Alistair met Zola later that night in front of the Wraithen Archives. She had won her Primordial Solo matches up until she faced off against a boy from Yuber’s coterie who was able to beat her Runestone Onikuma. Juno hadn’t done so well, but that was mostly a luck-of-the-draw situation in his first match when he went for Piglet while his opponent, a girl from Professor Vale’s coterie, summoned a fire spirit.

Ghost had called it a pig roast, and that was more or less what had happened.

“Sorry I’m late,” Zola said. “Juno and Finnian wanted to head into town. They really tried to stop me from coming to study with you, yet here I am. I’m surprised they didn’t ask you.”

“They did. I said I needed to do some work with my summons and Kanda.”

“Kanda as an excuse seems to always work.”

“It does. At least with Juno.”

“Do you have the book?”

“I do.” Alistair patted the book bag given to him to protect Calista Halor’s biography.

“And you haven’t looked at it yet?”

“I haven’t,” he told her as they headed inside, where they found Chief Historian Lorcan speaking to a student at the front counter:

“...Remember, it’s best not to greet anyone at all when they come in unless they need something. Shouting welcome to the Wraithen Archives, disrupts the peace. Libraries are supposed to be peaceful and quiet places.”

“I didn’t said it that loud,” the girl told the Chief Historian.

“I can hear you from down the hallway. Can you try whispering it?”

“Welcome to the Wraithen Archives,” she whispered to Alistair and Zola, who responded with a nod.

“Good. Now, can you try mouthing it?”

The girl did so, no sound coming from her lips.

“Better. Do that. Now…” Lorcan turned to find Alistair and Zola. “Did you two come to volunteer tonight? If so, then wonderful.”

“No,” Alistair said.

“Oh.”

“I already worked several hours today,” Zola told him.

“A pity, really. Things in the Underhall have been shifting around as of late, and there’s a mess down there. I suppose I can find someone else to handle it.” He sighed. “Mother did say the work of a Chief Historian never ended. I thought she was just being a bit of a whiner. I suppose in that regard I am wrong. Anyway. Off you go. If you aren’t helping me in the Underhall, this conversation is concluded.”

Alistair and Zola continued on, past the main room where students gathered around tables copying information down from scrolls. They reached a private study room on the second floor and Alistair produced the book. He sat down, and Zola brought her chair next to him.

Ghost: I’m curious to see how the two of you are going to read this together.

Rather than start reading it, Zola examined the outer binding and carefully flipped through the pages. “Huh. Huh, huh, huh.”

“I noticed something else about it,” Alistair told her. “Gem Gaze. The book is brimming with Resonant Mana.”

“I figured that would be the case. Watch this.” Zola produced her wand. She tapped it against the cover and the red font with Calista Halor’s name on it trembled. It moved like ink, and formed into a small rectangle.

Alistair waited until the ink settled to speak again. “What skill is that?”

“It’s one given to me from volunteering here. Some of the text on these old books can rearrange itself and form into a variety of things, from recipes to confessions to maps. This is a map.”

Alistair looked down at the red rectangle. “A map of what, exactly?”

“Of this room. Notice the shape?”

Alistair looked around. The room was triangular in shape, with a slitted window that overlooked the front of the Wraithen Archives. “Crazy.”

Ghost: I get it now. It gives you a map of whatever room you’re in on campus and then… what? It shows you if she hid cards there?

Alistair’s eyes grew wide. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Zola nodded. “You’re thinking we should take Lorcan up on his offer to fix whatever he needed in the Underhall and see how the book responds down there. IF we do so, maybe we can find some Forbidden Cards.”

“Wait. How did you know Halor hid something like that?”

She gestured to the door. “I work here, remember. There are rumors that she hid cards for students to find.”

“So people know why I checked out her biography? Wouldn’t everyone be trying this if they do?”

“Not necessarily. There are hundreds of books, if not thousands, with various properties. Not everyone that works here has access to this power. I was given it because Lorcan said I showed promised. I also signed a contract to work here for the next three years. I guess I should have mentioned that. Wait, didn’t you tell me the Provost had it before?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Alistair nodded, recalling the Spectral Text he’d sent Zola earlier. “Do you think the Provost is hunting for cards?”

“That, or protecting them from being found because surely she knows about Halor’s biography.”

Ghost: If this is true, it means she wanted you to have a chance to find them. Could she know?

Alistair: Know what? The conspiracy? The fact you’re squatting in my head.

Ghost: That’s one way to put it. I honestly don’t know what her angle is here. Weaver could just seem promise in you and want to give you a leg up considering it was the Provost and her father who pushed to allow orphans to attend the Academy. Or, she could know everything. She might actually see your stats in ways that others can’t. Maybe she even knows I’m here.

“Well?” Zola asked.

“Sorry, thinking. I like your idea. We should absolutely head down to the Underhall now and test this book. It’s a Mechanical Summon, and it makes way for rooms by moving them up and down.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“If there is clutter, it could mean that it has opened a new space, a space that has yet to be explored. I’d guess that most people, including people like Lorcan, don’t know about the biography’s hidden traits. Otherwise, no one would be able to check it out.”

“But clearly the Provost does.”

“Clearly,” Alistair said as he packed the book back in its leather bag. “And she’s allowed me one week with the book. I’ve already wasted a day, and we have things that need to happen this weekend.”

Zola stood. “Then we’d better get started. Let me run interference with Lorcan. I’ll let him know we’re going to take a look and see what needs to happen down there. I’ll tell him it will take us several days.”

“And you think he’ll believe you?”

She nodded. “He’s always distracted with his mother and other academic things he’s a part of. I just need permission for us to be down there.”

“Maybe we should clue Juno in as well.”

“Good call. I’ll deal with Lorcan, you get in touch with Juno.”

“What if he brings Finnian?”

“I have no problem with Finnian tagging along, but we have to be extra careful with what we say around him. The Pact will prevent us from saying too much, but it’ll make the conversation awkward if one of us suddenly goes silent.”

“Yeah, maybe a bad idea.”

“Tell Juno to come alone. Be explicit about it if you have to be.” Zola stepped out of the door first, leaving Alistair alone with the book.

Ghost: You know, if being a do-gooder doesn’t work out for Zola, she’d make an excellent assassin. She’s got the cunning and the drive.

“Let’s not bring anyone else into this. Besides,” Alistair said as a likely scenario played out in his head, “if this is the path I continue to take, knowing ‘do-gooders’ like Juno and Zola might be helpful.”

Ghost: Indeed. You’re learning. I like it.

****

A sudden rush of cold moved past Alistair once they entered the Underhall. It was coupled by the smell of something that resembled old parchment paper, only damp. Lanterns on the wall all flamed on at the same time, providing a cascade of light that guided them down a deep corridor.

“Holy fuck, it really is different from last time we came down,” Juno said, who had since joined them. He laughed nervously. “I knew this thing was alive, but to see the hallway actually rearrange itself. Craziness. We literally moved items from this room to this one,” he told Alistair as he pointed at a solid wall.

“I remember.”

“Let’s just focus on the book,” Zola said as she got it out of its protective bag. The text rearranged itself into a map of the corridor.

“Let me see that.” Juno hovered over Zola’s shoulder. “Wow! Look at that ink change. Shit is awesome.”

“It is awesome, and hopefully, it will help us find something. Come on,” Zola said as she kept the book out. “Let’s head to the end of the hallway and continue on.”

The three took a right, a left, and continued in this pattern until they came to a series of rooms. They checked the rooms, Juno laughing as he found a collection of wigs and shoddy armor, and continued.

Half an hour passed in the way as they kept at it, the map reforming after every turn as they turned down random corridors. It was at the point that it all started to look the same that Ghost’s voice appeared in Alistair’s head.

Ghost: Are you keeping track of the direction you all came from? I’m not able to because of the light in here and the complexity.

Alistair: I thought Zola was.

Ghost: Ask her.

“Do you know where we are exactly,” Alistair asked Zola, who had her head buried in the inky red map on the front of the biography.

She looked up at him, slightly confused. “We’re in the Underhall.”

“I mean where in the Underhall. We’ve been down here for a while.”

Her face went a little pale as she registered what Alistair was suggesting. “I didn’t think of that.”

Juno started to look around. He charged down one of the halls and then returned to them, shaking his head. “We’re idiots.”

“Are you saying we’re lost down here?” Zola asked. “Juno!”

“What?”

“You weren’t keeping track?”

“No one told me to keep track. Even if they had, I’m not really a ‘keep track’ kind of guy.” He laughed nervously, which Alistair knew was a coping mechanism for him.

“We just need to go back the way we came,” Zola said.

“We made choices, though,” Juno reminded her. “Directions to take. It wasn’t a straight shot. Oh, this is bad. Wait, we can still use Spectral Text. We can tell someone. Someone can save us!”

Ghost: Don’t tell anyone yet. There will be questions.

“If we tell anyone, they’ll wonder what we’re doing down here,” Alistair said. “It will definitely get to Lorcan, maybe even the Provost. He probably has a way to find students lost down here.”

Zola gasped. “I’ll be in so much trouble. We could be expelled.”

“I’m less worried about being expelled than I am being trapped down here forever. Okay, think, Juno,” the boy said to himself, pacing. “Think, think, think… Wait. Wait!” He clapped his hands together, the sound echoing down the corridor. “Our summons. That could work. We could send the smartest ones out.”

“Or we could wait until morning,” Zola said. “Someone will check.”

“This far down?”

“You’re right,” she admitted.

Alistair: Well? What should we do? Don’t you have something to add?

Ghost: I’d add that the three of you should have had a plan in the first place, and that my fatal error was letting you journey down here without one.

Zola approached the next corridor and looked down at the book just as the map on the cover changed. “Guys, we have something else,” she said, interrupting Alistair and Juno as they continued to debate what they should do.”

“Yeah?” Juno asked her.

“The cover changed, I mean, the map did. There is an X on it now. In the next corridor, the room on the right.”

“You mean like ‘X marks the spot?’” Juno asked.

She shrugged. “I have no idea, but we’re here anyway. Let’s check it out, and then try to figure a way back to the main floor of the Archives. There has to be a solution that doesn’t involve letting people know we stupidly got lost down here.”

“So loot first?” Juno smiled at her. “I like your way of thinking.”