Books are sometimes better than people

I laughed a little. "Trust me, I'm no Han Solo, but I can tell you I've solved some mysteries, and I've done my fair share of research to keep myself busy as an adventurer" I told her as I pulled a map from the inside of my shirt, unfolding it. It was a map I had carefully drawn myself of camp, marking every landmark and terrain change, stream and tactical area. "So where do you hear this noise?"

Patricia fought the urge to raise her eyebrows. What other mysterious things could this guy conjure up. She peered curiously at the map. It was very detailed. Patricia felt ashamed to think this, but all she thought of when she thought of the forest was a bunch of trees. But after awhile, she recognized various landmarks, and was able to to indentify the various parts of the forest. Hm.. And some notes about strategic positions for capture the flag. She's would have to take notes of those.. After a moment, Patricia pointed to a location on the map. "There. On the other side of that brief clearing. Northeast of the lake."

I nodded and looked over my map at the location she had pointed out. It was a part of the forest I hadn't been to in a while, but nonetheless I could go with her on that hike to try and find the origin of the noises. After a moment of critical thinking I looked back at her. "So when would you wish to go on the hike?" I asked and carefully fixed the map back into the smaller size and slippe it into a pocket on the inside of my shirt.

Patricia's stomach gurgled. "Um.. How about after lunch?" She laughed and picked up her book. "Let's meet at the edge of forest near the common area." She waved goodbye and left the library. About halfway to the mess hall she noticed she had a pep in her step.

ooc: I'll post the link here.

Right after breakfast, Patricia went straight to the library. When Patricia and Zachary had parted last night, Zachary took everything. So Patricia was empty handed beside a pad of paper and pen, and a cup of black coffee.
She sat at the table she had met Zachary at the other day and sat down. She bobbed her leg, eager for Zachary to arrive. Her archery practice was scheduled this morning, so she only had an hour or so to kill. She doodled on her notepad, sketching the chest they had found last night.

I walked into the library after breakfast, circles under my eyes as I had not slept at all last night with only black coffee to keep me awake. I saw her and smiled lightlyC sliding into a chair and relaxing. "Morning@ I said with a yawn and placed the chest on the table, opening it to show everything from te night before.

"Good morning." Patricia smiled eagerly. She noticed Zachary looked tired, like he had stayed up late. She would have to nag him to take a nap or something later. She took a swig of her coffee to pep her up. "So, all we basically know now is that a demigod's girlfriend ran away and he got all distraught, right?"

"Fiancée, details matter" I told her with a yawn as I pulled the papers and such from the chest. "So, the archived are nearby, but ill need a name to look up first" I told her as I looked threw the various pages of Greek, English, and Latin texts, among others. This was going to be a it harder than before, now that I could see the pages better.

Patricia nodded. "So, maybe we can divide the stack and translate. Or I do one page, you do the other, and so forth." Patricia picked up a page and looked at it. This was going to be difficult. She could read most of it, since she knew English, Latin, some Greek since she was a demigod, and a teeny bit of French. Patricia sighed. "It's a shame they didn't label..." Patricia held the picture of the woman in her hands, and in the corner she saw a tiny bit of text, faded and barely legible. She squinted. "Well, I can sort of make out a name. Marie-Ann de Clare." She handed the picture to Zachary, hoping maybe they could jump into the archives before having to translate all the text..

I nod and stand "stay here an work with this" I told her and left to the archives. It took me a few moments of looking in dusty files but I found the demigod in question and laid the file in front of Patricia as I returned. "Slightly burnt, seems like someone tried to eliminate all trace if her from this camp" He tells her, slight worry on his face.

While Zachary was at the archives, Patricia started translating the papers. There were a few paragraphs in a language she didn't know, but she could translate most of it. So far, it was a sort of boring and mushy letter from Marie Louise to her fiancé, who at the time was simply her boyfriend, or whatever they called it back then. (Courtier, perhaps?) Patricia had finished translating the short letter by the time Zachary returned.
Patricia was surprised to see the file was burnt. "Maybe the person who wrote the unsigned note, maybe he was asked to destroy her files." Patricia eagerly opened the file. There was another picture of Mary Louise. She looked younger than the other photograph they had, perhaps ten instead of sixteen. She was small and thin, but her smile was wide and eyes bright. Patricia set the photograph aside and was about to pick up a piece of paper when she remembered something. "Um, should we be wearing gloves or something. Or are these papers enchanted like the ones in the chest?"

I laughed lightly "enchanted, I made sure" I told her as I sent over some of the pages and looked at the different styles of rleritujg when something caught my eye. Grinning I grabbed a pen and laid a paper over the letters from the chest and began to copy certain letters out, looking over the paper as I looked around the documents. "I think I know where she may be, but this will take some time, what have you decoded?"

"Nothing super interesting. Just some mushy letter she wrote in Greek. It's kind of funny how people flirted back then. I'll read it to you." Patricia cleared her throat for dramatics, then began reading. "Dear Johny, you're last letter was very sweet. I am glad to,hear you cherish all our correspondences like I do. Our separation is very taxing on me. I look forward every day to when I may see you again. I love you, Johny, and I'll always love you. Yours, Mary Louise." Patricia blushed as she read the short note. "I'm curious to see where she went, but I also wonder what went wrong..."
Patricia picked up Mary Louis's file and resumed looking through it. It included where she was born in New York, date of brith, et cetera. It was all sort of irrelevant and boring. Patricia shook her head and handed the file to Zachary. "I couldn't find anything that could help us find where she went in there do you?"

I lope up at her and then passed my arm around her, pulling her close to my page on top of the letter "look, see this letter? Its capitalized, and this one, and this one....and they shouldn't be! Now if you like the letters up you get this strange combination of random letters, right? Wrong!" I was grinning from ear to ear now. "Look, out of all the combinations this one makes the most sense: Cymru! It's another name for wales, you know that other country in the United Kingdom? Not England or Scotland, wales. She must have gone to wales, or perhaps left a clue or something there. Now the thing is, where in wales? Well if you turn the letter around you see this number code, it's basic but one you crack it..." C.A.R.D.I.F.F. "Cardiff!"

Patricia tried very hard not to blush or smile when Zachary put his arm around her. However, once she was enchanted by his findings she barely noticed his arm anyway. Patricia was amazed. She knew she could of looked at the papers a thousand times and never figure out what Zachary figured out in just a few moments. "Wow... Cardiff, Wales, huh? I wonder if she had relatives over there?" Patricia glanced at Mary Louise's picture. She looked French, but from her ultra-white complexion she could have some English blood, too. Patricia looked up at Zachary. "I just got a lot of birthday money. So, do you think we should go?" The question was redundant. Patricia knew what his answer would be.

I pulled out my iPod an flicked to one of the travel apps, looking over te prices "it's a few thousand for just one of us, so unless you have a couple grand in your account we aren't going to wales. However we could perhaps sneak aboard a cargo liner that comes into New York and take that over to France or Italy or Germany or England and from there we can take a smaller, cheaper flight to Cardiff. It would save money, but if we are caught it wouldn't be a very nice day being in jail with a late fine on our heads" I told her, rubbing my dark hair. I wasn't sleepy anymore, just filled with adrenaline

Patricia nodded. She, since she was one of three grandchildren and her father was a doctor, had a good chunk of change in her bank account. However, her father would be alarmed if she withdrew that much money. Patricia wouldn't mind keeping her savings intact, either. It would obviously be detrimental if they were caught, though. Patricia mulled the idea of doing something illegal in her head. Then she looked at Zachary. He was way too smart to be caught. Patricia nodded again. "Okay, then. I guess we'll go with your plan, then." Of course, they could just not go at all, but the this mystery intrigued her to much to simply let it die.

I nod an lean back in my chair, tapping my slightly hairy chin. Against I really needed to shave again but ehX that was a job for later. "That gives us one week to research anything else we need, pack, then get to the city and go on the right cargo boat, an hope we don't end up in Asia or Africa or panama" I say and then pull out my leather bound book and mark a few more things down. I hadn't been to Cardiff before, but I had welsh blood in me so that would help somehow...I hoped

Patricia nodded. "Alrighty then." Patricia was going to continue to speak, but her watch buzzed. Time for her archery lesson. Patricia turned off the beeping noise and smiled. "I'll see you later. I guess." Patricia left Mary Louis's things with Zachary and quickly departed library.

I smiled and packed up my things, as well as the things we had found from the chest, putting them in my bag and returning to my cabin for some much needed sleep

OOC: now what?