“This must be the actual time limit…” Cinthia said, watching her fingers progressively becoming shadows.
“At least it only looks different, doesn’t feel like much else is happening. Still, at the speed it’s going… Ten minutes to reach our chest, five more to reach the head, maybe? So that’s what we’re working with. Let’s try to uncover more rules.”
“Yeah the lights changed section right when you guessed a rule out loud, so it might be linked. If we’re forced into a new section of the library every time, though, we need to get the most information out of each section,” Cinthia recapped, talking quite fast as they were pressed for time.
“Let’s grab another book each.”
Leveraging her fast reading, Sofia quickly scanned all the book titles until she found something truly interesting: The undead giants of the north.
It was quite high so she jumped up to grab it, but when her fingers touched this new book, they were repelled back, and a sharp, acute pain coursed through her left hand which was still holding onto the Dimmerion book.
“Ouch, what the hell?!”
Cinthia was about to grab a book of her own, but she stopped when Sofia cursed. “Did the book hurt you?”
“Yes? It’s weird. Let me try again.”
Sofia touched the book again, and the exact same thing happened. The pain made Sofia let the book on Dimmerions go, and she watched it fly straight into the darkness as if it were going back to its own bookshelf in the previous section.
“Can you grab the new book now?” Cinthia asked.
Sofia pulled out the book on Giant undeads without any issue.
“Guess we found another rule. Let’s not say it out loud quite yet so we can stay here a bit longer. You should get a book too.”
Cinthia nodded, and placed her previous book on the ground. It silently slid into the darkness by itself. Cinthia then picked the book, Origins of Orcs, the tribes and tribulations.
Sofia and Cinthia each opened their own book and started reading as fast as possible. With no time to lose, Sofia tried to copy some of the book’s contents on a bone slab.
A violent headache assaulted her as soon as she began carving the first letter.
Cinthia was about to do the same thing, taking out a notebook and a pen, Sofia hurriedly asked her to stop.
“Don’t! I just tried, we cannot copy the books!” Sofia said. Immediately, the lights went out.
“Crap,” Cinthia cursed as the girls both jumped straight into a newly illuminated section of the library this time on the side. The books there seemed to be about various locations, ranging from Mountain of this and plains of that to what seemed to be city names and such other places.
“No copy is the second rule, then,” Sofia said with a sigh, “I’m doomed to forget all about the nordic frost Dragon’s grave as soon as I close this book… That sucks.”
“Same feeling here, and I can’t even read fast enough to get through this entire thing even if I spent all our remaining time reading it…” Cinthia commiserated, weakly waving her open book.
“Wait…” Sofia said, “Stop moving,” she ordered. Cinthia did so, and Sofia stared at her book for a second. The pages are all blank? “Cinthia, I found another rule, I think. I’m not saying it but yeah… Also, I think… We might be able to keep the last book we grab, so if you want to absolutely keep this one, just do that. I feel like I can guess all the rules by myself, I already have a few already.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“That makes sense… You should be the one keeping your book, then. A dragon skeleton is worth a lot more than some historical knowledge about my ancestors.”
The two went back and forth for a few seconds, eventually agreeing that they should just focus on getting through the trial fast, and if they could keep their last book, then they’d be happy with whatever that was.
Thinking this, Sofia closed her book, forgetting all about its contents, and tried to store it in her ring.
Not only did that not work, she received the most violent backlash yet, the curse actually slightly damaging her right arm in the process. No storing books either.
Hoping that Mr.Scribe might just be able to remember the information later, Sofia next picked a book with a title that seemed interesting and quickly read it before closing it and putting it back in its place.
Meanwhile Cinthia also let her book from the previous section go and grabbed another one that intrigued her, which she promptly started flitting through.
The curse was progressing steadily, now having eaten up to half of Sofia’s forearms.
“It’s almost like we have Sunless arms,” Sofia joked, “who should give the next rule? Have any guesses?”
“I have one,” Cinthia confidently said, Sofia expected one of those she had already guessed, but instead Cinthia said something even more obvious, “Rule three, don’t damage the books!”
The candles all went out, before another section lit up once more.
This section was all about non-magical subjects ranging from basic things like baking to specifics like 101 spiral staircase architecture tips to impress your clients.
Not wanting to waste time, Sofia reached out to grab the closest book to her, only for the curse to send a jolt of pain through her arm again.
What the fuck now? I’m not holding any other book!
“Cinthia, I can’t touch this book for some reason.”
Cinthia ran up to Sofia, leaving her previous book go, she read the book’s title out loud, “Getting rid of stains on delicate textile. Pretty normal-sounding subject, let me try.”
Cinthia had no issue grabbing and opening the book. She hastily read a few pages in the middle. “Nothing irregular, just plant mixture recipes for cleaning silk, won’t ever use it but it’s mildly interesting.”
Sofia couldn’t care less about techniques for washing textile, she just wanted to know why this book in particular had hurt her for no reason.
“Let me try another book…”
Sofia cursed out loud as another jolt of pain wrecked her arm when she touched another book. “Am I not allowed to pick any book from this section?!” she complained.
Cinthia put the book on textile back and tried another one, “Doesn’t seem to be that or the lights would have gone out, let me try aga- AAHHGH!” Cinthia yelped in pain as her fingers touched the book right next to the one she had just put back onto the shelf.
“Let’s just change section…” Sofia said, “Rule four, don’t steal the books,” she confidently announced, thinking back to how she could not store the books in her storage ring.
She was correct, the lights went out.
“Making good progress,” Cinthia commented as she walked into a newly-lit section, “this one’s about magic, looks like.”
“Weak spells?” Sofia guessed as she read the titles, “no, everyday magic… A whole book on spells for keeping bathwater warm, really?”
“Useful if you want to open a bathhouse; I don’t have any more rules yet, you?”
“I have one more,” Sofia said, “But I feel like what happened in the previous section was also a rule, we just did not get it.”
“I think we’re on a decent pace, but we have to hurry,” Cinthia said, looking at the blackness creeping up past her elbows.
Sofia nodded and extended a hand, touching the warm bathwater book. She then proceeded to insult whoever built the palace and their entire lineage as the curse wrecked her arm for no understandable reason. The pain from the curse attacks were getting stronger each time, and to make things worse, they were starting to linger, as if she’d burned herself touching a hot skewer.
Cinthia grabbed a book without trouble.
“HOW?!” Sofia asked, still in pain.
Looking at the book she had just grabbed, then at the book Sofia had tried to grab, Cinthia thought for a second before she came up with an idea. “I think I get what’s happening. But if I explain it to you and it’s right we’ll be sent to the next section already.”
“Whatever, please do, I can’t find the other rules like this anyway, at this rate I’ll die from touching the books before the curse can get me.”
“Alright, I think it’s very simple, actually, looking at all the books you tried to pick up…”
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