The second floor proved to be less helpful than the first. Sure, it contained a variety of interesting information, but nothing of immediate use. I doubted I would find anything useful in the architecture, alchemy, or plant sections. So I moved on to the third floor.
What I realised upon entering was that this was my last chance. There were no other floors, so if I didn't find anything useful, then that was it. Fortunately, this did not seem to be a problem as the first section I entered was labeled ‘The Divine’. What caught my attention was the amount of books marked red. It seemed like this section contained a lot of heretical information, which meant more books that I could take without a bad conscience.
I ignored the unmarked books and just looked at the titles of the marked ones. Many of them appeared to be retellings of various stories involving the gods. All of them sounded interesting but were too specific for me to matter. A thick book caught my eye for its dry title: “Gods and Facts: The First Part of Nalta’s Encyclopaedia of Gods”. It took me a while to fully understand the title, but when I did, I was excited. Maybe this would help me understand Noctus better. The fact that there was a large x drawn on its cover only made me more excited.
The first page contained a summary. There was a huge section of the book dedicated to the Pantheon of Order and the Pantheon of Chaos. A much smaller section was reserved for gods that weren’t associated with any pantheon. I sighed as I noted a severe lack of Noctus. With no real objective, I quickly browsed through the independent gods. The Goddess of Love, the God of the Ocean, the God of Knowledge-, wait was that an eye?
I immediately flipped back, and sure enough, a drawn eye was staring back at me. But not just any eye, no, I recognised it. How could I not when a very similar eye haunted all my dreams? Not just similar, basically identical. The shape, the length, the ornaments - everything was the same except for the fact that this eye wasn’t bleeding. This couldn’t be a coincidence. I read the title of the page out loud:
“Unknown, God of Knowledge.”
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Lilith leaned against the wall of the library while humming to herself. It was a song that her mother had always sung to her when she was little. The lyrics were long forgotten, but the tune of the melody had always stuck with her. It was haunting yet also strangely beautiful.
Lilith hadn’t just stayed outside out of convenience. Libraries made her feel weird. Being in any important building outside of a mission made her feel uncomfortable. The feeling of not belonging, of not being welcome, always permeated the air. Maybe it would have been more interesting inside but she was comfortable just staying outside and waiting. The walls shielded her from any onlookers, so the only way to spot her was from a rooftop. And honestly, who the hell would be on a rooftop at this time of day?
Suddenly, a figure hit the ground in front of her. Lilith’s throwing knife materialised in her hand and would have gone straight into the would-be rogue’s head if she hadn’t noticed the guild emblem at the last second. The figure rose and pulled their hood down, revealing the frowning face of the junior assassin, Alwyn. Lilith dropped her hand but kept the knife drawn
“What are you doing in my sector, Lilith?” asked Alwyn. His face was as open as a book, making it obvious that he wasn’t happy.
“First of all, it’s senior assassin Lilith to you,” she snapped back. Internally, her thoughts were racing. The assignment of capturing Vindict had been so important that every assassin, regardless of rank, had been given a section of the city to oversee.
Lilith was aware that this part was under Alwyn's jurisdiction, which was actually the reason why she had risked coming here with Vindict. If she had to rank everyone in the guild by how good of an assassin they were, Alwyn would be somewhere near the bottom of the list. He had only recently joined the Desert Vipers and his work ethic left something to be desired. Lilith ignored the irony of her pointing this out.
The fact that he had been attentive enough to spot her showed that she had underestimated him. Which begged the question, how much had he seen?
With gritted teeth, he performed a stiff bow. “I’m sorry for my disrespect. I would only like to know why you have left your sector, senior assassin Lilith? The Guild Master was quite clear about our assignment.” He didn't mention Vindict, which hopefully meant that he hadn’t seen him. She could talk her way out of this situation.
“What I am doing here is none of your business,” Lilith stated arrogantly. “Nonetheless, it is impressive that you spotted me. To ease your mind, I am on a direct mission from the Guild Master. My sector is currently covered by someone else.” This answer showed the rank disparity between them, while still stroking his ego and giving him peace of mind.
It certainly seemed to mollify him, as his posture relaxed and he took on a more casual stance. His eyes drifted towards the door behind her. “A mission involving the library?” Alwyn questioned. Lilith’s glare told him he wasn't going to get any more answers out of her. “I will have to speak with the Guild Master about this. It's not that I’m doubting you, senior assassin, I just want to be sure.”
Lilith raised an eyebrow. “Sure, go right ahead. Why don’t you also tell him that you don’t respect your seniors and question his leadership?”
Alwyn bristled at her comment and turned to leave. With a quick jump and grab, he climbed over the wall and disappeared into the night. Lilith waited a couple of seconds before scanning the rooftops for more onlookers. Then, just to be on the safe side, she also climbed over the wall to do a perimeter check. When that turned up nothing, she was finally certain that the other assassin had really left. Internally she was cursing. She had become too complacent during her time in Seran and this could have been the end for her. Only luck had saved her from being revealed as a guild traitor.
She could still get into trouble if Alwyn reported her to the Guild Master, but the damage caused by that would be manageable. It would show that she wasn’t taking her job seriously, which wasn’t a surprise to anyone. Lilith glanced at the door. Still, it would probably be better if they left as soon as possible.
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“The God of Knowledge is often alluded to in ancient texts about humanity. He is mostly associated with the Traitor King, another prominent figure regarding humanity from that era. However, just like the Traitor King, after the Great Renewal mentions of him became less frequent until he faded into obscurity, not even leaving his name behind. We do not know what happened during the Great Renewal but it marked the end of worship for multiple gods.
The depiction of the God of Knowledge changes depending on what scripture one reads but he is generally shown in a male human form. Various mutations sometimes appear on his body, for example, extra arms or eyes. Symbols that are often associated with him are books and eyes. Other less common symbols are a brain, a scalpel, and a syringe.
There does not seem to have been an organisation with the specific focus of worshiping him. However, there are several mentions of a group called Fili Ocul, which roughly translates to Children of Vision or Children of the Eye. Records of them stopped after the Great Renewal. This group did not appear to directly worship the God of Knowledge but still lived according to his ideology. Their emblem consisted of a bleeding eye and-“
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I closed the book. A bleeding eye… That couldn’t be a coincidence. The author stated that there was no mention of Fili Ocul in any documents after the Great Renewal, which seemed to have happened thousands of years ago. He speculated that after the events of the Great Renewal the organisation dispersed, leaving no foundation for the worship of the god.
But I knew better. Somehow the Children of the Eye, or whatever other name they had, were still around, buying children and performing experiments on them. Horrible experiments if my visions and Sarvad were to be believed.
This was another book I was definitely taking. The inside of my cloak already felt heavy from the other two books. Maybe that was a sign to stop and leave. But no, there was still so much information to find! So much knowledge- I cut myself off. The word ‘knowledge’ wasn’t so pleasant anymore. I decided to take a quick peek at the other sections before leaving.
“Stories of Old.” I sighed as I stood before the last section of the library. In the end, I hadn’t found anything else that had piqued my interest. This section was probably not for me. Why would I need stories from ancient times when I didn’t know anything about current times? I turned to leave but stopped when a tingling swept through my scaled arm. A quick look showed that it was shaking. Was the demon rearing its head again?”
“Negative,” answered Adam to my question. “No attempts have been made to breach mental defences.” That was strange.
I took a step away from the section and the tingling lessened. A step closer strengthened it. Was the demon trying to show me something? When I first encountered the being in the mindscape, it seemed like a wild animal. Recent events had made me begun to question this. The not-angel had looked like it could understand me. Even Noctus, a literal god, had directly talked to it. How smart was a demon?
I had to come to terms with the fact that I knew nothing about it or demons in general. Nothing I had found discussed demons. There were several mentions of them but those usually just said that they were pure evil. Maybe that was true but I had the feeling that the author never actually met a demon.
Adam’s presence severely lessened my fear of the demon taking over, which meant that this could be an opportunity to learn more about it. From my experiences, it seemed like the demon could only affect the physical world through me, so what was the risk in listening to my claw for once?
I stepped in between the bookcases and lifted my arm. When I pointed it to the left the tingling got stronger. Moving one talon across the spines of the books I tried to get a read on what the demon was trying to tell me. My talon moved up and down until it finally stopped on one book. It felt like hundreds of bugs were crawling up my arm. Pulling it out showed that it was fairly thin in comparison to other books I had seen. It was also old if the yellow stains were any indication. Unlike the other ones I had taken, this one wasn’t marked.
“Tales of Heroes and Demons” I read the title out loud. Most books only had their title on the cover but this one had an actual picture. It showed a sword-wielding human, valiantly facing a hoard of wild-looking black-scaled creatures. The aforementioned hero and demons I presumed. Why was my demon trying to show me this? The book certainly looked like it contained demons but I doubted that they were shown as anything other than monsters. “Found anything interesting?” I flinched at Lilith’s sudden voice. She was standing right behind me, looking over my shoulder.
“Don’t scare me like that! Sneaking up behind someone shouldn’t be allowed, especially for a blessed of Noctus.” She chuckled and motioned towards the book. “Are you interested in this book? Didn’t pick you for someone who liked the classical hero versus evil stories.”
“Oh, I’m just browsing,” I offhandedly answered. “What about you, what stories do you like?”
Lilith dramatically sighed, “Alas, I have not the time to read for my own entertainment.”
“What do you do instead? From how you act I didn’t think that you are invested in the work you do for the Desert Vipers. But anyway, then what do you imagine is your favourite type of story?” I was genuinely curious about getting to know my new companion more but it seemed like this question flustered her. “Well, eh, you know, the usual?”
“What is the usual for humans?” Lilith stared at me for a moment before averting her eyes. “So, there is this… physical act between people that- you know what?” She interrupted herself. “You will find out about it when you’re older. Right now we have something else to deal with.” I was annoyed at her non-answer but let it slide. For now.
Lilith told me what happened outside of the library and we quickly made our way downstairs. “Be honest, in how much trouble are we?” I asked as we moved from the second to the first floor. “Don’t worry, we are fine!” Lilith answered while sliding backward down the rails. I was a bit jealous of her manoeuvrability which was denied to me because of my claw.
“The guild master will just rebuke me a bit and then never bring it up again. Trust me, I am way too important for him to do anything shad- uf.” Talking while sliding apparently wasn’t the smartest idea, something that her butt could now attest to. Luckily, she was fine and just stood back up with a laugh. We reached the first floor and jogged towards the worker's entrance.
“That’s nice to hear. Do you-“ Only my reflexes saved me from colliding with the human that had suddenly appeared in the doorway. Instead, I slid to a stop mere nose-lengths in front of him. He stared at me with wide eyes and I stared back. On his shirt there was a name tag identifying him as “Bob”, the same employee that I had seen sleeping in the work room. He was the first to break the silence.
“Am… am I sleeping?” From his drowsy voice, that possibility wasn’t so farfetched. “No, but you look like you deserve more sleep,” I answered honestly. “Me and my friend here were just about to leave and it’s still dark outside, so you could probably catch a couple hours of good rest.” Bob numbly stared at me. “You know, that doesn’t sound too bad,” he finally muttered. “I don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit.”
It was obvious that he barely had the energy to stand, so I threw his arm over my shoulder to support him. Lilith wordlessly did the same with his other arm and together we moved him to a rest area that was in the back of the library. We wordlessly left the sleeping Bob to recover and only spoke again once we entered the work room.
“That was… just wow,” Lilith stated. “How did you do that?” I cluelessly looked at her. “Do what?”
“That! I mean, I was so close to simply knocking the guy unconscious but then you stepped in and just handled it like a pro!” Lilith, for some unknown reason, seemed baffled, which confused me even more. “Ok, so first off, knocking him unconscious would have been extremely rude. He was just there to do his job. Secondly, what do you mean by problem? The guy was just tired so I gave him some advice, like any nice person should do. What’s so impressive?” She was silent for a moment before muttering under her breath, “You’re better than I thought.”
When we reached the door, Lilith went first to check that we were still alone. When she was sure that there were no hidden onlookers, she motioned for me to follow. A quick climb later and we were back on the street. The return trip went surprisingly smoothly, since most people had already dispersed. When we made it back to the hideout without any incident, we collectively breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, that went better than expected,” Lilith proclaimed, as we entered the empty hideout. She followed this up by loudly yawning. “Time for me to get some shuteye. The Desert Vipers have a meeting tomorrow morning. Wish I could just skip it but my status does have its limits.” I motioned for her to lie down. Emptying my pockets, I placed the three books I had taken on the table. “Good night. If it doesn’t bother you, I will read a bit before going to sleep.” Lilith gave me a thumbs-up before throwing herself onto my makeshift hay bed.
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Unbeknownst to us, a set of eyes had watched us enter the hideout. “Well, I’ll be dammed,” muttered Amarum as he retreated from the rooftop edge. He dusted himself off and turned to Alwyn, who was obediently waiting for him on the other side. “It was good of you to inform me,” commended the Guild Elder. His underling respectfully bowed. “I immediately knew that there was something off about the wench.”
Amarum nodded along. He had disliked Lilith from the moment she had appeared. She was a lazy assassin who had been temporarily thrown out of Noctus’ Dream for disobeying orders. Her attitude had immediately rubbed him the wrong way and the treatment that the Guild Master gave her also didn’t help. She acted like she was better than them, something that Guild Master Wane didn’t dispute. He even invited her to guild meetings, showing to the entire guild that he put her equal to its best members.
Surprisingly, there was more behind Lilith’s lazy facade. “What are your commands?” Alwyn excitedly asked. Lilith wasn’t very popular amongst the other guild members, since all hoped to take her down a peg.
“First, we need to report this to the Guild Master.” As much as Amarum wanted to take down Lilith on his own, he knew that a Shadow Hand was too far out of his league. Especially, if she was supported by other members of her order. They had only seen two but who knows how many members were in Seran. He had thought of Lilith as nothing more than an entitled brat. Never in his dreams had he expected her to be a front for Noctus’ Dream to infiltrate the Desert Viper’s territory.