The fall into the membrane is something I will never forget. It only lasted a few seconds, but my feelings stretched it out to eternity. In my mind, I repeated the phrase I read in a rookie instruction booklet: "relax your body, so you don't feel the impact so much." Easier said than done. The moment I lost the solid ground beneath my feet, my body went into panic mode and all my muscles clenched so hard I felt like a turtle trying to withdraw into its shell. While the three pros fell into the green goo with a silent "plop", I splattered myself against the surface with a loud thud. The impact wasn't all that painful, but the experience of falling face-first into jelly wasn't exactly one of my favourite memories.

As I sank down, the situation only got worse. Another tip I remembered reading was to not open my mouth and to close my eyes until I would emerge from the goo. Obviously, even there I failed. My screaming caused me to bite into it, and my eyes stayed open so wide that I was afraid the impact would knock them out of their sockets. Soon after, I learned why the author of the booklet wrote those tips down. Even though the taste of the jelly wasn't so bad, it made my whole mouth so numb, I began wondering why wasn't it used in dentistry. The downside of the open eyes came soon after. You see, travelling into the library is accompanied by more colours than you'd see in an alchemy store. I watched as they kept on flashing and spinning around me like tiny little fireflies with the glow of miniature stars. Eventually, I did manage to squeeze my eyelids shut, but not before the effects of the travel made me incredibly dizzy.

The experience was so uncomfortable that I didn't manage to convince myself to open my eyes even after I emerged on the other side of the membrane. In the end, the only tip from the booklet that I managed to follow was to keep a tight hold on my rope, which would slow down my descent.

"Chandelier!" I heard a female voice call out.

Not fully understanding what she meant by that, I opened my eyes, just in time to bump my head right against the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It struck me in the face and in the panic that follow this sudden attack, I let go of my rope. Without any warning, my descent became a lot faster. I practically fell to the ground, hitting the floor of the library with a loud thud.

Within seconds, I began feeling the effects of the fast descent. My vision was blurry and I was so disoriented that my limbs refused to listen to me. I vaguely remember attempting to move, but only bumping my head against the railing situated around the hole in the middle of the room. After all that, my body and mind resigned completely. I simply lay there, not even properly seeing where I was, while desperately trying not to throw up, while I felt as if the whole place was swaying from side to side like a ship out in a stormy sea.

"Hey, hey, hey. You okay buddy?" I heard the voice of the blond beauty and felt his hand on my back. "Can you speak?"

"Uh-huh..." I mumbled the closest thing to an actual word that I could produce.

"Can you stand?"

"Uh-uh..." I replied. It was a lie. I could still move. In a very uncoordinated fashion, but I still could.

"What are your symptoms?" I heard someone else say.

"Huh?"

"Symptoms. What hurts? How do you feel?"

"S-Sick... Eyes..." I managed to pull a few words out of me. Even such a simple task felt extremely exhausting.

"Ah, okay. Can you sit him up?" I heard the unknown voice continue, to which the blondie agreed.

Before I could even realise what was going on, he rolled me onto my back and pulled me off the ground, leaning my body against the railing. In the heat of the moment, I didn't even realise that should the metal supporting my back give out, I'd fall to my death. I tried to say something, but the other mysterious person used my attempt at speaking to quickly shove something into my mouth.

"Candy. Eat it," she said and I listened. It was even fairly tasty. Like a piece of chocolate mixed with ibuprofen. Then, without further warning, one of the talking blurry smudges in front of me leaned closer and sprayed something cold in my eyes.

"AAAGH! Wha? The fuck?!" I yelled at her, almost spitting the candy back out.

"See? You're already talking a bit better. Give it a few more seconds," she said and truly, only a couple of moments later, my vision returned to me.

Now, I could see her clearly. It was the girl from before, with the large backpack.

"Better?" she asked me and pushed her short, brown hair out of her face.

"Yeah... Oh wow, it really is," I replied, surprised that her rather strange treatment actually worked. Now that my eyes functioned as they were supposed to again, I noticed the countless little pins and patches that decorated the top of her beige delver uniform, similar to the ones the rest of us were wearing. I was too shy to admit it, but I liked such displays of creativity. It showed that even the strict delver dress code could be modified here and there.

"If you feel any other symptoms, just let me know," she took off her backpack. Maybe my recollections of the event aren't the clearest, but I'd swear it made a louder thud than I did when I hit the floor. She then began rummaging through her stuff. "I've got plenty of bandages for bleeding, syrup for sore throat, ear guards to protect your hearing, ice spray for burns. Snacks to help with nausea..."

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"Is there something you don't have?" I asked her.

She gave it a thought for a moment before answering: "No. I've got pretty much everything all the instructions recommend."

"Everything? That bag has everything?" I asked, too curious to hold in my nosey question anymore.

"Yeah. I've absorbed the knowledge of like fifty books in the past year. All of them were about delving. Some were useless, but others had cool tips on what to bring along, so I did just that.

I didn't know what to tell her. Obviously, I was glad she brought her supplies along, but the size of her luggage and most likely its weight as well were both far more than was recommended.

"Well... Thanks for your help, umm..." I expressed my gratitude.

"Amy. Amy Prims," she said and extended her hand towards me, most likely mistaking my shy tone for a pause in which she should introduce herself.

"My pleasure. I'm UAAAA!" The sound automatically left my mouth as I grabbed her hand. Her grip was incredibly strong and without any warning, she pulled me up to my feet with seemingly little to no trouble.

"I... I'm Elliot. Elliot Roshan," I finally managed to squeeze out my own name.

"And I'm Gier Anvand!" the blond delver jumped in on our introductions. "I've been in the library over thirty times, so if you have any questions or need help, don't be afraid to ask."

I gave him my thanks as well. Now that things have finally calmed down a little, I could have a proper look at the library around me. It looked exactly like the paintings and drawings I'd noticed around the university, but seeing it with my own eyes was truly something else. The entire room where we stood was circular. In the middle, there was a huge gap that went down, all the way to the black nothingness. Around it was a sturdy metal railing, against which I had been previously leaning. Near the outer edge of this central room were stairs leading down to the floors below us. Those always looked the same. The middle areas contained nothing useful but they were a safe point where almost no danger could befall us. Wooden signs with carved-out number 1 were nailed to the walls. Those indicated the depth. Above each of them were then yellow glowing crystals, which lit up the place, along with the chandelier. My eyes then turned to the four corridors leaning further outward. Their walls were already lined with shelves full of books, and the signs hanging from the ceiling were then describing what we could find in the specific sections. In our case, it was: "Cardboard manufacturing", "Research on plastic", "Historical publishing guides", and "knitting". Not only were these topics completely uninteresting, but the light also got a lot dimmer the deeper you went in the library, so the idea of entering the dark corridors full of useless literature didn't exactly seem appealing to me.

"Fuck..." I heard the third rookie gasp. Our three heads then immediately turned to him. We watched as he backed away from the railing, stumbling backwards and almost falling. When Geir saw that, he immediately rushed to his side.

"Hey, you okay? Did you get sick too? It's alright, first delves are always difficult."

"It is actually recommended to lie down for about five minutes after your first arrival," Amy instructed him and searched through her backpack. "Here, I can give you a pillow if you want a moment to rest," she said and truly pulled one out of her bag. For a moment, I considered the possibility of the backpack being just as infinite as the library.

"N-No... I just... I don't handle heights too well," the rookie mumbled and tried to maintain stable footing with Gier supporting him.

"Well, then don't get too close to the railing and don't look down, okay? That's more than just height. That's infinity down there. I know it can be quite overwhelming to some people. I was afraid too during my first delve, so don't worry about that."

"Haha, wow, what great material for a scholar. A delver who is afraid of heights," we heard the scruffy-looking guy laugh behind us. When Gier looked at him, I swear I could see anger colouring his pale face a few shades more red.

"Actually, about seventeen per cent of delvers are indeed afraid of heights. It's not that uncommon," Amy argued.

"Oh wow, whole seventeen? That's such a high number," the guy mocked her while scratching his poorly-shaven chin.

"Hey, back off!" Gier snapped at him, stepping between us as the strange man.

"Ohohoho, would you look at that? A hero steps into the ring to protect the precious little chicks. How noble."

"We are experienced. We should help out the rookies."

"No, we should not. See that trio?" He pointed toward me and then eventually moved his finger over to Amy and the other boy as well. "We have a useless clown, a nerd, and a scaredy cat. How many of them do you think will make it back out?"

"If we help them, then all of them."

The man leaned closer. His smile reminded me of villains I've seen actors portray on the stage of our local theatre.

"You like statistics, girl?" he said while still looking Gier in the eyes. "Do you know how many rookie delvers die per delve on average?"

"Umm... I..." Amy struggled. She looked to the ground, staring at the tips of her black hiking boots.

"33 per cent." The man's smile widened even more. "That means one of you small fries is going to kick the bucket in the next hour. Tell me, how does it feel knowing that your life could be ticking away at this very moment? Have you said your goodbyes? Have you hugged your mommy and daddy before you left? Because you might not get another chance.

I looked over to the boy standing behind Geir. He was gripping the edge of his beige shirt like he wanted to rip it apart. His whole body seemed to be tense, at the very brink of exploding.

"Awww... Someone's gonna c–" before the man could say another word, Gier's fist landed on his face.

"You little shit! You actually hit me!"

"And I will do so again, gladly. I know people like you. You have no respect for anyone. You're just a selfish conman, just like all the hunters."

Now it finally made sense. Why he looked so unkempt and why his equipment didn't look the same as ours.

"Really? A university's lapdog is going to lecture me? You feel better than me, huh?"

"I do, yes. I delve to bring knowledge to the world. I take what is necessary and not more. You just stuff your backpack with whatever garbage you can and then sell it at crazy prices to the poor folk who can't delve themselves. You're a criminal. So yeah, I am better!"

"A criminal? Now, that is strange. I remember the library being a neutral ground, no? With no rules or laws? So I am technically not doing anything bad." He reached for the small metal hilt on his belt. "In fact, if I kill you right here and now, nobody will do shit about it. I will still be an innocent man. The precious university of yours won't even give you a grave." He flipped the switch on the hilt. A small, yellow light shot out of it and formed into the shape of a knife. "Or maybe I can just cause some injuries. I'd love to see your face when you find out that the people you work for won't even pay your hospital bills."

Gier reached for his own knife. Its blade was smaller and green, the standard issue of the university.

The hunter smiled. "Oh, this will be so much fun!"