Treasure Hunt - Orion

  Prologue - a State of Equilibrium
There was that feeling again: pain, but it didn’t burn, didn’t sting, and didn’t throb. Ordinary pain manifested like that. Ordinary pain required a body, and he didn’t have one yet. It was forming, though, solidifying out of thin air, and got stitched to his mind. That hurt. This pain sneered at him he wasn't natural, that he should die like every other creature would after what he had been through, that he should not exist. It didn’t stop his body from forming. Skin, muscle, and bone slowly caged his tortured mind. He was being destroyed while being created. No words could describe that, not even "pain" itself. He had to broa...

You enter a large, dark hall - one of many in this castle you have somehow ended up in. Dust particles dance in the faint light that falls through the high, narrow windows. Despite the lack of light, you can still see clearly where you are: a library. Bookshelves tower above you, as black as the sky at this time of night. You walk between the narrow alleys, while book bindings in various shapes and sizes form walls on either side of you. Suddenly you see the flicker of a candle. As a fly that has found the light, you walk towards it. A man sits behind a desk next to that faint light, studying something you can't see. He notices your approach, and turns around. A pair of strange, white eyes stare at you - so piercing that you are unable to look away from his face. You can faintly see a crooked smile in the flickering light, flanked by long, black hair.

'Ah, I see you have found me – though I do hope that I was not the one you were looking for.' The man stands up and reveals his object of study, spread out over the entire table: a highly detailed celestial map. 

'The numbers Selanji gave you should have led you to this, if you have used the right kind of map.' The man lets his finger rest at a bright, blue-white dot that formed the lower right corner of a constellation in the shape of an hourglass. 'Rigel' it says with elegant curling letters, but a different name catches your eye, written in a much larger font; 'Orion'.

'I hope you were looking for the star, or even my heavenly namesake – but not me,' the human Orion continued. 'If you did the last thing... Well, I admire your perseverance then. There isn't a lot of artwork or literature that involves Rigel, but you must have gone through quite a lot if I was the topic of your search.' A grin plays around the man's lips, evil enough to give you goosebumps. The little twinkles that fill Orion's pale eyes show that his mood is only jesting, not dark. 'I think I make up half of that gallery...' 

The twinkles in his eyes disappear just as quickly as they came when Orion's expression turns serious. 'I suppose you want to get your reward and continue your search. Time to go stargazing again, because that is what you'll need to do.' He leans over the celestial map again.

'There are different ways to name stars. I prefer the scientific one, where the stars of each constellation are ordered according to their magnitude. That usually means that the brightest star is called "alpha", the second brightest "beta", the third one "gamma", and so on. I'll give you a list of the scientific names of some stars, and what I want you to do is to find their common names. The first letter of each of these names will form a word. For example...' Orion pointed at the map again '… β Ori - Beta Orionis - is the second star of the constellation of Orion; that's Rigel, which gives you the letter R.' Frowns appear on Orion's face. 'I am afraid that this is a bit of a bad example; Rigel is usually the brightest star. α Ori's brightness fluctuates, so it's only brighter than Rigel for very short periods of time. Naming stars this way was done ages ago when it was hard to determine their brightness, so these names did not end up as straightforward as you would expect...' The tall man suddenly looks back to you, with a slightly guilty expression on his face. 'My apologies, my mind wandered off - I am sure you didn't come here to talk about stellar designations... But you get the idea, right? Find the common names of these stars, get the first letter and they will form the word that you'll need to claim your prize.'

You nod, eager to continue your search. 

'Very well. The first one is ε Peg - Epsilon Pegasi. Then comes one of my personal favourites: α Aql - alpha aquilae. It just reminds me of someone... You'll meet her later. She is much better at stargazing than I am, ironically. The next one is α Leo - Alpha Leonis, followed by α Dra - Alpha Draconis and finally α Ari - Alpha Arietis. You got that?'

You give the man another nod.

'Good. If you have figured my word out, you should go and find Nox. I am afraid that I can't stay here much longer, but he can help you out. He's a dear friend of mine and is never far away from me. A friend who doubles as a steed, how convenient is that?'