As they walked, he looked up at the mezzanine that gave a clear view of much of the second floor. The temple library in Lith was only a third the size of even one floor of this one, with matte gray-green stone cubbies for scrolls and a small number of shelves for books which were far more Valuable. This library had an even mix of scrolls and books, the shelves made of tasteful combinations of well polished wood. The old woman led Seth through the stacks to a small locked door near the back of the first floor.

Inside was a small, musty rectangular room that buzzed with preservation wards. Priest Andrea was meandering along the walls, which had shelves and cubbies set into them. Before the old Priest left, she handed Seth a cloth bag.

“If anything starts smoldering,” she said, glancing at Andrea, “throw some of this powder on the paper, then the shelf, then dump the rest on her to be safe. And come find me.”

“Yes ma’am.” Seth said cordially, taking the bag.

“Good lad.” The old Priest said, patting him on the shoulder as she left the room.

He turned around to see Priest Andrea waving a scroll in his face.

“Read this.” She instructed. “If there’s an essence you want me to look for I’ll do that while you read, but familiarizing yourself with this scroll is your first priority. Your father’s words.”

“Uh, ok.” Seth said hesitantly, taking the scroll. “Could you please pull out the ones that you mentioned earlier, plus Immutable essence?” He thought for a moment. “Plant and Virtue essence as well, actually.”

Andrea looked around at the four walls of unlabeled shelves with preserved books and scrolls mixed together haphazardly. “...sure.”

While she went back to one of the shelves with a sigh, Seth sat in a chair at the small wooden table in the center of the room and carefully removed the scroll from its bindings. It turned out to be a mercifully short explanation of one of the Six Profane Essences that seemed to be written for Wanderers. He had a thought and used his Explication ability on it, curious what more he could learn about the scroll.

> Copy of Fundamentals of Monstrous Essence on reed parchment

The simple information wasn’t worth the throbbing ache in his hand that resulted. Seth sighed, pulling some of his Virtue projection in and beginning to read. The title made it sound like an instructional tome, but if the scribe hadn’t written in such outrageously large print it could have been a paragraph, if a long one.

> The Monstrous essence is unique among essences for its near total lack of independent definition. To understand it, one must study how the Monstrous essence interacts with other essences. The other unusual quality of Monstrous essence is its capacity to occur seemingly at random. The result of these two quirks is an extraordinarily dangerous essence that is the most common source of the threats that Wanderers combat. Creatures affected by Monstrous essence almost never have any ability to use the essence itself, but instead have it appended to one of their extant abilities. The result of an innocuous ability being tied to Monstrous essence is usually a profound change in the physical and/or mental state of the creature. A common example is the transformation of an individual born with Blood of the Dog into a werewolf. Unlike the natural ability alterations that allow species to adapt to new environments or threats, the effects of the Monstrous essence are always chaotic and disruptive, and even in wild populations a creature affected by the essence will often be killed by its peers. Monsters will tolerate one another to a degree, and generally ignore inanimate objects and plants, so it is possible for an ecosystem to become dominated and defined by Monstrous creatures, though such an arrangement is never truly stable. The Monstrous essence can affect living things in the immediate vicinity of a Monster’s habitat, causing Monstrous transformations of normal plants and animals or causing Monsters that live near each other to exist in a near constant state of flux. Some Monsters can affect other creatures with Monstrous essence more directly, usually with a specific mode of transmission such as through a bite. Specific texts related to known Monsters should always be consulted when possible to mitigate this threat. Given the chaotic nature of Monstrous essence, there are no other particular tendencies universal enough to merit mention in a general overview.

>

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Seth quickly read the scroll through twice over, then looked up to check on Andrea. She had made very little progress finding any of the six texts he had asked for. He considered helping her look, then had a better idea. If this information was so important, wouldn’t it be better if he had access to it whenever he needed it? The laptop from Landon apparently had a notepad in it. There was also a way to take photographs, but he hadn’t figured out how it worked.

By the time Seth had successfully transcribed the scroll into the laptop, Priest Andrea had found five of the texts she was looking for and was stalking the shelves irritably looking for the last. It had taken quite a while to find them, but Seth’s inexpert use of the laptop had made his task unduly time consuming. Between finding the application, translating the text as he typed, and having to start over when the laptop randomly turned off midway through, it had taken well over an hour. He had at least learned the value of saving the file often while working.

“Alright, I’m done.” Andrea said, sitting heavily in the chair opposite Seth and slapping a hand on the stack of broad, thin tomes. “Flame, Gelid, Plant, Risk, and Virtue essence accounts. We don’t seem to have Immutable and I’m not looking any longer. Just pick one or two of these to take. We only have half an hour until you need to meet your father and the noble kid.”

“Thank you!” Seth said, putting the laptop away. “I’ll try to be quick. How can you tell what time it is? There aren’t any windows.”

The laptop had a timekeeping function that was both oddly similar to how time was kept here (other than the date) and more precise than anything he’d seen, but Andrea wouldn’t have known about it.

“Have you not noticed the regular disturbances in the Virtue alignment of the temple grounds?” she asked, and Seth shook his head. “Well, you should pay more attention. A Priest sends a ripple through the Virtue alignment three times an hour. A mild one five minutes before the hour and at the half hour mark, and a moderate one on the hour. It’s a common way for large churches to keep everyone on time. All the Priests, anyway.”

Seth had several questions, still being largely unfamiliar with the intricacies of area alignment, but Priest Andrea gestured at the thin tomes in front of him and gave him a look. He picked up the one on Gelid essence and started skimming through it.