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2. A Reader Trapped in a Library
🕑 Added 2023-12-02 19:00:02 +0000 UTCOz knelt at the magic circle and picked up the letter. Spidery text crawled over parchment. For a moment, the letters appeared strange, unreadable, but then he blinked, and the words fell into place.
Hello.
Master is gone, and I’m still unable to sense magic. Did I ever deserve to call myself her disciple?
I’m so sorry, but I can’t do this. I’m leaving everything to you. With my lifeblood, I’ve summoned you, oh tenacious soul. The spell said anyone could do it, as long as they paid the price. Even someone unable to sense qi, like me.
Don’t worry about me. I’m not dead. The spell transferred my soul to another body. A simpler life, for a simple man. I apologize for handing you my unfortunate fate, but the spell said it would summon a capable soul. A tenacious soul. I’m sure you can manage it.
Protect Madame Saoirse’s legacy. These books hold her priceless notes. They’re worth more than you can imagine.
Don’t allow the other mages to loot it. They might tell you these books are theirs. They might tell you she stole them. Do not believe them. Master fought, bought, and bartered for these, fair and square. They’re jealous, conniving bastards. You can’t trust them.
You should have six months before the barrier breaks down. I’m begging you. Please. The soul processes magic. If the spell went right, your soul should have more power than mine.
Protect this place. Protect Master’s research. My payment to you is her legacy. I’d rather a stranger have it than those filthy vultures in the city. They’d tear everything she built apart and set the world’s theoretical magic studies back by centuries’ worth of progress.
Sincerely,
Ossian Vestal
Oz pursed his lips. He flipped the letter over, but the back was empty. Vestal. Not the worst surname, I suppose. Still, that’s another name worth looking up in the library.
Six months until the barrier falls, huh? Reading into the note a little, this library contains every sect and magical school’s most precious secrets, and they desperately want them back. I’m the only thing that stands between them and their own secrets. Oz paused. And more importantly, everyone else’s secrets.
I need to get stronger, fast.
He took a deep breath. “Focus. Let’s break this down. One thing at a time.”
Oz turned. The bloodstain dried slowly on the floor, staining its strange ritual marks into the marble. “That needs to go, ASAP.” Putting aside whether blood magic is evil in this world or not, it’s just unsanitary.
His stomach rumbled. He put a hand to it, grimacing. “Food and water. Should be some around here somewhere, if Ossian was already stuck here for a while.”
Unless he already ate it all, lost hope, and summoned me on the brink of starvation… Oz clicked his tongue. Let’s give it a shot first. I can be a pessimist after I search the library. Plus, I’m hungry, but I wouldn’t say I’m starving. If he ran out of food, he ran out of it today.
“A bed. I need to find somewhere to sleep, or at least some blankets.” He glanced up at the high ceiling above him and the infinite books spiraling away. I’m indoors, at least, but I’m not going to enjoy sleeping on the floor for long.
“That’s all the immediate stuff. After that, I need to figure out the barrier, which means learning magic. Learning magic…” He grinned. A shiver ran down his spine. Fuck, man. Magic. I’m in a world with magic! Hell yeah! That thing I secretly dreamed of my whole life, and here it is. It’s almost too good to believe.
“What else…” He pinched his chin, thinking. After a moment, he snapped his fingers. “Right! Social standing.” If this is a medieval world, then my social status might be an advantage… or a huge detriment. I’m going to go ahead and guess that I’m no one important, given the way that guy in yellow treated me. Still, it’s good to know where I stand.
Oz wandered to the desk and picked up a stray leaf of paper. Thick and weighty, it had a luxurious softness to it, and he immediately felt a little guilty. Paper was valuable in the medieval era. Here I am, wasting a nice sheet to make a list.
Oz looked at it again, then shrugged. No one else is going to use it. Might as well. I’ve got more paper all around me, if I need it. He picked up a quill and scratched at the paper, then shamefully dipped the quill in an ink pot. A few seconds later, he held a blotty, wet, and splattered list.
1. Clean bloodstain (blood magic evil? Research)
2. Food and water
3. Bed (marble: not soft)
4. Learn magic (read the books)
5. Keep the barrier from breaking
6. Explore the library
Oz nodded, looking over the list again. “Not bad.”
He went to head out into the stacks, then paused. A half-bound book, its back hanging open and the pages’ stitches undone, laid open. Black-and-white portraits crammed the pages, each one sketched in charcoal. At the top, a stern woman with a bun frowned at him. Madame Saoirse, the caption declared. Four attractive and bold men and women appeared beneath her, each one named in their caption. A picture roster? Then, I wonder… Oz paged through until a familiar face gazed out at him, one he’d seen only moments ago. Roan Cleviss, the caption read.
“Roan. Nice to meet you.” Oz kept going. At the very back of the book, he paused, then paged back toward the front more slowly, carefully reading each caption. Three pages in, he found himself. Or rather, Ossian.
Ossian hunched, his shoulders high, his face half-ducked, as if he could ward off the world. Hollowed eyes stared out of the page, glimmering with fear, asking someone, anyone, for help. Even in the portrait, he looked like a trapped rat, as if the artist had backed him into a corner and threatened him with their pencils.
Oz clicked his tongue. I think I’m starting to understand why this kid went so far as to cast blood magic to summon me here. He was in over his head well before Madame Saoirse handed her giant library of incredibly valuable loot over to him.
Speaking of, why did she leave her giant library of incredibly valuable loot to a guy who couldn’t even cast magic? A guy in the very back of her roster?
He shook his head, then added it to the list.
7. Why me?
Setting the roster carefully back down, Oz went to step forward, only for his leg to poof into something soft. He looked down.
A longhaired calico rubbed against his ankles. She looked up at him, flashing beautiful blue eyes, then meowed. Turning back down, she twined between his legs again, looking up at him hopefully in between twists.
“A cat? Are you a magic cat?” Oz asked.
She looked up at him with big blue eyes and mewed inquisitively. Seeing he didn’t have an answer for her, she went back to twining.
I recognize this song and dance. “You’re a hungry cat, at the very least,” he muttered to himself. He sighed. Turning back to his list, he added at the very start:
0. Feed the cat
I can’t leave the cat hungry. I just can’t.
“Do you know where your food is?” he asked.
He pretended to take a step, and the cat ran ahead of him, charging off into the aisles. Two leaps in, she stopped abruptly and turned over her shoulder, one paw raised.
“Looks like it.” Oz followed her.
She led the way in fits and starts, darting ahead of him, then waiting. He followed her down one of the aisles. Away from the main lobby, the ceiling closed in overhead, only ten feet as opposed to its previous infinite height. Oz rubbed the top of his head, somehow relieved. I’m not afraid of open spaces, but there was something eerie about that infinite height. Almost intimidating.
He glanced at the cat. “I’m going to call you Sid. Short for Cait Sidthe, which I’m pretty sure I’m mispronouncing horribly. What do you think?”
Sid mewed at him.
“You love it? Great.”
At the end of the aisle, sandwiched between two overstuffed shelves, a rickety old yellowwood door awaited them. Sporting an old-fashioned bronze doorhandle with an oversized keyhole and scuffed edges, it bore all the marks of a storage cabinet.
Oz knelt, peering through the keyhole. I’ve never been able to look through a keyhole before. I can’t miss this opportunity!
Black darkness awaited him, a darkness so dark that his eyes began to hurt. Oz drew his head back and blinked, rubbing his eyes. Don’t know what I expected. It’s a storage cabinet. It’s not going to be lit.
He opened the door.
Golden waves of grass. All the way to the horizon, interrupted only by a small stand of trees and the silvery glint of water. Oz stared, flabbergasted. A gentle wind blew, rustling his hair. He took a deep breath, breathing the fresh grassland air.
The front door definitely did not open to a grassland. What the hell?
Chirping, Sid rushed out the door. “Hey, wait—”
Before he could even bend to grab her, she vanished into the grass.
Oz pursed his lips. A moment later, he shrugged. She seemed to know what she was doing. Maybe she hunts for dinner.
Which brings me back to—grasslands? Why is there an enormous plains in the library?
Holding tight to the door, he leaned out. Above him, only sky. To the left and the right of the door, more grassland stretched away. Keeping one foot in, he carefully eked around the corner. Behind the door, even more grasslands. The door floated in the middle of the grasslands, not visibly connected to the library at all.
“Huh,” Oz muttered to himself. It’s a portal. Awesome!
The grass rustled. Closer and closer, rushing toward Oz. Startled, Oz jumped back, retreating into the library. Portals, magic… are there monsters, too?
Sid jumped out of the grass, a limp mouse-like creature clutched in her mouse. She ran past him and vanished.
“Oh. Right. Makes sense.” Oz went to close the door, then caught sight of a bloodstained sheet hanging off its interior hook. He froze. What the hell? What is that? Why is it here?
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess. It’s already bloodstained, so no harm, no foul. Maybe there are monsters somewhere out there in the grasses, and this sheet was used to carry the meat back to the kitchen, or something. I don’t know, but I’ll take it. Shrugging, Oz drew the sheet off the door.
He walked back the way he’d came and quickly returned to the lobby. He tossed the sheet on the bloodstain. The sheet began to soak up the fresh blood, but the dried blood remained.
Oz picked up his list. He crossed out Feed cat and added Locate water to Clean bloodstain. Hesitating a moment, he darted the quill back in and drew an arrow between Locate water and Food and drink. Nodding, he set the list down again. “Water. Let’s go get some water—”
Knock, knock.
Oz turned. He stared at the door.
Knock, knock.
With a sigh, he walked over. “If it’s Roan again, I’m going to let him have it.”
At the door, he glanced over his shoulder. The cloth laid over the bloodstain, covering the majority of it. Oz nodded. He opened the door and slipped outside, all-but-shutting the door behind him. The barrier glittered inches in front of his nose, glowing in a low gold.
Once more, the town bustled about in the background. A few of the passing mages did double-takes to see him standing in the door, but moved on, disappointed, when they saw the barrier between them and him.
Beyond the barrier, a young woman waited. She wore a narrow, bright-orange sleeveless dress that hung to her ankles, with slits up to her natural waist, well past her hips. Loose burnt-orange leggings and a burnt-orange undershirt hinted at muscular legs and arms beneath. Pale orange slippers clad her feet. A long braid hung to her waist, a short red ribbon cinching its end. Bright eyes met his, and she immediately bowed, clasping her hands to him.
“Disciple Aisling Levarre of the Flaming Fist Sect greets the Grand Librarian!”
Startled, Oz waved his hands. “Stand, please stand. And—just call me Oz, please. Just Oz.”
Aisling stood upright once more, her braid bobbling as she stood. She nodded. “As you wish. I came to request the return of the Five Fist Progression, one of my sect’s secret tomes.”
“Uh, right.” Oz glanced over his shoulder, peering at the thousands of books on the first level alone. “You have any idea where it might be?”
Aisling shook her head. “I’ve never stepped foot inside the Grand Magus’ Library.”
The… oh. I guess Madame Saoirse would be a Grand Magus, if she was powerful enough to collect all these books. I’m not sure what a ‘Grand Magus’ is, but if anyone deserves the title, it’s probably the person who created and owned this massive library.
“Well, that makes two of us,” Oz said. He nodded at Aisling. “I’ll take a look for it, how about that? If you give me some way to contact you, I can let you know when I find it. Just don’t expect it soon. I’ve got a lot of books to look through. A lot.”
Aisling hesitated, then nodded. She met Oz’s eyes. “Do you have a method to contact me?”
Oz froze. He stared into infinity. Holy shit. For the first time in forever, no, I don’t! There’s no way this medieval world has landlines, let alone cell phones. It’s too risky to step outside to go to the post office, when I’ve got the precious manuals of thousands of sects locked away in the library, and even if I could get to the post office, I have no idea how to send it to Aisling. I don’t have her address or anything. Homing pigeons? I…
Aisling reached into her robes. She drew out a small, roughly man-shaped piece of paper and scribbled a strange set of characters down the center, from the head to the bottom of the body. Oz squinted at it, but the characters didn’t shift and reform into words this time. Does Oz not know this language…?
She handed it to him. “A talisman. Fold it in half like this,” she mimed folding the short end together, so that the fold bisected the characters down their center, “and it will fly to my side, wherever I am.”
“Oh, neat. Thank you. I was worried I’d have to leave the library,” Oz laughed.
Aisling nodded. “That would be incredibly dangerous.”
“Yeah, I’ve been worried I’d get gank—ahem, murdered if I stepped outside,” Oz joked.
Again, Aisling nodded. “It’s good you’re aware of your situation.”
Oz’s eyes widened. Shit, I would? It’s really a dog-eat-dog world out there, huh? No one respects the law? Or rather, it’s probably the law of the jungle. The strongest prevail, while the weak are nothing but prey and cannon fodder.
That goal to learn magic and get strong fast might be moving up the list…
Aisling bowed quickly. “If that’s all, I’ll take my leave.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Oz put the talisman in his robes and waved a quick goodbye, inching back inside the library. Only when he shut the door behind him did he let out a sigh. Safe once more.
Back to the list. He headed to the desk, but paused as he passed the bloodstain. He squinted, then lifted the cloth.
Not a single scrap of blood remained. Where the cloth had laid, the marble sparkled, perfectly clean. The rag itself only had the same bloodstains it had possessed at the beginning, save a small red mark on the upper left corner, as though that corner alone had fallen into fresh blood.
Oz licked his lips. Spooky. It’s a world of magic, yes, but I didn’t expect the sheets to be some kind of blood-sucking monster or blood-absorbing enchantment. Is it a cleansing spell? Or is it some kind of horrifying blood magic enchantment, or something? Very carefully, he folded up the sheet and set it behind the desk, giving it a friendly pat. “Good sheet. Thank you.”
The sheet trembled.
Oz jolted. He stared.
A distant wind blew from high up the library and rustled the sheet ever so slightly.
Backing away, Oz shook his head. “I know you’re alive. Don’t play those games.”
The sheet remained completely still. Only when the desk stood between him and the sheet did Oz relax. He took a deep breath, then consulted the list. Right. Next is ‘find food and drink.’ Let’s get a move on!
His eyes flicked to one of the books on a nearby shelf. He took a slow breath and bit his lip. But… magic books. Right here. I’m barely hungry and barely thirsty. I’ll be fine. What if I just read one? They’re so slender. It won’t take long. Just one. Just one…
Without realizing it, he’d moved over to the shelf. He reached out. His hand hovered over a book.
Food. Water.
Magic. Literally learning magic. And I’ll just read one book. One book, and then I go look for food and water. It’s fine. It will be totally fine.
Oz snatched up the book. Like a parched man in a desert, he dove into the book, absolutely absorbing the book. In a few minutes, he reached the back. Setting it delicately on the floor, for lack of a better place to put it, he picked up another book and charged through it. Another. Another. A small stack of books accumulated beside him.
At last, a grumble yanked him out of his reverie. Oz startled, then put a hand to his stomach. I totally forgot! I need to look for food. I can’t just sit here and read!
He looked at the books, then squinted. Though… why were all the books about breathing? Is magic based on breathing in this world? Breathing in some kind of particle called qi, that you collect and ‘cultivate’ in your core. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t everyone become mages simply by… well, breathing?
No, there’s something else. Maybe it’s a certain type of breathing, or… Oz reached for another book. Thoughtlessly, he flipped it open to a diagram of a person sitting with their legs crossed. …Once you can sense qi, enter a state of meditation and absorb the qi with each breath…
Oz’s eyes widened. Oh. I need to be able to sense magic before I can absorb it. Is that the limitation? Not everyone can sense qi, so not everyone can absorb it. Interesting.
His stomach grumbled again. He snapped the book shut forcefully. Right. Let’s get moving. I can’t sit here and read forever.
He turned and gazed at the long, wandering stacks. He put his hands on his hips and nodded. Here goes nothing! With a firm step, he headed off into the library.
Comments
Vega
I can totally understand this guy. Magic books now at the cost of putting off eating? Easy trade.
Green0Photon
Bruh almost got scammed
