Ian was surprised by Irene's discovery of a new square. He decided to keep the news quiet for now. He told Irene he would need time to organize the transfer of all the dependents. They would keep the discovery between themselves to prevent anyone from getting killed trying to make it on their own.
“I already told Jake,” Irene told Ian. “He seemed so worried about his son, I wanted him to know there were alternatives.”
“That’s fine,” Ian said, “Jake will have a big part in planning the move.” Ian was confident Jake wouldn’t say anything. He may be a little soft but he wasn’t stupid.
Everything was coming together nicely. A blue army was forming up from a union of men from both Londontown and Paris. Allen reported that their target was going to be Redfalls. There were far too many of them to attack through the halls so the attack would come from the green. Ian couldn’t believe how long it was taking for the two squares to organize. He sent Allen in to carry the tale of a red square behind the waterfall in a green north of Chicago’s green weeks ago. There was plenty of time to organize a successful defense.
The only part of the plan that wasn’t executing perfectly was Irene’s continued failure to get pregnant. It wasn’t like Ian didn’t try. He was beginning to think she knew a spell to stop conception. Ian decided that was alright. She was really good at running the square. Under her direction a small crafting community was forming up, providing small consumable crafted items at a much lower cost than Chicago. The inn was serving much more flavorful meals and the women were happier with their men.
Only her tendency to wander off every once in a while caused any concern. The last thing Ian needed was Irene to get herself killed at this late date. He was up at those northern greens testing out the ring only a few months ago. If she was wandering around up there then he could have killed her. Even without that threat she always seemed so distracted when she was engaged in her puzzles.
“Did you ever decrypt that tier five inscription?” Ian asked. He didn’t remember her telling him what it was.
“Yeah,” Irene said. “It was a crafting spell, I think. I didn’t recognize the symbol for the tool. I can’t figure out why it would appear. It must be a ‘leftover’.” She grew thoughtful for a moment. “Have you noticed that there doesn’t seem to be any tier six spells?” Irene said suddenly. “Do you think that means there isn’t a tier six?”
“You’re the one that told me that spell hints usually appear where someone can use them. No tier six spells just means there are no tier six wizards nearby,” Ian responded.
“Maybe,” Irene agreed. “Sometimes I think it is because this area is too low tier.” Ian let that comment go unanswered. This was the first time he heard Irene give a tier to an area. He would ask her about this new theory of hers later. She loved it when he let her talk about her ideas. He excused himself shortly after telling her he needed to do some planning. Irene assumed that meant planning the move to the new square, when Ian actually meant planning for the coming battle. He needed something that would engage the blues for an extended amount of time and not defeat them too quickly.
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“There was a runner from Chicago today,” Ian told Irene over dinner about a week later. “A large blue force was spotted crossing the border. I’ve sent scouts out to alert us if they come anywhere near us.” Irene stopped eating.
“Do you think they are coming here?” she asked. Irene thought about the small protection crystal in the courtyard. It was barely six inches tall.
“If they are, the scouts will give us warning. I sent a message back with the runner for Sophia to return with everyone not actively on patrol. Even if they find us, we’ll put up a good defense,” Ian assured her. Irene couldn’t come up with a response that didn’t seem ungrateful. It seemed to her they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. She didn’t see how the crystal was going to withstand a battle on its doorstep. If they didn’t defend themselves they would have to flee now, unprepared, into the wild.
Irene was feeling trapped and a little panicky. She lay awake in Ian’s arms late into the night. When she woke in the morning Ian was already up and out of the room. She went out with the gatherers. She was reassured at the great job the hunters did escorting the group. She took a moment to tell them both that, before she headed in to sell her produce off to Ellen.
Needing something to distract herself with, she turned back to the tier five spell. She still didn’t understand why it appeared here. If she could find another hint perhaps she would understand it better. If there wasn’t another hint, well that was more evidence that it was just a leftover. The gallery was roughly underneath Redfalls. She never finished searching past the gallery, or above it. Irene went back to exploring the area. She started at the bottom and worked her way up.
She found a large suite. There was a main room that was decorated as an office. Ruined desks and chairs were laid out in lines. There were three executive offices off to the left and back sides of the suite. The one in the back was a deluxe office with what looked like a secretary alcove in the front and a big intact wooden desk in the back. Irene wanted the desk. It was equipped with a set of shelves and drawers underneath. It was a unique piece. Irene knew her chances of finding it again were very slim.
There was a room to the right that looked like a kind of break room or perhaps a conference room. A set of counters were built into one wall that reminded Irene of the pay counters in shops. The center of the room held a large broken table with the remains of chairs around it. The chair remains were a rich source of fiber scrap. Irene stuffed one of her collection bags full of it.
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There was a door in the back wall between the end of the deluxe office and the right wall. Doors inside suites were rare. Most of them were actually the entrance from another hallway. Irene left this door for last, since she would have to make a cautious entry. The open doorways to the rest of the rooms meant any animals inside them were usually drawn out to the hallway on her initial entry. Not that she didn’t use caution entering them, it was just easier to see what was coming without a door in the way.
She found four rats in the room behind the door. The room itself was uninspiring. It was a supply closet with shelves on both sides. If she was still running her store she would have wanted the shelves. There were piles of vellum sheets, styluses and notebooks, mixed in with a variety of junk she didn’t recognize. If there was a prize altar nearby she would try to put all that unknown stuff into her inventory. It was the easiest way to identify if something was junk, debris that would convert to scrap or an item. Unfortunately identifying something as an item didn’t tell you what the item did.
She checked her map looking for where she marked the presence of prize altars. She didn’t see anything near on this level. When she checked the level above she found out she was directly under the training yards. There was usually a dearth of prize altars around a square, Irene thought it was to encourage people to return to the settlement.
This was obviously a unique room. It was exactly what Irene was looking for. She studied the floor tiles, pushing the debris piles to the right and left to see what was under them. She carefully inspected each wall, the door frames edging along the bottom and top of the walls. She got a crick in her neck inspecting the lights in the ceiling. She touched every section of the built-in counter in the conference room on the off chance that it was something like a shop counter.
Nothing. Although she did slip a brass tankard she found on the counter into her pack. She thought it would match her bowl.
She was perched on a broken desk when she heard a sound from behind the closed door to the supply closet. She realized she didn’t do a detailed search of the little room, but she also couldn’t understand what could have made the noise.
She once more made entry into the room. A solitary rat charged out at her when she opened the door. She stared at the rat’s body. She wondered where it came from. Animals could respawn fast, but she never saw one respawn that fast. Especially when she was still in the same suite of rooms. She wondered if it was hidden behind the door somehow, only the door opened out. Irene wedged the door open. She should have done that last time.
She carefully searched the shelves. She glanced through their contents before. This time she removed everything from the shelves and dumped it into the main room. A couple really interesting objects she crammed into a second gathering bag that was already dangerously full. The shelves were a standard component construction of stainless tubing structure with black iron sheets on top.
Irene inspected the floor in the tiny room and the ceiling. It wasn’t until she got to the walls that she finally found it. There was a narrow gap in the right side wall at the back. The shelving almost completely masked it.
With a start of surprise Irene realized there was a hidden room beyond. This was something to remember in the future, even as she wondered how many she missed in the past. She took the shelving apart, setting the components in a neat pile in the other room. She didn’t stop until she took all the shelving apart in the small room. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t missing anything else.
When she was finished she slipped through the narrow passage and into the hidden room. The wall opposite the passage was made of opaque glass, although there was a strange liquid look to it. Light was leaking through the glass. It and the light coming down the passage from the storage closet was the only illumination in the room. The room was small, and completely empty. The walls and ceiling were unadorned cement. Irene stepped inside and turned to look at the fourth wall from which she emerged.
Deeply incised into the cement was a complex inscription written in the rarest of scripts, Egyptian. Additionally each symbol cut was colored. Not just with one color but as many as three or four. There were no rows or columns. The symbols were packed as tightly as possible into the space. Irene had no idea how to read it.
Irene backed up against the opaque glass in an effort to get a better view of the inscription. She could hear the flow of water. A careful check of her map showed she was directly under the entrance to Redfalls. Irene suspected the wall at her back was the wall behind the waterfall.
Irene wasn’t certain how to even get started. Although Agatha named the font from a snippet she found on an early recording, there wasn’t enough of the inscription in the recording to even identify all seven symbols, never mind determine each symbol's value. One thing was certain, Irene wasn’t leaving here until she tried.
She made very little progress by the time the light began to fade from the water wall behind her, but she did make some. Irene decided a meal and a good night's rest was just what she needed to make more. She rose to her feet and made a careful exit from the room, picking up her door wedges on the way back out.
She picked up two of the rats to sell to Ellen and went back up to the square. The nearest stair was actually in the wrong direction. Irene still made it back before full dark.
The inn’s common room was full. The tables were filled with warriors and hunters drinking beer. Ellen was eager to purchase the rats, which Irene thought was odd until Ellen said, “Did you want dinner? I am afraid I am out of all cooked meats except the boar.”
“I’ll take it,” Irene agreed with a grimace.
“Did you want beer? I’m nearly out of that too. The next batch won’t be ready for a day or two,” Ellen said.
“Do you have any juice?” Irene asked.
“Yes, I’ll bring it,” Ellen promised.
“I’m just going to run up and drop off these bags in my room,” Irene explained. “I will be right back down.” Irene smiled at Ian as she passed his table on the way to the stairs. Irene noticed that he was sharing his table with Jake and Sophia. When she came back down she joined them at Ian’s table.
Ellen brought Irene her meal as soon as she sat down. The boar wasn’t too bad. Irene did manage to swallow her first bite.
“I hope pulling all these men from Chicago doesn’t leave them short handed if an attack happens there,” Irene commented.
“Darien has his own defenders,” Sophia responded. “These men were all pulled back from leave. If nothing happens here they will just have to enjoy the comforts of home for a while.” Which made Irene wonder why they weren’t enjoying the comforts of home already. The three of them began talking about adding defenses in the green outside the entry.
Irene wanted to talk about the inscription, but she couldn’t find a way to bring up the subject. She sat through the conversation on the war by pretending to enjoy her meal. It was a hard thing to do, since neither was to her taste.