A month passed during which I tamed and trained Barbara to only find the finest stationery for my meals. Having an obedient and docile human pet is something I can personally recommend now. Especially when my tastes got more refined. I didn't find much pleasure in chewing the tiny girl's clothes anymore. But sometimes, a bored book needs something to pass long sleepless nights. What I didn't count was that she would catch me during my midnight snack.
"Nethe! I told you to stop chewing on my... oh, my!" She gasped then flushed then got enraged. "Get away from my... my...."
She yanked me from her drawer, a strip of lace unraveling as I refused to let go of my morsel.
"Why would you do that!"
> "Those pieces at the back of the drawer weren't used for months. I even had to clean some mold off of them. They're clearly old pieces you no longer cared about. And they were full of holes."
She stared at my cover where I'd written my answer, then ground her teeth, "Those were for a special occasion! And they were brand new! These 'holes' aren't defects! I never wore them, they were for when I met someone special and were very expensive," completely irrational, she shed a tear for the tiny T-shaped piece of unused clothing. I had no idea how it would even fit on her body. Unless those stretchy chewy fibers were meant to make the piece of clothing grow.
> "I can see why they would be expensive. The intricate texture of the lace really added to the composition of flavors from the different fibers."
"Nethe, you can only eat the paper I give you. And even if you are starving, you cannot, under any circumstances, enter THAT drawer. If you do it again, I'm going to burn you!" She threatened seriously. I had no doubt she would torch me.
> "I don't think fire would work. I'm pretty sure I cannot burn."
"You're made of paper! Of course, you are flammable!"
> "Poor mortal who cannot see beyond what's obvious. I'm impervious to flames. Watch!"
"No, no!"
The dormitory building would survive another day because of my magnanimity.
> "If you insist. Let's not forget who's the strongest [Mage] here. Your spellcraft teacher would love to see your proficiency in Marlowe's theory of spell circle interchangeability drop."
She sighed. "Nethe, that's not how friends act around each other."
> "Friends don't let friends starve at night," I pouted.
I actually created a tiny toothless mouth on my cover and pouted. It was toothless because people were somehow scared of my triangular origami teeth. Barbara said something regarding mimics and teeth and eating meat. Eww. Why would I want to chew on greasy bloody meat? And why would imagine it? Now I lost my appetite entirely.
"Okay. I'm going to buy you a sheaf of paper but you can't eat it all at once. Or you... you'll grow fat!" She threatened as if growing fat was a capital sin. "I see you have gained a few pages!"
What a conniving liar! I hadn't put on a few pages, I had grown a few pages! But I needed to be the bigger treatise here and graciously concede in the name of cooperation and harmony.
> "I agree to a truce, but if you bring me damp moldy cardboard again..."
She grinned, "No cardboard anymore. For my favorite book, only the best spell diagram paper."
See? A tame and trained person is the best.
*
----------------------------------------
*
Barbara went to the library with me. I was amazed at so many books here and I thought I was in heaven. I would need a century or more to eat this many books but it would be a century of bliss. I was almost salivating. I poked Barbara but she Ignored me. The rude halfling went to the front desk where a half-elf woman was reading a romance novel about some sexy [Assassin] lady. Romance novels, especially the used ones, weren't good eating. They were too salty from all the tears the ladies shed while reading, and often they also had the taste of other... body fluids, along with a lot of finger grease and saliva. As I was about to tell Barbara I wasn't interested in eating that romance novel, the betrayer asked for something else.
"Excuse me, Miss Dorlaminn," she called.
> > Level 38 female half-human-elf [Librarian].
Miss Dolarminn lowered her novel and stared at the short girl on her toes to poke her eyes above the counter. "Yes, Miss Ambrose?"
"I'd like to see a bestiary," Barbara explained. "There's a monster whose name I'm trying to figure out by the description."
"Is this a monster you've seen?"
"No!" She squeezed me against her chest as she spewed falsehoods from start to end. "It's a riddle. Yes, a riddle one of my classmates told me."
The [Librarian] smiled, clearly amused by the riddle. She leaned forward on the counter, putting the romance novel down. "Oh, let me hear it."
"A creature that resembles an everyday object, a glutton that loves to eat. Beware its hidden tentacles, or it you'll have to feed," she recited.
Miss Dorlaminn laughed. "That's easy, my dear. This kind of monster is very famous and deadly."
The halfling's eyes went wide, "De-deadly!?!"
The older woman nodded. "Yes, very deadly. Here, follow me. I have the perfect book for you." She went around the counter, lifting a part of it to reveal a passage. As she lead Barbara down the shelves, I felt like a kid at a candy store. She took a few books and finally settled them on a table near the desk on the way back. "You'll find clues to the monster you seek in these books. I suggest starting with the smaller one," the [Librarian] said with a smile. "And miss Ambrose..."
"Yes?"
"Good luck with your research. I liked the riddle, would you ask your friend if I may use it?"
"Yes, of course. I don't think Jerrick would mind it."
"Excellent! Well, good reading. You're welcome to visit anytime, my dear."
Alone with me, Barbara put herself to work. She cracked the thin book open and started to read. I tried to raise a ribbon-tentacle with an eye to see what it was but she pushed it down. "Shh. Don't move," she whispered to me.
I wrote on the ribbon, "At least read it out loud for me!"
She nodded and started to mumble as she read the book cover. "Exterminatus? What an odd name," she remarked. [1]
> Large chests are said to encompass all manner of hopes and dreams. Men covet them. Women envy them. But one fact holds true - everyone wants to get their hands on some big ones."
The girl suddenly became self-conscious and touched her own chest, letting out a sigh of despair and resignation. "Is this the right book?" She asked to herself, blushing as her breathing accelerated. "It sounds like one of those steamy novels."
I could assure her it was not. The book carried its fair share of finger grease on the pages, but no salt or other body fluids from the female readers avid for a dash of emotion in their lives and a bit inspiration for some lonely self-relief.
She continued to read the introduction.
> The same holds true for one intrepid adventurer - a strapping young lad by the name of Himmel. Armed with his grandfather’s trusty longsword and the dream of being the strongest, he sets out on the journey of a lifetime! It is sure to be a long and dangerous road, fraught with danger! And it all starts with a simple test - reach Level 5 in the dungeon called the ‘newbie zone’ and earn the right to become a full-fledged adventurer!
>
> If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
>
> However, such things get hopelessly derailed when his adolescent mind beholds an exposed chest for the first time. A fateful meeting that would inevitably lead his life in a direction he never even dreamed of!"
>
> [...] So far he’d been lucky. With only a few bats and giant rats as his opponents, he was steadily on his way to Level 5!
>
> "Just a little more and I can graduate from this ‘newbie area’ and move onto bigger and better things!", he thought.
>
> Continuing down the right-hand path, the young boy noticed a change in his surroundings. [...] Peering into the darkness, he noticed something clearly out of place. Something brown and strangely rectangular.
>
> "A chest! Lucky!", he cheered inside.
>
> A simple wooden box with no lock. The dungeon randomly spewed these out, sometimes containing useful items and gear that could be a veritable jackpot for an enterprising young adventurer.
My instincts told me she wouldn't like the ending of this rather short tale.
> Still, a newbie could not afford to pass up pennies on the ground. The adventurer approached the chest with a small spring in his step. He opened it with both arms and peered at it expectantly. However, what awaited him inside was neither a potion nor a piece of inedible bread. It was something much more impressive than that!
>
> Several sets of dagger-like teeth and a giant red tongue became visible as the monster pretending to be a chest revealed its true nature. The fleshy tongue coiled around the young adventurer’s waist and dragged him into the gaping maw before he could react. He was then unceremoniously eaten in three big bites.
Barbara screeched a distressed shriek and jumped backward, tossing the tall chair clattering on the floor. Wide-eyed, she moved away from the table. Away from me.
"Is something wrong, Miss Ambrose?" Miss Dorlaminn asked from behind the counter.
"No! No, nothing wrong," she tittered without moving her eyes away from me. Barbara picked up the chair and put it back upright but she refused to approach the table. She remained there for a few minutes, trying to remember to breathe while she stared at me. It was rather uncomfortable and also rude of her. Finally, she appeared to have remembered we spent a month and if I wanted to eat her, I had plenty of opportunities while she snored in bed next to me.
Angry, I threw my cover up and flapped the pages as if a windstorm was blowing on them. Once I reached the end, I flipped them back and shut the cover with a heavy thud. It had the opposite effect I intended because instead of making her realize the folly of her unfounded fears, she only withdrew in fright. I opened myself in the middle and wrote a message, making scritching sounds like a pen was doing the job of scratching my pages' itches.
Finally, the halfling girl climbed back on the tall chair and leaned to read it.
> "What do you think you're doing, GOBLIN girl?"
She ran a clammy finger over the writing. "I'm not a goblin!" Barbara protested.
> "Well, you look a lot like a goblin to me, except you're not green. Maybe you are a brown goblin instead of a green one. Who knows? Maybe the woman staring at us is a tall goblin. She even has the pointy ears although hers are not flappy."
"Miss Dorlaminn is not a goblin! There are no goblins in the Academy!" She felt insulted and raised her voice a bit at the end, earning a glare from the [Librarian]. Barbara quickly apologized with a nod.
> "Please indulge me. What's the difference? I can't see it. Goblins have two arms, two legs, a head, use tools, have hands, a nose, mouth, ears. To me, you are all the same."
"Goblins are brutes and savages! They kill and eat people and sometimes they enslave the women and mate with them. Matriarch protects me from them."
> "Interesting. Brutes and savages! And you don't kill and eat people, right?"
"Of course not!"
> "Can you see my point now? I find the very notion that you think I'm a monster insulting. Let's make a deal, you don't compare me to these boxy brutes and savages, and I don't compare you to goblins. Or maybe it's better if we go on separate ways. It's not like we're married or anything."
Barbara moved her finger off of the final words. Her eyes moistened and she blinked two watery spheres rolling down her cheeks. Lowering her head in defeat, she held firmly onto my cover. "I'm sorry," she sobbed and hiccuped. "I'm sorry, I offended you."
I was about to give her a piece of my mind but one of the hidden eyes at the ends of my spine noticed the half-elf woman approaching. I quickly erased the one-sided conversation and replaced it with quotes from the text she just read.
"Barbara, what's wrong?" Miss Dorlaminn asked kindly as she crouched next to the tiny woman.
"The book is sad," she said with complete honesty for once.
"Do you mean this book is sad? Yes, I agree with you. But is this the monster you were looking for? Mimics are dangerous and conniving creatures. They exist only to eat and are very dangerous. They can appear as any object. There's a story about a group of Adventurers who entered a tavern armed. The bartender asked, 'why bring weapons inside?', to which the Adventurers answered, 'mimics are everywhere!'. The bartender laughed, the Adventurers laughed, then the table laughed. They promptly killed the table."
The girl's eyes wandered between me and the woman. I feared she was about to give me away. I was defenseless, with only...
> Level 0
>
> Strength: 4+0 (4) / 48 - Dexterity: 14+0 (14) / 48 - Endurance: 4+0 (4) / 48
>
> Mind: 4+0 (4) / 48 - Willpower: 4+0 (4) / 48 - Charisma: 4+0 (4) / 48
>
> Magic: 20+0 (20) / 244 - Faith: 20+0 (20) / 244
>
> Ego: 4+0 (4) / 48 - Luck: 14+0 (14) / 48 - Soul: 4+0 (4) / 48
>
> 7 HP
>
> 120 MP
>
> 24 SP
...7 HP between me and death.
"Miss Dorlaminn, are there mimics who don't eat people?" Barbara asked with a trembling and breaking voice.
"I honestly don't know," the half-elf woman closed her eyes to think. "Maybe? The world is vast and some monsters are intelligent. But they are all very dangerous and most wish to hurt people so they can grow in level."
"As if you murder-hobo Adventurers are any different."
I wrote right underneath Barbara's hand where the half-elf couldn't see it. She read it then slid her hand to cover the writing.
"It's not so different from us, is it?" She asked mimicking my words. "We kill monsters so we can grow in level."
The [Librarian] gave her a candid smile. "Maybe it is so, Barbara. Maybe. But can monsters find kindness in their hearts?"
One last sniffle and the girl wiped her eyes. When she met the older woman's eyes, she had a faint smile but her heart didn't falter anymore. "Thank you for your help, Miss Dorlaminn. I got my answer, I think I'll be on my way."
*
----------------------------------------
*
A week later, we received the news that Barbara's Class would have a field trip to the Labyrinth. They would delve with a group of teachers and Adventurer bodyguards and each would have a shot at killing a monster in a controlled environment. However, only those who passed the spell diagram decomposition exam would go. Historically, nobody in Barbara's Class ever went on one of these trips but the girl was cheating by having me draw the diagrams for her.
"That's an interesting book you have there," Mr. Collins remarked during the diagram examination. "It's remarkable how the author fit a spell diagram on each page so neatly. May I see it, Miss Ambrose?"
The girl in question froze, all blood drained from her face as she stared doe-eyed at the teacher. I could feel the hand holding me tremble.
"O-of course, sir. He-here you g-go," she stuttered and almost dropped me.
Mr. Collins picked me up and examined the front cover, the back cover, the spine. "The Netherbane Syllabus... Odd. I never heard of this grimoire before. Where did you get it?"
"I bought it at Grimalkin's bookstore for fifteen silver coins. It was in a forgotten shelf, quite a bargain, right?"
I could see the professor didn't buy her BS and I felt the pinprick of an {Appraise} attempt shot at me. As he got no information about me from the System, he opened me and flipped the pages.
"No information about the author. It seems to be a traveling grimoire for an Adventurer but the spells are not organized like I expected them to be," he mumbled. "What spells are in here? We must check for any forbidden magics."
I erased the pages he hadn't yet browsed. Things like Necromancy, Flesh magic, Blood magic would get Barbara in trouble, I guessed. I would later have to ask mom to give me the diagrams again but she was such a nice mom and would gladly help me rebuild my spell collection.
"I see. It's empty," he finished flipping through my pages. "This paper seems very sturdy," he said as he tried to tear away a sheet. "Must be the work of a master [Papermaker]."
I shuddered, making Mr. Collins stare at me. It couldn't be true. Was there a profession that MADE paper? I must get one of these to work for me.
Barbara reached to get me but the professor pulled me away. "Miss Ambrose, you should not rely so much on tools. Out on the field, you must cast the diagrams from memory. I'll hold the book until the end of your examination.
"Yes, sir," she meekly agreed.
I dropped a silk ribbon and wagged it to catch her attention. Barbara stared at me and nodded. I had 668 points of [Spellcaster] Proficiency, I should be able to draw those diagrams at a distance. We were fooling Mr. Collins for a month and training our coordination. All she had to do was to move her finger and not use her MP. Easy peasy.
Barbara moved her finger and I drew the diagram along as she went, using a tiny eye at the bottom of my spine so Mr. Collins wouldn't see it. I heard him utter a faint groan of disapproval, though.
"You may stop, Miss Ambrose," he said abruptly, causing the girl to lose concentration. I let the diagram dissipate as it should. "I was watching with {Mana Sight} and you are not using your MP. The diagram is being drawn by this book here. Care to explain?"
Her eyes wandered to me. On the silk ribbon hanging from me, I wrote the text, "Soul-Bond".
"I'm soul-bond to the book," she replied and then stretched the lie in a surge of stupidity. "You know I'm trying to learn Crystallomancy, right? I can cast spells from the book."
The teacher obviously didn't buy her blatant falsehood. He handed me back to the girl. "I want to see you cast a spell through the book. Go ahead, pour your MP into it."
"Soul-Bond, Soul-Bond," she kept muttering as she realized how screwed up she was. I felt a warmth spread from her hand.
> > Barbara Lynn Ambrose wants to create a Familiar Contract with you. Do you accept?
The things we do for our friends... I selected yes.
> CONGRATULATIONS! You became a familiar. You gained the Perk, Familiar Link...
>
> ERROR. You already have a stronger Perk.
>
> You unlocked the Perk,
>
> * Familiar Mastery (combined): Beings under a familiar contract with you receive: 75% of your resistance Perks. When within (Magic/2) meters from you, {Appraise} attempts are blocked by your protections and they take 30% less damage. Half of the remaining damage is instead taken out of your MP pool if possible. They are active from birth. So long the donor has above 20% of their maximum MP, the other can freely use that Resource instead of their own. Access your dimensional storage. Spells you cast can originate from them instead. Both of you may communicate telepathically with a range of (Magic[yours] + Magic[theirs]) meters. Both share the same Exp awards.
Barbara must've received a similar notification. She stopped the MP supply. The teacher was glaring at us.
She froze, looking around to find who talked to her. I used one of the benefits of the new Perk and cast the spell myself, making it originate from her. The diagram on my page glowed and the magic emanated from the halfling.
"Good. You might have unlocked something very powerful," Mr. Collins said. "Okay, you're in the expedition group, Miss Ambrose. Congratulations."
----------------------------------------
[1] - The book quotes are from Exterminatus' novel, Everybody Loves Large Chests, linked in a previous chapter.