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Jaxyys wasn’t entirely sure what to say when she encountered the mysterious unmarked wax-sealed scroll in her bank; the fact that she hadn’t put the thing in there herself was, of course, a highly pertinent question, but there was also the worrying fact that it smelled of cologne.
“Do you suppose you saw whoever dropped this off?” she asked the banker.
The banker stared at her. “Wait,” he said. “You… you have a question?”
“Yeeees,” Jaxyys said slowly. “Who dropped off this scroll?”
“Sorry, nobody ever talks to us,” the banker babbled. “It’s just “Bank, Bank, Collect Grand Exchange Items, Bank, Bank… now and again they’ll look like they want to talk but they just want to bank! I could practically replace myself with an enchanted chest! I —”
The look Jaxyys was giving him was very severe. The banker coughed.
“But, um, no. I’m sorry. I don’t know who dropped this off — they could have put it in a deposit box.”
“Don’t they need my banking details for that?”
“Well, you haven’t shared your PIN with anyone, have you?” The banker seemed to straighten up. “You PIN should only be known by you, and never shared —”
“I’ve been through the Stronghold of Security, thanks,” Jaxyys said testily. “Just… I’ll just take this. OK?”
“Very well, ma’am,” the baker said sheepishly.
Jaxyys left the bank booth behind, scrutinising the seal on the scroll. Whoever had dropped this off knew where she was — she hadn’t seen it in the magic log run she’d made fifteen minutes ago.
She sat on a bench and scanned the path. Seers’ Village was quiet, save for a few flax-pickers in the distance. It was a welcome respite after… well, all that business.
At least the cloaking spell was working decently well. Only a choice few people knew that the World Guardian was dead, and she intended to keep it that way.
She wondered what the spell made her look like. Probably one of those bald green-shirted fellows that were always cutting yews.
She shook her head. Introspection was for woodcutting. Now was for focusing on the suspicious, yet nice-smelling parchment someone had put in her bank box by probable use of fraud.
She peered at the seal. It was plain, so probably not from any royal emissaries or what-have-you.
It could also explode. There was a chance of that. It would be highly unpleasant if it did; her deal with Harold might stand, but she really didn’t feel like having to repair the holes in her nature’s sentinel top.
With a cautious hand, she popped the seal open, and unfurled the scroll.
Inside she could see lines of familiar handwriting — elegant, yet practical, and marked with unerring precision.
She unfurled the scroll further. A small leaflet of paper fell out. She picked it up, and saw that it was a crossword puzzle.
ACROSS
5. Lend me a paw, yeah? I hate being boxed in with all these spikes.
7. The plain, freezing eye watches all beneath.
9. I'd hate to see you flail.
10. Poor Polly. She didn't deserve to get covered in fungus.
11. This month drew the master's ire.
12. Cast a tune with a fibula, and it'll be a bane against the walrus.
DOWN
1. Dare you disturb this unfortunate Zamorakian's rest?
2. Black as night, they serve chaos.
3. Drakan's hometown.
4. Five parts, one casket. Powered by dirt.
6. The monkey goddess's stolen voice.
8. This castaway is nuts about The Harbinger.
Jaxyys groaned. “Charos,” she said, clutching the paper. “Why can’t you ask me out like a normal person?”
Even so, she felt herself blushing. He was right — they hadn’t actually gone on a proper date. They’d had training sessions, yes, and back-to-back battles, daring escapades, and at least one near-death scare… but nothing, well, date-ish.
“And course,” she said, scrutinising the crossword, “you’d make me work for it.”
Nevertheless, she found a slow grin. Woodcutting was getting boring in any case.
“Right,” she said, standing up. “Charos, if you’re listening, consider your date accepted!”
There was no reply. One of the nearby seers gave her an odd look.
She put her arm down, looking at the crossword in front of her. “Now,” she said. “I need to find a quill…”
Jaxyys rubbed her forehead. “Meg,” she said. “Do me a favour.”
“What’s up?” Meg said, sitting up in her chair.
“Tell me how to spell wallasalkibanite?”
Meg’s grin stayed frozen on her face. “I’m sure there’s a W somewhere in there,” she said.
Jaxyys sighed. “You know what?” she said. “I’ll just wing the last few letters.”
She scribbled the letters onto a napkin. D-R-A-Y-N-O-R-L-O-D-E-?-?-O-?-E…
“Ha! Draynor!” she said, standing up in triumph. A few of the Forester’s Arms patrons looked at her strangely; she heard someone mutter fuckin’ bots before the normal background of chatter returned.
Jaxyys sat down again. “To Draynor it is!” she said, finishing off her Thinking Beer, which by now had grown lukewarm. “I wonder what the next one’ll be… I hope it’s not a word search, I think this kind of this is going to give me a headache…”
“Um,” Meg said. “Sensei?”
“Yeah?” Jaxyys said. “And what’s a sensei?”
“Just a term I heard some of Eastern traders say!” Meg said quickly. “It means teacher.”
Jaxyys nodded. “Very fitting,” she said. “What is it?”
“This, er, seems like quite a lot of effort…”
“So?” Jaxyys said.
“So… well, wouldn’t it be nicer if he just took you out to dinner or something instead of going through all this, well…”
She gestured to the ink-stained table, now littered with several crumpled scratch papers, two broken quills, and the long-empty glasses of Thinking Beers since passed.
Jaxyys shrugged. “It’s Charos we’re talking about. If he asked me out outright, I’d figure he was trying to seduce me for my money or something.”
Meg coughed a cough that sounded suspiciously like I think he’s trying to seduce you anyway, but Jaxyys chose to ignore it. She left a handful of gold on the table for the cleanup crew, and stepped outside, pulling out her spell book.
“It’s probably good I got a little exercise in any case,” she said, flipping through the lodestone hubs. “And the world isn’t falling apart at the moment, for once.”
Out of sheer habit, she glanced up at the sky. Sure enough, the divine shield was still in place, green and shimmering against the blue sky.
She took a deep breath. “And you need a break,” she reminded herself.
If messing around with crosswords and fonts gave her an excuse for distraction, she reflected as she drew the teleportation circle…
Then she’d embrace it whole-heartedly.
Jaxyys wasn’t entirely sure what she was expecting when she teleported into Draynor — a trained bird to fly in with another clue, writing in the sky, something — but instead she was confronted with another simple scroll, hanging from a tree branch right next to where she teleported.
“Anybody could have picked this up, you know,” she said to no-one in particular.
No-one in particular replied.
Jaxyys unfurled the scroll. This one wasn’t scented, but she could tell the handwriting was his.
This one was considerably less wordy than the previous clue. It simply contained a set of coordinates, elegantly written.
Twelve degree twenty two minutes north
Forty two degrees fifteen minutes east
“Huh.” Coordinates were simple enough. This one was practically a gimme.
She rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a battered notebook, labelled — in haphazard script — Treasure Trail Answers. She flipped through it, skimming through the Riddles and Anagrams and jumping straight to coordinates.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Burthorpe, Wilderness, more Wilderness… nope. Not on the list.”
She sighed. “Manual method it is,” she said, trudging south to the bank.
She was half-expecting for there to be another scroll in her account box, but sadly, all she found was the usual jumble of ancient artefacts, all-powerful weapons, chunks of the Stone of Jas etc. that forced her to sift around for a good fifteen minutes before she found her sextant.
“Right,” she said, pulling out a compass. “Let’s hope this isn’t in the Wildy…”
It wasn’t in the Wildy.
The coordinates led her to, of all places, Dragontooth Island — the exact spot being in front of the ancient Saradomin statue, which she suspected was Charos’ way of telling a joke.
She wiped the sweat from her brow, taking a moment to… if not appreciate, then scrutinise the ancient sculpture.
“You look nothing like him,” she said. “I wonder how he’s doing…”
She looked out over the horizon. The sun was at a midday high; it would be a good chunk of time before the theoretical date, depending on how many more steps there would be.
Maybe it’s here, she thought. It wouldn’t be a bad spot for a date, really. Nice sunset, pleasant weather…
…aaaand about a dozen people hogging the divination crater. Yeah. Wherever Charos was aiming for, it probably had less of a crowd.
Her foot hit hard metal. Quickly, she set her shovel to the soil, unearthing a small casket. She hauled it to the surface with ease — whatever was in there wasn’t terribly heavy.
She pulled it open. Inside were two things: A scroll, and a mint cake.
“Sweet!” she said, stowing the mint cake away. Her grin faded, however, when she saw the paper.
Altcr Jgbrfa.
Prux rxeb touk wahtc waqi rvc kr tni xul fi at ezl
Eyhrk Xahuddrur yltchd g gbag zq rgkx
Dpvue yegk jzwey xal abln grw amdsexw mom jwoti
Tul nkexi t zqejlk gehg ndrjig zbrqdy atulvuitk tsweh.
“What?” she said. “What kind of… garbage writing is this?”
She shook the paper around, seeing if the letters would, perhaps, loosen themselves from the paper and arrange themselves into reasonable, readable words.
They did not.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I think I might need a hand.”
“This is a devilish little cipher,” Ariane said, squinting at the paper. “Usually an unscrambling spell would set this to rights — even a simple cipher can be figured with either a ring or a simple chart. But this one…”
She tapped on the paper. The words quivered, and changed into something else — and still in complete gibberish.
“I would think this unsolvable,” Ariane said. Jaxyys raised an eyebrow.
“It’s not unsolvable,” she said stubbornly. “There wouldn’t be a point if it was unsolvable. He wouldn’t do that.”
Ariane raised an eyebrow. “What did you say this was for again?” she said.
Jaxyys coughed. “A… treasure… trail. A really hard one.”
“I thought you hated treasure trails.”
Jaxyys coughed again. “I’m going for an ice dye,” she said.
Ariane gave her a careful look. “If you say so.”
She turned back to the paper. “In any case, the only other thing I’d think this could be is a key cipher.”
“Key cipher?”
“A cipher with a passcode,” Ariane said. “It’s an old trick; some of the old masters used it to transcribe their notes when they suspected their rivals of spying.”
And I think I know who might have taught them that, Jaxyys thought to herself. “So you’d be able to decode it with the passkey?”
Ariane nodded. “I don’t suppose you’d know it?” she said.
Jaxyys tapped the table. “Hmm… try... Password, I suppose?”
“That’s poor security,” Ariane said bemusedly. She tapped the paper again, and the letters shifted and settled.
“Nope,” Ariane said. “Any others?”
“Um… clue?”
Tap, tap. “Nope.”
“Riddle?”
Tap. “No.”
Jaxyys thought. “...Reldo?” she said carefully.
Ariane gave her a very careful look indeed. Nevertheless, she tapped the paper once more.
“Nothing,” she said. “And before you ask, I’ve tried ‘Charos’ as well.”
“Oh. Damn, then,” Jaxyys said. “Here, I can think of a few others…”
Several attempts, which included the passkeys Jaxyys, Date, Dragontooth, Wallasalkibanite, and Pleasepleasework, and Jaxyys was developing a special kind of hatred for the common alphabet.
“I shouldn’t have left that damn chest on that stupid island…” Jaxyys growled. “It probably had the code on a slip of paper or something…”
“It only came with the scroll?” Ariane said. “No other hints?”
“Well…” she dug around in her bag. “There’s this…”
She pulled out the mint cake. “Maybe the answer’s baked inside?”
The cake, when broken in two, revealed a crumbly, minty interior. But not a passkey.
“Shoot.” She broke off a piece, offering it to Ariane. “At least there’s cake…”
“Ye-es,” Ariane said, staring at the proffered slice. “And maybe…”
She tapped the parchment again. Slowly, the letters swirled around the paper, arranging themselves into something that could actually be construed as words.
“Wait WHAT,” Jaxyys said, leaning over. Indeed, the scroll now bore a legible message, instead of the sounds uttered by someone intoxicated.
It read:
Hello Jaxyys.
Your next clue shall take you to the end of an age
Where Thammaron felled a city in rage
Where sand bites the skin and tempers the stone
And where a single clay warden stands wandering alone.
Ariane smiled. “The extra sugar probably helped, to be fair.”
“Thank you,” Jaxyys said. “I owe you one.”
“Consider the cake as payment. Do you have any idea what the riddle is referring to, by the way?”
Jaxyys looked at the poem again. Thammaron rang a bell. So did clay warden…
She snapped her fingers. “Uzer!” she said. “I have to go to Uzer…”
She grabbed the scroll. “Keep the cake,” she said. “I’m headed to the desert!”
The sun was still fairly high when Jaxyys arrived at the sand-blasted ruins, it being the early summer; even so, she knew she was running out of time.
She picked her way around the buildings, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. In particular, she kept her back to a certain pyramid she knew she could see in the far and hazy distance — it was too soon to look at things like that.
Instead, she turned to the stairs leading into the ruins proper. It had been years since she, or anyone else for that matter, had ventured around here — and so the disturbed sand at the entrance was a bit of a tell.
An obvious one, Jaxyys thought, as she descended into the dark coolness. Charos might be obtuse with his clues, but he probably didn’t want her wandering the desert for the next several hours.
Her suspicions were correct. At the bottom of the stairs was what seemed to be an ancient casket — not quite as ancient as everything else, which was also a bit of a tell. It was topped with three small statues, a small pile of charms, and a sealed scroll.
She popped it open, breathing a sigh of relief when it was written in actual words.
Congratulations on making this far. You’re nearly at the end. Solve this puzzle about the soldiers and place them on the appropriate slots, with the appropriate charms.
Jaxyys looked at the table. The three statues were different — one was a ranger, one a sword-wielder, and the third a mage. Each had a round indent in their heads — presumably for a charm. She shifted through the pile, noting the symbols — Saradominist. Zamorakian. Zaorsian.
On the table was a carving of a clock. Each hour had a little round indent, similar to the one for the charms, though large enough to fit the statue bases.
She read the rest of the scroll.
In the Third Age, three soldiers were slain on this spot — one Zarosian, one Saradominist, one Zamorakian. Each one wielded a different weapon, and each one died at a different time — six, nine, and eleven — and facing a different direction — east, west, and north.
Here are your hints.
The Zarosian met his death not north or east; the Zamorakian, however, faced one of these directions.
The Saradominist did not die at nine; nor did the Zamorakian.
The Zamorakian did not wield a sword.
The Zarosian was neither a ranger or a meleer.
The ranger died facing the sun.
The Zamorakian met her death at six.
Jaxyys hemmed and hawed. She pulled out her clue notebook, scribbling a few notes in the margins. She crossed out things a few times, and at one point turned to a new page — but after a measure, she put her quill down.
“Right,” she said. “This should be…”
She placed the charms on the statues, carefully arranging them on the table. As she put the last statue down, she heard something shift within the depths of the casket.
Slowly, the lid split in two, sliding open. Within the casket she saw two things —
A single tinderbox, and a sealed scroll.
“Yes!” Jaxyys yelled. “Ha! Look at me, Charos! I’m the best at solving your puzzle, yeah!”
All that replied was a shower of dust from the ceiling. Jaxyys coughed. “Thank you,” she said, “for the resounding applause.”
She looked the tinderbox over first, checking for any hidden clues. Nothing presented itself — either it was another passcode, or there was some witty to be made about her hair.
She stuffed it in her backpack. Her tool belt rendered it more or less redundant, but she figured it would be handy to have around as a paperweight.
She then turned her attention to the scroll. As she pried the seal loose, she realised that she was actually... Excited. This had to be the final clue, right? The previous clue had said it was near to the end…
She unfurled the scroll, scanning for the next step — a coordinate, a riddle, a map… even more gibberish.
But the parchment that greeted her and the dusty air was completely and utterly blank.
Jaxyys lay on her back, staring up at the blank paper.
She supposed it was kind of funny that she’d retreated to Charos’ house, of all places. He certainly wasn’t around to make any comments — probably intentionally.
She turned the paper this way and that. She could probably go back to Ariane, but good would a cipher spell do if there were no words to decode?
She sighed, rolling over. Running after all these clues was oddly tiring — after being cooped up in the house for so long, it was refreshing. Even with all the aggravation…
She closed her eyes. Despite the summer weather, Charos had seen to light a fire. It was actually a little stifling, especially with the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window.
“So hot,” she said. “Need… a Blurberry Special…” she muttered.
Yeah. That sounded nice. An icy cold one, with lots of gin, and brandy, and lemon…
Lemon…
Jaxyys sat up.
Lemon. There was the tinderbox, the fire, the blank parchment….
She grabbed the roll, half-tumbling out of bed on her way to the fireplace. Carefully, holding the paper just far away enough from the flame so that it didn’t singe, she held the parchment over the fire.
And slowly, dark brown letters began to bloom.
Your final clue —
Go to the south-western beach on Anachronia, on the south side. Rest on the sand facing the sea. You’ll know where.
Equip something nice.
Jaxyys grinned. “You son of a bitch.”
She arrived on Anachronia just a little before sunset proper, managing to slip away from the lodestone before anyone noticed her. She made it to the south beach in good time — not wearing heels had been a good decision — and walked over the sand in her bare feet, enjoying the surf washing over her toes.
Charos had been right about knowing where to go — there was a trail of footprints pressed into the wet sand, just out of reach of the tide. Jaxyys followed them along, noting that someone had finally bothered to clean up the wreckage of The Stormbreaker. Maybe Thok had gotten into a new workout routine. Maybe he’d taught the dinosaurs to play fetch with the old timber. Who knew?
She heard the music before she saw it — the tinny sound of a magical gramophone, playing a familiar tune.
She turned the corner. Just on the edge of the waves, there was a blanket sprawled over the sand. The gramophone played away beside a basket and a bottle of wine.
There was an empty wine glass by the bottle. Its companion was being clutched between the fingers of a certain former librarian, current trickster, and technical housemate.
“You’re a little early,” Charos said, shooting Jaxyys a grin. “I haven’t even been able to open the vintage yet.”
Jaxyys jogged over. “You told me seven,” she said. “I’m sure it’s around six fifty or so, at earliest.”
“I always account for fashion.” He patted the spot next to him. “Sit?
Jaxyys did. The blanket was surprisingly comfortable; Charos had chosen a good spot.
She breathed a sigh — a little tired. But mostly happy.
“You know,” she said, stretching out her legs. “You could have just told me to meet you here at seven. I saw you this morning. You made me breakfast.”
“And what would be the fun in that?” Charos said, his eyes twinkling. “I’d like to think I went easy on you. There weren’t even any people trying to stab you this time around.
“Easy? You gave me a right runaround!” she said. “I was all over the place.”
“I thought that you needed to get out of the house a little,” he said. “And I needed to test the disguise spell. It’s one thing to perfect it over millennia on yourself; it’s another thing to try it on someone else.”
“And?” Jaxyys said. “Did it work?”
“Quite well,” Charos said. “Though you’re much preferable looking as you are. You look good in red.”
Jaxyys found that a blush was beginning to creep up on her cheeks. “You’re just covering for the fact that you made me teleport to about half a dozen different places,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“Next time, I’ll give you the date outright,” she said. “I’ll just tie it around the neck of a skeletal wyvern. You know. For enrichment purposes.”
“Oh?” Charos said, his voice titled in bemusement. “You want there to be a next time? I haven’t even poured the wine yet.”
Jaxyys reddened even further. “Maybe,” she said hotly. “We’ll see how this one goes.”
“Hm. Very well.” And with that, and without another word, he leaned over and kissed her — softly, and on the cheek, but a kiss nonetheless.
He pulled back, his eyes glimmering. “And your verdict, judge?”
Jaxyys grinned. “You know,” she said. “I think you’ll have to find out the answer yourself,” she said. “You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
Charos grinned back. “Can I get a hint?”
“Sure,” she said. “Do that again.”
And they did.