Up to Mission 5! Read on and enjoy!

"We're whizzing down the years to feudal England in the ninth century." the Chief told me regarding the new mission. I wished I knew more about these times, because so far I'd had to get most of my information from the Good Guides or chronopedia, with the exception of the first mission. "By now, William the Conqueror should be done conquering and on his way to kinghood," the Chief continued, "But he isn't, and something's amiss. See what you can find out."

The last Good Guide already hovered beside me. She reminded me a little bit of Ivy, with short red hair. But she was much thinner, with bright blue eyes and very pale skin. She was also younger than the other Good Guides appeared to be for the most part.

"Polly Tix will be coming along as your Good Guide." the Chief said. "If anyone can figure out the problems of an ancient political system, she's the one. Good luck, Time Scout Saffron, and...don't swim in any moats." I giggled as I was thrown back to the ninth century.

I stood on a narrow pathway of sand-coloured bricks, with a fence of bricks. I was standing near a man with a crown, but before I could contemplate this, Polly appeared beside me, in between him and me. She grinned. "Know why the chronoskimmer rules, Saffron?" she exclaimed (I forgot, that's the time travel device whose tunnels we follow, I remembered). "Cause we always arrive right on time!" Polly joked. "We're in England, 1086, and I'm standing by William the Conqueror."

At this point, said man seemed to notice us. "Hey, you two! Watch your heads, there's a siege going on!"

"A siege?" Polly exclaimed. "That explains all the soldiers outside. We'll help you withstand this siege, King William!" She seemed very high-energy, with a loud clear voice and no shyness whatsoever. As I said, I'm shy around super-confident people and people high up in status, so it took an effort to even say "Hi." to Polly. But I did it of course, continuing as quickly as I could with "So I guess I should talk to him."

I think Polly sensed my discomfort, because she said "We'll talk to him. After all, we're in this together, right?" She addressed William with no signs of intimidation at all.

"Hail, friends." he greeted us properly. "At least, I hope you are friends. Those Saxons always seem to be knocking at my gates!"

"Don't worry about that." I spoke up in a small voice. "We're kind of new here."

"What she means to say is, what's going on here?" Polly asked quickly.

After a bunch of questions, we discovered that the item stolen was the Domesday Book, a record of all the people that he ruled, and the Saxons took it as a sign of weakness and revolted. They apparently weren't happy having him ruling because he was foreign. "I burned much of the north country to the ground once," he admitted calmly, "But will they let bygones be bygones? Nooooo."

I glanced at Polly to see how she reacted to his nonchalance. She only shrugged and muttered quietly to me "We're supposed to put history back on track. Not all historical figures are angels, but we're not supposed to change history by trying to make them be better people."

I hesitantly asked if we could help. William seemed very happy with my question. "Ah, a noble offer!" he said in a pleased tone. "I have a secret passage out of my castle. Squeeze through it and go find my barons and lords, and tell them my soldiers need some bread." He opened the passage and I gave an exclamation at the scrap of paper that lay there.

I picked it up. "It's a Carmen Note!" Polly exclaimed. (Yes, she exclaims things a lot.) "The thief must have slipped through this secret passage."

"No shit." I muttered under my breath, then I forced a smile. "Sorry, I just hate Carmen's notes. They're always so cryptic and drive me crazy until I get all the pieces. Like this one for example – Grab the Domesday Book my liege, then slip away before the siege! How is that supposed to help?"

Polly looked at me in a way I didn't like. "It'll come clearer once you find all the pieces of the note, you know that."

"Yeah." I admitted, feeling awkward. "I do." I tried to smile. "I'm just a silly impatient tween."

The self-insult worked, and Polly laughed as we went through the secret passage, and found someone in a mansion. When questioned, he said he was called Baron Du Pont and this was his turf.

"Could you possibly help us?" I ventured.

"Help you?" he exclaimed, sounding horrified. "But I am a noble man! It is very uncommon for me to help commoners."

"We're actually on an errand for the king." Polly spoke up. "His troop needs more supplies – bread, to be exact."

"For the king?" said Baron Du Pont. "Why didn't you say so? The feudal system requires that I help him out, but I know little of petty activities like making bread. Here is a list of my subjects. Perhaps one of them could help." He gave us a scroll with six names on it.

After looking at it, I whispered "Are their last names supposed to tell me anything?" to Polly.

"In these times, people were named after their craft." she answered. "So Robert Baker would be the person we're looking for."

Baron Du Pont called him, and he zipped forward straightaway, (very computer-game-ish, which reassured me I'd get home), and said "Salutations, dear Baron, may I help you?"

"Can you make bread for the king's best troops?" was asked of him.

"I'd love to bake some bread, but I am flourless, and thus powerless. Do you have any flour?" the baker asked.

"No flour?" said Baron Du Pont. He turned to us. "Check with the lord down the road. As I am a baron and he is only a lord, the feudal system requires that he help me out."

So we had to go down the road to ask Lord Maynard for flour. Then we had to call one of his peasants, that one being John Miller.

We brought that back to Robert Baker, who made the bread, which we gave back to King William. "That was kind of easy." I remarked to Polly.

"Don't be so sure." she muttered.

The rest of the mission will be in the next chapter! Review! I know people are reading this, so why can't they review? Come on, guys! Please review!