Maps

Amie found Julia in the South Tower dining hall and immediately told her about what happened with Jacques in Navarre. Julia was not surprised by Jacques' behavior as Amie described it, "I told you before you left didn't I? You should be careful around Jacques from now on, he's going to get worse until you leave."

Amie sulked, "It's a shame I'm going to lose a friend so quickly."

Julia responded, "Well that's just it, Amie. You wanted a friend, but that's not what Jacques wanted. Your innocence clouded your judgement."

Amie sighed, "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

Julia took it upon herself to change the subject, "So anyways, you really ought to head to your room now. I've gathered the materials you asked me to. Amie, why exactly are you suddenly trying to learn cartography?"

Amie immediately forgot the events in Navarre the moment she thought of learning more about the maps. She eagerly told Julia, "I found some strange old maps and I wanted to see if I could make sense of any of it."

Julia immediately leaned in to whisper to Amie, "Does this have anything to do with the mage stuff?"

Amie whispered back, "I don't know, Julia. I don't think so though. Let's drop the subject for now."

Julia was disappointed in the unsatisfactory response, "Fine then. Let me know if you find something interesting at least, okay?"

Amie smiled, "You'll be the first... and only person to know."

With that, Julia and Amie ended their conversation and Amie made her way up to her room.

***

Sifting through every map and trying to find a match to any of the maps Amie got from the secret tunnels yielded no results. Amie began diving into the cartography books next, but none of the information she was reading was matching anything on the strange maps. Layering the tunnel maps on top of the giant modern map Julia had stolen from the library also had no outcome.

Amie sighed and spoke aloud, "There must be something I'm missing."

"Maybe you have the map upside down."

Amie jumped in a panic, only to find Jacques standing in her doorway, "Stop doing that!"

Jacques retorted, "Pay attention to your surroundings."

Amie was still upset about him slapping her earlier. She asked harshly, "What do you want?"

Jacques replied, "I came here to fight with you, but I see you found something more interesting."

Amie didn't wish to welcome his presence, but at the same time, she was running out of ideas of how to get the maps to fit together. She begrudgingly told him of her discovery, "They were sitting in a room in the secret corridors. I thought they might have some useful or interesting information, but it's appearing more and more like gibberish."

Jacques examined the maps, "Have you flipped them?"

Amie sighed in frustration, "I've flipped them, turned them upside down, backwards, forwards, I can't line them up with anything. They just don't fit on the world map we have."

Jacques looked at the legend of one of the maps, "Well that's odd."

Thinking Jacques was talking about what she was saying, she responded, "Yes, well, I'm running out of ideas."

Jacques shook his head, "No, that's not what I meant. Look." He pointed to a depiction of a knife inside the legend, "The legend just has a knife in it, that's it. There's nothing in it that's supposed to be in it."

Amie looked at the knife depiction. It was surprisingly detailed, with an intricately designed golden-colored dragon circling around a silver grip. One of the claws extended down to the white pommel, as if it was grasping a jewel. The mouth opened as the cross-guard, transitioning into a blade with a cat etched on it.

Amie noticed a blade resembling the legend was also the blade in the compass in the corner of the map. The tip of the blade pointed down at what should be south while the pommel reached for what was supposed to be north. Amie pointed out the oddity to Jacques, "Look, the dagger is the compass too."

Jacques switched his gaze from the legend to the compass, "Oh that's strange, south is on top?"

Amie responded, "Yeah, it was the first thing I noticed, and look," She pointed to another map, "It's the same on this one as well."

"Hmm..." Jacques was contemplating what these strange clues could represent, "Well... a legend is also called a map key. Perhaps that dagger holds the key to the maps?"

Amie huffed, "What is that supposed to mean? Is it a metaphor or are we looking for an actual dagger? Because if we are looking for a dagger, then that means I did all this work for nothing? There was no dagger with these."

Jacques thought for a moment, "Amie, when you were in the tunnels did you remember seeing a treasure chest? I've been trying to open it, but it seems to be enchanted."

Amie became uneasy, "Jacques, I have no intentions of opening an enchanted chest without a key. It's not like these maps will do us any good anyways. We already have cartographers that have studied every inch of this world. These are probably just old relics with bad information on them."

Jacques raised an eyebrow, "Is that what you're telling yourself to avoid a repeat of the palace?"

Amie was feeling sarcastic, "Forgive me for being cautious."

Jacques retorted, "Well, too bad. You're coming with me to look at the treasure chest."

Amie whined, "Jacques, please don't get me involved with one of your schemes again, you're going to get me killed."

Jacques grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of her room, "I don't want to hear another word of complaining. All we're doing is going to look at the keyhole and we'll come right back. There's no need to fret over something so minor."

***

Amie found herself standing in front of the treasure chest, "Okay Jacques, let's go. This isn't just looking anymore."

Jacques looked up from what he was doing, "Just give me a minute." He had managed to jam a bunch of green stellar mist into the keyhole.

After a few more minutes of fiddling with it, Jacques pulled out a newly-shaped solid form of mist, "Check this out, I figured out how to make the mist retain memory."

Amie couldn't help but be impressed with his skills. The mist had formed into a shape similar to that of a dragon's mouth, "Great, so now we know the key is dragon-shaped. That doesn't really help us though unless you know where something matching that shape is."

Jacques was stumped at this point, "I wish the mist would open this stupid chest." He then kicked the chest and was promptly thrown a few feet away from it.

Amie asked nonchalantly, "You okay?"

Jacques sat up irritated, "Thanks for the concern."

Amie replied back, "How many times do you have to kick it before you learn you aren't going to win?"

Jacques huffed, "I need to get my frustrations out somehow."

Amie responded, "You need to learn better coping mechanisms. Anyways, I'm heading back to my room. I'm going to bring the maps back down to where I found them. I don't want them falling into the wrong hands."

Jacques agree with her plan, "Yeah, that's probably for the better. I'm going to keep working on opening this."

Amie turned to head back to her room, "Suit yourself."

She made her way back to her room and gathered all of the maps that were originally from the secret tunnels. She then made her way back down to the room she found them in, and placed them back where they were originally. After that, Amie made her way back to her room and tried to figure out what to do with all of the new cartography materials she had collected. Not wanting Julia's hard work go to waste, Amie decided she would be spending her time learning cartography and place everything back as she finished studying each book or map. She thought that, at the very least, perhaps something she learned would be of use later if Jacques ever figured out how to open the treasure chest, or maybe even if Prince Peter needed somebody with map-reading skills.