012 - Caspian Begins To Get The Picture

Caspian returned to his room, pulled the blankets back across the bed, and quickly dumped and sorted his gear onto it. His food and water bags were not here. A vague impression about setting them on a counter flashed by. He got out his shaving razor and clean trunks, and went back to the bathroom. After removing his dirty trunks he sat in the tub to bathe.

Cyrril fluttered in after Caspian finished shaving, and began to splash about in the tub. Finally, the dragon decided he had enough. But the smooth porcelain of the tub provided no purchase for climbing. So he climbed onto Caspian’s knee. From there he carefully moved onto the lip of the tub, and began scratching and nibbling at spots about himself.

Caspian finished his bath, and started to drain the water. Then he pulled the curtain closed and turned on the shower, delighted to be able to rinse off this way, rather than run a fresh tub. Cyrril complained a bit, and then leapt up to the window sill. Caspian told/thought to the beast what Alistare had said about limits in the yard, then opened the vent window enough to let the dragon slip out.

Caspian luxuriated in the shower, then when it turned cold; he shut the water down and got out. He dried off and left the towel hanging on the rack he got it from. Then he put on his clean breeches and the bathrobe, and went back to the bedroom. Here he found Mrs. Kevan stripping the bed, and rolling his clothes in the sheets.

“This all needs washing. Breakfast is warming in the kitchen.” She then took the roll and left, snagging his dirty trunks from his hand as she went.

Caspian being the dutiful guest obeyed instructions, collected his things, followed the smell of food, and found the kitchen where three cats were pestering Cyrril, all four with bloody noses, Cyrril with possession of some raw meat. Caspian scattered the cats by walking through them. He then set up in the kitchen to clean and oil all his gear, as he ate. He set his components bag aside. Then he continued to open and clean everything. That done, he oiled his staff.

He tested the mana of the area as he worked. As was normal for this world, it was barely perceptible. His gear and staff had a higher mana level than anything around. The radiance from his gear was slowly fading, while the staff was just barely more than staying level.

Mrs. Kevan was busy around the house, and soon brought Caspian his clothes, cleaned. Caspian dressed where he was, and folded the rest and packed it in his gear. He then got into his components bag, and pulled the things from it. As he sorted these, Alistare came home, and Mrs. Kevan put lunch on the table, around Caspian’s things.

“The thing I miss most, from my years here, is the hot and cold running water.”

“That’s nice. So, where do you go from here?” Alistare asked this as he came in. He then pecked his wife on her cheek, and sat down at the table. He put down a loaf of bread that smelled fresh. He removed it from its paper sack and commenced to cut it to slices to make a sandwich.

“First, I need to clear this, and get it scanning for the people I need to find.” Caspian held up a round stone, with some gold and silver rings running around its edge. The convex surface of the stone had rainbow swirls chasing around it. Five specific points seemed to bob around the perimeter, four roughly in the same place of the stone. The fifth was on another side.

“I got this from the elves. Problem was on Tywacomb it was useless as it would pickup several hundred elves. Here is easier, with only a limited number of signals.”

Alistare looked at it, over his sandwich. “So, what does it say? What kind of people is it looking for?”

Caspian looked around. “People descended from a certain elf. Is there something crystal around here, which I can set this on?”

Mrs. Kevan hopped up, and retrieved a goblet from her china closet. Caspian took it, turned it upside down, and set it in the middle of the table, and then he put the detector stone on the upturned base.

“I need a compass, and maps, and to do this outside.”

Alistare got up this time and disappeared, taking his sandwich wrapped in a napkin. When he came back, he had a thick pack of folders, a road atlas, two different compasses, and much less sandwich.

They finished lunch then took the goblet, stone, compasses, atlas and folder out into the back porch, brushed a cat off the table, and put everything else on. Caspian put the goblet in the middle of the table. He folded open a lensatic compass, and set it on one side of the goblet, then put a flat plastic boy-scout compass on the other side. He then dug into his component bag, and pulled a matched set of small stones from his bag, and looking at the compasses he placed four at the cardinal directions, and four more at the diagonals. The compasses reacted briefly then stabilized, as the eight stones neutralized local ambient energy fields. Once everything stabilized, Caspian tested the mana, and from there the energy fields of the area. Satisfied that he had a bubble around the detector, he touched and reset it. Cyrril fluttered in and landed on Caspian’s shoulder.

Alistare put the folder aside, and opened the atlas to their current location.

The stone reverted to its native black. Then after a moment a rainbow swirl started at the top center, filled around to the edges, and covered the whole surface. The swirl split into five individual swirls. These wandered around the surface a bit as they moved from the middle. One moved toward the southwest side of the stone, and hovered a bit above halfway down the stone. The other four moved to the east side of the stone. Three stayed close together, a bit north of east, and slightly below halfway, the last one more north of the three and farther down to the side of the stone.

“I need a map, and to go through your list. These are closer than I had hoped.” Caspian pulled Cyrril off his shoulder, and set him on the table.

“Here you go.” Alistare had opened the atlas to northern California, and turned the book to orient with the compass. “We’re here.” He pointed at Sacramento. “What is the scale on this detector?”

“I’m not sure. The Elves did not say,” Caspian grumbled. “But I think it is relative. What families do you have record of that fit this pattern?”

Alistare looked at the map, and the detector. “Who is that way?” He looked at the solo signal from the south west.

He got out his list, and with Mrs. Kevan they went through sorting the names by area. They came up with three people. Next was to check which could be elf descendants, and family.

Alistare looked his file over. “Just one name fits the apparent limits. Margaret Winslow. A lawyer in Santa Cruz, California. She has a mother in Nebraska. That one is the daughter of the elf.” He looked at the atlas, and the stone, and pointed at the second lone swirl.

“Mrs. Winslow has a daughter close by, to the north of east, in the Tahoe, Nevada area. Roxanne Caplan, her husband Steven, and their 10 year old daughter Diana, and 8 year old son Alex.

“That’s quite close.” Caspian was a bit excited by his luck at having landed so close.

“Douglas County, Nevada. That’s just over the hill.” Alistare set the folder down, and got out a pad of paper and started to copy information from the folder to the pad.

“Where?” Caspian had no idea where anything on this world was.

Mrs. Kevan pointed at the atlas, tracing lines on it. “About 3 hours that way, give or take. Take a car up any of these roads. Turn on one of these. Then follow your tracker. How much time have you got?”

“Don’t know. The caravan from Krogg looked about a half day behind. But I have no way of knowing how they could get around here.” Caspian started to put his things away, making sure to turn them off as he did. Cyrril had again wandered off.

“Once you make contact with the family, what do you do?” Alistare closed the folder, and was putting it back in the pack.

Mrs. Kevan took her goblet back inside.

“I don’t directly. The elves want me to let the kids be kidnapped, and then to bring the parents to them.” Caspian sat down as he said this.