Somewhere Public Library.

Matty hated the mortal races. All of them. Even the elves, who showed such promise eons ago when their world was fresh and young, fell far from what they were supposed to be. Yet of all the mortal races, she hated, loathed, utterly despised one in particular that had somehow survived long enough to become an established race among the others.

"What does these words mean?" The nasally voiced gnome asked as she held up a book of translations for some other dialect.

"Are these runes? Incantations for spells?" Another obnoxious gnome asked and gestured to a book of mathematics.

"Why does this book have a mushroom in it but it is not about fungi?" Another chimed and held aloft a book of World War Two.

Her eye twitched as her fingers shifted to claws and dug into the wood of her desk. Most of the races that recently arrived were at least somewhat respectful, as respectful as the worthless creatures could be, it was the gnomes and their constant questions of the most asinine thing that made her blood boil.

"How can such a device fly? Is it magic? Where are the runes for enchantment?" Another asinine question as they pointed to the early designs of human flight.

"Who is this man with a funny mustache?"

"What kind of formulae is this?"

"Someone drew a crude penile organ in this book."

"Enough!" Matty snapped at last and slammed her clawed hand down onto the desk.

"You all will leave before I make you regret ever setting foot out of the gopher hole your miserable race crawled from!" Matty hissed, literally, as she glared at the small group of gnomes that stared up at her with glass enlarged eyes and quivering lips.

"Don't think I've ever heard a librarian say that to someone before. Though I've heard some pretty colorful threats from some." A voice said to her left.

She turned her golden-hued eyes towards the voice and snarled when there stood Agent Smith with a smile on his face.

"What do you want?"

Smith hummed in thought for a moment, tapping his finger on his chin. The gnomes taking the fact that Matty's eyes weren't on them anymore, grabbed their books and skedaddled off. Glad that it was someone else on the receiving end of her attention.

"You wouldn't happen to have any issues of Conan the Barbarian would you?"

Matty scoffed.

"What do you actually want, human?"

"Not even trying to play clever? Wow, those fellas must've pissed you off something fierce."

Matty sneered at him.

"It doesn't help when I have a chain around my neck."

Smith's smile didn't falter as he spoke.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"And I'll tell you what we've been telling you since we first found out about you and your dealings with APL-1, what bargain you agreed to is out of our hands."

Matty returned a bitter smirk.

"Then so is my help."

"Who says we need your help?" Smith asked.

"The fact that you've been here for weeks now and not a single one of you has stepped in here, at least not in uniform. Which means you finally deigned to come to me for help. And the answer is no." Matty declared and moved to ring a dwarf up who held a book on the Civil War.

"Or it could be because we've been busy trying to put out a fire you started." Smith accused.

"Oh? And what fire would that be?" Matty asked in faux curiosity.

Smith gestured around the library, more lively then its ever been. Full of races more than human. Elves, tortles, dwarves, and gnomes all mingled with humans as they poured through the shelves in search of knowledge and information about this new world and their new home.

Matty merely shrugged her shoulders.

"You should know that travel between worlds exists."

"Oh we do. But to this extent? No. This has intent written all over it." Smith said and grabbed a book on finances and bookkeeping from falling from a woman's pile of books as she meandered by.

"Sorry!" She said and shuffled off.

"No problem Ms. Renolds!" Smith called out as the pawnbroker shuffled away.

She turned at the door with a confused look on her face as she turned to face the agent before shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders and departing. Smith turned his gaze back towards the dragon.

"As I was saying. Some random Fairy Ring can't do this."

"No. But there are those nearby that could." Matty suggested.

"And why would it want to bring over a bunch of outsiders?" Smith said and gestured with his head in the direction of the mountains.

Matty shrugged her shoulders.

"Don't know. Maybe you should try asking it?"

"Or, how about we ask the one that's actually responsible?" Smith asked and glared at the dragon.

Matty scoffed.

"And who says I'm the one responsible?"

"Says the team of magisters whose purpose is to find out how certain magical anomalies occur. Want to know what they found out?"

"No. But I'm sure you'll tell me regardless." Matty said as she stamped and handed back a book on chemistry to some skittish looking humans.

"They found out that the magic that's causing all this isn't something usual. No eldritch hoodoo, no infernal or divine magic, no djinn or fey either."

"And I'm assuming you're getting to the point?" Matty replied as she wrote out a ticket for a book about the adventures of a halfling, some dwarves, and a wizard to one of the few halflings she got in the library.

"Yeah, I am. Our records say that this type of magic has been used before. Recorded way back when in the time when we used to stab one another with swords and spears."

"So not long ago?" Matty quipped with a snort.

"The point is, we know you're responsible for this mess we're in. So tell us how to fix it." Smith commanded.

"Ha! Or what? You'll kill me? I might not be as strong as I used to be but I can still tear apart you humans with ease! You'll imprison me? Too late. I'm already a prisoner on this world. I just have a bigger cage than most. So go ahead G-man. Hit me with your best shot." Matty declared and returned Smith's glare with her own.

Smith snorted after a tense moment that saw the entire library stopping to look over at the exchange that was less than friendly.

"Fine. Have it your way."

With that he backed off and retreated from the library. Leaving Matty to scoff at the pitiful attempt at intimidation by the agent. She turned her gaze back towards the line of visitors that were checking out books.

-----

"What did you find?" Smith asked as O'Doyle came up beside him.

"Besides all the runes and wards that would make a witch doctor sneeze? A couple things that might be it." O'Doyle said and handed over some a stack of pictures and rubbings.

Smith thumbed through them. Spells, incantations, rune crafting, a litany of magical knowledge that the Occult Division would kill for. Fortunately for them, he was going to give it to them freely. He handed the stack back to O'Doyle.

"Send those to O.D. Have Magister Grimsby and his lot sort through all the chicken scratch."

"Yes sir." O'Doyle said with a salute but stayed by Smith's side.

Smith turned a brow at him.

"What?"

"Why not have the rookie sift through the dragon's lair?"

"What, you never wanted to raid a dragon's hoard before?"

"Oh of course I did. Despite the lack of gold and jewels, it scratched that itch I had since I was a kid. But now you're deflecting. Why not send the rook? With you distracting her it wouldn't be hard. Especially with the state of her 'wards.'"

Smith sighed.

"Maybe I'm just getting sentimental or something. Didn't want to put him in danger just yet."

"We all have to take off our big boy pants sometime."

"I know. But we lose so many young agents because of it. I want to ease him into it a bit more than just throwing him off the deep end the first chance I get." Smith said with an air of bitterness.

"Hey, most of them weren't your fault." O'Doyle stated.

"Yeah. I know. But try telling yourself that when your tweaking the memory of someone's kid or sibling. Or standing over a grave you know damn well doesn't contain their body. Or hearing the lies we spun for them knowing that their kids or siblings didn't die some honorable, noble death. That some of them met a fate worse than death and there isn't anything we could do about it." Smith muttered and stomped ahead, signaling an end to the conversation.

O'Doyle sighed and turned the corner and headed back to base, he had some paperwork to send, sign, then send again. Though he would admit on his way back that he was worried for Agent Smith. This job had a bad habit of chewing good people up and spitting out the jaded and bitter remains. If even that much. Smith was a good man doing a horrible, yet needed, job. He just hoped he wasn't throwing in the towel so soon. They still had alot of work to do and having him around would make their job a bit easier to accomplish and would spare alot of innocent lives.