The bird and human were seeing eye-to-eye, neither one fazed. Thoth was the god of learning and writing. He was wise and kind, a true arbitrator of the gods. His curiosity was pure.
“Hm…”
“Something wrong?”
“Pardon me, I can feel something strange from you,” said Thoth. “I mean no insult. I cannot seem to put my beak on it.”
“Is that right?” Kazi eyed the shelf beside him, then looked back at Thoth. “Have you heard the recent news?”
Thoth was confused. “News?”
Huh. So he didn't know. “Gate 13 was closed.”
Seeing confusion on a bird head was funny and concerning. “What…? That’s not possible," he said.
“I got a message. It was written by Architect Cain.”
“Cain? Alone?”
“It specified that it was a message from Cain,” Kazi clarified.
“We don't have such jurisdiction.” A strange expression came over Thoth as though the world suddenly didn’t make sense. Without a word, the bird god walked past him. “Apologies. I must get going.”
Kazi’s gaze followed him until he disappeared inside the elevator. ‘Something REALLY went wrong in Gate 13.’ His left eye pulsed. ‘But why? How?’
Valknut, the symbol of Odin. He remembered peering into the mirror and seeing the symbol. Sometimes, it disappeared whenever he was lax. He did understand this much: this power came from the well. This power was divine. However, only a select few seemed to be able to sense it. Anna Roleffes, Thoth, that one man in shades, and the Eternal Emperor, for example. He caught the latter most glancing at it during their shogi game match. Never commenting, simply observing. Knowing.
This left eye of his belonged to Odin. That much was obvious. He was an archaeologist that had gone to Northern Europe and discussed with the greatest minds on the topic. Odin sacrificed his eye into the well for wisdom. Mímisbrunnr was located under the world tree. A fixed location that could not be changed.
Or so he thought. Why was Mímisbrunnr in Ireland? Specifically, Ireland's Eye, an island with no real significance. ‘Other than its name, I suppose. Ireland’s Eye does sound like a fitting location for Odin’s eye. But Celtic and Irish mythology is separate from Norse mythology. It really does feel like whoever put the eye there did it for the sake of aesthetics. Because the name fits. Otherwise, placing the eye of the Supreme God of the Norse in an Irish region is…’
Insulting.
But also noticeable. The Unorthodox Sect were on the island as if already knowing it was there.
Hrm.
As he was thinking, he browsed through the books on the shelf. Information was necessary. He needed to know the inner workings of the gates and why they functioned the way they did. Architects. That was his biggest hint. In half an hour he read through a dozen books. Kazi found nothing. The term architect was mentioned once during the previous Heavenly Games regarding Athena and her role in fetching inventory. It was a theory amongst theories, an idea out of dozens.
Was it a modern term, he wondered. Or was the House of Wisdom purposely censoring it? Architect... Architect...Cain. The world's first killer. Why was he an architect? If his deduction was correct, then Thoth and the other figures leading the institutions of the White Abyss were Architects. What did it mean to be an Architect? What did they create? Did they create at all? So many questions and nothing to answer them…
“Ohhh. It's you!”
Behind him erupted a high-pitched voice and running steps. It was a young man in his twenties with what Kazi could only describe as a weak aura. His clothes were old, dark, and wrinkly and he was half a head shorter than him.
“Hi, hi!” His mop of black hair bowed down to him. “I'm Riku! I, uh, doubt you remember me, sir, but you saved me during Gate 10! Thank you! Thank you very much!”
Very formal. Combined with his name and appearance, he must have been Japanese. Kazi looked him over. That day, he saw and saved hundreds. Some of them, he didn’t even see. However, this young man, he did. “I do remember you. You were on the shore.”
Riku's smile became brighter. “Yes! I…I just wanted to thank you. You saved me! Not just me, but my friends too! If—”
“No need.” Kazi figured he wanted to give him a gift. “I did what I had to do. I couldn’t just let people die.”
“Thank you again!” Riku bowed eagerly. “Ah, are you looking for a book? Do you want me to help you?”
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“Why not,” Kazi said.
Riku didn't leave his side for the next hour and a half. Kazi researched and Riku assisted however he could. It was the least he could do, he said. Kazi swept through a hundred journals. He didn't find much. ‘Although memorizing the history of gates isn’t a complete waste of time.’ When Kazi flipped through pages, to everyone else, it appeared as though he was skimming. He wasn’t. He was burning every little page into his mind. He rarely employed the skill since he was more of a tinkerer. He did his best to discover new ways of doing things and did not stop until he did. In his old life, he spent much of his off-time fiddling with cars, phones, and electronics with hardware. This lust for experimentation extended toward cooking too. Travelling around the world had given him a unique and open-minded palette.
Standing, he skimmed through a book and closed it shut. Riku jogged up to him and exchanged the closed book for a new one. “Why did you come to the Gates Section?” Kazi asked while skimming the new book.
“Me and my team have decided to take a break from the Heavenly Tower to study at the University of Magic,” Riku replied.
“Ah.” The book was discussing the gates of the Enlightenment Era: when players from 1782 were summoned. A majority of the gates involved djinns and Arabic folklore. Interesting.
“The semester is beginning very soon and some professors have already put out the syllabus. For Composition of Gates, we need to buy a couple textbooks.”
“I bet the House of Wisdom sells them at a high price.”
“Yeah.” Riku sighed. “Way too expensive. Obviously, the quality is brand new but…yeah. Bare-minimum, you pay three hundred points for one textbook.”
“Can’t joining a guild help mitigate the cost?”
“I guess, yeah.”
But he didn’t want to join a guild. Fair enough. The contracts could be imposing. Kazi closed the book and began walking to put it away. Riku dutifully followed.
When Kazi stopped, so did Riku, except he was picking out a book as well. “Oh, here's a journal of a merchant. If you're interested.”
“Sure.” He took it and read it. Halfway through, he slowed down and narrowed his eyes. There were a lot of eras of the Heavenly Games. Up until now, he didn't check arguably the biggest event to occur: the Second Heavenly War.
165 HE - July 20.
I wandered through the wreckage. Stall after stall, destroyed. Buildings reduced to rubble. Bodies, both human and beast, littering the streets. The screams of the injured and the mourning echo through the streets. Families torn apart, livelihoods destroyed in an instant.
I was a former player. I know tragedy. But this…is something else.
Nobody expected the Nebulous Bazaar to be attacked by an eight-headed dragon.
He stopped reading, eyes wide. ‘The Nebulous Bazaar was…attacked? How!?’
It escaped. Somehow, through some place, Yamata-no-Orochi escaped Gate 97 and arrived here. I thought I was going to die. Everyone did. Because of the war, territories in the White Abyss were already dangerous and being unchallenged. So many of the big guilds were busy in the Heavenly Tower attacking one another and colonizing particular Gates. No one expected the Nebulous Bazaar to be nearly wiped from existence. Not like this. Not from a monster of that calibre.
Truly, it was a creature from hell. The eight-headed dragon swallowed magic and humans and gods. Its heads conjured all the elements and lay waste to everything. Its size surpassed that of the Heavenly Tower and the force of its wings ripped away flesh.
I have seen much in my life. But after all the rumours, I can say this. There is something terribly wrong with the Heavenly Tower. Something that wasn't there before.
Kazi read further and further. Unfortunately, the merchant never expanded on that final remark. He learned that ultimately the Imperial Sect defeated the eight-headed dragon. The Kangxi Emperor worked together with the Eternal Emperor and dealt the final blow. Both families suffered greatly, to the point that the Imperial Sect lost its place among the Big Four. In that era, it appeared the Imperial Sect grew to rival the Big Three and in fact rivalled them. However, upon losing thirty of his children—one of which was a prodigy said to be greater than the Kangxi Emperor—the level of influence and raw power of the sect sharply declined.
But no matter how he, the merchant, or anyone else rationalized it, it didn't make sense. How did Yamata-no-Orochi escape into the Abyss? He had Riku grab him another book, this time focusing on the timeline of the Second Heavenly War. He wondered if there were signs of the hydra's awakening.
‘Once the war really ramped up, gates were consistently open-world. In other words, perfect for colonizing and using the NPCs to farm. Other than that, Yamata-no-Orochi's appearance seemed to come out of the blue.’
He read for an additional half hour. He didn't glean much. The attack was a tragedy and many papers went into length on the effect it had on the Chinese Sects who sacrificed a great many of their cultivators. ‘I'm starting to get a better picture of how the White Abyss functions as a whole, at least.’
Noble families, guilds, Architects, players, angels, and the institutions that each rule over. Going from era to era, there were changes and adjustments. The hierarchy was always in flux as new players and technology emerged. Innovative magic circles and magical devices and tragedies and events that forced discovery. The taxes that the noble families and guilds imposed in order to keep pace with the coming times and their growing forces.
‘For example, the Sapphire Order. Rather than a guild led by one person, it's better to describe them as an alliance. Each Spectre has its own influence, properties, and sets of taxes. This merchant mentions that Spectre 4 is surprisingly lax on property tax and focuses on his fashion and textile business.’
Kazi ended his thoughts as he sensed Riku's eagerness and sudden curiosity. Smiling quietly, he turned to him kindly. “Yes?”
“Ah, sorry. Can I know your name?”
“Oh, right.” Kazi closed the journal. “It’s Kazi.”
“Kazi…” Riku tasted out the name. “I’ll be sure to tell my friends I saw you!”
Kazi stared at him and his smile. He saw too much joy and tension in his feet. Relief at meeting him and sadness from something else. It wasn’t difficult for his genius brain to figure out what. “...here.”
[ Transfer details:
150,000 PP —> Riku Handa ]
“H-huh?” Riku was taken aback and looked up at him. “What’s…I don’t…?”
“I told you, I remember you and your friends. One of them lost their leg, right? It’s not going to be easy to recover.” Kazi put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not much but I hope it helps.”
Riku was bewildered. As much as he wanted to reject it, he couldn’t. He was desperate. “T-thank you!” Riku bowed again. “Thank you very much!”
Kazi’s smile thinned. “No need.”
After all, the one that caused his friend to lose their leg was William. His student. His friend. His responsibility.