My Adventure in Mikellar

Chapter LII | The Numbers

I found out that most certainly the noble stone was hiding in the great lake, safely hidden in the great chamber that hid beneath its bed with the metal gate to its entrance cleverly concealed behind a ginormous yet most ordinary looking stone that can only be moved when someone touches the scintillating dictionary of its last heir 'Alexander Bronze leaf' a very eminent astronomer, mathematician, poet, and blah blah blah, I don't know how they can get in so many professions and stuff and almost all coincidentally are just as boring as the previous one told, and m'chaps have founded the great gemstone which he smartly hid.

Iris scoffed, "Now, we have two out of three gemstones 'The Bronze Leaf' and the previously founded 'The Crimsond', and now all that is left to find is the next and the last gemstone 'The Al Qamar Mark' "

We stood in one of the abandoned empty slum houses. I know, you will think it isn't too safe for us but the blizzard was increasing furiously and the only safe option was staying in the most stable slum house that we could sprint into before turning into fresh popsicles.

"But the question that comes is where is this heirloom? Because, we didn't end up in any accidents or trouble or accidental troubles, we didn't get any kind of clue" Iris continued, "so, how are we supposed to find it?"

"What about the guy who gave us a lift?" Toivo pointed out, "We met him by an accident, right? Maybe he held any clue"

"He did talk about the camp though but, we don't know any further information about it or even where it is" Iris replied.

"Well then we will find it out by ourselves," I said.

"But we don't have enough time, Greg has probably started to make each step that he is taking now faster and heavier than the one before," Iris explained, speaking rather practical words "Before taking such big risks we need to see how much time we have and if there is any other way or else, we might end up in aims that may eventually lead us to nothing but our failures"

"And I guess I have found one way already," Galena said as she walked up to us, opening an old worn-out book, but then I realized it wasn't just any book, it was the book that had been drowned up in the deepest realm of the water bed for a decade but even with so much suffrage it still loyally held the words it carried, I would have never even imagined in my wildest dream a boring old dictionary could be so much interesting. We shuffled around her shoulders, peeking into the old-witty book.

"That's the dictionary, isn't it?" Toivo exclaimed.

"Yes, and I wasn't as foolish as you all to leave such a notable object abandoned among the bitter water of the lake" Galena sarcastically replied.

She flipped through the pages of the book before stopping. She sniffed, "Could you smell it?" she questioned.

"Smell what? -Wait!", Toivo sniffed, "What-what is that?"

And not soon enough our smell senses as well got aware of the peculiar smell that came out of the book, it was the kind of smell you will get when you are out wild in the woods.

"That's the smell of...leaves?" I muttered, undoubtedly bewildered and astonished by the presence of such a weird odor out of nowhere.

"Why would there be a smell of tree leaves in a book?" Iris questioned.

"It's not in the book, it's on the page" Galena spoke.

"Which is in a book" Toivo corrected Galena. She looked at him, giving him the sharpest death glare, Toivo gulped as he backed away from her.

"Maybe the page itself is made of leaves," Iris thought aloud, "But aren't paper made of tree trunks?".

"The scent is only on this page which means that this page must be important in some way," said Galena.