The Arrival
It did not feel like it had been three whole months since the fall of the Measureless Crown.
Verne would have loved to say Tallbarrow was behind him.
Unfortunately, he could not seem to get it out of his head.
His name had spread much further than he expected, which was both flattering and inconvenient.
In some places he was rightfully known as a sick hero who was super cool and handsome.
In others, as “that tiny bee wizard.”
In one town, insultingly, as The Bumble Sorcerer.
He was still offended by that one.
So he decided to take a break from bees for a while.
He had spent the last few months traveling.
Not without purpose, of course.
You see, he was still working on that communication map.
Yes.
The one he had been trying to figure out ever since Tallbarrow.
Getting the locations themselves had actually been fairly easy. The people of Vesperwood were surprisingly willing to point at places on maps.
The ingredients, however…
Those had stumped him for a long time.
Well…
Perhaps “stumped” was too strong a word.
Let’s instead say that some ingredients were exceptionally annoying to obtain.
Three months of travel had earned him moon parchment, giant moth silk, silver reed fibers, phoenix ash, dragon blood, basilisk scales, unicorn hair, owl-eye powder, deep squid ink, migratory goose feathers…
Honestly, the list had become unreasonable.
By this point, Verne suspected whoever had invented map making had simply started making things up.
He almost had everything he needed.
Almost.
Because he was missing one ingredient.
ONE.
For MONTHS, he had been searching for ONE four-leaf clover.
Why did it take him so long, you ask?
DON’T ASK.
He supposed he had simply been… unlucky.
Why was a four-leaf clover so important?
Why not use a perfectly respectable three-leaf clover?
Well, have you ever tried using a compass without south?
It is not exactly easy.
So then, how did he finally obtain this elusive clover after three months?
Well…
After days of scanning entire clover fields with increasingly ridiculous spells, he finally found exactly what he had been looking for.
It was Marra.
…
How did she get there?
I do not know.
How did she SOMEHOW find a four-leaf clover before Verne?
I DON’T KNOW.
But she has not stopped bringing it up since.
Anyway.
Verne finally had everything he needed.
He even got to demonstrate his map making to Marra before the two went their separate ways.
He left the scene slightly embarrassed.
Not that anyone could tell.
He hid it perfectly behind his cool demeanor.
It was only a few days later that the map finally sprang to life.
The little four-leaf clover set into one corner began glowing a sparkly cyan blue.
Specifically…
South.
East.
A matching point lit up on the map.
Blackreed Basin.
Great.
A swamp.
Exactly where he wanted to be.
The map narrowed the destination further.
Mire’s End.
A small settlement deep within Blackreed Basin.
Conveniently, it was only a couple of hours away.
When Verne finally arrived…
The mist hit him before he even realized it.
An uncanny mist.
It did not slowly roll in.
It went from mistless…
to mist-full.
Very strange.
Very thick.
Now that he thought about it, he was fairly certain he had heard rumors about this place.
There was supposedly an old chapel somewhere beneath the waters of the basin.
Long ago it had sunk with its clergy, its relics, and whatever holy—or unholy—thing they had chained beneath the crypt.
Now, on certain nights, its bells rang up through the water.
People who followed the sound disappeared.
Boats drifted back empty.
Reeds grew in the shapes of kneeling figures.
And lately…
Strange lights had been seen moving beneath the lake’s surface.
Verne already hated rumors.
Specifically the ones involving him.
But now he was beginning to hate entirely new kinds of rumors.
The sort involving places he was about to visit.
Tonight he arrived at the little settlement of Mire’s End, the closest village to the lake.
Rain drizzled softly over the crooked rooftops.
Marsh lanterns glowed a pale cyan through the fog.
The windows of the inn were shuttered despite the early hour.
He stopped in the muddy square.
Something was wrong.
No one was outside.
No one…
Except a bent old ferryman standing beside a black wooden skiff at the water’s edge.
He wore a patched coat and a hat woven from reeds.
He did not look surprised to see Verne.
In fact…
He looked as though he had been waiting for him.