The head librarian looked deeply confused by the sight of Lucullus standing before him. The armor, the imposing stature, and every characteristic of a pure-blooded Altum all seemed to point to a warrior, and yet here he stood in the midst of a library in the most prestigious college in all of Emporikos.

Mystic Fylakas did a deep bow. “Head Librarian Grafeas, this is Lucullus. He is here on behalf of Mystic Cicero to assist him in his work in Lucium.”

“Then what is he doing here instead of Lucium?”

“Cicero needs him to do research in our archives for him. The Chaodites are spreading in Lucium, and Cicero believes that something in our archives will help him to stop the Chaodites.” He laid Cicero’s letter on the desk.

Grafeas sighed. “Cicero’s mind always did work in a peculiar manner. Even still, I suppose he must be allowed to browse the archives. Cicero trusts him enough to send him this far, so he must not be completely useless. But I still don’t trust an outsider to peruse our collection by himself; he probably doesn’t know where anything actually is. I shall go fetch Sister Aela, one of my assistants. She will help Lucullus with any troubles he may encounter, and will ensure that everything is returned to its proper place.” He stood up from his seat behind the counter. “Lucullus, you wait here until I come back with Sister Aela. Mystic Fylakas, I thank you for giving my assistants something to do on this slow day. I’ll send for you when our guest is ready to go.”

Fylakas bowed once more. “Take care, Grafeas. Be sure to inform Sister Aela of our guest’s limited Dasosan knowledge.”

“Oh, I’m sure Sister Aela will be able to figure that one out as soon as he opens his mouth. But to save her the trouble, I’ll be sure to tell her to speak Altum.”

Pontius rode through the countryside of the lands of House Bratus with great speed. The snow melt of the early spring left the roads almost entirely clear, though the sides of the roads were still piled with the winter’s snow. The sparse snow along the main roads were still a danger for horseback riding, but he paid it no mind. He had a good lead on the Dracones, and felt sure that he was hot on their trail. His men had raided one of their hideouts in a city nearby to Castle Avarus; he thought it incredible that they would be so bold, but it worked in his favor.

He heard rumors about the ruins of the first city of mortals being in Lucium, and now, thanks to that raid, he was piecing it together. Those pointy-eared savages can hide no longer. He laughed a little to himself at the thought of eradicating them. He still wasn’t sure how his mother knew that the Dracones helped Lucullus, but she seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere. Even King Titus didn’t seem to have such resources. This realization made her intelligence network even more impressive in his mind.

He came upon some overgrown ruins which seemed to go on forever. He recognized some of the structures as city walls, and others as houses perhaps. It was then that he knew he was in the right place. He ordered his men to scour the ruins to find where the Dracones were hiding.

As he came to an unusually large clearing in the midst of the ruins, an arrow landed near his horse, and spooked it. And he heard a loud voice cry out, “Halt!”

He turned his attention to the direction of the voice, and saw nothing but fog. “Show yourself, coward!”

Another arrow landed, and nearly hit the first. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“I am Pontius, son of Sabina. I’ve come to see your leader.” Pontius began silently motioning for his men to prepare for battle.

“And why do you need to see him? You should know that bringing an army for a greeting party is frowned upon by any sane person.” The man’s voice echoed through the lifeless ruins, as if he was far away.

“And it is frowned upon by the nobility to let a ghost answer the door, and yet here you are; or rather, here you aren’t. Show yourself, that I may know I’m talking to a man, and not a voice in my head.”

Suddenly, Pontius found himself surrounded by bowmen as the fog vanished; all of them took aim at him and his men. He shouted for his men to attack; and the arrows were loosed toward them, taking several riders off their horses. Pontius charged forward, slashing with his sword from side-to-side. He and his men displayed their superiority in battle as they pushed further into the ruins, but their progress was slowed almost to a complete stop on several occasions. Though he was aware of the Dracones spell use, their ferocity and prowess with various spells were a surprise to Pontius’s men. They went into the battle confident in their skills with swords and bows, but their advances were met with blasts of fire, and other more disturbing occurrences. They would go to swing their swords or draw their bows, and felt the bones in their hands and arms crack. No such spell worked on Pontius, much to his men’s surprise. He could still be burned, but their magic could not influence his body.

The trading of blows ended in Pontius’s favor when he reached the altar room. He and Draco stood in a tense silence for a long time. Pontius pointed the tip of his sword to Draco. “You, as well as your whole gang, have been formally charged with treason and aiding in the raid of a village. Surrender immediately, and submit to a public trial.”

Draco drew a sharp breath, and turned from the altar to face Pontius. He extended his arms in front of him, and clapped his hands together.

In an instant, Pontius flew back into a wall as a wave of fire followed his path. What manner of power is this? He rebounded to his feet, gripped his sword, and charged Draco.

Draco drew a sword of his own, but it didn’t seem like a normal sword; it was translucent. Ever determined, Pontius tried to ignore his opponent’s strange weapon, and focused on the fight. Draco’s agility was something to behold, almost superhuman at times, though Pontius was not outdone. Draco’s energy seemed to hardly diminish, but Pontius matched his strikes. Draco’s fighting, after a long battle, was wearing down, and his form was slipping; his focus was dulling. Pontius took careful note of Draco’s growing impatience with the fight, and circled around him for a strike. Draco narrowly dodged a lethal blow, but the damage was done; he became unbalanced from the impact, and crashed into the ground.

Never letting a second go to waste, Pontius closed in on him. Realizing that Draco was so powerful, Pontius left no room for hesitation. Though Draco tried to rebound, Pontius was too quick, and severed his head.

Pontius took a moment to step back and catch his breath. Truly, this is mother’s greatest enemy. Anyone who wields that kind of power is almost unstoppable. He sheathed his sword, and collected Draco’s head. When he returned to the surface, he ordered a full search of the ruins, and for them to be completely destroyed after the search.

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Aela bowed before the head librarian as she approached the desk. She spoke to him in Dasosan, and said what Lucullus could only assume was a formal greeting.

Grafeas turned to Lucullus. “This is Sister Aela. She will assist you in whatever you need while you’re here. Please consult her before you go grabbing anything from the shelves. If any of the texts are too challenging for you, don’t hesitate to ask her for help.” He turned to Aela. “This is Lucullus, Sister Aela. As I’m sure you have gathered, he is not very fluent with our tongue. Speak in Altum, and you’ll be fine. And if there’s nothing else either of you need from me, then you both may go. I’m sure Lucullus has many hours of research ahead of him.” He reached into his pocket. “Oh, I almost forgot. Sister Aela, this is the letter Lucullus was sent with. I believe it has a short list of some items that may aid in starting his research. You can start with that.”

Aela bowed, and motioned for Lucullus to follow her.

Lucullus followed her closely, taking an occasional glance around the many shelves. “I never imagined that such a large collection of books and maps existed.”

She stopped, running her finger over several tomes before grabbing one. “Everyone says that on their first visit to the archives…” She stopped a few more times, and handed each new item to Lucullus. “This should be everything from the list. Follow me, and I’ll show you were the study section is.”

With haste, Aela made her way to the study section; and Lucullus followed, struggling to keep from stepping too close to her. She pulled out a chair for him at a table, and motioned for him to sit.

He laid his stack of maps and books on the table, and opened some of them. As he unrolled one of the maps, he noticed many locations marked in Lucium which he never saw on any maps he had back home. He unrolled the map of Emporikos that Cicero gave him, and began to compare it with the map from the archives. As he went to work in his research, Aela stood patiently by him as instructed by the head librarian, but also studied him with a certain curiosity.

After some time, he started to flip through the tomes. Aela took notice of his inability to read the ancient texts. “Do you need some help reading that?”

He nodded. “I think I may be close to finding some promising leads, but I have no idea what language these old texts are in.”

She pulled the book closer to her, and leaned in closer to read. As she read the text, she gave Lucullus the translation, and eventually slid the book back to him. “What sort of task has Mystic Cicero sent you on?”

Lucullus thought for a moment before answering. “It involves tracking someone who was captured by Chaodites.”

Aela took a moment to figure out who the captured person was. “That sounds interesting. I didn’t think Cicero would be involved in such things as that.”

“You know him?”

She nodded. “Of course I know him. He went to this college. I started when he was on his last two years, at least, his last two years before he departed for his mission. He had already become a Mystic just before I started.”

“In truth, Cicero is doing this to help out a friend of his. And in case the head librarian’s comments didn’t make it obvious, I wasn’t sent on this mission because of my vast knowledge of languages or foreign lands, nor was I sent because of some incredible skills; I was sent for other reasons.”

She smirked. “So Cicero sends people too ignorant to question his orders?”

Lucullus rolled his eyes, though Aela couldn’t see it. “The reasons are ones I can get into. There’s a secretive nature to my mission, one which would be compromised if I go running my mouth too much.” He stared at the maps for a minute. “Do you think the head librarian would mind if I got some parchment to make copies of these maps, and maybe some notes on my research?”

She shrugged. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask.” She put out her hand to stop Lucullus as he prepared to get up. “You stay where you are. I’ll ask him. Just don’t mess with anything until I return.”

He nodded, and returned to studying the maps.

Aela soon returned with parchment, a bottle of ink, and a quill. “He didn’t have a problem with it. You just need to make sure you don’t get any ink on the books or maps, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Thank you, Aela. You’ve helped a great deal.” He began to make crude copies of the maps, and jotted down notes.

Aela shifted from one foot to the other while waiting for him to finish. She started to twirl her hair as she contemplated whether or not to speak. “Where will you be going after you’ve completed your research at the college?”

He pointed to a location on one of the college maps. “That’s the closest Chaodite hideout to here, so I’ll probably go there.”

“So you plan to raid just one, or all?”

“As many as it takes…”

She smiled to herself. “You seem like you need someone knowledgeable about Emporikos to help you on your travels.”

“I think that has already been firmly established.” He finished the last of his notes. “Besides, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“I’m saying that I wish to travel with you.”

He put the quill down, and turned to face her. “Why?”

“I thought you would readily accept the help.”

“Help would be nice, but why would you have any interest in joining me?”

She shifted back and forth on her feet again. “Because our goals seemed to be intertwined.”

He chuckled. “Is that so?”

She nodded. “I’ve been meaning to take up a pilgrimage, and it happens that you may be of a great help in that regard.”

“I remember Fylakas mentioning pilgrimages. He said something about exceptional students being allowed to take them.”

“Correct. I had an idea for some research of my own, one which requires me to go on a pilgrimage to complete.”

“So, why do you need to travel with me? I thought you all could use Mystiko. Surely that provides more protection than my sword.”

She laughed. “It’s not protection that I need. You see, the Arch-Mystic is very particular about what pilgrimages he approves. Being an exceptional student isn’t enough; perhaps if I was a Mystic, then maybe it would be. But I am far from becoming a Mystic, at least officially.”

“What’s your point?”

“If I were to volunteer my services to help you, and by extension, Cicero, then I know the Arch-Mystic would accept my petition for a pilgrimage.”

“Have you petitioned the Arch-Mystic before?”

She bowed her head a little, and spoke in a low voice. “No need. I almost did, but I quickly realized how futile it would be. My research is something almost entirely forbidden from students.”

Lucullus stood up. “Why would you do it, then? And how would helping me make him accept your petition?”

“It is forbidden from students because of the danger; not physical danger, mind you. This danger is a spiritual one, though there is plenty of physical danger, the concern is with the spiritual threat. And in helping you, I can get all the research I need, so I would never need to ask on the grounds of my own research.”

Lucullus contemplated it for a moment. “If I take you with me, then you will eventually learn of the confidential side of my mission.”

She put her finger to her lips. “Don’t worry. I swear to Aeras that the secrets of your mission are safe with me. If you desire that someone should not know of it, then my lips are sealed.”

He sighed. “I can see that you are persistent. Very well. If you desire to travel with me, then it shall be so. I will agree to vouch for you, and if the Arch-Mystic will agree, then we shall depart at once.”

Though she kept her calm and composed demeanor from before, Lucullus could tell that she was bubbling with excitement inside. “Then I shall return the books and maps to their respective places, and inform Head Librarian Grafeas of our visit to the Arch-Mystic.”

Lucullus gathered his notes and maps, and put them in his scrip. He helped Aela carry the heavy tomes as they methodically went through the many aisles of shelves in the archives. Soon after, they informed Grafeas of their intended visit, and went to the Arch-Mystic’s chamber.