Castle Planner's Journal: 1000 Years

      After building an exhausting stack to start researching though later, she heard the ringing bells to let her know that it was time to head to dinner in the Great Hall. Maybe there she could meet someone who understood more.

      Again, taking the long way to avoid the wet grass from soaking her socks, she navigated the halls of the castle, and dodged between the waves of regal pets to and from various places in the castle. The unusually kind summer temperatures were bringing a lot of activity from the inhabitants of Meridell Castle.

      After fighting the crowd to secure her spot at the table by her brother, she finally was able to enjoy a plate of food.

      “I heard from Tor that the quest you sent my squires on was fruitful?” Jeran said between bites.

      “Very! It was kind of them to spare me getting myself soiled. I hope they had a good time down there. Morris seems to have enjoyed it a lot.”

      “What did you find down there?” Gaius, the Castle Planner, was particularly interested. “I have not been down there myself in a while.”

      “I don't quite know. I was just interested in the word ‘stitch’ that they found!” Lisha thought back and realised that Morris had not described the sewers to her in all that great of detail.

      “Hmm.” Gaius thought to himself. It didn't seem to hold any meaning to him.

      “Well, Tor was mentioning an ornate gate. He thinks that this fancy iron gate had been sponsored by some rich family.” Jeran chimed in.

      “Oh, yeah. That’s the case!” Gaius confirmed, now that his memory had been jogged. “Not all of the gates have names. But those that do, or rather those that still do, are rather prominent.”

      Lisha gave a giggle. “You should have seen the face on Morris when he came to deliver the solution. He accidently announced it very loud to everyone in the library!” Lisha mimicked shouting ‘stitch’ out to the dining crowd. Her outburst did not seem at all out of place in the din of the dining hall.

      “Stitch?” A familiar voice asked from behind Lisha. She spun around to see her friend Boris. “What are you stitching?”

      “Oh, I was just referencing how Morris helped solve a riddle in the sewers.” Lisha explained.

      “That went well?” Boris remembered seeing Morris’ emotional roller coaster of being the one assigned clog duty, but also getting the special quest to accompany it.

      Lisha nodded. “We are trying to figure out the riddle now. Maybe you can help, I know you have a particular interest in working with clothing!” Lisha referenced Boris’ love of cosplay. He wasn't able to do it as often in Meridell compared to modern Neopia Central, but he had a good relationship with the castle’s tailor, who was teaching him techniques, and loaning him scraps on the side. Boris wanted to commit to it more, but he knew his duties as a squire training to be a knight were more important.

      “I would be delighted!” Boris took the empty seat next to Lisha.

      “So this is the riddle we have to solve to find the key to solve the next message.” She pulled out her note paper. “Woven in the tapestry of culture is resilience and our chivalrous code.” She recited.

      Boris thought for a moment. Lisha watched as his eyes wandered around blankly as he wandered in his own thoughts. Suddenly, Lisha spotted the Blumaroo’s tail twitching, like he was onto something.

      “I want to say that this is referencing a specific object. I think one of the tapestries hanging in the castle is titled ‘Tapestry of Culture', but there's so many of them, I can't remember the specifics of where I saw it.” Boris apologised. “I’m sorry I couldn't be more of a help.”

      “No this is a huge step in the right direction!” Lisha turned to Gaius across the table, with a knowing look.

     “Why are you looking at me?” He said, suddenly stopping chewing his meal, feeling very confused.

     “Hahah. I think she’s implying that you surely must have records in your archive of all of the different art and artifacts on display in the castle walls.” Jeran suggested.

     The Orange Bori thought for a moment. “Maybe? I have not made a catalogue, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one was hidden in the archive. But you would have to wait for me to find such a thing.” Gaius thought for a moment. “Don’t go around poking and prodding the priceless art! If something happens because a bunch of kids break something important, it’s my paws on the line!” Gaius warned them.

     “Of course we will be careful!” Lisha assured her.

     “I promise!” Boris agreed.

     “Okay then....” Gaius returned a suspicious glance. “I will see if Wolcott has some time tomorrow to help you look for the records. I know I can trust him to put my files back where I can find them!”

     “Looking forward to it!”

     “I gotta go! I will let you know if I recall where I last saw it!” Boris said, taking his food over to rejoin the other squires.

     “See you tomorrow!” Lisha bid him a good evening.

     The next day Lisha was excited to return to the library. She worked extra hard to make sure she stayed on top of her usual library duties, so that she would have extra time to spend researching the artistic history of tapestries in the castle. Between shelving the taken out tomes, she would read passages in some of the books she had set aside the day before. Most of which were far more interested in talking about the history that the tapestries depicted, rather than describing the tapestry itself. She was already familiar with most of it, but was dedicated to reviewing it, just in case it was relevant.

     She was mostly just feeling impatient and excited for Wolcott to stop by. When he was a few minutes late, she started to contemplate looking through Gauis’ files herself. How hard could it be to dig through the pile of papers? She was an experienced librarian... The temptation was strong, but she held herself back. She knew that only Wolcott had Gaius’ permission, and she didn't want to betray her library buddy.

     As she sat on her hands kicking her legs in the air while sitting on the crude reading bench, she waited to listen for Wolcott. He eventually showed, but not alone: Boris was with him!

     “Sorry we are late. I figured I’d pick up Boris to help out!” Wolcott introduced Boris tagging along beside him.

     “A sensible plan!” Lisha was just glad that they were finally here.

     “Do you think the Castle Planner really has a list of all the artifacts on display?” Boris looked at the disorganised desk.

     Wolcott could see Boris’ incredulous expression. “Most likely, yes. It might not look organised, but once you know the ins and outs of his system, it makes... some sense.” Wolcott opened one of the cabinets. “This folder should be all the lists. Maps are laid flat in the drawer. And this giant pile of papers is all of Chamberlain Lazlo’s paperwork, which Gaius keeps in one big stack by date.”

     “That’s a generous way of saying ‘he just throws it in a big pile’.” Lisha teased Wolcott’s master.

     Wolcott pulled out the big folder of lists, and they divided the stack to carefully flip through the pages. Wolcott made sure that paws were clean, and that the order of each substack was maintained. They started quickly flipping through trying to find a list that had what they were looking for.

     “List of quarries, list of lumber mills, list of types of stone used in various wings of the castle, lists of artisans and blacksmiths commissioned for each piece of hardware. Lists upon lists!” Lisha read out what the lists she was flipping through contained.

     “This is an amazing amount of seemingly pointless data!” Boris complained.

     “It's pointless until you need to repair something, and you want the repair to match the original!” Wolcott explained.

     “That would make sense but... Oh, is this it?” Boris held up a very ancient looking sheet of vellum.

     Wolcott looked over the document. It had clearly very aged ink, some of which had faded, or bled deeper into the page. Many of the entries had been carefully crossed out as the document had been updated. Wolcott could barely read the very old handwriting. As he read further into the document, into later added pages that Boris had found, the handwriting got easier, and the data got fresher. This document had clearly been updated many times, and by the later entries, Wolcott could start to see familiar looking words.

     “Looks like this is it! I think I recognize a few of these things as works of art in this list!” Wolcott went to the last page to look at the most recent entries. “Oh yeah, sure enough, this is the entry for the new statues we were just adding to the gallery.” Wolcott pointed out at the bottom of the list.

     “Now we just have to find the entry for ‘Tapestry of Culture’ on the list! The puzzle was written 1000 years ago, so it might be pretty early in the list...” Boris was disheartened as he looked at the difficult to decipher handwriting of the first few pages.

     “Let me try reading it!” Lisha volunteered, but even her experienced eyes were struggling with the unfamiliar penmanship. She could only understand every other word, and with the bleeding of the ink, it was nearly impossible to decipher the already difficult text.

     All three of them spent a few minutes passing the document back and forth trying to be the one that managed a translation, but in the end they came to the same conclusion. Their efforts were fruitless.

     "Whatcha find?" A familiar voice asked as it approached from behind. They had been so focused on not losing the trail that they didn't hear Gaius enter. He was covered in plaster dust.

     "Gaius! Oh, please don't get all my books dusty!" Lisha greeted him.

     "Oh don't worry, this stuff is all stuck to me. It's going to take quite the scrubbing to get this all out.” He said, glancing over his fur. “Looks like you found something. Is it what you needed?” Hes said, peering at the document they had spread out.

     “Maybe?” Lisha squinted at the sheet.

     “It sure looks like what document we need based on the newer entries, but these older ones don't make sense.” Wolcott complained.

     Gaius took a rag out from a spare compartment in his desk, and wiped his paws clean before gently scooping up the old parchment. He read through it. “Yeah, this is an older style of text. Over time, letters have changed shape.”

     “Can you read it? Even with all the blur in the ink?” Lisha asked.

     “Yep! One technique that helps just a touch with the blurriness is to look at the text at an angle. Sometimes the ink will be slightly shiny where it was originally laid.” Gaius adjusted the angle of the parchment to try and find the best viewing angle. “What were you trying to find?”

     “The Tapestry of Culture,” Boris explained.

     “Oh?” Gaius paused for a moment and scanned the page. “Yeah, here it is. Looks like it was moved to storage a long time ago, and wasn’t put back out. Says it was damaged...” Gaius had a nervous look on his face. “Sorry!”

     “Huh? But someone showed me that tapestry a while ago!” Boris was confused.

     “Oh?” Gaius was taken aback. “Well, um... I don’t know what to say. That’s what the entry says. Maybe there’s a recreation, or they repaired it and forgot to update the paperwork. You will have to find it the old fashioned way!”

     “How?” Boris was curious.

     “Walking every corner of the castle to find it!” He laughed. “Good luck. I have had to do that a few times, and it can take about a week.” Gaius placed the document back on the table, and bit them adieu. “Have fun with it!” he said as he quickly left the room in a rush, leaving behind a slight cloud of plaster dust.

     The three teens groaned at the prospect of such a large task.

     “A week?” Lisha was annoyed that it would take so long. She felt like she was hot on the trail.

     “The whole castle?” Wolcott was dreading combing every wall of the castle.

     “It’s missing?” Boris was questioning his memory of being shown the tapestry, but knew that what he had seen was indeed as old as what they were looking for. It had to be real!

     They grumbled in relative silence as they moped about their defeat. Wolcott started carefully putting the documents away back where they belonged without much of a fight.

     “Tell you what.” Lisha went behind her desk and found some small notepads. She handed one to Wolcott, and two to Boris. “We can do it in shifts. We can each take a section of the castle. We can also try and get Morris in on this to lighten the work.”

     “What does it look like?” Wolcott asked Boris.

     “Oh, um... I don't remember actually. All the tapestries look the same to me. Garden scenes, funny looking people, badly drawn Petpets, and a wonky perspective. The only reason I thought that Tapestry of Culture is a specific artwork is because I remember seeing the title. It was written in big fancy text on a wooden plaque above the tapestry. You should know it when you see it.”

     “That is at least a little reassuring. I have no idea what to expect.” Lisha sighed.

     The bells chimed to let them know it was time for dinner, and they all left the library. Each one of them was keeping a sharp eye on the walls to see what they passed by. It yielded no results that evening and so they split their ways after dinner to spend the rest of the evening reflecting on the next day. Even the next morning, the same thing. The lack of results was quick to wear down on Lisha’s confidence. She knew she couldn't give up, but unless something revealed itself soon, she was readying herself for the unsatisfactory, but realistic result of the trail being lost to history.

To be continued…