Two days later.
“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
Momo stord into the room, grabbing everyone’s attention. She dashed straight past Undine and Siena, in the middle of their chess ga, and to the biggest table around. There, she put down a folder of notes and started tossing things on the table.
A more obvious sign to gather, there could not have been. “Sothing new?” tra asked.
“Sothing good, I hope,” Ehtra growled.
“Yes!” Momo shouted excitedly, reaching into her inventory and pulling out the athyst amulet that Velka had found. “Good girl!” The birdcat owed proudly at the complint.
John bowed over the fairy maid’s shoulder to get a glimpse at what she was so excited about. What he saw was paper upon paper of translations on the pictographs they had found in Tahnuachan, alongside copies of maps, equivalents of mundane items that survived from the Maya and Aztec people of the ti, and ngele’s research notes.
“The Purple is the calamity!” the leader of the expedition announced. “Here, look at this!” She pointed at a photograph from the established sick camp. It was an unappetizing sight. One of the least powerful mbers of Norahnon’s forces had caught it and his body was deteriorating much faster than anyone else’s. As expected, the man’s limbs had turned necrotic, starting at the fingers, but rather than waste away the normal way, the flesh had started to turn into a viscous, purple sludge that seeped into the sheets.
“Alright, what’s the good news?” John asked. Interested as he was in the history of the place, he wanted to lead with how this was useful to their predicant.
“They had a cure!” Momo answered and put the athyst amulet on the table.
“The Purple fears the monster of the spring water,” John rembered. “You think this ans that the monster of the spring water was a way to defeat the disease?”
“Axolotl’s do have rather impressive regenerative abilities,” Momo answered and pointed at the symbol at the front of the amulet. “Now that I have soft confirmation that the Purple is the disease, a lot of things fall into place! A variant of this disease wrecked the soarican civilizations at the ti. I’m not sure if it was the only factor, civilizational collapses usually have several things happen at once, but that doesn’t matter. ThepointI’mgettingtois-“
“S-slow down, Momo!” Gno interrupted. “We can’t understand you when you speak that fast.”
“Sorry. Excited.” The archaeologist hopped from one foot onto the other. “The pictographs on the houses of Tathnuachan described what purpose every entrance had. This here is the important bit.” She pointed at one of the many translations. “Where the water monster purges the miasma.” She double-tapped on the image of the axolotl in the middle of the phrase. “Tathnuachan was a relatively young settlent. It certainly was not there when the death of the pantheon occurred. In other words, the Purple remained an active issue throughout Aztec civilization and they had infrastructure to deal with it!”
Momo pulled out another stack of paper to point at a variety of other nas of houses. It was an exercise on backing up the accuracy of her translations.
“They regarded the Purple as a constant test that rose up from the lowest hells, where the giant the Toltecs slew was rotting. Anyway, that’s for the journal. The important bit is that they had ways to deal with this disease. If we can find a surviving record on what that was, that could provide vital insights.”
John nodded along. “Any leads?”
“Two, maybe three,” Momo answered and placed a small scale version of the damaged map of Yucatan out.
“We are looking for the ‘spring water monster’. If this is supposed to be a lake, then it’d be a good start.” She pointed at the weird hole south of their current location. “It matches absolutely nothing on any of our maps of Yucatan. I believe it could have been a temple or a massive artificial lake dedicated to axolotls.”
That made enough sense, but as the note said, it suspiciously looked as if sothing had just punched clear through the map instead. There was no way to know for sure until they had explored the, rather large, area. “Where else?”
Momo’s hand wandered to the burn mark east of the hole. “Not as solid, not that any of this is solid, but it seems likely that a major settlent was over here. If it survived, we might find at least further clues there. Last,” she moved her hand all the way to the island. “There is no island this huge on our maps, but by the position I assu this is supposed to be the Turneffe Atoll. This burn is too precise to be an accident. Soone wanted to hide a mark at this location but not that there had been a mark at this location.”
“A giant ‘do not go here’ sign…” John humd. “Desperate gambit to go there, but we are desperate. How is Fianna developing?”
“Her fingers are getting cold, by the reports, but she’s faring much better than most. She’ll have several more days before she suffers any potentially permanent consequences.”
Days was not a long ti to work with, but at least it was sothing. These hints were also better than what they were doing currently: heading down the presud route of the old pilgrimage path on the map to try and stumble over sothing.
“Personally, I think this one makes the most sense,” Momo pointed at the burn mark to their east. “Unlike the hole, it’s at least reasonably likely that there is sothing there. It’s further away, but we’ll spend more ti looking than travelling anyhow.”
“We could split the party,” John considered. The suggestion was t with mixed reception. They were on a tir, but the opposition was also considerable. Any ti they closed in on an area of interest, the likelihood that they ran into either the Grim Reaper or the Aztec forces, however many there were, skyrocketed.
“A question,” Lee spoke up. “So this Purple is, mythologically, the death stench of this giant, right? And the people in Tathnuachan held a ritual to emulate that death stench and in the process created a lesser version of it, right?” Momo kept nodding. “Do you know why they did that?”
“Short answer: no. Long answer: I would assu it’s for the sa reason why people that feel betrayed by God turn to the devil.”
“They gave ’em Spaniards one last nasty surprise?” Hailey asked.
“If that worked, then wouldn’t there have been extensive historical records of the Abyssal Spaniards in this area suffering from the Purple?” John asked. “Are there?”
“Not that I know,” Momo gave to that point. “But Observe said that they did it specifically to emulate the Stinking Corpse, right?”
“Yes, but… well, I don’t have to tell you that we’re filling a lot of gaps with assumptions.” John looked over the notes. The most common sign on all of her pages was the question mark. “Maybe the Purple was a re byproduct of what they actually wanted to achieve? We still do not know what that crimson path was about. There also was that mural… could that have been the giant having the Purple leave his body?”
“It’s possible… assumptions though…”
John sighed and nodded. “Let’s stick to what we know sowhat certainly, which ans we are now looking for a cure. We’ll split up. The main group will stay here in the plain and we’ll do slow progress down the pilgrimage path, then take a sharp turn to the weird hole. The second group will head east… we’ll need to buy a car…”
That worry was for a few monts later. First, John needed to pick who was going.
Efficient would have been to go with his real body, since he had the Barrier Sense on that, but that was extrely risky twice over. Not only was exposing himself the first target anyone outside of Norahnon would go for, he was also the callback point for his familiars.
For similar reasons, sending Lee or Lorelei out to try and help with the search was-
“I must go,” Lorelei suddenly raised her voice.
“Rel,” John said softly. “That’s insanely risky.”
“And yet I must,” the seer fixated John with a level of intensity he rarely got from this usually so traditionally feminine woman. “The darkness still blinds but I can sense purpose in this darkness. There is sothing in the east that requires our attention. Please, John. I do not request much…”
“You are right, you don’t…” John still found it hard to allow her to go. It was his call to make, she had given him that power over her life. “Fine…” he relented. “Accordingly, the people that will accompany her and the Creator Puppet should be people that can cover Lorelei if necessary. Ehtra, tra, I want you two to go.”
“Affirmative,” Ehtra said.
“We won’t let any harm co to one of ours,” tra said with a grin and put her arm around Lorelei.
“Momo, you can go with either group,” John said to the archaeologist.
The support decided quickly. “I’ll go with Lorelei. I can co back here in an instant if you need .”
John nodded and looked to the won that would stay with him. Rave, Aclysia, Gno, Salamander, Undine, Siena, Sylph, Scarlett, Lee, and Hailey looked back. Seven combatants, eight including himself, and three supporters.
Technically, Nia was also with them. She was there at the mont, but John fully expected her to just go wildcard when she felt like it.
“Guess I’ll do my best to get the machine translation going in the anti,” Scarlett said and picked up Momo’s notes. “Think your Fae Maids will stay active at this range?”
“Definitely not, but I think you’re used to my writing by now.”
“Your chicken scratches, you an,” the redhead joked and walked away.
“I feel kinda useless, but I guess I’m useful just by existing…” Lee mumbled. The eastwards party was already preparing to leave. Ti was of the essence and there was no reason to stay while the plane rolled into a different direction. “How are we handling communications?”
“That’s a good question.” John scratched the back of his head. They had found a limit to how much he could do even with three bodies.
The Ambassador Double was still back ho, making sure they never lost touch with the dostic news (and that Nathalia, Nightingale, and Eliana got their deserved amounts of cuddles). With the Creator Puppet out, he had no instantaneous feedback for the people back in the plane while he was out Barrier Sensing.
“We’ll have to rely on the Harem Comms. I’ll take Jane and Aclysia out with whenever we go. In an ergency, the elentals teleport to . Put the Mobile Barrier in lockdown unless soone drops a ssage via the Comms before trying to enter.”
“Roger that,” Lee nodded.
If the airplane was found and attacked, that would be doubly devastating since it was their ticket back and most of their noncombatants were in it. Luckily, even with all else that was going on, Lee was going to keep the barrier nearly impenetrable. ‘Nearly’ because the enemy likely possessed a few items that could at least temporarily overco the defences. That risk was reason enough to leave his five elentals there.
With the arrangents all made, they departed. John wrote a status update to Delicia, Claire and Beatrice via Harem Comms, while standing outside the plane with Rave and Aclysia. Gno also was outside, but she was in front of the plane, flattening the jungle before them while the plane rolled on ever so slowly.
“Think they can keep it rolling without ya?” Rave joked towards the pilot.
“Scarlett is effectively integrated with the autopilot. She will manage it,” Aclysia answered.
Rave chuckled at the seriousness of the maid, then turned to John. “What’re the odds we get attacked?”
“Depends on how solid the intel of our enemies is. If they see that we have scattered out, they will take their chance to strike.” John sucked on his teeth until he created a high pitch squeaking sound. A smack of his lips released the pressure. “Just by virtue of being in four different locations now, though, the chance effectively quadruples. Let’s hope for the best but prepare for the worst.”
They left the barrier and set out south. Nothing notable happened for the rest of that day. They walked through the jungle and the other group acquired a car through illicit connections. They had to grease so palms, but John was never short on money. Well, in this case it was Momo, since she was the one with the inventory filled with cash.
The next day, the airplane group got lucky.
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