The Smi

13: More Clues

My vigorous evening had inspired many ideas on where we were to go next. I had borrowed Aaron's book. Turns out, the symbols for "Flame", "Mountains", and "Hell", might mean the Icarus Mountains, The Wourlieths of Asakarus, Henokus Mercalios, or The Toumbs of The Five. I was betting for the Toumbs. Also, we hadn't noticed that after the symbols, there were sets of, what seemed to be, numbers, that nor Aaron, Rien, or Ambur could deriddle. I didn't bother to look. The map apparently suggested we go north. So we did. One day, I grew tired of walking near cluelessly, so I ripped the map out of Aaron's pocket and squinted at the numbers. "Hey, guys?"

"Yeah?" Rien and the others turned around.

"It says 27.4462 W, 81.44 N; 12.39 S, 63.84 E." I began rambling off numbers. The others gaped in amazement and befuddlement.

"It's really quite obvious and easy to read," I scoffed. Aaron scribbled the numbers down quickly. "Got 'em." He nodded. He pulled a compass from his pack. "Here," He handed it to me. "Boss Lady." He smirked widely.

"Let's go!" I sighed, once I had the directions all sorted out.

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Although we were still approximately 10 miles away, I could just barely see the Open Temple Yard. A few hours later, and we'd be there.

Ambur hadn't been acting lately like my usual best friend. It worried me. She would just look straight down, and occasionally look up to see where she was going. She looked so sad. I knew I couldn't help her though.

We only had about 2 miles to go, when it suddenly got dark. We stopped at a small, ironically abandoned hut. The same sleeping arrangement was relevant for the night. But this time, after Ambur was asleep and Rien was on watch, Aaron came over and cuddled with me. His warmth wrapped around me, like my long-gone bandages, sheltering from the cold. In the middle of the night, the guys switched guard. I missed his embrace, but knew better than to be selfish. The next morning, we headed out and began hiking across the sandy dunes. 4 or so hours later, the soft, grainy terrain became, solid, peaty grass and soil. We had reached the mountains. The Temple Yard was a mere townslength away. I broke into a run, and the others followed. Suddenly, we were staring The Yard straight in the face. The Yard was home to a singular temple that contained The Toumbs of The Five, and several secret, scarcely known artifacts. I pulled out the map and checked underneath the coordinates. A phrase was listed; "Enutoa holds the key"

I read the phrase to Aaron (he couldn't read it, remember). He showed me a page titled "Heirs of the Minor Gods Subchapter 3; the Greek Demigods". I scanned the page. Nothing. I tried for at least a half hour. Nothing. I tried a few different approaches. Nothing worked. I thought of one stupid, fairytale, last ditch-effort, attempt.

I held up my hand and closed my eyes. I took deep breaths, and steadied my hand. Finally, I let out a big breath, still breathing deeply, and tensed my hand, palm down, and slowly turned it to palm up. Suddenly, the letters slowly began to shift, and move. Then it stopped. I kept trying until they made sense, which was about 50 times. Finally, it was readable. I didn't know how I did that, but at least now it was readable.

"The map holds the location of the answer to your question, but not the answer itself. The map shows 6 rooms, 1 for each Brother, and one made for an unknown reason. Just remember this, Enutoa knows ALL."