The Mark of Styx feels warm.

As soon as the warning appeared before her eyes, Tacha retreated back to the street at lighting speeds.

After a few moments, seeing that nothing was happening, the light footed granny composed herself. Coughing lightly, granny Tacha checked the notification log.

However there was nothing new or weird aside from the sudden appearance of the Mark of Styx notification. Knowing that the Mark had the omnious derscription of being a curse, Tacha didn’t want to risk any danger by being carerless.

Afterall she was now plagued by a constant state of low Hp, thanks to said Mark. As mighty as they may sound, 3 Hp weren’t even enough to survive a couple of punches. If there was something worse hidden in the library, then she would be dead from just a glare from a boss.

She paced around in front of the library’s door, unsure if she should go inside or not.

Then she stopped. The Mark only felt warm, she thought, then it shouldn’t be too dangerous. Wouldn’t it become scorching hot if I were to get too close to the danger?

With her mind made up, Tacha took a deep breath and stepped inside the library.

Among a sea of books was an empty desk, with no librarian in sight. The granny took a few steps closer to check behind the piles of books, just to make sure that there was no dead librarian behind them.

Taking a sigh of relief at the absence of human bodies behind the books, Tacha Macha stepped further inside. After passing through a few rows of bookshelves, at the far end of one of them on her left was a normal, living and breathing human.

Age and gender aside, he looked just like one of those princesses in the popular fairy tales for kids. The light of the day was gently cascading upon his figure, making appear his stoic face more ethereal than any right it had to be.

Sitting on a chair near the window, a man in his 40s was reading a book. He had black hair and a pair of copper-rimmered glasses resting on the tip of his nose. He behaved as if he didn’t even hear her entering just a few minutes ago.

Flipping a page, without lifting his gaze, the librarian Caius spoke in a practiced and monotonous voice “Welcome. If you’re searching for the history records you can find them on the right. If you’re looking for the genealogy of your long lost cousin twice removed, you can try the third row on the left near the window. If you’ve come here for the ‘Bread and Butter’ series instread, we’ve just run out of stock”

What kind of book is that? The title of the book looked to be as generic as it could be. How high is the demand that he had no more copies of it? Shaking her head internally, Tacha cleared her throat and spoke without betraying a hint of nervousness “Where should I look for a book about monsters?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

His eyes still not leaving the book, he answered succintly “Forth row down from here, on the right”

Tacha nodded a thanks, then headed down the rows of bookshelves. She didn’t go towards the monster section as she had asked, instead she was staring at the notifications, searching for any change on the Mark’s response.

She passed one, two, three, six rows and in the end there was a change.

The Mark of Styx is pulsating.

And, as if it was magic, Tacha felt something akin to an electric current coming from her neck. She was surprised at first, however it didn’t take her long to get used to it. She had to say, it felt more like a cramp rather than a warning.

Granny Tacha didn’t think that she would feel the mark itself. The fact that she didn’t feel it until the change in notification made it even more jarring. Was the first change so light that the system itself didn’t even make her feel it?

Now, without constantly looking at the notifications, Tacha relied solely on the cramp on her neck to pinpoint the source of the change of the Mark of Styx. Heh, and here I thought that I was free from the pains from old age at least in game.

She headed deeper between a darker row of bookshelves. In this section of the library the books were piled up on both sides, making it difficult to pass through without making them fall.

The Mark of Styx is resonating.

As soon as the notification appeared, Tacha felt as if her neck was burnt from too much sunbathing. By reflex she touched it, and it stung quite a bit.

Noticing the absence of sudden curses or stat loss, the granny felt more comfortable in her search.

She walked around, following the cramp in her neck and looking for the most suspicious place. Just a couple of minutes later, she saw a messy pile of books sprawled on the ground. Looks like the perfect place to hide something.

She moved the books aside, and hidden beneath there was a hatch. For fear of allerting the librarian far back down, Tacha did her best to open the hatch as silently as possible.

Of course absolute silence was impossible. The metal parts creaked like tone-deaf drunkards, as if it had waited just for this moment to make its best performance known to the world.

Tacha stopped very so often to check if she could hear any movement coming from where the librarian was reading, and she strongly hoped that he wouldn’t hear the noise.

She didn’t know how long it took, but she knew that a slug would’ve been able to come and go from one end to another of the library by the time she had opened it.

Tacha perked her ears. Confirming once more that she heard no noise coming from down the library, she headed down the ladder.

It was dark, and with her forgetting to buy one more lamp to make up for the exhausted one she had no way to see the further she went down.

After a while, feeling the floor beneath her feet, she let go of the ladder. With careful steps and a hand on the wall, she followed the tunnel downwards.

However no sooner than a few steps were taken, the tunnel lighted up. Tacha waited a bit for her eyes to get accustomed to the light.

The first thing she noticed was that the lights were formed by a series of magical lamps connected by a wire. Not far from her, just a couple of meters further, was an old wooden door. She tried to open it, expecting it to find it locked, but to her surprise the door just opened.

Huh. I guess the pile of books was a lock as good as any. Inside was a small room, illuminated by the same magic lamps as outside. Clock-work wise, was a in order: desk with some written notes, a bookshelf full of unnamed books and a few boxes of miscellaneous objects.

Letting her greed take control of her for a moment, the granny searched through the boxes. Daggers, rings and trinkets. Wathever catched her eye was destined to disappear in her inventory.

What could she say? It was a player’s instinct to loot everything that wasn’t pinned down to the ground.

When she picked up a jade colored prism with 12 faces, she felt an electric current coming from her neck and in surprise she let go of the item. The dodecahedron fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

Tacha massaged her neck as she crouched down to pick the prism up, however before she could touch it, it rolled back.

The granny flinched, not expecting such a reaction of an inanimate object. Then she reached further to pick it up and put it in her inventory.

However the prism rolled away from her, again. And as soon as she took a step to get closer, the dodecahedron gained speed and sprinted away, past the door she left open.

Tacha’s mouth twitched. It was the first time in her long life that an onbject was running away from her.