Chapter 8 - The Next Clue and a Surprise

Inside the store, the four could smell incense burning. An ancient looking woman, grossly obese, and wearing all black came out from a back room to the counter where they stood. She looked at them, waiting for them to say something.

Blossom stepped forward. "Hi!," she said. "We were told to come here and pick something up. We were also told that you'd know what we're talking about. Can you help us?"

The woman looked confused. " Qué?" she asked. She began speaking to them in Spanish. She waited for their response, confident they understood her.

Brick leaned towards Blossom and whispered, "Maybe we should'a had the Professor stick around a bit longer."

Blossom nodded blankly.

"Where's Bubbles when we really need her?" Buttercup muttered.

Butch rolled his eyes and sighed. He stepped forward of the group and spoke to the woman at the counter. "Estamos aquí para recoger algo. Recibimos una carta..."

Her weathered face lit up as he spoke and a smile spread across her face. She acted as if she had known them all their lives. " Sí, sí! Encantada finalmente!" she responded as she invited them behind the counter. Butch motioned for the others to follow, but Brick grabbed him by his shirt.

"YOU speak the language?" he asked, a stern look on his face.

"Yeah, so what?" Butch answered.

Brick sighed. "You can't even read, yet you speak Spanish?!"

Butch shrugged. "Yeah, it just sounds like regular words to me."

"You're starting to scare me." Brick told him.

"Oh, and like your flame throwing act wasn't a surprise?" Butch joked. He grinned. "Hey, I'm a scary guy!"

Blossom, staring blankly at Butch, said, "Bubbles does, too."

Butch sighed. "Hey, I thought you would be happy."

Blossom shook herself out of her shock. "I am, I guess we just didn't expect it, that's all."

They followed the woman behind the counter into a back room. It was dark, and filled with Incan tapestries. A curtain of beads hung in the doorway and a huge multi-coloured, multi-patterned rug covered the floor. On the table in the centre of the room, was a basket of unidentifiable herbs. She went to a closet along the back wall, rummaged inside it, then turned with another letter in her hand. She handed it to Butch.

Butch took the letter from her. "Gracias." he said. He in turn handed the letter to Blossom. She tore it open and began to read it.

"Dear Powerpuff Girls:

If you hold this letter, then you have put the first, yet the easiest, part of your long journey behind you. From this very room, you will go southeast to Ciudad Blanca, a city in the Chuquisaca region. The only way to get there from where you are now is by bus or train. You decide. There, you will go into the Museo Antropologico. You will find the next clue under the mummy.

Ahhh, but the first clue! Well, here it is. It is a riddle actually, a riddle that I will give you pieces to as you go. The first part is this:

'I am grand, I am tall...and I can see for miles. I watched as mankind destroyed all that was here, and I will wait until he repeats his actions, for all that lay before me is mine!'

Go to Ciudad Blanca, now!"

"What the heck does THAT mean?" Brick demanded.

"That's the point. We don't have enough of it to figure it out yet." Buttercup answered.

Blossom turned the letter over to see a hand-drawn map showing Ciudad Blanca's location. "Well, it definitely shows the city southeast of here. It's towards the middle of the country."

Brick pulled a roll of papers out of his back pocket. "I brought some of those papers Professor Utonium put in the box. Will these help?" he asked.

Blossom paged through the papers. There were several on cities within Bolivia with information on the climate, brief histories, tourist attractions, and travel routes, but none listed a Ciudad Blanca. She studied several of the maps included with the travel routes, yet none of them showed a city named Ciudad Blanca.

"Nope, no Ciudad Blanca here," she stated.

The woman who had handed them the letter perked up at the mention of the city's name. " Ciudad Blanca?" she asked. " Se dice Ciudad Blanca?" She snickered.

" Qué?" Butch asked her.

"La Ciudad Blanca tiene muchos nombres," she informed him. "Se llama La Ciudad de Cuatro Nombres. Se llama también La Plata, Charcas, Ciudad Blanca, y Sucre."

"She says Ciudad Blanca has four different names, that's just one of them." Butch stated. "It's also called La Plata, Charcas, and Sucre. Sound like Mojo's playing games with us."

Blossom rapidly went through the papers again. This time, she found one that listed Sucre.

"Ah-ha! Got it!" she exclaimed. "It was founded as La Plata by Pedro de Anzures, Marques de Campo Redondo, in 1538, mostly due to mining activities. Says here it was renamed Sucre after somebody named Mariscal Antonio Jose de Sucre who fought for Bolivia's independence from Spain along with Simon Bolivar."

"Guess we're on track, anyway." Buttercup said.

Blossom looked around the store, then at Butch. "Ask her where the nearest bus station is."