The Library

The pages of the book are ancient, not paper, but parchment, crackling and brown with age, the ink on some pages near-faded. There are illuminations on the starting pages of each chapter, beautiful despite their age and barely faded, greens, blues, reds and gold leaf filling entire pages. It seems the binding was cut, at least once, and glued again into a new leather cover which has, again, cracked and broken. The book must be five hundred years old, or older, long before printing was invented.
Winsome stares at Fredrick for a long time.
"You will take proper care with the book, I can tell. Yes, you may read it. Take any of the reading rooms. They are silence-screened, so that no sound goes in or out of them."


Valse

The crew chambers are considerably more simple, single rooms with narrow beds, but comfortable enough, and with more than enough size to stow the goods. Down here, fewer attempts at luxury have been made, the inner walls are simple wooden boards, not the luxurious dark paneling of the upper decks, the hull, which can be seen from here, is dark bronze, and the quarters of the rest of the crew are door to door, sailors and marines, engineers and navigators, servants and stewards busy stuffing their materials.
The servant bows and leads Valse down another level, just above the enormous cargo hold, to the security center of the ship, a series of interconnected, low-ceilinged halls with pillars. Weapon racks stand along some walls, book cases and maps along others. At one wall, a dwarf in boiled leather lined with metal scales, a short sword at his belt and a short-cropped blonde beard is standing next to a short (even for her race), matronly halfling lady in a white shirt and leather vest. The two seem to be discussing one of the maps.
The halfling turns around as Valse enters, and her wrinkly face lights up in a hearty smile.
"Welcome. I am Marga Faysight, chief of security, and this is Kelf Uskild, my second in command. Would you be the new "special guard" I was promised?"

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Better not plug my message box, yes. If you want, we can discuss a few things over skype. Which we should do anyway, regarding a few things.