SOMD Ch 4: The Journal (Patreon)

When they emerged the next morning, they found the entire ancient city bathed in sunlight. It was all the more impressive, and in the far-off distance, she picked out waterfalls rushing off other abandoned structures.

She half expected the old wind dragon to be outside, waiting for them. But there was no sign.

Iggy reported that he could not scent him out, either.

"That may be an aspect of his power," Numi said, blinking her slightly protuberant eyes. "If he has skills related to wind, it would be very easy to hide his scent from us."

"He may be hiding from me," Alice said with a hint of sadness. With a sigh, she looked around, but found no answers. "Let's keep going."

It seemed that the bulk of the city had been built out of a natural canyon as most of the buildings had been carved from the walls.

Despite the overgrowth of vegetation, the way through remained mostly cleared—even though they did have to go around ponds and some signs of destruction. It was silent except for the twitter of birds and the rush of water.

Alice directed Numi to look around and see if she could find any treasure.

Halfway through the day Numi came back with word she had found something exceptional.

"I believe that it is a journal," she said, "though it is so delicate I did not dare to bring it and it is much too large for me to swallow into my storage space."

"Show me," Alice said.

Numi led them to another building built into the side of the canyon wall. However, this one hadn't stood to the test of time.

Several large chunks of stone were missing from the top and lay ominously on the ground nearby. The vegetation was so thick that it took some time to even get to the doorway.

As they went, Numi was all too happy to complain.

"I've been searching and searching, and there's no jewelry or valuable items anywhere. I think everybody took all the fun stuff with them. Or scavengers came by afterward and cleaned the city out."

"I doubt that, with Orris around," Prim said.

Numi shot back. "Perhaps he did not see the scavengers. He is blind."

"I get the feeling Orris sees more than we would believe," Alice said quietly.

Nodding, Numi went back to her favorite subject, her skills. "Anyway, I found a few more coins, but they were so corroded that they did not even have pictures on them. Even my Appraising skill wasn't any use. I kept getting the value of the actual metal... which wasn't much. It tasted bad too—Okay, Alice, it's just through there." She pointed to what looked like a wall of vegetation, a doorway so filled with overgrown vegetation that it had become a wall. Alice spied a small tunnel through the weeds and vines where Numi must have squeezed through.

Alice certainly did not want to cut through that. "Nutura?"

The other dragon, who had been following quietly, gestured and the vegetation parted in the middle. The door beyond had long ago rotted to dust

“I will scout the inside first,” Iggy said. “Spark will stay with you, Alice, until I return.”

Alice hardly thought that was necessary as the building was clearly long abandoned. But she was distracted as Spark landed on her shoulder – the little sub-aspect was not one to come close to her as usually all his attention was on following Iggy’s orders.

She reached up to pet him and received a static shock and a light squeak of disapproval from Spark. Apparently, he was on a mission and had no time for pats.

Iggy returned moments later with the all clear and they went inside.

However, more centuries of vegetation had also blocked the windows, leaving it dark. For the same reason, Alice did not want to start a fire.

"Can you do something to give us more light?" Alice asked Natura, gesturing up to the windows.

But Nutura hesitated. "Yes I can move the vegetation, but when we leave, I must close it up again. There are colonies of mold spores in here, and they would die if this place were constantly flooded with light."

"Mold spores?" Prim repeated, not bothering to hide the horror in her voice.

"Yes, they are at the bottom of the food chain, so it is quite important that we think of them too," Nutura said.

Alice quickly jumped in before the two of them could start sniping at one another. "Yes, do what you can for the windows. Numi, could you please tell me where the journal is?"

The little green dragon perked up then darted to a hole that had been chewed out at the bottom of a decorative river stone wall. She heard the little dragon scuttling up the inside. Then, her muffled voice came out at about shoulder height. "There's a void in here. That's where it's been placed."

Alice peered closer. What she'd first taken for a decorative wall made of river stones glued together using mortar or some kind of hard mud wasn't patterned. It blended quite well with the rest of the house, which would make it a good hiding place.

She glanced at Nutura. "Is there any way you can encourage the stones to move out of the way?" she asked, remembering how the little nature dragon had cut through the soil to divert the pond water.

Nutura just shook her head. "This wall is a human-made thing and separated from nature. I can't tell it to move any more than you can."

"Yes, but it's made of stone," Iggy pointed out. "You have moved stone before."

"She knows the limits of her skills," Alice said. "I suppose I'll have to break it myself, though…” She paused and looked around, feeling quite silly. “I'm not sure where I can find a hammer."

"Perhaps I could do something," Prim said.

Alice looked at her first dragon in mild confusion. Prim's skills were mostly small illusions and managing other dragons. How could she help?

But it seemed that the skills were not on her mind at all. With a flap of wings, Prim jumped from Alice's shoulder and landed on the wall. The five toes on each limb were splayed out, much like a hand, except that her claws were exceptionally long and thin. She used these claws to dig into and behind one of the river stones. With a wrench, it loosened and gave way.

In fact, it seemed built to be removed that way.

Alice quickly moved to help clear the rock next to it. Now that Prim had removed one of the stones, the others were much looser. And behind those stones sat an old shelf built with a flat slab of rock. On top sat Numi, along with a very old journal.

One look told Alice why Numi had been unwilling to pull it out of the wall. It had been bound with leather that had aged and cracked so much that the rustling air caused parts of it to flake off.

Alice did not dare to lift it from the shelf. Luckily, the stone where it had sat for untold centuries also came free. Pulling it away, Alice turned and sat down in a beam of light to get a closer look.

The leather cover cracked and fell away from the rest of the binding as soon as she lifted it, and the pages below were not better. Some were simply yellowed pieces so aged that she could only make out faint spots where blots of ink had once been.

She bit her lip. "I don't think there's anything useful left of this journal. I feel bad for even touching it. Surely there are classes that can recover such things."

"Someone with such a rare class ability would not be out in the middle of the wilderness," Prim said. "Keep going. The pages that were pressed together in the middle might not have been so damaged."

That was as good a suggestion as any. And certainly, she could not bring the journal with her. She doubted it would last a day outside.

Alice carefully flipped the pages  and finally came to one with legible script toward the end. In fact, there were several pages in a row—all of them with faint ink sketches of a man standing or sitting.

Whoever had created this journal had been an artist because the cloak the man wore was so detailed she knew it had to be expensive. She even saw  wrinkles in the way the pants bunched about his knees. He wore simple shoes in an old style and a shirt that closed at the top with the aid of leather ties, not a zipper. Very old indeed.

But his face... his face had been scratched out again and again until he was a messy blob. There was something in the scribbles that spoke to Alice of deep anger.

And finally, when she came to a page with legible script, that too was unsettling.

His voice is as soft as butter, as sweet as sugar. He lies. He lies. He lies.

Another picture of the face only, all scribbled out.

And on the next page: He has taken Vesper from me. I hate him.

In the back, in the same script, were the words: I must follow her and try to win her back.

And finally, there was an actual sketch with a face that was not scribbled out.

The dawn figure was perhaps in his mid-20s with a slightly large nose with a bump on the bridge, long, foppish hair that went over his ears. He had a sharp jawline and a rakish smile. Even in the sketched image, he was handsome.

He will be taking all the dragons to the Golden Kingdom, a living nation willing to serve him, and leaving only crumbs of their race behind. Vesper is among them, and I must follow her because I cannot bear for us to be parted. I hate him.

And that was it. There was no signature at the end. Alice doubted the person was still alive anyway after so many years.

"Leaving only crumbs of their race behind," Alice repeated.

"Oh, maybe that's why there's so few wild dragons around," Numi said. Her voice was easy, as if this was just another piece of the puzzle.

Alice felt sick. She closed the journal, which was pointless anyway because the cover practically disintegrated in her hand. They would be the last to look at the pages.

She would make sure of it.

"Iggy," she said. "Burn this."