Aya sighed over the dusty documents before her, blowing yet another cloud of aged particles into the air. The work was slow and tedious, the first scroll in particular, which had taken over an hour to transcribe. Finding and assembling of the lost pieces had taken longer than the actual copying. In the end, she still hadn’t managed to fill in all of the holes; she completed where she could with charcoal and left the rest blank. It had been such a major undertaking that her head hurt just thinking about repeating the process.
She knew there were many scrolls in much worse condition, but she chose one of the better scrolls, needing a reprieve from the mental strain. As she copied the map of an unknown dungeon she almost felt guilty, but when she had the task done in less than five minutes, she realized that she could use the better-quality scrolls to practice on before tackling the badly-decayed ones.
She worked tirelessly, scroll after scroll, and slowly realized that most of the maps she copied displayed portions of the surrounding region. Aya immediately took out her notebook, making her own hurried and less elaborate copies of the maps. Knowing the librarian wouldn’t approve, she made sure to hide it every time she wasn’t using it, placing it carefully out of view of the door. She had no idea if and when the man was planning on coming back.
Eventually, she cared less about the quality and more about the content, choosing the regions and maps that looked more interesting. As she continued her work, she noticed that her precision stat was still rising and after over a hundred scrolls a window popped up.
Scribe: Writing and drawing system assist.
Automatic conversion from thought to writing and drawing.
Conversion Speed: Very Slow
Duration: 30 seconds
Cool-down: 5 minutes
Chris jerked in unexpected astonishment when she realized that something as monotonous and academic as copying scrolls was capable of generating a skill. Unsure of how it worked, Aya wanted to browse the forums but she didn’t want to be caught idling, nor waste the opportunity to get her hands on as many maps as possible. Instead, she decided to take a more hands-on approach and used one of the copies she had created to try out her new skill. She would rather ruin a page of her notebook than one of the library’s prized documents.
She activated the skill and a small countdown appeared in the top right of her field of vision. After looking at the Rimdar Mine maps, which she had already transcribed to a new copy, she turned to a blank page in her notebook. As she thought about how she wanted the lines to appear, a gray sketch of what she was thinking appeared on the page. Amazed, she brought her quill closer to the page and as soon as the quill touched the paper, the countdown started and her hand began moving almost of its own accord, drawing out the lines in her mind, turning gray into reality in less than a minute.
It took her twenty-eight seconds to draw out the entirety of the Rimdar Mine. The first copy had taken her over five minutes. She blinked in astonishment and added a couple notes from other maps to use up the last two seconds. Aya waited for the five minute countdown and used the skill as much as she could, quickly leveling it up as her work progressed.
Skill wasn’t the only thing she gained. As the hours went by she gained a thorough understanding of the area, letting her put the places she had been on a map. She hadn’t seen anything yet. Donovan was right, she would have to get considerably stronger before she could even think about moving out of the region.
Some of the maps detailed living flora and fauna and she didn’t pass up the opportunity to write them down, along with their strengths and levels that were often included. She knew they would be useful to her in the long run, even if the high-level areas were out of reach for the foreseeable future. Aya also learned other interesting tidbits of information, such as various uses for different types of herbs and tree bark.
She was so carried away on deciphering an almost-illegible note on the poisonous properties of Alet bark, a very common tree in the region, that when a sudden gust of fresh air suddenly invaded the room. Aya gasped, breathing in the cool air as she wiped away a sheet of sweat she hadn’t even noticed until then.
The librarian raised a brow at her reaction to his entrance.
“Sorry,” she said. “You just… surprised me, is all.”
The corner corner of his mouth twitched, but he said nothing as his eyes surveyed the desk. A slight frown began to develop on his brows, but when he looked at the shelves behind Aya his eyes widened perceptibly, erasing any trace of hostility.
Aya turned to look at the shelf behind her. She had randomly chosen it to store all of the scrolls she had handled, new and old. She had barely made a dent in the total documents of the room, but she had manage to clear out the entirety of the stack on the table before moving on to random selections of the shelves. Suddenly she wondered if the task had only included the scrolls on the table.
Before she could worry, the librarian said in the same baritone voice, “It is time for you to take a break.” He stepped aside and motioned for her to follow him before adding, “You can continue after you have a drink of water and a bite to eat. Your pet also looks like he could use a drink.”
Aya frowned before she remembered Henry, who was still tied around her forearm. She had gotten so used to him that she barely noticed his unpecking presence, especially when she was immersed with drawing. As she fell into step behind the librarian, passing rows and rows of books, she noticed how the man was very correct in his analysis of Henry. He looked dead.
His black eyes were glazed over into a matte black, their usual eerie shine gone. His black feathers were covered with decayed paper bits and parchment dust. Most of all, his beak was open and his unexpectedly short tongue stuck out in obvious dryness. He obviously needed water, but part of her just wanted to let him suffer. Unfortunately, she couldn’t let him die unless she wanted to sacrifice herself as well.
As she focused on the sensation of her right arm, she felt a dull throbbing ache that stretched out from Henry’s point of contact with her skin. She tried massaging the pain out with the use of her left hand as she walked behind the librarian, but the pressure only made her even more aware of the pain. Aya cringed, wondering how far the man was going to take her. Henry was unconscious but she was quite sure she was being poisoned, albeit slowly.
Her health was still full, but as she watched her bar closely, she realized that every now and then, it would fall by a point before jumping back up a couple of seconds later. Her body was still keeping up with the rate of poisoning but she did not know how long it could last. She had no water left. The man’s slow gait harmonized with the silence of the library. Aya opened her mouth to ask the man about water, but the glares directed at her by a pair of librarians they passed rendered her silent. She didn’t know what it might do to her reputation with the man, but more importantly, she didn’t know what it would do to her future as a scroll transcriber.
Deciding not to chance anything, she tightened her jaw and decided to wait it out. The seconds crawled by as she waited. She tried to suppress her unease but when a minute that felt like an hour went by, she noticed that her health had finally begun to lose the slow battle to the poison. She could feel her heart beat inside her rib-cage and a drop of sweat that rolled down the nape of her neck, causing cold shivers to spread down her spine. The pain in her arm was spreading noticeably but bookshelf upon bookshelf were still the only things in sight.
Aya really didn’t want to interrupt the silence of the library to urge the man to walk faster. Instead, she simply took out the only liquid she had in her possession, copious amounts of mob-blood. She carefully dampened one of the cloth straps she had devised from looted items like soiled bandannas. Making a bloody mess would probably not impress the librarian, so she slowly moved to feed Henry. At first Henry didn’t respond to her light dabbing, but his eyes eventually moved with slow sluggishness until his dry tongue and beak suddenly latched onto the wet cloth like a vise.
His body tightened around her arm as he quickly sucked the blood off the cloth. Aya quickly moistened it again before returning it to his reach. She repeated the process while mindlessly following the librarian’s steps.
“What are you doing?” his deep voice suddenly asked from behind her.
She swiveled around, surprised at how the man she was following had crept up on her.
“… N-nothing,” she replied, casually returning the waterskin to her back and the rag to the pouch at her waist. “Just a little… parched is all.”
The man eyed her flatly but didn’t comment. Instead he merely jerked his head to the side, indicating a door that she hadn’t even noticed. Aya lowered her head in an apologetic pose before following him in. The room was just as brightly lit as the rest of the library, with rays of light filtering into the space but it was missing the motes of dust suspended in the sunbeams. She took a deep breath, enjoying the warm smell of freshly-baked bread, which contrasted greatly with the smell of old books she had been experiencing for the last couple of hours.
The room looked like a mess hall, with four long wooden tables dividing the room up into quarters. The librarian directed her to the emptiest one. One of the librarians at her table glared at her in distaste before returning his attention to the simple meal before him. Aya’s own librarian, on the other hand, nodded to a man on another table who stood up and left the room through another door. After Aya sat down uncomfortably at the spartan table, he followed suit, sitting across from her.
They eyed each other and the silence between them lengthened while other conversations buzzed around them. Aya was painfully aware of the reviving chicken wrapped around her forearm. Henry was making his presence known with strange sounds that gurgled out of him like a disease.
“Eat,” the librarian said simply when two plates arrived, almost out of thin air. By the time Aya looked at the robed man who had dropped off the food, he was already retreating back to his own table.
The fierce man before her didn’t make any further comments before biting into the piece of bread that had been brought to him. Aya looked around uncertainly, still painfully aware of both Henry and her health bar. Fortunately, her health had finally stabilized herself enough for her panic to subside and the chicken was slowly returning to normal.
She tore into the meal like a starving animal. Aya hadn’t eaten anything that tasted as good as the bread, cheese and dried fruit brought to her in days, not in Era or real life. She’d forgotten one of the most important basic pleasures of life and vowed to pay more attention to any culinary uses of the herbs in the region. Until then, food had become merely an item on a list of things needed to survive.
Minutes later, a tall and bulky robed man walked in from the entrance Aya and the librarian had used. He walked in calm. measured steps like every other robed individual in the library and made his way to the librarian’s side.
“Senior Aizan,” the bulky man mumbled as he bent his head in acknowledgment of the librarian’s rank.
“Junior Ta,” the librarian replied, never looking away from the steaming cup of tea in his hands.
The bulky man leaned down and whispered silently to Aizan for a minute or so before leaving. He never looked in Aya’s direction and she never heard a syllable of what was said. Her own librarian, Aizan, gave nothing away. His face remained as stoic as ever, with eyes closed, a firm posture and even breath. He looked like he was meditating. Aya looked around as the mess hall slowly cleared out, until they were the only ones left.
Henry had long since reverted to his old behavior and she no longer feared for his life. Aya felt a little bad for not waiting out on the blood feeding and tried to offer him some of her water but he wouldn’t take any. She soon gave up when Aizan suddenly spoke up.
“Your work has been approved, you may return.”
Aya sat there, frozen to the bench, caught off guard by the man’s simple statement. She didn’t know if she should get up and leave or wait for him to escort her back. Aizan didn’t let her wonder for too long.
“Go,” he said. “Leave.”
She bolted up, stumbling over the bench as she climbed over it. Without his guidance, she was a bit disoriented but she quickly made her way to the door when she spotted it. As her hand touched the handle, Aizan spoke up again.
“A meal will be provided to you every twelve hours,” he gave her one of his fierce looks. “A junior will notify you. In return, I ask that you refrain from eating or drinking in the vicinity of my books. If I see any more of that… drink of yours around my books, I will triple your sentence and make sure you never see the inside of a library again.”
She nodded stiffly and turned back to the door.
“Oh,” he added, forcing Aya to return her attention to him. “I know I don’t have to tell you this, but you know that all of the documents you are working on are of the utmost confidentiality.”
Aya nodded calmly.
“Good,” he said. “Then I don’t have to remind you of what would happen if any of the information got out.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his steely eyes before he closed them and effectively dismissed her.
Her throat constricted, and her limbs froze but her fingers immediately tightened around the door-handle to pull it open. Stepping into the long corridor that led the way back to her tight and dusty room. She quickly pulled the door behind her, and hurried her steps to the left, in the direction they had come from, hoping that she would eventually be able to find the room again.
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The notebook in her pocket burned like an incriminating brand, but she kept a calm outer appearance on her way back. Henry on the other hand, was not calm at all when he came back into himself and she focused on binding and silencing him until she got back into her small room.
The table was as she had left it, but all of the documents she had already transcribed were gone along with their original copies. Aya nodded to herself, appreciating the extra space the missing scrolls gave her. Without further thought she found a scroll about one of the relatively low-level dungeons in the vicinity and took it to the table. She sat down carefully, paying more attention on how she placed her right arm with its extra living appendage. He had been less of an inconvenience on the edge of death, but unfortunately their fates were tied.
Glancing to the door behind her to the left she realized she had been walking a very fine line by taking her own copies of all the documents. From what Aizan had said, and not said, she knew that she would gain a much closer acquaintance with Durrenheim’s prison cells. She sighed, pursed her lips, decided she shouldn’t take anymore chances and took her notebook out.
Four hours later, Aya’s quill was still flying across the paper as she tried to get through as many documents as she could. Her scribe skill grew and allowed her speed to go from “Very Slow” to “Quite Slow”. She was quite pleased with the growth, as it allowed her to get more ink down during the thirty seconds of her skill. Unfortunately, the duration didn’t go up and the cool-down didn’t go down.
The hours took such a toll on her neck and hand muscles that she had to add stretches into her transcription routine. Every time she got up to pick out another scroll, she would take a couple seconds to work the kinks out of her muscles before sitting back down. Eventually, even that wasn’t enough to keep the cramps at bay. Henry wasn’t making her life any easier by protesting in the only way he could, tightening around her forearm until her hand turned almost as blue as the ink she was working with.
She tried to ignore his antics as best as she could, constantly wishing his initial state of unconsciousness would return. Eventually, his presence became so disabling that she tried to use her left hand. It was an utter failure but the next time the gray lines of her Scribe skill appeared, she wondered if the left hand would be any more successful when controlled by the system.
Thirty seconds later, she had a perfect copy of Terrar Lake. According to the maps, it was less than half an hour away from Durrenheim, but Aya doubted it was still as big as the map indicated. With the drought, it was quite possible that it didn’t even exist anymore. She tried to find a current map of the region in the forums, but they were all very crude and barely decipherable. It was the first time she realized just how valuable her own maps were going to be, if Aizan didn’t find out about them first.
Almost as if on cue, Henry began to croak helplessly. He tightened his tail around her forearm and pushed frantically against his bonds. It was the first time that he struggled with enough vehemence for some of his leathery feathers to be chafed off. Aya couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him.
Sighing in resignation, she told him, “Look. I’m gonna loosen those ties ok? But! You can’t create a ruckus… remember how we got along last time? Let’s try that again, okay?”
Almost as if he had understood every word, Henry stilled.
“Okay?” Aya asked hopefully, quite surprised her words had even worked with the creature. When he didn’t respond after a second she said, “Okay.”
She loosened the bonds slowly, lifting her left arm protectively and vigilantly. She was hopeful, but she wasn’t stupid. Aya watched him carefully for almost a minute, but when he didn’t make any aggressive moves, she decided to simply let him loose. After watching him roam peacefully on the side of the desk for another minute, she turned back to her work but remained vigilant of his actions.
It wasn’t long before her Scribe cool-down ended and she was able to use it again. After her recent success and her newly freed up right hand, she decided to try something new. Taking a second quill from the quill-set before her, she held one in each hand as she activated the skill. She wondered if the skill would let her draw two things at once. Five seconds later she knew the answer: it wasn’t possible.
Pursing her lips she frowned in disappointment as she reviewed the results. The two different maps she had chosen to copy overlapped on the two blank scrolls she had selected. Henry croaked, reminding her of his presence.
She looked up and gave the bird an understanding nod. “I know, right?” she added. “Sucks that I can’t just… Wait. What if…”
Her eyes lit up with the new idea and she chose one of the old scrolls to lay before her before she brought out her notebook to put beside the new blank scroll in front of her. Although copying two images at once hadn’t worked, the simultaneous use of both of her hands had. Focusing on the single document before her, a detailed diagram of a dissected Frogungus, she activated her skill and watched as two perfect copies of the diagram were quickly drawn out.
Three and a half minutes later, she knew for sure that the skill could use both hands simultaneously and with equal proficiency. The only limitation was that she ended up with two identical copies. Another minute later, she narrowed the limitation by a fraction when she discovered that the copies could be of different sizes. She used the discovery quite happily to quickly supply herself with perfect copies of the documents to her notebook.
Aya was smiling a little manically as she copied another dissection diagram. Her eyes kept darting to the cool-down countdown. She was so caught up on the new use of the skill that she spilled the ink pot, tipped her chair over and landed on the floor when a sudden spike of pain hit her below the ribs.
“Aaaaaaauuu!” she screamed at the chicken, as it resumed its sudden and vicious attack on her. Lifting her right arm away from her body and using her left arm to try to fend it off, she tried to get in a more useful position that didn’t involve her legs being messily upended over the toppled chair.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Stop it! You stupid, ridiculous… Annoying, stupid, irritating… Stupid piece of… UGH! Stop it!” she screamed as she pushed the vicious chicken with leathery flapping wings away from her.
Once she was able to fix her stance, she quickly subdued him and realized his attack lacked its usual ferociousness.
“Wh—” she started, but then simply eyed Henry. “You okay, buddy?”
He tried to start an attack again so she merely tied him back up, ignored his continuing struggles and went back to work. She used the next hour to test the limits of the scribe skill and was rewarded with further growth of the skill from “Quite Slow” to “Still Slow”. When she finally got into her routine again, she wasn’t bothered by Henry’s struggles until one of her cramps simply refused to go away.
She shook her hand slowly as she opened and closed her hand, trying to work the cramp away. When it didn’t automatically work like it usual, she turned her attention back to the guilty bird tied around her forearm. He was unconscious but her arm was again experiencing a numbing pain she knew was associated to his poison.
“No, no, no…” she said and checked her timer. She still had another two hours before one of the juniors would come by. “No!” she shouted, cringing with the pain of the spreading poison. There was no time to wait for one of the librarians and she had no way of knowing she would not be punished for leaving the room. She stood up and tried the door anyway, realizing she was locked in.
“Ugh!” she shouted, kicking the door.
The separate pain in her foot allowed her to clear her head a little to take out the waterskin of blood. She fed it to Henry the same way she had been told not to. Dying was a worse alternative than going to jail for more time.
“Probably,” she said through gritted teeth.
With the combined pain of her lower ribs, which were still healing from Henry’s attack, her foot and her poisoned arm, she wasn’t doing too well. Her health bar reflected that fact, slowly losing out to the poison. It took her almost five minutes to resuscitative the chicken again and as he worked himself out of his groggy state again she got back to transcribing, hoping to gain back the lost time.
Unfortunately, Aya forgot to tie him back up and he took full advantage of the fact when she used the scribe skill a couple minutes later. He attacked the same spot with renewed power and viciousness. Aya screamed, once more caught off guard by the Layhen’s sudden attack and was unable to immediately subdue him.
The result was a three-minute scuffle, which resulted in Aya finally managing to regain the upper hand and Henry having a beak bloody with Aya’s blood. After tying him back up, she inspected the wound. Furia’s dress had been torn to shreds at her waist, revealing a bloody gash of a wound that was leaking blood onto its velvety green folds. She applied pressure and sighed.
The dress reminded her of how Furia had been so nice to her. The woman had introduced her to her guild with such excitement that Aya had felt welcome in the game for the first time. They didn’t make her feel like an unwanted convict. The other guild members had show unguarded admiration for her accomplishments. It made her feel special and strong, like she would be able to succeed in the game after all. Maybe she would be able to get a player spot in Goldilocks.
Their guild house had been beautiful and Furia had shown her to a bath with more clean water in it than she had seen in the whole game put together. Furia had called her cute, seeing her surprised face and urged her to wash the grime off before choosing the right dress for her. She had indulged in the tepid water like it was the bath of queens. When she got out, Furia had showed her an expansive wardrobe and encouraged Aya to try on dress after dress. After trying on dozens, she felt like a careless girl for the first time in years. Aya had seen girls like that in movies but never thought she would have the chance to be one of them.
Furia had filled the role of the tag-along friend who told her this-dress-is-too-that and that-dress-is-too-this until Aya eventually chose the velvet green dress in her hands. Her fingers tightened around the folds of the skirt, wound forgotten. She remembered the card sewn into the sleeve. Thinking back, she tried to work out when and how the woman had manipulated her choice. Her hands balled into fists but when she almost stomped her foot in a tantrum she caught herself and instead just yanked the dress off.
Unable to reach her back to undo the buttons, she tore it off her body shred by shred with a complete lack of mercy for the beauty of the dress. Seconds later, she was breathing hard with self-inflicted scratches all over her body and an unrecognizable dress in tatters around her. Remembering her starter tunic, she reached into her bag, took it out and put it on, relieved she hadn’t listened to the woman’s recommendation of trashing it.
Aya took deep, calming breaths as she gathered the velvety rags around her. Their mere existence aggravated and irritated her but she told herself they would be a good reminder of the events that unfolded at Vincent’s unfortunate birthday dinner. She never wanted to see a gambling table again. Most of all, they were loot and who knew what they could be used for later.
A sinister smile spread across Aya’s face as she envisioned using them to feed the rest of the blood to Henry. It seemed suitable. She turned to Henry to see if he agreed, as he was the only witness and companion that had stuck with her through the entire mess. Before she could ask the once-again-struggling bird for his opinion, an unexpected notification popped up.
The LayHen named Henry has blood-bonded with you.
Aya gaped in fascination as his previously unreadable health bar floated up to join hers at the top right of her field of vision. It was flashing red and icons of both thirst and hunger glared accusingly beside his health bar. Her attention however, was caught by something completely different.
“What the— You’ve gotta be—” she said. “Level TWENTY-FRIGGIN-ONE!?”
A/N: Thanks to Unice and Cur as always. Unice is awesome... seriously.
Anyway... due to overwhelming comments about how you are fine with longer chapters... here we are back to "normal". I already had this divided out into two 2.5k chapters.... but whatcha gonna do right?
Customer is king.
OH. and btw.
Breakdown's wordcount is now 87k
(This is without prologue and chapter 2 which I decided I won't be using in my official version... cuz they are unnecessary and detract from story.)
Alright. As always. Feedback always appreciated. AND. Mister Serinphora... thanks for telling me you were pissed about not knowing. BUT. I didn't do it for you :P I already had this written out... lol. sorry. just had to make a point that I'm a strong and independent woman! With my own mind!
But I'm still glad your opinion COINCIDES with what I had written.
(Yes, I have stubbornness issues.)
(oh yea... and these author notes are obvs not included in wordcount... that would be cheating since I do tend to rant.)