The three friends carefully inspected the room, they spent about half an hour turning over everything looking for something that could be useful, finally they went into the biggest tent on the place.
Inside the tent, many maps, and documents were on top of a big table, a huge chair was behind the table and many bookshelves could be seen around. Marr stated going through all the documents and found a strange map that had all the bases of each region connected in between them.
“Hey, take a look at this.”
Merrich and Dayer went over and looked at the map, as they were analyzing it they realized that in a region every base connected to all other bases, it was impossible to see what was the right path.
Dayer got a light headache as he looked over the map and said.
“How the hell does one find a path in that crazy ass map!”
Marr kept looking around the documents and finally found a strange parchment in a language he couldn’t recognize.
The Dragonborn showed the scroll to Merrich whose face light up as he read it over.
“This is a magical formula written by two Elves named Heldinger and Karpan. The formula allows for a map to be analyzed through magic and would show the best possible path in a specific situation.”
Merrich kept reading over and finally reached the part that explained the material needed for the spell.
“All the possible paths must be put onto the map, and a cost must be assigned to each path. After that, the magic itself can be used and a perfect path would be laid out in red.”
Dayer looked over the map as he pointed out.
“I see nothing that remembers a cost in here, just lines.”
Marr thought for a while and an enlightened expression appeared on his eyes as he looked for something inside his bag. Finally, a small box was brought out of the bag as a strange white colored powder could be seen inside, Marr took a handful of it and blew it over the map.
When the powder settled over the map some numbers appeared on each of the lines, and they could now see a cost.
The Dragonborn looked at his two friends who had question marks all over their faces as he explained.
“It’s normal for commanders to use a special ink and other methods to hide important information or messages. So, my clan developed a special powder that can reveal these methods.”
As he explained the effects of the power his mind wandered back to the time, his father explained this to him…
--------------------------
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“The powder attaches itself to the hidden message revealing it.”
Marr father was showing to his son the usage of the powder developed by the clan. The young Dragonborn looked at it with an interested expression.
“How can this help in combat dad?”
Daardeth looked at his son with a smile on his face as he explained.
“This will allow you to have information. Sometimes information is far more powerful than raw strength son. It might not be much but this little bit of extra knowledge could give you an edge over your enemies and allow you to turn around a difficult situation.”
Young Marr showed and enlightened expression as he nodded at his father.
Daardeth smile became wider as he patted his son on the head and kept explaining.
“It’s good that you understand, now let’s talk about how to prepare it. This powder is made of: One part…”
-----------------------------
Dayer and Merrich revealed an impressed expression, and the Eladrin said.
“Your clan was truly something…”
Marr showed a wry smile and told the Halfling to go ahead with the spell.
Merrich hit the Eladrin with his elbow as he chanted the elven incantation.
As soon as the Halfling started the lines on the map lit up one by one forming a path, then the lines flashed very fast showing multiple paths one at a time.
Finally, after five minutes a red path appeared on the map showing the most ideal connection between all of them.
Marr and Dayer smiled as they saw the paths, and could easily recognize the main bases on the map.
Merrich stopped the incantation and saw the lines on the map and a satisfied expression appeared on his face.
Marr folded the map and kept it on his bag as he looked at his two friends with a grin on his face and said.
“Good job guys, with this map we can begin our hunt!”
As he finished saying this words Marr felt a cold draft coming from somewhere under him. He looked around and found it to be coming from the floor under the chair that was behind the table.
Marr grabbed the chair under the astonished look of both Merrich and Dayer and touched the floor.
Dayer seeing this thought to himself.
[Has Marr finally lost it? I mean he was pretty fucked up already…]
Merrich suddenly said.
“Marr… What are you doing?”
“I felt a draft here, but I can’t seem to find where is it coming from.”
Marr got up and seemed deep in thought as he looked around the room.
Dayer seemed bored as he went around the room looking through the bookshelves, suddenly he saw a book that caught his attention and when he was taking it out of the bookshelf a ‘Click’ was heard.
A big opening appeared under the tent, and a poorly illuminated path could be seen through it. The three friends nodded at each other as they went in.
The path was very spacious and could accommodate over 6 people together as they went in deeper the tunnel seemed to go up. They kept going through the tunnel and Merrich commented.
“It seems like they bring in the boxes thought here both in and out… Now that I think about it we found no tracks or something that could indicate transportation coming in or out of this place.”
Marr nodded showing he had already realized this and said.
“Yes, it actually puzzled me too but now that I have seen this path I think I know how they are getting the things here.”
As Marr finished saying this they finally reached the end of the tunnel that was the top of the mountain.
A big ship was floating midair right next to the mountain. The ship had an eastern dragon head with its mouth open on the bow, the body of the dragon kept going through the whole hull as its tail formed the stern, the dragon hands where slowly moving under the ship as if they were swimming on the air. The deck was resting on top of the dragon and two huge masts could be seen the first one was normal and a closed sail could be seen on it, the second one looked like a huge dorsal fin and was used as a rudder giving direction to the ship.
The three friends had a stunned expression on their eyes as if they could not believe what was in front of them.
Suddenly a loud shout woke them up from their stupor.
“Hey, you three! Who are you? How did you get up here?”