed, a pair of end tables, a desk and chair that went with it, several standing lamps instead of the overhead mage-lights that lit the other rooms, and a huge walk-in wardrobe. Even with all that furniture, the room was half-empty.
“I’ll check the desk,” Raz offered. “That seems like a good place to look. Don’t know why he couldn’t just tell us where it is.”
“I wonder if he knew.” Serenity shook his head slightly. “It would explain a lot if he didn’t.” It was also possible that they’d already found it, even though Serenity didn’t think so. The register was supposed to say what it was on the front and the spine and this book didn’t.
“What do you mean?” Raz threw the question over his shoulder and he headed to the desk. It was a reasonable place to check, but Serenity was getting more and more convinced it wouldn’t be found there.
“I wonder if he knows where the Register is. I think maybe he doesn’t,” Serenity clarified. “That would cover why he didn’t bring it when he ran.” Serenity glanced down at the book under his arm and revised his conclusions. “Of course, he didn’t bring anything else, so maybe I’m just overthinking things.”
There were several books tucked into the end table, but none said Stallet Headmaster’s Register and none were enchanted, so Serenity didn’t spend time on them. He started to head over to the other side of the bed for the other end table, but an odd lump under the messy covers made Serenity pause and pull the covers down.
There was a pile of books under the covers that looked like they’d just been set there and shoved to the side over time. There were enough books there - seven, at his first count - that Serenity wondered if it was a pile that had been set there and knocked over or if they’d come in one at a time as a result of the Headmaster reading in bed.
He rather hoped it was the first, since it probably meant they hadn’t been there as long and therefore meant the sheets were changed more often. It wasn’t all that important now, of course, since no matter how often the sheets were usually changed, they hadn’t been changed in over a year. Of course, no one had slept in them for the same period of time, either.
Two of the books were magical. Serenity pulled them out and started to laugh. The one on the bottom had the words “Stallet Headmaster’s Register” emblazoned across the cover in gold leaf.
The second one didn’t have a label, so he flipped to the front page and saw some very familiar messages. It seemed like he needed to pick up the other half of the pair of messaging books after all. It might be quite useful not that he had both of them.
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Hand Esme Tillon met Serenity and Raz when they left the building and led them around the corner into a relatively sheltered area where the others waited. Serenity was glad to see that everyone seemed relatively healed from the slices, even if their gear still showed damage.
“Were you able to find it?” The eager words slipped out of Narin’s mouth the moment he saw the three turn the corner.
Serenity simply held up the Stallet Headmaster’s Register with the name on the front visible.
Narin cheered for a moment before one of his companions covered his mouth with a hand and hissed at his to be silent. Serenity wasn’t certain which one it was; one of the humans, but he couldn’t tell which one.
It was obvious Narin hadn’t been picked for his experience with stealth. Serenity couldn’t blame the man too much; he was terrible at it himself and had blown things by speaking loudly at the wrong time in the past. It could even have happened recently, though Serenity wasn’t sure exactly when.
Esme indicated a spot on the ground and Serenity set out all four books. He stacked the pair of communication books together and set the others out separately, then explained what he knew about them.
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Esme nodded along. “We’ll start with the Register, since we know what should be in it. I really want to see what’s in that book that might cover defenses, but that can wait until we know where to look.”
Serenity set the book down and flipped through it. He hadn’t taken the time earlier, but the map was still easy to find. Everyone gathered around, but it was quickly obvious that ten people couldn’t look at a book at the same time. Esme tapped a few of them on the shoulder and had them watch the surroundings, in case anyone approached.
Calling the map section of the Headmaster’s Register “a” map was a severe understatement. It was a series of maps in widely varying scales. The first pair of pages covered the entire grounds of Stallet Academy. It was not very detailed at all, but it was enough to be able to pick out the major building locations. Chillingly, it also indicated where people were; Serenity could see a dot on the open area they sat in. It was a very good thing the enemy didn’t have a copy.
There were a number of other dots for people scattered around the Academy. It was obvious that a lot of detail wasn’t shown on the top-level map, but it was still a useful place to start. There were people in the Arcanum, one of the two theaters, the Dungeon Lore building, and the Blessed Hall. It was an odd selection of buildings; they weren’t even close to each other. It didn’t include any of the dormitories, either, which seemed strange. It was after dark; where were they planning to sleep?
“That’s convenient,” Esme Tillon commented. “They’ve split up. Not a good idea if they’re expecting to be attacked, but they obviously aren’t. I wonder if they’ve even set guards?”
Serenity shrugged and flipped to the next page to try to get more detail. It was a closer view of a portion of the grounds, but it didn’t show any people so Serenity moved on. The maps that covered the grounds were quick to dismiss, though he did notice that when they came to the area that showed the ten of them, it only showed nine dots. Serenity kept going; there was no reason to make a point of his ability to escape detection.
He hoped none of their opponents had a similar ability. There were stealth-type Paths that could develop ways to fool most wards, even without the ability to magically affect the wards the way Serenity could; it wasn’t out of the question that someone had the ability to fool the massive enchantment on the Academy grounds that fed the Headmaster’s Register.
It was not a problem yet, at least; Serenity had never heard of such a thing as a passive before he gained it and it was unlikely anyone would use such a Skill without a reason. It was unlikely there was anyone else around that had the Voice deliberately hiding them because they were the Former Supreme Existence and the Voice wanted to hide that fact; Serenity was fairly confident that was why he had the passive Title. It was probably mostly an anti-divination protection for his past but seemed to have some other odd effects.
Serenity flipped past a couple of empty buildings before he reached the first one with occupants; as it happened, it was the building everyone called the “small theater”. There were thirty-two people in the theater; strangely, they were marked in two different colors. A key at the bottom of the page let Serenity know that he was looking at twenty-one students, five faculty, and six “other”. The straightforward mission to get the book and use it to help the few people they had who could get past the Academy’s wards deal with the attackers had just hit a major snag.
“That’s not good.” Raz’z comment echoed Serenity’s thoughts. “How are we going to get them out of there?”
“Carefully.” Esme tapped the room that held all twenty-six people who were probably prisoners. “And they may be able to help, we’ll need more detail. Alrin, Ren’shel, Obas, the three of you check it out. If you have the chance, free the prisoners but make sure none of the guards are left to find out. That’ll put us on a timer but we need to finish or hole up by morning anyway. If you can’t take care of it quietly, don’t even try; get back here and we’ll try another plan.”
Two humans and a draykin each took a good long look at the layout, especially the area where the “others” were, then headed away. Serenity hoped they’d succeed; more help would be good. He’d probably have waited until they looked at the rest of the locations in the Register, but Esme was clearly trying to save time.
The next occupied building didn’t have any prisoners. The Dungeon Lore building, unlike the theater, didn’t fit on a single page in the Register; instead, it was split by floors. There was a large group of thirty that seemed to be on the roof, along with another twenty in the second basement. The floors between the roof and the second basement level each held a team of four.
“That’s going to be interesting to clear out. Let’s look at the next one.”
Serenity didn’t reply to Esme’s statement; she was probably correct. He hoped those were the largest groups here, but he wasn’t going to count on it. This wasn’t as many people as the Viper had brought yet, after all.
The Blessed Hall took up three pairs of pages in the book, with the ground floor first, then a pair of towers and finally a series of small individual rooms. It wasn’t clear where all of the small individual rooms connected to the rest of the building, so it was fortunate they were all empty. Everyone in the Blessed Hall was on the ground floor; from the layout, Serenity’s guess was that the attackers had converted the various large rooms into barracks.
There were slightly under two hundred people in the Blessed Hall; only a few of them moved around. Serenity wasn’t certain any of them were formal guards, but there were enough that seemed to be awake that an attacking force would have to be careful or they’d draw attention.
Esme turned to a human who’d been silent the entire time, even when she introduced him to Serenity. “Bylek, how many do you think you can get?”
Bylek studied the page for a long moment. “Two-thirds, if they’re below Tier Five. Half if I’m alone.” He had a thick accent, one Serenity couldn’t place.
Esme nodded. “Do it. I doubt they’re over Tier Five.”
Serenity didn’t even see Bylek leave; he simply vanished.