[https://img.wattpad.com/story_parts/1335330842/images/1756cedf310361e0768273696067.png]

Sophie got slowly to her feet. Nimum had done her best to be careful while shoving her through the door, but it had still been a rough landing.

"Wh-where's Nimum?" Vix stammered. He was so nervous that the teeth in his skull clattered loudly.

"She was too busy fighting them to make it in," Sophie answered.

Vix looked gloomily at the rest of the class. "Bu-but then what do we do? We can't m-make it on our o-own!"

"Yes we can and yes we will," Mek said with determination, adjusting her sunglasses. As rattled as the rest of the class was, separated from Nimum and trapped behind the Dimension Door, Mek's words helped them to keep calm. The snakes in her hair swayed calmly back and forth along her back. Sophie always had a hard time looking away from them. There was something hypnotic about snake hair in movement.

"We'll find the treasure and a way to help Nimum," Mek continued. "But first we have to figure out what kind of place this is."

The class split up and started to investigate the room they were in. The room was shaped like a half-circle, with five floors above them stretching backwards, each floor wider than the one beneath it, and all connected by wooden staircases. Lining the walls of each floor were rows of bookshelves, and covering the floors were carpets, chairs and couches, making for a cozy reading space. Hovering in the air above were thousands or more of tiny, glowing symbols.

On the bottom floor, which was the one the students were standing on, there were five doors along the opposite wall. Each door had a drawing of an object on it and a number inscribed above it. On the door marked one was a lantern. On door number two, a bird standing on its legs. On door number three, a padlock. On door number four, a lightning bolt. And on door number five, a chest.

Beto was the first to check out the books. He eagerly pulled the first book off the shelf and started leafing through it while the rest of the class was still focusing on the floating symbols. Beto closed the book with a loud thump. "Most curious," he mumbled, pulling out another nearby book from the shelf.

"What's so curious?" Sophie asked.

"This one too?!" Beto pulled another book from the shelf. "These are all completely blank!"

"Sounds like my type of book!" Varis said, walking over to another shelf and starting to look through the books. Their pages were all empty too.

Sophie looked up at the five floors above them, all stacked with books. Surely they can't all be completely blank? Why would anyone fill an entire room with blank books? she thought to herself as she walked over to one of the other shelves. The rest of the students, who had been busy looking at the floating symbols, started focusing on the books as well, but before they could start investigating them properly, Mek stopped them.

The rest of the students, who had been busy looking at the floating symbols, started focusing on the books as well, but before they could start investigating them properly, Mek stopped them [https://img.wattpad.com/de00445f9b7dfa7e7febaf7a63ede2156c8ab726/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f48534a55586758696e7964472d773d3d2d313333353333303834322e313735366365656334306465636365313736393231373736333630362e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"We can't just stand here looking at empty books. We're here to find the treasure."

"B-but how do we d-d-do that?" Vix asked sadly.

"How do you usually find anything?" said a voice coming from behind them. "Surely this isn't the first time you've had to look for something?

A closed book floated into view. Its cover was dark red and decorated with golden lines that formed the shapes of two eyes and a mouth.

The students all looked at the book floating in front of them with confusion.

"Do you know where the treasure is?" Sophie asked.

"What treasure are you looking for?" the book asked back.

Sophie was just about to answer the book's question when Fiff excitedly flew right up in front of her.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"The treasure behind the Dimension Door, of course!"

The book just looked at them without saying anything else.

"Our teacher Nimum told us that there'd be a treasure here – so is there or isn't there?" Fiff insisted eagerly.

"And has Nimum been here before?"

"Um... No, I don't think so..." Fiff looked around uncertainly, and her glow changed to a doubt-ridden light blue. Actually, no one knew what would be behind the door. They'd all been assuming that there'd be a treasure, but they didn't have any actual evidence.

"I feel like it should be stated," Beto said quietly, forming a small huddle with the other students, "that every Dimension Door that has been opened so far has revealed some kind of treasure. So it's very likely that there's one behind this door too."

"B-but why doesn't the b-book think so?" Vix asked in a confused whisper.

Sophie looked back at the book, pondering. "You know, it hasn't actually answered any of our questions."

There was something strange about the way the book spoke. She stepped a bit closer to it and asked: "Are you a book?"

The rest of the class just stared at her, wondering if she was starting to lose her mind.

The rest of the class just stared at her, wondering if she was starting to lose her mind [https://img.wattpad.com/acbf3b02d4426a497592213bf49b1e226f18b09c/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f417862546d39343052752d344f513d3d2d313333353333303834322e313735366365663135656435383063313334333935383738303639372e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"What do you think I am?" the book retorted.

"Can you answer yes or no?"

"Are there sentient beings that can't?"

"What's your favorite color?"

"What color do you think?"

Sophie nodded to herself and turned towards the class. "The book can only answer questions with another question."

"I think that's what Nimum would call 'a real bummer'," Fiff sighed. "It can't help us, then."

Sophie thought deeply. Was there a way to get answers out of the book? If it answered questions with questions, what would happen if you told it an answer? But even when they'd answered its questions, it hadn't said anything back...

Her mind raced, trying to come up with a solution. An answer was an explanation of something you didn't understand, so maybe she just needed to feed it some kind of truth or fact of her own, and then it'd answer? She looked at the book and said:

"I'm a human."

Again the rest of the students looked at her uncertainly.

"Um, yeah, we know you are, Sophie," Elva said, puzzled.

"Humans originate in the human world, which is a place also known as Earth or The Blue Planet," the book said.

The rest of the class looked even more confused.

"I have one blue and one green eye," Sophie said.

"Having two different eye colors is called heterochromia, and it is very rare among humans. The only other intelligent species that experiences heterochromia is the Grox, and it is much more common among them. In other species, differing eye colors is always caused by magic."

"Oh, so that's how the book works!" Elva said. She and the rest of the class had figured it out as well now. Elva walked up to Sophie.

"But how do we get it to tell us anything about the treasure? We don't know anything about it!"

That's a good question, Sophie thought. How could you get an answer about something you didn't have any clue about? She shrugged. "I guess we'll just have to guess."

Sophie stared at the five doors. She was pretty convinced that they were important somehow, but how could she get the book to confirm it?

"One of the doors leads to the treasure," Sophie said to the book, but the book remained silent.

Could it sense that she didn't know for sure? If it could, guessing wouldn't be any use. Sophie looked over at Elva who also looked deep in thought.

"That's a sloppy way for a book to work," Elva said. "It starts out building on your fact, but then it starts going off on some related tangent that we don't need at all. It certainly wasn't created by elves, I'll tell you that much."

"A tangent?" Sophie wasn't sure what she meant.

"Sure, you said that you were a human, and then it ends up listing other names for the human world."

Sophie looked at the five doors. Could she get anything useful about them? She looked up at the book and spoke directly to it.

"There are five doors."

She held her breath as she looked at the book, until it finally began to speak. "Just as the Dimension Door led to this place, each of the five doors lead to a small universe of their own, each with their own object and challenge."

Now the class knew how to use the book. Soon they were all taking turns stating facts about the room and the doors. Sometimes they got a response they could actually use. For example, that they'd need all five objects to find the actual treasure, and that they would need to enter the rooms in the order indicated by the numbers above them. Most of the time the answers were less useful though, like when they learned that the Dimension Room contained more than five hundred thousand books, that the Dimension Door led to the country of Northfire, which was the third-most Northern land in the magical world, and that Trom had an unusually large nose.

When they'd gotten all the information out of the book that they felt they could, the class knew what their goal was: To head through the five doors and find an object behind each of them.

But they'd have to start with door number one. Painted on the door was the image of an old-timey lantern with a lit candle inside. It looked exactly like the lantern that was engraved on the outside of the Dimension Door.

They opened the door, revealing a pitch-black darkness behind it.

One by one they passed through the door. Sophie stepped through, and immediately lost sight of all her classmates.

- Unfortunately I will have to put the story on hold since I need to focus on my exams [https://img.wattpad.com/d87bb55799a9088c0bcc1e15eda8fe4295fee6ba/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f56737570684c61374263687754413d3d2d313333353333303834322e313735366365646364393165363937633534363037303038383735362e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]