Beyond the doors were a vast cave, dug out of the solid rock. Roughly cylindrical in shape and lit by torches, making the deep hole look like the night sky, with torches acting as the stars. Dozens of scribes were busy roaming the archives, writing in large books and moving the same about.

“Can you see the guy we were looking for?” Tilia asked. She shook her head.

“Guess we’ll improvise again… Let’s just sneak further down for starters… Bedtime stories say that the item you want is always at the very bottom of the cave, or enemy fort, so that’s probably true here too.”

They continued down along one of the paths, ducking into the large slots in the wall that housed dozens of bookcases. Suddenly, a voice broke the relative silence.

“Where’s the file concerning the Ervelse conspiracy? Standard procedure.” From below, they could see a small podium. On it, their target was speaking into a fixed metal cone, which made his voice loud enough to be heard all the way down the archive. The man looked over the edge, nodded to himself and began making his way downwards.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I don’t think we can follow him… Too many people down there.” She whispered, and Tilia nodded.

“Plan B2 it is then…”

“Huh?”

“We kill them all quietly.”

“I have a better idea. Clothes over there.”

“… Oh… Oh, okay!”

A short while after, a scribe was walking down the steps. She had agreed to be the bottom half, and was carrying Tilia on her shoulders. The wool cloak kept her hidden, and the hood concealed most of Tilia’s childish features.

“Much further?”

“Nah, he’s just a short way ahead… You know, playing dress up is kind of fun occasionally, we should do that sometime, I bet you’d look stunning in a priestess garb.”

“The list of things we need to do is steadily growing…”

“And that’s why I like you Ferran, you always keep your promises… Wait here a bit, he’s talking to some other guy…”

She could barely hear some murmuring from up ahead. She peeked outside the cloak, found a nearby row of bookcases and swiftly walked over to it, pretending to search for a specific volume.

"We're close, let's continue...