The first thing I did once I’d reached the library was to make a stop at the front librarian's desk to check in with my favorite librarian. For the first time since I arrived with the brothers, I found myself waiting in a line. There were two people in front of me, apparently newly arrived, already speaking to Elody. If it hadn’t been for the four legs each of them were standing on, I’d have assumed they were some sort of dwarf, given their long beards and smaller stout frames.
“Yes, this is a knowledge world, as I said when you arrived. This is the Archives of Gortrin, and you are welcome to stay as long as you like,” her voice sounded annoyed, and I couldn’t remember ever hearing any anger from her before.
“Yes, we know, you told us, but what I need to know now is if you have any of these books,” the newcomer said aggressively, pushing a list over the counter to Elody.
“And as I told you, we are a knowledge world,” Elody’s smile started to slip as she said. What was going on here? She was always extremely helpful to me when I was looking for something.
“I’m not sure you understand. We are representatives of the Triox Council, and we need to check your archives for any restricted materials,” the second one said gruffly.
“I do understand, and I’m reasonably sure you’re the one who doesn’t understand the reality of your situation. This is a knowledge world, and you do not represent any Spiral official or System proclamation. We do not and will not accept your authority on what is considered restricted materials. You, as much as everyone else here, are welcome to browse the archive as you please, but please note that any attempt to destroy anything within the archive or to remove it from the archive without permission will result in extreme consequences. Do you understand now?” Her voice made her sound ready to rip their heads off herself if needed, and it was further amplified by all four of her eyes staring daggers at the Triox people.
As they both took several steps backward away from the counter, it became obvious to everyone watching, including myself, that her point had finally been made. Still, one of them opened their mouth to protest again. “Madam, you do not want to cause a rift with us; I assure you of that.”
“Dave, what can I help you with today?” Elody asked, moving two of her eyes over to me, entirely disregarding the last thing the Triox had said.
“Oh, hey Elody, exciting day, I take it?” I asked, hoping to lighten her mood a little.
Her usual smile returned as she answered. “Yes, we do have the rare bit of excitement here.”
“Well, if it helps at all, the brothers agreed, especially since Mel gave you a glowing recommendation,” I said, returning her smile.
“Oh, wonderful, and you’re all working with Mel, that’s fantastic. You won’t get better adventuring help around here than him. Don’t let him fool you. He’s been places you couldn’t imagine, but back to the point. I should have a free moment in my schedule in a couple of days to join your team for dinner, and we can discuss the details. I really appreciate the help, Dave. Now, is there anything I can do for you today?” She asked while her second set of eyes tracked the movement of the two who had been berating her as they slunk off into the archives.
“Nope, I’m just off to get some reading done for the rest of the day. Should I worry about those two?” I pointed to their backs as they vanished behind a row of bookcases.
“No, their interest in you is likely non-existent, though I would recommend against mentioning any of your reading quests to them, best to keep yourself off their radar if possible,” She answered.
“Understood, thanks as always, see you later,” I said as I considered the implications of an organization trying to ban books. I don’t know why it surprised me as much as it did. There were always attempts at banning books on Earth, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise there was at least a single group working on that in the Spiral.
I spent the time between our planned dinner reading nearly nonstop, only taking breaks to sleep and eat. I wanted to see how far my new mental stat could push me, and it was surprisingly far. I was able to complete two New Reader quests and unlock a new quest called Intermediate Reader. This one had a reward of a new skill: Comprehension. This actually left me a little confused, as I hadn’t seen any mention of it on the skill lists I had found, and I also wondered how it differed from retention. I supposed just because I could recite something word for word didn’t mean I actually understood. Would this skill let me grasp concepts faster?
The downside was that the experience had slowed down with the fifth New Reader quest. It was no longer doubling, but I had reached level nineteen, so there was only one more to go before I maxed out the attributes I could gain before I made my attempt at core creation. I hoped that whatever it was that Elody wanted would be enough to push me to that final level.
Most of my reading focus in the last few days had been on the working of spells. I wanted to know exactly, or at least as much as I could before our next possible adventure, how Elicec’s spells worked. The way people cast spells depended heavily on the progression path they were choosing with their core and mana orbs, and as far as I could tell, it ranged pretty far and wide. I quickly narrowed my focus though to what I thought was how he had been casting spells.
As I had heard him chanting and saw him crush something in his hand at least once, it looked like he was using the three-component approach: somatic, verbal, and material. This meant that he was focusing heavily on building mana channels out from his core through his hands and his throat into his mouth. As he grew these channels, he could fine-tune how the mana flowed, allowing him to mix and match for his desired results. The words of the chant weren’t as important as understanding the focus they created, but it was nearly impossible for someone new to spellwork to pull off anything successfully until they learned the exact rhythm of the words. The material components gave a further adjustment to the mana, letting him add further features he may not have access to in his core.
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Spellcraft was agreed to be a very powerful path and an extremely viable build for the Spiral Arena, but it would take a long time to master, and without a team willing to back a practitioner up, they had little chance of going far. This wasn’t the first time I had encountered references to the Spiral Arena in my reading. Hell, I knew that was what the brothers had come to compete in. I hadn’t bothered much with it in my research as I had no intention of sticking around to compete, but it was interesting that authors had a whole field dedicated to the concept of the meta aspects of success there. Perhaps once the Earth was saved, I could learn more. That is, assuming I could ever return here, and there was no guarantee that would be possible or that I would succeed.
With my attribute cap looming at level twenty in mind, I considered where to spend the seventy-five points I had now. There would be another fifteen likely coming before I created my core, so anything I could do to push my chances of both surviving and not causing a cataclysmic level disaster were the prime factors in how I assigned them. I started by moving cheat death up to twenty-five points, figuring that was probably one of the better bets for staying alive, and noticed that it didn’t hit a soft cap there, unlike everything else so far. I had to move it all the way to fifty before I hit the same stopping point. I felt like I had certainly made the right move there. I moved physical use up to twenty-five as well, hitting the cap as I expected to. That left me with six points now and the fifteen I’d gain at the next level, which was enough to move one of my senses up near the cap as well. Which would be the best one for the experiments? Was there more than one?
Instead of dwelling on the question for now, I needed to meet everyone for dinner. Considering I didn’t even have the final points yet, there was still plenty of time to consider where they would go, and I didn’t want to be late for this dinner. Elody was expecting us all, and I had no intention of disappointing her.
I spotted the brothers in the hall on the way to our usual table. I quickly sprinted up to them, sticking by my original intentions. Before I opened my mouth to greet them, two things hit my brain at once. The first, something to consider more for later, was that my body had no problem with the sprinting I had just done. I wasn’t breathing hard; my knees didn’t ache; it was almost like I was a kid again. The second thing I noticed was that, unlike how I felt, the brothers looked like they had been through a meat grinder and back. They were both covered in bruises, and several large gashes on their bodies had been stitched shut. What had happened?
“Hey, you two okay?” I asked, extremely concerned with whatever they had been through.
“Yes, mostly. A team invited us out to a persistent desert dungeon, and we had the bad luck of taking a dire scorpion’s stinger to the chest. Gotta finish letting the poison work its way through before we can do any magical healing, well, at least any we can afford. Mel says we should be fine tomorrow,” Elicec explained.
“Good, you two had me worried for a second there.” My relief was evident on my face.
“Last time we do anything with that team, though, we pulled off a better job in our dungeon, and we’re complete rookies at this,” Cecile added. I was surprised to see a frown visible on the man’s face. That was usually reserved for his brother.
“I’m sorry. Well, the good news is our next outing should be just us and Elody, but I can’t promise a dungeon, and it looks like she’s already at the table,” I trailed off my initial words, having spotted her already sitting at our table, calmly sipping from a glass. Her top two eyes moved to look at us, and she gave us a wave, smiling brightly as she did. I hustled over to grab my chair, followed by the brothers.
“You two look like you’ve had quite the adventure today. Are you recovering alright?” Elody asked, her gaze moving to the brothers.
“Yeah, just a bad scorpion encounter. Dave was worried too, but Mel says we’ll be good to finish patching up tomorrow,” Cecile said while Elicic looked over the menu. I did the same, choosing an item labeled as Mother’s Meatloaf, hoping that the name carried through on the promise.
“Well I’m glad Mel is confident, and not just because I need your help,” She said after taking another sip from her glass.
“Speaking of our help, what’s going on anyway, you said it was something in sub-basements?” I asked, wondering if it possibly had anything to do with my attacker. I hadn’t heard anything about them being caught.
“As can you imagine, the information contained in the archives is massive. We generally cycle the lesser-used or very out-of-date books to the lower levels. The problem is some of our automated functions at the lowest levels have started to fail. It could be a number of things; as we know, Dave was attacked down there, though I doubt anyone would want to draw attention to themselves by disrupting the archive to that level, but that, amongst other things, are possible. I need some people I trust to join me in investigating just what is happening,” Elody explained. I wasn’t sure entirely why she needed us still.
“That makes sense, but why do you need us? I’ve seen some of what you can do, and you are on a whole other level we are nowhere near,” I said honestly.
“Dave’s got a point there. I assume you librarians are pretty capable. At best, we’re rookies,” Elicec said, backing me up.
“We are, and I honestly don’t expect much of a problem, so I’d rather not take another librarian off duty. The reason I want you, though, is just in case I need to do any in-depth spellwork to fix something; I’d rather you three stay focused for anything that might draw in. Plus, as it will be an official archive request, you’ll each be getting one hundred UC a piece.” I saw the brothers’ eyes go wide when she said the amount of money.
“We’re in,” Cecile said the moment after she had mentioned the money.
“Who am I to argue with them? Plus, it sounds like a good learning experience; I’d like to see what the lowest levels look like,” I said, agreeing to join them.
“Perfect, I’m sure it’s nothing like an awakened intelligent book spawned a dungeon in our basements or anything like that,” she said, her smile growing as she talked. Given the look on her face, I was fairly certain that that was exactly what it was…