April 2024

***

Mana stepped out of her portal into the library. Armed with Translate, she would be able to read the index which was supposed to be located in this area.

← From 125dccd8d10f420100003f8c82saf21: Aranon

Imperial Aranon Script and Vexian Numbers, 21 pages

From 125dccd8d10f420100003f8c82saf21: Aranon

Imperial Aranon Script and Vexian Numbers, 22 pages →

The number of pages gave her pause, however. There was no way that a single alphabet and number system would give her enough space for multiple coordinates on such a limited canvas. The index she was headed for must therefore be on the lower number of entries.

“All that for maybe one book,” she complained offhandedly to Portal and turned her head in the direction of the target bookshelf. There was a minotaur staring at her, barely further away than a meter. Steam rose from its nostrils and the spear it carried shone in the light of the lamps. In its other hand it carried a tower shield, almost as large as itself.

Mana extended a hand and Arrow shot towards the beast without her needing to command it verbally. As she expected, the creature blocked the arrow with its shield and advanced towards her. Mana attempted to use her portals to get behind it, but as she did, the hulking mass of muscle turned around completely at a surprising speed and Mana had to duck or she would be even shorter than before – a full head shorter, to be precise.

Cursing quietly, she withdrew back into the neighboring room via another portal, circling the abyss in the middle while she kept her distance from her enormous enemy.

“Two self-summoning beasts in a row? Near another book?” Portal mused.

“The chances of that are…”

“Near zero.” Mana finished for him. She extended her hand again and used Blast. It staggered the minotaur and pushed it back, so she used it consecutively, narrowing her eyes as she kept thinking.

“I get the feeling that we are being pranked by Marisa.”

After a moment an idea took shape in her mind. After her encounter with Doppelgänger, she replayed the events leading up to it over and over in her head, trying to find out if there could have been a course of action that worked without using her clone. She was about to reuse that idea now.

“Portal, this is going to be a little more complicated than the usual ones.”

“Got it, Mana.”

Mana used a final blast which hit the minotaur’s shield, then she focused on shaping Arrow.

“Entry portal one meter in front of me! Create the exit portal the exact moment I let loose of the arrow on my palm!”

She barked her orders while the minotaur was still reeling, then she shot her arrow. Portal followed her instructions to the letter, catching the magical arrow in an infinite loop of entering and exiting the two holes in reality.

Mana created a barrier to protect the entry portal from the muscular ox-human hybrid, then a second one to box him in – for a time, at least.

She sprinted – circling the room until she stood on the other side, all while the minotaur stabbed and slashed the barriers in rage – it even threw its weight against them and soon cracks appeared all over the translucent panes and they shattered, just in time for the creature to notice that Mana was now behind it. It turned her way and blew hot, almost steamy air out of its nostrils as it prepared to charge and kill the child in front of it.

“Not so fast!” Mana shouted with a grin.

She extended her hand and blasted the minotaur once more. She continued that way, even mixing in an arrow or two for variety until she was certain that the creature was entirely entrenched behind its shield.

“Portal, if you would erase the entry point?” She didn’t need to vocalize her command at her current level of mastery, but she enjoyed the theatrics that would accompany her victory this way.

“Coming right up!”

While the Minotaur was busy deflecting Mana’s blast and arrow attacks from the front, the arrow in its back was entirely forgotten. The entry portal disappeared, allowing the magic projectile to fly ahead and bury itself in the large creature’s spine. It buckled, its legs giving out without receiving commands from the brain anymore – and as it lost its balance and fell out of its large shield’s protection, it faced the Witch Queen of the Infinite Library, her hand folded into the shape of a gun, with an arrow spell wildly rotating at the tip of her fingers and pointed at the minotaur’s eye.

“Bang!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/xVo0VeL.png]

The dead creature turned into ash and crumbled. A lone applause echoed through the library and a snow-white witch hat peeked over the railing of the floor above. It was Marisa.

“Bravo! Bravo! My beloved is so graceful and strong! It makes me want to merge with her after all! Ah, but I must hold back!”

It was irritating to be mocked like that by her own voice – Mana clenched her hand into a fist.

“What do you want, Marisa?!”

“Nothing, mistress!” Marisa threw her arms out wide and showed Mana the widest smile imaginable.

“I just wished to see you fight this creature! I never doubted that you would be able to vanquish it, but the way you overcame your own weaknesses was nothing short of inspiring!”

Now Portal spoke up.

“How did you even get that spell? It’s not in our index.”

“Oh, Portal, Portal…” Marisa sighed.

“You can be so stupid sometimes. Have you forgotten that I am a book myself? Much as I hate to admit it.”

Portal paused before Mana could feel that it realized something.

“Oh no…”

“Oh yes, Portal! As a book I can feel any index pointing towards my original room and shelf. And I found the most wonderful index, filled with books upon books for summoning monsters. Though I feel a little conflicted about being lumped in with them.” Marisa let out a little laugh before she descended the stairs.

“I do not really wish to harm you, mistress. But isn’t it painfully boring to explore this library with no real challenge? You are the great witch of the library, so you should test yourself. You should grow strong.”

“You just say that because you grow more powerful when she does!”

Portal shouted at her, making the redheaded girl click her tongue.

“Shut up, you single-language halfwit.”

She then moved towards the shelf and struck a pose, pointing with both of her arms at one of the books like she presented Mana with her prize.

“Anyway: ta-dah! Here is your brand-new index! But with only twenty-one pages it contains a measly single entry. What could it possibly be?”

Mana gave Marisa an annoyed look as she approached the shelf and yanked the book out of its comfortable place, flipping it open.

The translation magic did its work, letting her parse the odd script.

“Before the coordinates it just says ‘Aranon’.” She commented with a furrowed brow. “That’s not a spell.”

“No,” answered Portal. “No, it’s not. It’s a world coordinate. Congratulations, Mana. You found your first access point to another world.”

***

Marisa kept close to them with a self-satisfied grin, leaning against the bookshelves.

“Another world?” Mana asked.

“Like the one the wizards who created this library came from. I have never heard of this ‘Aranon’, but judging by the fact that it has a writing system named after itself, it must be sufficiently advanced.” Portal explained to her. Mana flipped through the pages, looking at the weird letters and numbers that shaped the coordinates. As they weren’t actually text, they remained untranslated and foreign to her eyes.

“Will it be dangerous? Like, will I have air to breathe?”

“We can open the portal with some distance and check that way.” Portal suggested.

Marisa rolled her eyes and grabbed her newest index out of her sleeve, flipping the pages.

“I’ll be right back, mistress.”

With that she vanished through a portal, leaving Mana behind.

Mana blinked and stared at the space where Marisa just vanished.

“What’s she up to?”

“Don’t ask me, Mana.”

In that moment Marisa appeared again, with a new book in her hand.

“Here. I have the perfect thing to test air quality and other things.”

Marisa announced, flipping through the pages. She extended her arm and summoned something. Mana immediately got herself ready to blast and kill whatever it was, but relaxed as she saw a small, featureless human in front of her.

“What in the world is that?” she asked Marisa.

“It’s a homunculus.” The redheaded witch replied.

“I even made it very sensitive to radiation and other invisible threats. So, you can rest assured that it will die spectacularly if there’s anything in the air that would kill you after years of noticing nothing wrong with your body.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Mana furrowed her brow and looked at the little creature, shrugging her shoulders and looking at Portal.

“Well, you heard her. Let’s open a portal to this ‘Aranon’.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/xVo0VeL.png]

After the little homunculus climbed through the portal they waited. The other side looked to be a beach – with the portal opening seaside, watching the waves gently roll over the sand. There was just one odd difference to what a beach on Earth would look like: everything had a red tint to it.

The homunculus walked around a little, turning from side to side before it turned around and waved at the two of them. It was a little unsettling to be waved at by a toddler without a face, but Mana tried to hide her discomfort.

She turned her head towards Marisa and shrugged.

“It’s your pet. You get to confirm that it’s telling the truth.”

“So mistrustful, mistress!” Marisa teased, blowing Mana a kiss as she walked through the portal.

“See? It’s safe. And you might want to see this with your own eyes!”

Marisa pointed to something behind the portal on her side.

Mana sighed and still hesitated, exchanging a look with Portal – to the extent one could do that with a book.

“Oh well. If I don’t go in there, she’ll probably wreck the place before I can see it properly.”

Mana walked through the portal and closed it behind herself. As she turned around, she realized that Marisa didn’t need to wreck anything.

There was a city. Its architecture was weird and foreign, as the buildings looked more circular than blocky, but the buildings were very recognizable as such. Though, past the second floor only their steel skeletons remained, reaching up into the sky, bent and disarranged.

Mana looked into the sky, which was a pinkish-orange hue.

“Looks like pictures of Mars. Only that we have an ocean here.”

She began to walk, with Marisa following close. Her little creature walked ahead of them, like a canary in a coal mine.

Before long they were inside the hollowed-out city. Mana could see that most of the damage came from decay, with houses having collapsed without anyone caring to clean them up or repair them. In other corners she saw signs of battle. Craters and bullet holes pockmarked the streets.

There was no sign of any victims of this violence or whoever perpetrated it, though.

They kept walking, across an open space that must have been used once as a market – the building in front of them looked suspiciously like a town hall.

“This place is an utter wreck. Nothing worthwhile here!” Marisa kept complaining, kicking the rubble around them.

“I want to know what happened…” Mana hushed her.

“Not like the stones here will tell you anything. Anyway, time to check up on the little guy. Air still safe? No radiation? No toxic spores?”

The homunculus gave Marisa a thumbs up.

Mana dug through some of the rubble surrounding the marketplace. There was nothing.

“Maybe something is in that town hall looking place over there.” She suggested.

“Ugh, fine, mistress! But only because I like you.”

“You don’t have to come.” Mana said dryly

“I still haven’t forgotten how you tried to… merge with me. It felt weird. And disgusting.”

The clone rolled her eyes and looked into the dead landscape as she followed Mana. The door was rusted shut, so the young witch had to employ her blast spell a few times to pry it open.

The town hall was missing a roof as well, with rubble covering the entire floor.

“Looks like a dud, too.” Marisa complained and shrugged.

“Let’s get back to the library, this dead place bores me, mistress!”

“I told you; you can go on your own. I don’t even want you here!” Mana snapped at her.

Marisa glared at Mana and simply looked the after way with a noisy ‘hmph!’ sound.

After their altercation something else spoke. At first it was an incomprehensible language, then her book Translate stepped in.

“…not native to this planet. Sapience level… sufficient. Hello, travelers. Please confirm if you can understand us!”

Mana blinked and looked around, trying to find the source of the voice.

The message repeated.

“The vault’s recovery system registered lifeforms not native to this planet. Sapience level… sufficient. Hello, travelers! Please confirm if you can understand us!”

“Uhm… hello!” Mana responded. “Translate, maybe make me respond in their language, too. Hello!”

There was a break in the messages before another one played.

“You speak our language! Wonderful news! Please locate the source of these beeps.”

An annoying sound played through the building which made Mana and Marisa scrunch up their faces. It came from the basement, which was only half intact. Mana and Marisa and their little homunculus had to climb over rubble to make it to the source of the noise. There was a speaker in front of a large shutter, constantly blaring.

“Okay, okay! We found it! Please turn it off!” Mana yelled over the noise as she covered her ears. The noise turned off and the shutter started to lift.

“Wonderful! Welcome to the vault, dear guests! Behold the legacy of Aranon and witness with your own eyes… that we once lived here.”

3

Mana stepped through the shutter and down a long flight of stairs, even deeper than the town hall’s basement. The air got colder the deeper they descended – soon the stone around them gave way to steel and ceiling lights turned on one after the other. The steel gave way to glass, and they could see that they were underwater. Alien marine life passed by the tube they walked through, creatures that looked like sharks with turtle shells, two-headed eel creatures that could swim in either direction, fish that looked like they had the eyes and mandibles of spiders.

There was some noise again, but it was quiet, gentle this time. Before long Mana realized that they carried a harmony – music was played for their tour.

“Aranon is beautiful, isn’t she? The wonders of life, the result of billions of years of creatures adjusting to the challenges of existence.”

This was the same voice that spoke to them earlier, now acting as a sort of tour guide.

“The fact that so many creatures still exist despite our blue skies being poisoned by rust is proof of life’s tenacity. Maybe in a billion years an heir to our species will emerge”

Mana didn’t like the implication at all.

“You talk like you’re dead.”

There was no reply – whatever spoke to them was made to narrate, not to hold a conversation.

They finally arrived at their destination – a giant underwater dome. Around them they could still see life swirling in the waters, but the walls were lined with statues while the center of the room was equipped with giant machinery that looked like a projector of some kind.

The people they depicted looked humanoid, albeit with ridges along their foreheads and skins between their elongated fingers and toes. They looked amphibian. Every single one was contemplating something in their open palms and as Mana climbed up the side of the statues, she saw that it was a single drop of water – or at least the depiction of one sculpted with glass.

What’s there to think about?

“This is where we will tell you about our history as a species. Our beginnings. Our greatness. Our failure. Our end. Our hope.”

“Booooring!” Marisa complained again, sitting down and leaning against one of the statues.

The room darkened, and a hologram played in the middle of the room. It was a depiction of the planet, as far as Mana could tell. It was mostly water, with a lot of islands in between and one large continent somewhere around the equator that was mostly covered in desert. A rust-red desert.

“We, the Aranon, developed after an eons-long period of evolution from amphibian lifeforms. Mastering tools and within time farming techniques for the phytoplankton we need to consume to live.”

The voice was now a different one. And next to them a person looking like the surrounding statues showed up, similarly cast by a holographic projector. He – at least Mana assumed it was a he, by the voice, pointed at the projection of the planet.

The projection changed, showing humanoid creatures with gills and fish tails instead of legs - though as they approached maturity their gills closed, and they sprouted legs before they shed their tails and walked on land.

“In the water we built our farms and hatcheries. On land, we built our homes and large centers of culture and research. Within a short twenty thousand years since we learned to communicate with words, we ruled over everything under the beautiful blue skies of our planet.”

The alien turned their way and bowed.

“Apologies for the late introduction. My name is Mhorad. I am the creator of this vault.”

His facial expressions were alien to Mana’s sensibilities but Translate allowed her to see the pain in his eyes.

“And as you’ve already seen out there, our species has gone extinct. Let me tell you how it happened.”

***

“We loved nothing more than to watch the stars. On our oceans the view was always so clear, so undisturbed. We wished to visit them, too. Alas, we only ever managed orbital flight.”

The holographic projection showed arcs of objects being shot into space, first going up and failing to reach orbit, splashing back down in water, before finally one of the objects achieved orbital flight.

“We understood soon that we wouldn’t be able to leave our home for the stars. Not without large leaps in knowledge and technology.”

Mhorad faced the hologram and pointed at various islands on which glowing spots appeared.

“We gathered our brightest minds to study every secret of our planet and the cosmos – and before long this pursuit of knowledge became our whole reason of being.”

His eyes turned sorrowful.

“The universe is so beautiful and expansive, all a single species on a single planet could ever hope to comprehend of its wonders within its finite existence would be equivalent to a drop of water from the ocean.”

Mana looked at the statues again and she finally understood their meaning.

“Within a few centuries our researchers understood the origin of every species swimming in our waters, the movements of the winds themselves and the nature of the visible stars. The whole world united under the banner of Aranon to pursue knowledge!”

Mohorad raised his arms, spread as if he was praying to the skies.

“Save for the Vexilians.” He let his arms sink to his side again and rotated the holographic planet until the large continent with the rust desert was in view.

“They refused to join the Empire and after a while they grew jealous. While their nation was small…”

A few dots lit up on the shoreline of the desert continent, indicating settlements.

“…they were fierce. They, too, funded research, but into matters of war. And soon they coveted our land and knowledge.”

With a snap of his fingers the planet vanished and was replaced by visions of naval battles. Ships were battered by volleys of impossibly large projectiles; torpedoes exploded and broke the spines of other ships. Though as one fleet pushed back the other, planes appeared from the horizon, turning the tides of battle entirely. The chaos of war consumed the entire room before it changed to a battered landscape.

“It took the combined might of all of Aranon to push them back. Their inventions were beyond our measures to wage war, making us rely on numbers. But just as we pushed them back to their home shores…”

The giant rust desert in the middle of the continent was rocked by hundreds of thousands of explosions before it erupted like a meteorite hit it – Mana could see its rusty sands being carried all the way into the planet’s stratosphere.

“They decided to end us all if they were going to lose.”

Bit by bit the blue planet took a pink and orange hue.

“With the detonation of the great red desert and the scattering of its rust-infested sands in our atmosphere, the sky turned pink.

“The phytoplankton, our only source of food, can’t grow without the correct wavelengths of light. For a time we made do with artificially grown substitutes, but there was no way to catch up with our population’s demand without an entire ocean’s worth of growth.”

The ‘man’ supported himself against the console of the holographic projector.

“…at the moment of recording, our species is starving to death. More than half of us have already perished.”

He pulled a piece of cloth out of his pocket and wiped his forehead, his black, beady eyes scanning the room.

“As part of the ‘privileged class’, tasked with preserving our legacy, I am still being given whatever leftovers we can scrape together. Today I will finish my work.”

A glass showcase descended from the ceiling – a single crystalline container was placed inside, in the shape of a waterdrop at fist size. Its red glass looked very pretty to Mana’s eyes, but the container’s meaning already felt heavy on her shoulders.

“Whoever you are: if you found us, please take this. It’s our drop of knowledge of the vast ocean that is the cosmos. All our scientific knowledge. All our cultural records. Music, art, architecture… everything. I left nothing out. Whatever wasn’t destroyed in the war, it’s in here. It’s proof that we once existed. That we opened our eyes for a micro-instant of the universe’s existence and were allowed to take in its beauty. “

He turned around again, leaning against the projector.

“We were here. We will not whine about going back to sleep, to the great nothingness that was before. So please, don’t let this knowledge fade into nothingness with us.”

The hologram died and left behind nothing but an eerie silence.

image [https://i.imgur.com/xVo0VeL.png]

Portal was worried. In the two months he knew Mana she was cocky, and all too sure of her greatness. She mastered spellcasting at record speed, and it went to her head, as it convinced her that she could handle whatever fate threw at her.

And now a dead civilization entrusted her with its entire legacy. A thirteen-year-old girl for whom the library and its secrets were nothing more than a fun adventure to go on after school.

He could see her hesitating – her usually bright and cocky demeanor was nowhere to be seen – and her way too large witch hat was drawn deep over her eyes as if she was afraid that someone could read her full expression.

She opened the glass door of the showcase and stared at the drop full of knowledge for a long time.

Of course, she wouldn’t even know how to read its contents. But it was still all in there. Music, art and many other things recorded by sapient creatures who had thousands of years of history, which were now entirely gone.

“You don’t want it, huh?” Marisa spoke up and simply snatched the glass drop away.

“It’s just some junk some dead fish left behind anyway. If you don’t want it, I’ll gladly get rid of it for you. I can toss it into the library’s abyss or smash it on the ground or…”

“…ive it back…” Mana’s voice was eerily quiet.

“What was that?” Marisa turned around to Mana, who suddenly jumped on her, grabbing the clone’s wrist while trying to pry the crystal from her.

Large tears streamed from the young witches’ eyes and her face looked desperate as she wrestled with a surprised Marisa.

“GIVE IT BACK!”

Marisa fought back on instinct, but her expression was more surprised than angered – she only put up a token resistance before Mana managed to pry the precious gem from her and hurried away, up the stairs.

“Portal, bring me home!” She managed to say between sniffles before she audibly cried. She didn’t have to ask him twice.

***

Mana sat quietly on her bed, gently turning the drop in her hands and looking at it. Her eyes looked hollow. Portal was right, and he hated it: a thirteen-year-old girl shouldn’t be shouldered with the weight of an entire dead civilization’s legacy.