Kai knew nothing about the coloring book. Sarah drove everyone crazy before Companion finally emerged from his room late in the day.
Under Sarah’s merciless interrogation, Companion admitted that a little girl in Chicago gave him a coloring book. The little girl insisted Companion take the book when he gave her a selkie toy on their visit to the orphanage last year.
“This happened last year?” Sarah demanded.
“I like the book,” Companion said. “She gave it to me.” The selkie didn’t notice the color wheel until recently. When Enchanter gave away the dolls on their last tour, Companion remembered how much he liked giving the toys to the orphans. He looked at the book again thinking about making copies.
“Can I see the book the girl gave you?” Grandmother asked. “Sarah told me she drew the pictures in the ones you gave away. I’d like to see the pictures in the old one. I promise to return the book to you unharmed.”
“Alright,” Companion agreed. He went back up to his room and returned with a very worn book. If the book Sarah showed her that morning had a hard night, this book experienced a hard couple years.
It was the same half size as the book Companion handed out. A red string hung from its binding. The end of the string was broken with no sign of a stylus. The first page was a flower. It wasn’t the same flower that Sarah drew but similar. The flower was both carefully and coarsely colored, like a half dozen children worked on parts of it. Or one child over time, going from the rough coloring technique of a toddler to the refined efforts of a young adult. There was something enchanting about it.
The reverse side of that page held a songbird. They were one of the few animals in the green that didn’t try to kill you. It too was colored in the same manner as the first. The next page was torn, with about a third of it missing. The remaining image was of the tall trees of a green. When Grandmother turned the torn page, she barely glanced at the image of a protection crystal on the back side. Instead her eyes locked on the next image. It was a waterfall, falling on glass from high above. It broke free of the glass to descend below grade level into a pond at the base of tiered steps down. The wall behind the waterfall was glass. A double line near the bottom revealed the passage into the square beyond.
“This is Redfalls,” Grandmother announced.
“Like in the wizard’s war?” Sarah asked. “How do you know?”
Grandmother forced herself to think. The shock of seeing it again after all these years rattled her. There were no recordings of Redfalls. She stopped wearing a camera by the time she went there. She was thinking about teaching the history of it to the students at the wizard’s tower. She even let herself mention it to Lucas at Londontown.
“I was there,” Grandmother said. “Everything tends to repeat in the structure. This might not be Redfalls, but the architecture is the same,” she said finally. She turned the page to reveal a butterfly, opposite an inventively colored Earthen squirrel. The last page held the color wheel, exactly as it appeared in the new books. Around the edges where the new book pages were blank, it was covered with a dozen little doodles. It looked like each child added their mark. Grandmother handed the book back to Companion.
“Why didn’t you reuse the pictures?” she asked him.
“It was too hard to erase the color from the drawings after I copied them and the one page was torn. So I asked Sarah to make new drawings of the same things. There was no drawing overlaps on the color wheel drawing, so after I copied it I cleaned off the signatures. I put it in the front because if I didn’t notice it right away a child wouldn't either,” Companion said.
“It is very good work,” Grandmother told Companion. “The children loved them. Can I get a copy of this book in its entirety?” Companion agreed to that.
“So you don’t know how to make the color wheel?” Sarah asked, as Companion got up to make the copy. “You just copied it?”
“Yes,” Companion affirmed, as he headed off.
“Can I see the new one again?” Grandmother asked Sarah, after Companion’s departure.
Sarah handed her copy over. Grandmother paged through the new copy. There was the color wheel, a flower, a bird, trees, the protection crystal, a waterfall, a butterfly, and an Earthen squirrel. The bird looked more like something they saw in a tapestry than a songbird. The trees were followed by more and more behind them. It reminded Grandmother of the trees at the exit, climbing up the ridge. The waterfall was the falls from the fountain down to the green outside of Home Square. The squirrel was running up the leg of a woman dressed in leather armor and carrying a walking staff. With a start of surprise, Grandmother realized that the woman was her. The simple lines of Sarah's drawing made the image far more beautiful than Irene ever was.
“Your experiences have leaked into your art,” Grandmother said to Sarah. “If we want to find out where Companion’s book came from, we need to think about what its images tell us. We are looking for someone who has seen both an Earthen squirrel and the entrance to Redfalls. The only person I can think of that might match that description is Valin.”
“Valin?” Sarah questioned.
“Yes, he was there too,” Grandmother admitted. “I doubt it was him. He doesn’t seem like the child's coloring book type. “Except for Valin, I was the only tier four wizard at Redfalls and Ian was the only tier five. Ian never traveled farther south than Londontown, so there’s no way he saw the Earthen squirrels in the industrial complex.”
“What if it is a real Earth squirrel?” Sarah asked.
“That is a possibility,” Grandmother admitted. “Next time we are at the Speedwell you should pull up the data on them and compare it to the drawing. As I admitted there is also the possibility that it isn’t Redfalls. Another course of action would be to identify other locations it could be.”
Sarah murmured something that sounded of disappointment.
“The good news is you don’t have to know how to make it to use the colors. The copies of the original obviously continue to work. Show it to Enchanter, she may know something about it. It could be like casting with two hands, once with symbols, once with color. Two hands is a requirement for tier four spells and Enchanter is tier four,” Grandmother told Sarah.
Companion returned with two copies of his book. Sarah thanked him and headed out to her shop.
“Do you have any copies of the new book?” Grandmother asked Companion.
“Do you want a copy of it too?” he asked.
“That’s not necessary,” Grandmother assured him. “Sarah’s copy has teeth marks on the cover. I think one of the children must have dropped it in the hall last night near Sarah’s room. You might want to have a few replacement copies available for purchase in the next few days, so that parents can replace any toys that are found missing in the days to come.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“I have some extras I can give out,” Companion said.
“No,” Grandmother said firmly. “The event is over. Replacing lost items for free would only reinforce bad behavior. Children need joy in their lives, but they also need discipline. Leaving a weapon in the halls will be a deadly mistake in their not so distant futures. They need to pay the cost for their mistakes, especially if it is only the loss of a toy or the disapproval of a parent who has to replace it with coins. If the lesson can be learned with such a small punishment, it will be a benefit to everyone, especially the child.”
“Yes, Elder,” Companion replied. His tones carried a trace of his old obedience in the face of a lesser god. Grandmother realized it had been a long time since she heard it last. She wanted to say something lighter to erase it, but decided she too needed to pay the cost for her actions.
A server arrived, it was the young Tam who had gone on the training trip. He delivered Companion’s very late breakfast. Tam’s hero worship of the selkie was obvious. Grandmother smiled, her mood lightened as Companion dived into his food.
“How are you doing Tam?” Grandmother asked the young boy. “Did you enjoy the holiday?”
“Todd found a turd in Christine’s room. She shared her cake with the rest of us,” Tam responded. Grandmother thought ‘the rest of us’ was probably the team they put the kids into for the trip. She noticed the impromptu groups were a lot more lasting than she expected. She needed to remember that. “Did you hear about the shaped lights Jane’s father found? Everyone says it’s a tier four spell, but no one can figure out what it does. Harry was going to ask Todd what he thought, but I don’t know if he made it out there to look at them yet.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Grandmother responded. “That sounds interesting. I will have to make time to go see them.”
“Are you not eating?’ Companion asked Grandmother, after Tam left.
“It's mid-afternoon,” Grandmother reported. “I’m going to hold out for dinner. Group meeting tonight,” she told the selkie as she rose to her feet. “We need to plan our next steps.” Grandmother left Companion with his meal. She carried her copy of the coloring book back up to her room, where she slipped it into her stone box. Its small size allowed it to just fit.
She picked up her equipment for sweeping rooms and eyed her gathering bags. She didn’t think she could get a ceramic workbench top through the opening of any of them. She went to ask Alex if she could borrow the bag he kept. On the way she found Todd looking for her in the common room. Before he could scold her for trying to go out on her own, she invited him to come along with her while she looked for the workbench.
Grandmother borrowed two large weight reducing bags from Alex. She took the opportunity to tell him there was a group meeting tonight. She stuck her head into Sarah and Ellen’s store next door to tell them the same. The two sisters were discussing whether they should add color to their spell books or not. Sarah was using the coloring book to change the color of the markers on her world map. She was making all the selkie squares orange and all the human settlements green. It made Grandmother realize she should update her Speedwell stylus printer to use color.
Todd was waiting for her in the courtyard. Instead of carrying his new spear, Todd was armed with his large Speedwell knife and two javelins. He held the javelins in his off hand, behind a red small shield that was strapped to his arm. The shield was made of glass. The red color was coming from Todd's magic staining it.
“Nice shield,” Grandmother commented.
“I bought it from Kai. He has been having trouble selling them. People are doubtful they are really shields. I told him to stop telling the story about how he was trying to make a plate when he revealed the pattern,” Todd reported.
“If we go down to tier three space we shouldn’t interfere with Alex’s scavenge pattern. There should be something down there that will give that shield a test,” Grandmother offered. “If you know where the room with the shaped lights is, we can swing by there on the way back and give them a look.” Todd agreed and they were off.
----------------------------------------
“Alert,” Todd called, as the meal was winding down. The team fell into absolute silence. Hands reached for weapons and eyes scanned the room for danger. Grandmother rose to her feet.
“A belated Merry Inn day to all of you,” Grandmother said. “A toast to having as successful of a Turd Hunt next year,” she raised a glass tumbler, made by Kai, and drank the suspiciously yellow fluid inside. Everyone joined in, giving Todd a bit of a ribbing about his successful hunt. ‘The Todd’ found no less than three seed pods in his hunt. It was a confirmation that Todd was right about it being a Narrative. Grandmother couldn’t tell what united the three families that received the prize feast. One of them was assigned a unit on the first floor of inn rooms. The room must have been rented out to a selkie every Challenge day. It was proof that Control placed the seed pod there.
“Now that the break is over,” Grandmother said, “I want to beg for another day or two. I need to check my shop in Londontown, and run to the exit to pick up my pulley system. I left the manufactured items in the cart so they wouldn’t start degrading over the holiday.” Alex started teasing Grandmother about how he wasn’t certain taking time out to stock a shop was allowed. As everyone else started to agree, Alex suddenly reversed his argument.
“I heard a rumor you found a sofa, I’d like to see that,” Alex said. “I need to go along to supervise.”
“Alright,” Grandmother said, “but you have to carry the new spawn back to Londontown.”
“Don’t you have a hand cart?” Alex asked.
“Nope,” Grandmother responded. “I haven’t found the wheels yet.”
“That’s alright, Companion can carry the other end,” Alex countered. From there it wasn’t long before it was agreed that everyone would make the trip to Londontown. Ellen needed to pick up an order from the leatherworker, and Sarah wasn’t going to be left out.
“Do we still need to buy rope?” Grandmother asked.
“I hope not,” Sarah responded. “We have a huge pile of it in our apartment. If you think we need more, we can buy some in Londontown while we are there.”
“I’ll come up after the meeting and see what you have,” Grandmother promised. “Alex, do you have any extra components we can use for the platform and the bracing?”
“I don’t know exactly what we will need. I’ve built up a lot of extra inventory for that purpose. I’ve tried to get a large assortment,” Alex reported. “You’ll need to come by and pack it. We may need more sheeting for the tunnel bracing, I wasn’t certain how much we’d need, and sheeting is the one thing in short supply around the south gallery.”
“We can bring back the surplus in Londontown too,” Grandmother commented. “Iron sheeting is common there.” Grandmother pulled a stack of vellums from a pocket and passed them over to Alex. “Here are the plans I drew up on Speedwell's drafting software for the platform. The last page has a list of components I needed in the design.”
Alex looked over the design before passing it around the table for everyone to look at. It was odd to see technical drawings using structure components.
“I was able to make a shovel starting with a leaf spear. When I got the leaf large enough it triggered a shovel pattern. The shovel doesn’t have exactly the same shape as what you described,” Ellen told Grandmother, ”but Muriel says it works just fine. I can make them at the south gallery workshop so we don’t have to carry them down. I have not had success with making a pick. I’ve managed to gain several new ax patterns, but no pick.”
“Ok,” Grandmother said. “I manufactured a couple on the Speedwell. They are with the supplies in the cart. I also did some research and a lot of tunneling was done with explosives. I don’t want us to fool with them since they are extremely dangerous and we have no idea what we are doing. I found that freezing ice can crack rock. If picks don’t work, I want to try drilling holes in the rock, filling them with water and freezing it.”
“How are we going to freeze it?” Todd asked.
“Ice-bolt,” Grandmother said. “We need water that has nanobots with it. The Chicago suburbs all have really large water bags that the communities fill once every other day or so. We’ll need a couple of them to fill with water at the gallery. There’s a method to break rocks using wedges, but the ice method seemed faster.”
“I’ll see if I can buy them from the leather worker in Londontown. He does a lot of back door business with Chicago,” Ellen commented.
“Companion,” Grandmother asked the selkie, ”are you going to be ok with this? I don’t want you to do something out of duty that will haunt your dreams. If you don’t think you can get down the shaft, it is alright for you to wait for us at the south gallery.”
“I can do it,” Companion announced. “It will be fine if I can’t see the drop.”
"Good," Grandmother responded. "We'll come back here after the Speedwell to pick up the last of the gear, and head out directly afterwards to make the attempt."