"I see that you had your first visit to the outside, what did you think?"
"It was beautiful, I can't wait to get out there and see it all."
"Fantastic, I will have a task for you once you are done with your rogue training, so be ready."
"Ready how?"
"Huh? Oh, ha, I understand, I mean be ready for my task, I will give you the details once you are completed with your training and ready to stay outside of the city for some time, so you may wish to run a few more tasks for the leader of The Hall."
"For Big Green? Like to stock up on some stuff?"
"Precisely, your task will take you outside of the city for some time, and I see that you made a new friend, that is good, his help will be needed, I do suggest trying to find at least one more companion to aid you on your journey."
"Good to know."
"I have since the starts of… anomalies out in the wilds, I suspect that they are only the first of many to come."
"Well, you did say that I would be busy once things got going."
"Yes, that I did, but I didn't think that it would be starting so soon after your arrival."
"When were you expecting it to start?"
"It started with you, but the backlash that you brought, I was expecting to be a few more weeks out."
"Well fun…"
"Fun? I don't think that that is the right word for this situation…"
"Oh, it's not, and that’s the point, was being sarcastic."
"Ah, I understand now, but I do still hope you do get some thrill out of it all, it would be disappointing if you did not."
"Any help that you can provide on this end besides information?"
"At this point, no, not really, and the information I have is very limited until you get to one of the anomalies. That will be enough for tonight, rest well."
The darkness of sleep enveloped Davin once again, awakening slowly in his room. Reflecting on the day before got him excited, he was ready for adventure, and he couldn't wait to see what this afterlife truly held for him. As Gale had said, the hallway was variedly different than it was in his previous attempts, as if it was all easier, till the end that is, the last door was locked, with a far more complicated set of locks than it had any right to be. His understanding of the locks and tools was growing, but Davin couldn’t help but wonder what his world was going to bring, being mildly glad he knew how to pick locks from his previous life, he would need to get a proper set of lockpicks for those if it became a problem. Jes was happy to see him or at least based on her facial expression, she was, the smile she had lit up like the sun for Davin, her small fangs at the edges of her lips reminded him that there was still much more to learn about her.
"Okay so, now that I know what I want to focus in, how do I improve it?" Davin asked.
"Well, a lot of it is just practice, since you have such a liking for the skills as a whole, I think you should get the boost before the end of the day easily," Jes said with pride, but her mood dropped as what she said fully sunk in. "And then you should easily be able to start your adventuring career."
Davin had mixed emotions, and they all hit him all at once, the want to explore and adventure and then on the other hand, he had Jes, and she was amazing, but she knew what he wanted to do, and with the conversation that they had, she'd be willing to join him on one some of his future adventures. "Oh I don't plan on hopping in right away, I aim to do a few more in the city quests to try and get a little starting capital, the last thing I want to do is dive in and not have looked." He smiled at Jes, "Plus, I still need to learn what I can before I head out. Is there some sort of archive of the creatures that dwell in the wilds?"
Jes stood there for a moment in a kind of shock, "Oh, yes there is in 'The Collection', but I'm surprised you're willing to look into it all ahead of time."
"I like to be prepared, and I also want to have a baseline for myself," Davin stated confidently.
Jes nodded in agreement, "I can take you there, easily enough, might join you for a bit too, I haven't been in quite some time."
"What is 'The Collection' anyway? Gale mentioned it once when I was talking about parkour, and he said not to worry about it." Daven asked.
"Well, it is a hard thing to describe, since most don’t have anything like it in their worlds, some do and they go by many names, but the basic idea is that it is what its name states, a collection when you come here, you bring with you everything that you know with you. This knowledge is gathered and sorted in one place, usually in the form of books, but some of the information is held in a living image of the events." Jes talked through the description as if having repeated it many times.
"Oh, that sounds exactly like a library. Can you take the items out of the collection?" Davin asked curiously.
"No, the items can only exist in the collection, they break down back into the magic that constructed them and then the information is lost. So as a result, no one is allowed to take anything from the collection." A stern edge to her voice emphasizes the point.
"Good to know, but still sounds like it's worth checking out." The excitement edged into his voice.
Davin's training was slow, with his focus being on insight and investigation, two skills that Davin could admit that working alone wasn't the best option. After seeing his frustration, Jes offered that he took a break and that they could make an early day of it and check out 'The Collection'. This trip into the city didn't have the same shock factor that his last few visits did, but the city still didn’t disappoint him, the ever-shifting city was always a sight to see, especially with their destination being a new one for him. Below the central tower, several floors down, in the true depths of the city, lies the collection, no one knows the exact details of its creation, many of the details change based on who you talk to, but all agree that it was put there by one of the patrons.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Upon seeing the entrance to 'The Collection' Davin couldn’t help but see the skull of a massive creature, either being architecture, artistic flare, or truly the skull of some unknown titan, it sent a chill down Davin's spine, trying to not linger on his own macabre thoughts.
"That looks inviting…" Davin mumbled under his breath as they continued their walk towards it.
"Hmmm? Oh, yeah, I had the same reaction on my first time seeing it too, people joke that it is an actual skull and the reason things disappear if they leave is because it's all just a collection of thoughts." Jes's tone was more upbeat than Davin felt the situation warranted.
"I doubt that this will be the worst of the things that I see here, so might as well just start excepting them now." Shrugging his shoulders deeply.
"It gets much worse." Jes shivered in memory of something, but luckily, you have the time to get adjusted to it all."
"What's a little trauma between friends?" chuckling lightly at his joke.
As they reached the threshold, Jes held out a hand, stopping Davin from entering, she approached the opening alone, placing her hand on the opening, at which point the invisible surface began to glow, what Davin had assumed to be just an open space was in all actuality protected by some form of barrier. As the glow faded, Davin could see in, and the concentration of books from just the first few feet blew his mind, at a basic glance, he couldn’t see any structure, as if it was all constructed of stacked books.
"Come on in, it's safe now," Jes stated.
"Now? Was it dangerous? How dangerous was it?" Davin asked in a panic.
"I don’t know the exact details, but I know it is safer now." Shrugged her response.
His jaw fell open slightly, "Is this a patron kind of a thing?" Asking his question while he entered the hall seemingly made of books.
"Hmmm, yes, I suppose it is, my patron controls access to these grounds, as a result, we are also its stewards. As information is found, we collect it and add it to 'The Collection'." Nodding along to an unheard rhythm as she spoke.
"Is there a bounty on new information?" His curiosity peeked.
"Yes, to a point, the more significant the information, the better the compensation, but that only counts for new information. Oh, that reminds me." She pulled out a small pouch, "Thank you for your patronage."
Davin held out his hand for the pouch noticing it had a rather substantial amount of tokens in it. "What is this for?" Confusion was clear in his tone.
"For the information, you've shared with me about your world, and if you want to share more here you can get it directly without me taking a finder's fee." She smiled mischievously.
Davin's blood ran a little cold at that. "Wait, you’ve been using me?"
"Directly, no, indirectly, yes." Jes blushed as she said this, clearly ashamed of it.
"What does that mean?" Davin's tone took a harsher edge.
Jes stood straight up and looked Davin in the eye. "I didn’t seek to gather this information for my own gains, it is collected from me in my sleep, and I cannot talk about the bounty until you were inside, and thus I could give you your bounty. You also will not be able to talk about it outside of here."
Davin blinked as he processed the information that Jes just gave him. "You couldn’t have told me this before coming into 'the Collection'?
"No, not in any way, similarly to how our memories are dulled, the subject fades I just know that I'm supposed to come down here at regular intervals to collect my compensation, and now that you know about it, so can you, but your information will have to be given to me to be added, or we can come down together and you can collect a larger cut, but any in my patrons protégés would be able to aid you in that." Jes took a step back and slouched a little as she said that, as if what she said hurt her.
Davin nodded along, knowing now more than before that Jes wouldn't do anything to hurt him. "Hmm, okay, that is a weird setup, but I think I get it, but it sounds like a good deal to me."
Jes lead him through 'The Collection', seeing every kind of record that Davin could ever imagine, scrolls, stone tablets, numerous books, and some devices he could never identify alone. The table that she led him to was small, similar to a café table, only big enough for two to sit at, a strange stone idol sat in the middle of the table. The two of them sat while Davin finished pulling himself together.
"So how do I find what I'm looking for? I didn't see a librarian or a card catalog and I'm guessing it's too soon to ask for anything digitally…" Picking up the carved stone idol.
"You’ve got the librarian right in your hands, just have to concentrate on what you want from it, and it will bring it to you, if what you're looking for is too general, it will start to glow, and guide you to the area that you need to be in. just be warned that some of the information is considered secrets, and you won't be able to get those, it idol will shake if that is what you look for." She tapped on the idol in Davin's hands.
Shrugging he thought about what he wanted to know, monsters surrounding the area just outside of Edges Rest. Admittedly the process felt weird to Davin, like trying to google search without an interface, maybe more akin to talking to a digital assistant. Since he didn’t feel any shaking and didn’t see any glow, he was guessing that his books would be on their way. After what felt like an age, he saw them, a few small tomes that snaked through the air moving rather quickly, which made him question the size of this place… the books dropped down in front of him with a soft thud. Upon opening the first, he realized that the tomes were dense, as if the information was compressed, flipping the first page he saw the truth, or he would have if he'd actually seen it.
The darkness that had engulfed him had begun to fade, feeling like he was sleeping, or more specifically that feeling right as you notice that you're in a dream. The world around him came back into focus, and if he hadn't been there himself the location that he was in would just be some random place, but it was Edges Rest, devoid of people, but it was edges rest. He stepped further into the enclave, and as he did he felt a shift he looked behind him to see Jes as well as the idol, but now the idol was the same height as he was.
"So, what do you think?" she asked a wide smile on her lips.
"Holy shit, what on earth happened?" Standing and not moving as he let his mind catch up once again.
"What? Are you okay? The act can be a little disorienting. Just give it a moment, but to answer the parts of your question that I understand, we are inside the book, and this is Edges Rest. Weirdly specific, or have you been before?"
The flood of words from Jes finally knocked him back in, and he processed it all. "Did we teleport? Where is everyone?"
The confused expression that she held and her tone made things clearer. "Oh, no, we are in the book, or more specifically we are in the most recent memory of this location, some of it is compiled and since you’ve been here before, you're also contributing to the shape of it all, as to the last, there isn't anyone here, this is just a memory. I'm guessing one of your books is about Edges Rest?"
Nodding in agreement, "Yeah, wanted to see what was close by and if there were any monsters I need to worry about."
"Then let's get exploring" She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the Idol, "We come back here when we're ready.
Davin lost any sense of time in this space, exploring this contained version of Edges Rest, feeling like some kind of strange voyeur, but since there were no people, it had that uncomfortable eerie feel to it all. The edges of the contained world that they were in only barely extended past the fence line, seeing as this book didn't hold anything that he was looking for, the two of them returned, the sensation of stepping out of the book was a far worse experience than he was expecting. The dizzying backlash made him almost lose his lunch.
"That is brutal." Taking deep breaths as he focused on getting his stomach to calm down.
"The first one is by far the roughest."
When Davin opened his eyes once again a single pop-up window blocked his view.
[Would you like to assign Investigation as one of your expertise?]
[YES] [NO]