As we walked down the paved paths that ran throughout Celestia, a chilly breeze blew in our direction, and we both shuddered.
“Kind of spooky, no?” Lunia muttered, staring into the far distance.
I nodded in agreement.
With our deciding to visit the library in lieu of attending Forging 101, not one other person could be spotted around, our peers and seniors presumably already studying hard in class.
Though, admittedly, my attention wasn't entirely devoted to our currently being alone.
The uniform provided by Celestia was of subpar, horrible quality, to the point that I could no longer ignore it. Coarse, and not insulating at all, I genuinely believed that if I were to walk around in the nude, I'd feel warmer. My skin had even gone bumpy and the short hairs on my forearms stood erect the clothing made me so cold.
Finally coming upon building 16, I was amazed by the sheer size of the facility. The library was also at a minimum, twice as large as the buildings surrounding it, but also colored the same dull gray, it’s only distinguishing characteristic a tan rectangle longer than it was wide, and split into equal halves by a vertically running line.
Walking directly in front of where the symbol was plastered, part of the lower half of the wall immediately split in half, retracting and creating a door shaped opening.
The wall-door immediately closing back up, the air inside was so dry my nose was already on the verge of gushing out blood, but it was also a comfortable temperature, so I took the good with the bad.
In the middle of the first floor were incredibly large, rectangular panes of glass that circled around and took up the vast majority of the interior.
Almost as if a cylinder of earth was cleanly teleported away, the library itself took up the resulting empty space. Lining the walls of the cylinder were billions upon billions of different books perched upon shelves carved into the stone itself. Jutting out from the stone walls were hundreds of ancient wooden walkways that circled the entire inner perimeter of the library. Some levels had ramps, which most likely allowed one to travel between the wooden walkways, though they were incredibly rare, with ladders being much more common.
Scanning as far down as my current vantage point allowed, I counted how, on about every fifth level, there were a minimum of two bare patches devoid of carved shelves and books, with there instead being a wooden gateway that led to some darkly lit space.
Lunia made an audible exclamation of wonder, before immediately beginning to scan the plain, empty chamber we currently stood, excitedly searching for a way to go down.
Quickly spotting, and running to a set of nondescript double doors tucked into a corner, she opened them, exposing a plain, gray stairwell behind.
Immediately rushing inside, Lunia suddenly doubled back, peeking her head out and yelling for me to hurry up.
As I followed her, walking past the double doors as she did, I was immediately blinded by the cold, harsh rays emitted in the stairwell.
The main room, with the circular glass viewing chamber, had no light source, instead being illuminated by the library itself. As a result, I uncontrollably blinked, only able to somewhat adjust after a minute had passed.
A feeling of curiosity welled up inside me after the fact, and I leaned over the hard stone railing, staring directly down the shaft, eager to see just how deep it went.
My knees immediately began to quiver and shake, and I fell back onto the floor.
The stairwell was seemingly endless, digging deeper and deeper into the earth to the point where the thought of the library being infinite briefly popped up in my mind even though I knew just how illogical that was.
My heart still racing a mile a minute, I stared in disbelief at Lunia, as she jumped up, leaning over, and holding herself up in the air by the guardrail, before yelling down. Hearing her voice echoing as it continued to go down the stairwell, she burst out into laughter, and continued to do so.
I dryly smiled. I couldn’t tell whether Lunia was fearless or just foolhardy.
As the phrases she yelled gradually morphed into indistinct hoots and hollers, I was finally able to regain my bearings, and as stiff as a board, I yelled for Lunia to follow me.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Despite my newly-discovered fear of heights, I had to fight the urge to peek over the guardrails. Keeping my eyes glued onto my feet, I counted how many steps I took.
The number in my head quickly reaching 120, Lunia finally stopped, having come upon another set of double doors. She radiated curiosity even as she faced away from me.
Opening the doors to reveal a dark, dimly lit dingy hallway, Lunia turned to face me, her facade of calm briefly becoming undone, but looking at me, she nervously smiled.
As we set foot into the stone corridor, the double doors behind us violently swung closed, rousing the dust covering the floor to fill the air and subsequently, my lungs.
Oddly enough, instead of reverberating off of the walls and echoing, my coughs were very quickly silenced, only sounding off from my throat once before quickly dissipating into nothingness.
It was an odd sensation being in the stone hallway. The closest comparison I could draw would be the feeling of falling ill, and having your pores stuffed up as a result. As we continued to walk down the dark hallway, the unsettling quiet developed into a faint ringing.
Initially doing my best to ignore it, it became unbearable despite not increasing in intensity, and I turned to Lunia, hoping that talking to her would distract me. But judging from her distracted expression, she was very obviously lost in her own musings.
Plugging my ears did nothing; rather, it only seemed to cause the ringing to bounce around inside my skull, giving me a splitting headache.
Gradually speeding up, I could feel my forearms begin to itch. Whether it be from the dust, or something else, I didn't know. I just needed relief, but even as my nails began to draw blood, there was none. Like an infestation, the itching seemed to spread across my skin, eventually even penetrating my insides.
My brain began to press against my skull, my skin was too tight on my body, the walls around me were trapping me, confining me, crushing me, until I became nothing but a cube of broken bone and ruptured flesh.
Was this how he felt before he died? Was this divine retribution, for dooming a man to die? It was Thalric that had cast the spell that killed him, but I was the deciding vote. If I had done the opposite, aligned myself with Lunia in favor of his being spared, wouldn't he have been let go?
He was beating a woman when Lunia and I encountered him, and if he lived to see another day, he surely would have gone on to kill her.
I could justify my actions that way; say that I had saved someone else’s life.
But in the end, I didn’t know her; she wasn’t related to me in anyway shape or form. In his final moments, the vagrant said something about being powerful; of us not knowing who he was. Presumably, he had people who followed him, who were loyal to him. Who would blame the woman for his death.
If I so cared about that woman, to the point that I was willing to doom another man to a grisly, undignified death, why didn't I do anything after the fact, to ensure that she would be okay?
If I didn't care about her; if whether she lived or died had no impact on me, did I not kill a man for seemingly no reason at all?
Was life not inherently valuable? Wasn’t that one of the Goddess’s fundamental teachings, to value those around you, to seek peace above all else? I thought my meeting Thalric, getting to go to Celestia, I thought they were blessings, opportunities to change and become better, a form of reparation for all of the suffering I had endured.
Even so, had I been so profoundly twisted that what should be common sense became a foreign concept?
I didn’t know.
***
Lunia frantically rushed down the stone hallway.
Lost in thought, she didn’t even notice that Sol had sped up, only realizing when she turned to him, about to ask him some inane question to distract herself from her own thoughts.
Finally coming upon a stone chamber, she entered, hoping that Sol would be inside.
Rectangular in shape, the chamber was in itself quite spacious, but also homey, with a tall ceiling, wooden furniture, and cubes of light, the same ones embedded into the walls of the hallway.
Directly across from the entrance linking the hallway to the chamber was another doorway without a door, this one leading to the cylindrical library.
Scanning the room for signs of Sol, only to find that there were none, she walked through the second entrance onto a rickety old platform.
The wooden planks creaking underneath her feet, Lunia finally located Sol, slumped over the wooden railing with his head lowered.
Lunia looked down, her eyes unconsciously drawn to the gaps of the wooden walkway that exposed the lower wooden level.
Clenching her teeth, she swallowed, before staring up to distract herself, but to no avail.
A dozen levels at minimum were above the large glass panes, only reinforcing in her mind just how high up and trapped she was.
Sticking as close to the shelves of books as possible, Lunia moved inch by inch closer to Sol.
Somewhat annoyed that he didn’t even look up as she struggled with her life on the line to get to him,
“HEY,” she yelled, causing him to turn around.
“A little help?” Lunia nervously asked, her knees shaking.
A blank look of stupidity on his face, Sol stood in place, just watching, when suddenly, as if a spell that had been cast over him was finally broken, he anxiously rushed to help her.
With her eyes closed, Lunia let Sol slowly guide her back to the chamber, and feeling the floor change from unstable, soft wood, to concrete, hard stone, she collapsed.
Indignant, Lunia turned back, about to ask Sol why he had left her behind in the hallway, when she stopped, her rage cooling and morphing into concern, as she spotted the blood red marks on his forearms.
Standing back up,
“Are you ok?” Lunia concernedly asked, reaching out.
Staying silent, and looking down at his quickly clotting blood,
“Couldn’t be better,” Sol smiled, his eyes staring vaguely at nothing.