Arvena had gone through a portal, no doubt about it. Timothy wanted to go after her to make sure that she was okay, but then he realized how a terrible idea that was, he realized that it would be too dangerous to follow her, and that was what made him reconsider things! Arvena had read those scrolls for hours before she opened that portal, she was prepared in other words, and Tim feared that if he charged into that portal ‘heroically’, then he might get vaporized one way or the other because he was severely unprepared. It was simply stupid for him to go in there.
Tim even looked at the scrolls close by, to figure out what was going on, but it was hopeless. He couldn’t make out a single word out of them, and with that said he simply backed off, he couldn’t get involved.
“That crazy bitch wasn’t up to anything good anyway,” He tried to console himself.
It was great that Tim backed away, because moments later, that portal started generating a suction of some sort. It tried to suck the team in towards it, but the three of them did the smart thing and floated towards the top of the library! They made a good, twenty-meters distance from it, so in theory they were safe now, up here.
Below them, they later noticed that the portal actually started moving! Well, it wasn’t moving towards them thankfully, that would be very terrifying ~ It was just spinning in place.
This spinning perhaps summoned something, because even though they were airborne, the team could feel that the ground was rumbling below them, or around them. Well, they heard it, it was a loud quake of sorts!
All in the meantime, the triangular portal had turned into a pyramidic portal, which didn’t make things any less intensive. The ground was shaking even more violently as a result, and once a portion of the library’s walls caved in, the team started believing that this was the end for them, it could be! They tried to escape, but the only exit of this place was blocked already, it had crumbled, so they were stripped out of options almost entirely.
“Fuck!” Tim panicked, and then he pitched. “I think we should turn into ghosts, that’s our only way out of h---”
Tim’s words were cut short, because time itself stopped for a second. All the team saw was a flash before things were supposed to go to utter shit, but yet this situation failed to escalate any further, because there was something more to this flash, it wasn’t here to cause trouble, no! Considering the current situation, the team needed any help that they could get too, so this was advantageous.
The flash came from the portal, and once it flashed, all of that scary commotion was put to a sudden halt. Everything went quiet after that point, and once the flash’s blinding light started diminishing a blink later, time itself may have started going in reverse!
One could tell that time had gone in reverse, or something of that divine equivalence, because the library was somehow intact after the flash went away! They could tell that it was intact, because the walls of the library were no longer caved in, they were all smooth, pretty and lacking in any challenges! Something divine had happened for sure.
Trouble went away as fast as it came for whatever reasons, so Tim and his friends were safe now. They didn’t understand what happened, they may never understand it, but that did not matter because for the time being, they were simply happy that they were alive! The library walls were supposed to crush them, just seconds earlier, so they were just happy that it did not crush them, they survived this too.
The portal was gone afterwards, and good riddance to it, because neither one of them wanted anything to do with it, they never wanted to see it again. Their very survival seemed too good to be true right now, so yes, they'd rather not see anything that danger ever again!
Though they weren’t in danger now, things didn’t stop getting weirder. Arvena's voice sounded out from the entrance of the library, somehow, there at the very top. Tim started questioning his own sanity, because he figured that she had died already, in whatever spooky way she had decided to die; He didn’t expect to see her again.
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Tim didn’t expect it, yet her voice was persistent. She called them over, to the exit, and met them there afterwards. It was her, in the flesh, and she wasn’t feeling too explanative from the sounds of it.
“I should thank you for your help, my guests, even if you were overly-engaging with those disgusting dwarves… more than I would approve.” She expressed, and then she added. “Nonetheless, you helped me regain what rightfully belongs to us goblins, and you kept me alive long enough to help me get to the library, which is impressive.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tim asked.
The confusion he and his friends felt was reasonable. A lot had happened within mere seconds, and Arvena here was thanking them as if they all met with the end of some tiresome, decade-long adventure, which was a bit annoying! Her behavior didn’t make any sense to them, and it didn’t help how she barely spoke of anything specific!
“Come see for yourself,” She encouraged afterwards, and further lured the team towards the exit of the library.
The three of them were still utterly confused by this whole situation, but they followed along nonetheless, because they couldn’t do anything else. They headed towards the exit, and the moment they set foot on the exit’s short corridor, they noticed that they couldn’t float anymore. The spell that Araduli had casted on them, had worn off, or it had been deactivated at least!
Either way, they were done with the scrolls for the day, they couldn’t enter the library anymore without risking their own lives. They didn’t plan on going back either, because the greenery that was on the other end of this short corridor, had gotten a hold of their attention entirely! They could see grass, and as they stepped on the grass, they noticed that they were on a field now, as in, they weren’t some hundred meters under the ground any longer!
“What the fuck?” Tim sighed, that was the only thing he could say.
“Fascinating… this isn’t an illusion either, nothing that I could detect, at least.” Skendus then expressed, after his mouth hung upon for a bit too long. “We’re either dead right now, or we may have underestimated our pretty guide here. It would take grand magic to teleport an entire structure like this, so I think that she has left the god’s punishment realm of mana behind her, somehow.”
“Your untainted judgment will get you far in life, Skendus, but you’re very wrong about this.” She corrected, “I can’t share too many details with you, because it would dumb, but I can say that this ‘teleportation’ was solely achieved under Rempegan Lus’ will, because even he agrees that the library belongs to us goblins! Let those stupid dwarves rot underground from now onwards, for all I care they can keep whatever else is left over of our ancient city. We have the library!”
There was a lot to process here, and it didn’t make things any less confusing when Arvena spoke as if she was a wise priest of sorts, no, in fact it was really annoying! Tim and the rest knew her as a lustful figure, she lusted over many things, so this new attitude of hers was disturbing more than it was refreshing, they questioned her attitude! The entirety of what just happened felt like a fever dream too, so it was understandable how they still suspected that they had died.
Inevitably, the team needed a whole day to rest, it took them hours to accept that they hadn’t died. They needed a bit of time to wrap their heads around what happened, and rightfully so as it had been a confusing occasion, but at some point, they made their peace with reality!
That whole library was in the middle of the fields now, its teleportation had been very real, and there was no other way to go around this fact! They didn’t care for the library, but they were still beyond fascinated by the magical aspect of it all, they were amazed.
Anyway, the town proved more than hospitable to them in the meantime. They gave the group food and shelter, and they would be hospitable for an eternity if need be, because they saw the three of them as heroes! The library was priceless.
The guards had taken it upon themselves to equip the group with proper armor, again, armor that goblins made. This was far more comfortable for everyone involved, because no one wanted to see anything that was crafted by those molten dwarves! The guards equipped their guests accordingly, with gear of their individual choosing.
After that, as far as the team was concerned, they could move on with their lives now. They came to this micro universe in order to improve the quality of their mana, and they planned to do exactly that, by whatever means necessary and regardless of distractions. Nothing was stopping them, and Arvena was still to be their guide throughout their search for power, especially now when she felt greatly indebted to them for helping her restore the library of Rempegana! She owed them a great deal of gratitude.
The restoration of the library marked the completion of any and all tasks related to the first check-point, there was no debating that. They were ready to move on to the second check-point now, whatever that may be ~ Arvena was to guide them!