The next morning Ghost got up and looked at the snow. It was still too deep for them to travel far. He decided to draw up some plans for getting the books back. After a while Amber wandered into the lobby where he was working, with some tea and a sandwich. She knew from experience he tended to forget about things like eating when he was thinking.
“So what have you got?” she asked.
He looked up and took the tea gratefully. “Well the books didn’t just appear in the store, especially in crates. There has to be a back entrance for deliveries. And as people don’t want to have to move crates of books any real distance, it’s got to be accessible by road. I’m guessing some heavy machinery and possibly a lift are involved.
She grinned “So we could just sneak in the back way, get the crates and sneak out again without having to deal with zombies and so forth?”
“In theory”, he replied taking a sip of his tea. “We’ve no way of knowing if any zombies have wandered back there, if anyone else is there or have set traps, alarms etc.”
She nodded “sounds like a good option though. Do we take the Librarians with us, or do we scout it out first?”
“I’ve been wondering about that myself. Although scouting seems like a good idea, I think in this case all it does is increase the risk that someone sees us. I’d rather keep the window that we do this in as small as possible. I really don’t want to scout it, tip someone off, and then have them waiting in ambush for us when we come back.” He paused. “Still on the bright side I’ve looked at the list of Vendors and there’s no-one anywhere near the bookshop so that improves the odds a bit.”
“Do you want to go now?” she asked.
He picked up the sandwich with a smile and replied “lunch first.”
She nodded and looked over the plans he’d drawn. They were a combination of how he remembered the place and the layout in the leaflet.
When lunch was finished, they got ready, rolled up the plans and headed over to the Library. This time a robed aesthetic opened the door for them as they approached and let them make their own way upstairs.
“Well I must say that was much quicker than I had expected,” Daniel said with a smile in his voice.
Ghost smiled. “I have a plan, but I was wondering, do you have anything here about either the Mall or the shops near the Book Shop. Articles, maps, photos, that kind of thing. The more information we have at the outset, the better.”
“Good to see such thinking,” Daniel replied. He beckoned to several of the monks and gave them quick precise directions of the information Ghost had asked for and where best to find it. He noticed that they weren’t particularly heavily armed “you’re not favouring an all guns blazing approach then?”
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