Swamped Chapter 219 Page 15

“Looking for divine inspiration?” Len asks.

“In a matter of speaking,” you reply. You show him the page. “Lots of numbers here. I think it’s the right place to look, but…”

“But it’s like picking out the right six straws in a haystack,” Len concludes. “Well, if you’re finding too many numbers, maybe you’re supposed to be looking for something else. Like, there’s this part where Nual sends fierce winds to discourage the fighting, and follows it up with a flood of azure waters when they don’t. Still plenty of numbers here. Or, here at the end it discusses the punishments of individual sailors… oof, hot coals, sounds rough. And then another one is tormented by screams…”

“Wind, water, fire, sound,” you mumble. “And here! At the start of the battle, one side plants flags in the land before departing. The other announces their launch by shining glow-moss lamps on their lead ship. Earth and light. And there’s one number in each of these lines!”

You get to work on the dial again, following the same elemental order. You hear another noise. A louder one. A stairway opens in the ground nearby.

“Seems like a lot of trouble to have two combinations,” Len mutters.

“Unless, that is, there were supposed to be two people putting them in, so they had to cooperate to open it,” you note. “Hard to hide your combination from the other party with a mechanism this big, though, so maybe that’s not the reason. Maybe we’ll find some clues down there.”

“Don’t think it’s safe without a lamp,” Len says. “So maybe close that up for now and we’ll worry about it after our little show. No sense in troubling the Protectors. Knowing how to get in is good enough for now.”

You think that’s reasonable. If his estimate was right, they’ll be arriving soon.

So you turn the dial slightly, and you hear the stairs closing up.

But it seems the process of opening and closing the stairway has brought something odd to the surface.