Sell you a Bridge chapter 298

June 15th 2016 Shadowcrest, Earth -11, 8:00 PM EDT

The  Zatara library was big. I didn't have many other words for it. I'd  never seen the one in our own dimension, or if I had I'd forgotten it  because that heist was before I got my perfect recall. In either case,  this was my first time seeing the library Zee had grown up in, and  looking around, I could definitely see how she had developed her  fanatical love for research. THe place was gorgeous and incredibly  homey.

Tall dark wooden book cases packed with  thousands of books of a variety of sizes, shapes and colors. Plush, dark  carpet lined the floors and a few big spacious tables were scattered  around. There was a fireplace off to one side roaring with fire, but the  heat was being distributed evenly by some clever bit of magic. It was  also probably because of the magic that the books didn't dry out.

Zee  looked around longingly, eyes still red. "It's just like home." She  said wistfully. "I haven't been back to the library in months at least.  I...I didn't realize how much I missed it." Sindella stepped up behind  her, putting an arm aound her daughter and pulling her into a one armed  hug as she laid her head on her daughter's. Zee stared into the fire,  clearly lost in her memories.

Sindella squeezed Zee  tighter. "Oh, my sweet girl. I loved this room too. I used to study in  here for hours. When I was pregnant with you I'd curl up with a bean bag  next to that fireplace and read aloud from my favorite storybooks,  hoping you would hear them. Your father would sit with me and brush my  hair and listen. Just the three of us together, even though you weren't  born yet. Once I had you it became a weekly activity. Every saturday I  would bring the two of you in here and read you a different book."

Zee  was crying again as she stared into the fire. "I remember. Daddy kept  doing that for a few years after you died. Eventually he got too busy  though. I'd still try to make it in there on saturdays to read. It made  me feel closer to you. To both of you." She turned and buried her face  in her mother's hair as she clung to her. "I missed you so much mom. I'm  so happy you're back."

Sindella looked torn between  love and heartbreak, seeing her little girl in tears like this. I could  see a small kernel of anger in her aura too. She hadn't missed that  little tidbit about Giovanni being too busy. She'd heard from Jim some  of what had happened before I cut him off, and I suspected even Zee's  sanitized version of events probably didn't paint Zatara in the best  light. Crazy survivalist dad who keeps his daughter locked up so tight  she never makes friends is a bad look, and feeling responsible for that  probably didn't help.

Sadly though, we didn't have  time to deal with that. We had other things to do, and I knew they would  at least take Zee's mind off of things. I stepped up behind her and put  a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Hey. How about we do some  research. You and I are the only ones with a firm grounding on void  magic, so we're going to need to take priority here. I was thinking we  could try to derive a comparative dimensional superstructure through  through void tracing, and use that to calculate what went wrong?"

The  best way to get Zee excited about magic was to just start talking to  her in jargon. My girl was the world's biggest spell nerd, and hearing  me speaking her language always got her in the mood to study. The actual  suggestion I'd made wasn't as complicated as it sounded. I'd just  suggested that we study the laws of magic here, compare them to our own,  and use void magic to try to proof out the makeup of the barrier  between the two realities by mapping both sides and combining them in an  equation.

Sure enough, she pulled her head free with a  sniff. She gave me a searching look before nodding. "That might work.  But do we use the initial notation for this side of the equation, or  would it be the inverse? This is some sort of weird backward universe.  If we're supposed to calculate backwards from this side it could fuck up  our results if we fail to take that into account." Her voice was rough,  but it was also focused. She was already hooked.

I  gestured to the books. "We'll need to figure that out. Should be simple  enough to confirm, we just need to compare a few supposedly universal  magical theorems or spell forms and see if they're mirrored. A fireball  is a fireball no matter what kind of magic you do. If it's a backwards  fireball here than we use an inverted notation when we proof out the  barrier from this side." I led her to the table, winking at Sindella,  who shot me a grateful smile.

Zee sat down and I  passed her a book. She opened it without comment, and I looked at the  others, nodding at them to sit down. I took the seat across from her,  while Drea and Sindella sat on either side, Rana sat next to me,  diagonally from her mother, and all of us just did our best to be there  for her as we read. We didn't bother her, Zee in study mode was far too  focused for that, but we made sure we were close enough that she could  feel us there, and know she wasn't alone.

Being back  here was giving Zee a front row seat to her worst and best childhood  memories, and having her mom here with her was probably making it even  worse. Still, while we were by her side, I was actually going to have to  study too, and soon I was flipping through pages as everyone else  grabbed books of their own, trying to study as best they could, or at  least avoid any awkward attempts at small talk while we were all busy.

After  literal hours of research, we finally managed to put together enough  information to actually share it amongst ourselves. We'd done the  calculations after the first hour, but we'd run into a decent bit of  trouble with some of the numbers and realized we needed some more  information. I waited until Zee was ready, stockpiling my own info, and  then let her take priority, figuring I could jump in if she missed  anything. It made more sense to see what she had found that I hadn't. As  my girlfriend put down her book with a thump, she favored us all with a  blinding grin.

Despite her pain and heartache,  several hours in deep study in a weird alternate dimension version of  her family library had clearly energized and excited her. Everyone else  had looked up from their books when hers thumped down. "Alright  everyone. I've got a basic idea of what is happening. I have good news  and bad news. The bad news is that I don't think we can travel through  darkness to get home. It won't be possible."

I nodded.  Speaking up since she didn't seem to know the reason. "I think B-guy  activated some sort of trap. I was right when I said he couldn't control  all darkness like it's part of himself. He CAN however, mobilize enough  of that shit to cause major changes in the abyss. He apparently rigged  up some kind of cyclone designed to drag anything traveling through the  dark down to him. Luckily it's not super efficient or else we would all  be pretty fucked. Rana was pushing hard to get us to Gotham, and there  was one between us and him so we ended up here."

"That  explains quite a bit." Zee said, worrying at her lip. She flipped  through a few books and nodded after a minute or two. "Ok, that  shouldn't affect the good news. They aren't related exactly. We're going  to be getting out of here another way." She held out a hand and  conjured her keyblade, Star Seeker. "As you know, this is a keyblade.  Keyblade's are keys, and keys open locks. Locks keep doors shut. THAT is  going to be our exit."

I'd suspected as much, but I  had to point out the obvious flaw. "We can do that, but we won't be able  to control where we go. We need to get out of the realm of darkness,  but any connections we unlock will be to other dark worlds. Without any  idea how to steer or aim there's no possible way we're going to be able  to make it home in anything resembling a decent amount of time. Since  you seem so excited, I take it you have a way around that?"

There  was no danger of upsetting her again with question, I could see her  aura. I knew that she had an idea, though I didn't know what it was. Her  grin went up a few watts. "Simple. We need to follow the keyholes to a  place on the edge of the dark multiverse. If we can make it to the  realms between, both multiverses will be accessible. Then we can follow  the edge worlds until we can find one that has access to a gummi ship  harbor. We can fly home in style that way, without ever needing to  access the darkness."

Mentally flipping through a few  more books that I'd read to confirm that, I nodded thoughtfully.  "Alright, that might work. As long as you and Drea are the ones doing  the unlocking. Your keyblades are light based, which means any pathways  between worlds will lead up and not down. That should at least get us  out of the dark if we follow along. Once we hit the worlds between the  keyblades will be taking us horizontal instead of vertical no matter  which we use, but that should work fine for tracking down a gummi ship."  I let how impressed I was bleed into my voice.

Unfortunately,  it wasn't just the two of us who had been doing that research. Jim  cleared his throat gingerly. "Yes, well, in that particular matter, I  may have a slight bit of insight. I've been reading through information  on the local realms and planes of existence. I found a reference to a  keyhole actually. Sadly, the exact location of that keyhole  is...inconvenient for our current purposes. The keyhole was passed into  the safekeeping of the royal family of a powerful tribe of magi, bound  into solid form."

I cursed. "Well shit. I didn't even  know that was possible. So what, it could be anything anywhere in the  world? Tracking down something that's just described as 'an object'  isn't the easiest task we've ever had, but I'm sure I can find something  in my email to help with it, if none of my current tracking abilities  lend themselves to that task." I gave my teacher a grateful nod.  "Awesome work, boss. We have a lead at least, and we can check some of  the other books written by that author or from the same era to try to  figure out what the object was."

Jim  gave a weary sigh and shook his head. "I'm afraid that won't be  necessary. You didn't let me finish. The keyhole was bound to a physical  form to make it more mobile, and given to a powerful royal family of  magi. To protect it, they sank their city to the bottom of the ocean,  sealing it off from all invaders. The royals passed the object down from  parent to child, all the way up until the present day." I could  practically hear the grimace in his voice as he bit out. "They bound the keyhole into the shape of a trident." Oh. Well, fuck.