We arrived promptly at nine, in front of what was supposed to be a base for the Archive Society, although I wasn’t too sure if we had the right place. A warehouse loomed in front of us, built from corrugated steel. If I hadn’t double checked the location, then I wouldn’t have believed we had the right place. Nevertheless, it matched the address so we walked towards a door on the left side.

We pressed a buzzer and waited for almost a minute; and were just about to press it again when the door opened.

A tall man who looked like a modern day Viking appeared. He towered over both of them, his clothes unable to hide the huge amount of muscles underneath; and about everywhere that hair could grow, it had. With long dirty blonde locks that flowed past his shoulder and a curly beard down to the bottom of his neck, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in a lion’s pride.

Evidently, we seemed to be staring as he asked, “Hello?” Unlike his intimidating appearance, he sounded kind. The voice reminded me of a teacher’s, the good type that everybody in the school loved.

I still hesitated to speak in front of the hulk of a man. “We’re here to join the reading group.”

That was the code for the Society which we had been told to use by Brad’s grandma. It showed we weren’t just regular people who had gotten the wrong address, but I doubted that could even happen. I certainly couldn’t remember a time I had called on a non-descript warehouse.

His eyes squinted slightly as he examined us before he invited us, and took us to a small office, close to the entrance. There were chairs on opposite sides of a desk, the surface of which was filled to the brim with different folders that were neatly organized. Despite his chair looking far too small for his frame, he gracefully lowered himself onto it and motioned for us to sit in the two across from him.

“So? Why do you want to join the Archive Society?” He said, keeping his piercing brown eyes trained on us.

He had gone straight to the point. Clearly our answer here would determine how much more time he gave us. I began thinking of a response, but Brad replied before me.

“We need to become more powerful, sir. As quickly as possible.”

The man nodded, before looking at me for my answer. I could’ve said the same as Brad, our goals were the same after all, but I felt like he wanted to hear my own words. I did decide to take a page from Brad’s book though and treat him with respect.

“We need knowledge, sir. To achieve our goals we must learn more about the world, and your organization is the best choice.” I didn’t mention that it was our only choice, but I was honest about my intentions. They apparently needed help, and we needed to learn more to have any hope of taking revenge for Chris.

He nodded again in response, before clasping his hands on the table and leaning forward slightly. “And why would we want you? Two mortal humans.”

That was a question I had considered on the way. If the Archive Society was full of people as powerful as that smiling demon, then we would be useless. There was no avoiding reality, we had to just lay all our cards on the table and hope that he would sympathize.

“We won’t be any help now, we know that all too well. but we will give it our all no matter the situation, just for the opportunity to grow stronger. That’s all that matters to us, we don’t care if you put us through the wringer, or put us on the edge of death. All we need is strength.”

He just smiled incomprehensibly, if I was looking at him in normal circumstances I probably wouldn’t have noticed a thing, but in this environment? With our future riding on his judgment, I couldn’t help but feel that he was taking joy in our lack of power.

“No matter the situation? What if you were caught by enemies of the society and they demanded our secrets in return for your life? What would giving your all do then? In the face of overwhelming power, willpower is useless”

I grit my teeth. Just as suspected, we were too weak. They wouldn’t take us. Looking over at Brad, I saw that he had a visible grimace, but it was there for only a moment before he returned to his normal expression. Even though his lips were quivering, he spoke quietly. “Please, we know that we won’t be able to help you straight away. But I can promise that if you accept us, we won’t forget it for the rest of our lives.”

The man seemed to consider our argument for a moment until he leaned back in his chair and spoke. “Very well. I hereby extend an invitation to the Archive Society to Brad Cladus and David Thompson under the name of the third protector, Aslow Lentanal.”

Bewilderment ran through my mind after I realized that he let us in. I had thought that there was no way we could join after he trampled on our ambition. But I had been proven completely wrong. Maybe it wasn’t just his voice that was kind.

Once I had gotten over the initial shock of our acceptance, confusion set in as I realized that he knew our names, despite us having never told him.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” I didn’t forget to show my gratitude, I wasn’t so idiotic as to forget that he could just as easily revoke our invitation if he felt like it. “How did you know our names?” I asked. With confirmation of our entry, I felt that I could probe a bit.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to mind. “There’s a lot that can be learnt from looking at someone’s soul.” He said. “Although it was Mary who told me.”

At that, Brad let out a confused ‘huh?’ He spoke, “So you know my grandma?”

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Now it was my turn to be surprised. Despite staying there for more than half a day, I hadn’t learnt her name. I only knew her in my mind as Brad’s grandma.

Aslow laughed. “Yes, I know your grandmother, and I knew your grandfather as well.”

“Are they the reason why you let us join?” Brad asked. It made sense, nepotism was likely to be just as rife when demons and spirits were involved as when they weren’t.

“Mostly. Mary called in an old favor. Then I had to let you lads in. I hope you forgive my questioning, but I had to take the opportunity to have a bit of fun with you, before you became too strong.”

Now that was something. He thought that we were going to become powerful. I didn’t know how strong he was, but he seemed to be a leader of some sort, so his standards shouldn’t be low.

“I still would have accepted you even if you had just turned up randomly.” He said offhandedly, like it made total sense.

“Why?” Brad questioned, and somehow that caused Aslow’s mouth to open, and he stood up.

“Why!” He shouted. “Why! A Cladus is asking me why I didn’t turn him down! I can hardly believe it.”

Brad scrunched his eyebrows together, “What’s so special about my surname?” I shook my head in slight amusement. Clearly, Aslow was referring to his ancestry; the one who had written the book that caused this mess, and most likely his children.

Unlike my mild mirth, the viking threw his head back in laughter. “Don’t tell me you don’t know about your families’ history!”

At that, Brad’s look of confusion faded as understanding struck him. Aslow spoke again. “So you know why. If I didn’t give you aid in your time of need, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see you on my doorstep in ten years, killing me with a wave of your hand.

Brad stammered, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“I hope you never do.”

I thought about Brad’s acceptance, it could only be right, if his family really was as heralded as Aslow made them out to be, but I didn’t know why I had been accepted with him.

“You let me in as well.” It was a statement, and also a question.

“That’s simple, a friend of a Cladus could never be normal. Brad could have brought ten, even twenty people and I would have invited them all.” He walked to a whiteboard behind him “Now, let’s get you briefed. Despite what my tidiness might suggest, I am quite a busy man.”

He drew a circle in the middle. “This, is Tonford University.” Then he drew a crown inside. “This is the treasure inside.” Lastly he drew several people outside the circle. “And this is where we are, along with the Heithriff family, and the Mandius clan.”

An arrow pointing inside appeared. “We want to get inside.”

Satisfied with his diagram, he put the pen down. “That’s the current goal of the Archive Society. The issue we have now is that we have to compete against both of the other forces as well as getting past the University’s defenses and their faculty. And we don’t have the manpower to do that.”

I nodded, “And we need to help you attack it.”

He shook his head, “Unless you can advance twice, you won’t be of any help on the battlefield.”

“What are we doing then?” I said

“For now, you’ll train until you reach the first soul rank. After that, I’ll give you a few tasks you can do which shouldn’t be too dangerous. Away from the fighting of course.”

It was good to hear that he wouldn’t be just throwing us to our death.

“Advancing shouldn’t take you too long. It normally takes people a few years, but Brad should be able to do it in just a couple months if he works hard. As for you, David, I don’t know what your talent is like, but maybe if you put in twice as much effort, you won’t be left hopelessly behind?” He spoke tentatively, as if he didn’t put faith in his words.

It stung my pride a bit to realize that I was likely going to be trailing behind my friend in this new world, but I ignored it. Just like Aslow said, I would have to put in double the work if my natural abilities weren’t enough. Regardless it was still a positive that Brad had so much potential, it meant we had a better fighting chance in a year's time.

“Two months? Would you still be attacking the university at that time, for us to help?” Brad asked. I noticed his wording though, us. Brad didn’t even pay heed to the idea that I would be left behind. I smiled and resolved myself to make sure that his confidence wasn’t misplaced.

Aslow replied. “Yes, it will take us about half a year to fully siege it by our projections, plenty of time for you to do some work.”

“Now, as I said, I'm a busy man. So, I’ll get you sorted with your initial technique and I can get back to business, follow me.” He took us out of his office into the open space of the warehouse.

I saw several men and women standing around a detailed circle in the middle of the building, which was bigger than a house. Around the circle were several kitchen islands with different materials on them, buckets of paint, metals, crystals, gemstones and more.

We were taken along a long strip of rooms that lined the side of the leftmost wall; until we reached the very end and entered a small space. Inside was a wooden table with two books and two mats on it.

“Those books each contain many different foundational energy techniques. They will form the basis of your future soul, but they all end up with pretty much the same result, so just read them and choose the one that makes the most sense to you.

When you’ve made your decision, you can begin practicing. There’s a toilet off to the side.” He pointed at a door that I hadn’t noticed. “Other than that, you can get started; I’ll return in twelve hours.”

He stepped outside and closed the door. I heard a bit of fiddling in the keyhole and then a click, and I understood why we had an attached toilet. It was just us in a sealed room with only a couple of books to keep entertained with. But it felt like that was all we would need.

Brad had a different viewpoint. “Did he just lock us in here?” he asked incredulously, going up to test the door handle; and not being able to open it. “He can’t do that! There’s a human right called freedom!”

I sighed. “He’s already done it, we have to take his word that he’ll be back, unless you want to break open this door and kick up a storm.”

He deflated a bit, not wanting to set us back when we had already made progress to our goal.

“Anyway, we have everything we need in here.” I said, picking up one of the books, it was normally sized; certainly not as thick as the Cladus ancestors’ book had been.

Brad smiled. I imagined he was seeing the future of us taking revenge on that demon with new powers. At least that was what I was picturing.

“Twelve hours? We better make the most of it.” He said, making a 180 in his attitude. He pulled out a chair and picked up the other book.

It was finally time for us to start getting stronger.