Reverse Chronicles

The Great Library

A sweet melody of a harp fills my morning. I look out the window and see bards sitting on the river delta. Their graceful play resonates with the serene river. Like a scene from ancient Athens, they wore white tunics and cloaks fastened with golden pins. The Magic See is serene during the morning. The birds chirp sweetly as they dance with the breeze that sways the trees. The river murmurs with the playing of the bards.

Franz is up and out. He is doing his morning exercise beside the river. He is as hot as ever.

I prep for our expedition to the great library. Then, I wake Keith up and feed Zealle. I equip Resolute and put Whisperer in my receptacle, which I also carried. I don the headdress and let Zealle fly to it. As I was almost done, Franz finally came back drenched in sweat. His torso was displayed for the entire world to see.

“Good morning, Josh,” he smiles. “Be safe in there!” He touches my cheeks and kisses my forehead. I could smell the aroma of his sweaty body.

“I will,” I assure him and leave the room as fast as I could. I waited for Keith outside the inn.

“Josh, let’s go!” Keith hovers down from the window.

“By the way, how did you know Levitate?” I ask as we walk to Maramus.

“I learned it in a book from the headmistress’s collection, when I snuck into her room!” he answers.

“You what? Why did you sneak into her room?”

“That’s a secret,” he laughs.

“You took your time,” Melojean calls our attention when we finally arrived. “Let’s go!”

The Great Library of Mysinda is an extremely tall tower. If one looks from the base, the tower looks infinitely high. However, the secret that only a few people know is that the tower extends underground. The underground sections of the tower are for Arcanists, who conduct experiments with arcane magic. These sections branch outward to the city creating tunnels and passages that allow entry to the great library. Only a few know this secret.

From Maramus, we went west towards an auberge. Beside it is a dark deserted alley. The alley is dead silent. The voices and conversation of the people on the streets could not be heard.

“It’s right here,” Melojean clicks her fingers and a path underground opened. “We should get through the library from here.” She jumps and we follow her into the pitch-black tunnel.

Melojean leads the way. She lights the entire way using Shine, a light element spell. The tunnel is rectangular. Its walls are smooth but has signs of being chipped and battered. It has spots and splotches of color in irregular shapes. The entire passageway is cold. It is also a deafening silence that could drive us mad, if it were not for the sound of our footsteps.

“This entire structure leads to the arcanists’ chambers,” Melojean speaks. “Those chambers are a giant maze combined together that has multiple junctions. Also, if we get caught, the arcanists will not hesitate to strike us down. It is an absolute law in the city that citizens should not go underground.”

We reach the end of the tunnel. Before us is a gray double door protected by a barrier of magic. Melojean reaches out her hand and casts a spell. Magic circles of various colors and patterns appears in front of the door and sucks the barrier.

“Once we enter, the librarian will know our position and will send the library guards to find us. Although she is the library’s guardian, she has no authority over the arcanists. We can use that to our advantage.”

We enter and before us is a dark room lit with torches that floated by the walls. A resonating sound fills the entire maze. The sound is like a charging energy gun from a science fiction movie. Contrary to the tunnel, the chamber is warm and noisy. There are occasional shouts from parts of the maze, some were women, some were men.

“Arcane magic is the purest form of magic, yet it is also very dangerous. It corrupts living things and destroys the other elements, the irony of purity,” Melojean whispers. “Try to make as little noise as possible.”

Melojean leads the way through the maze. We travel fast but our footsteps were as subtle as a soft blow of wind. The sounds continue and got louder as we went. We went left, then right, then another right, and a left. We were about to go right, when Melojean suddenly signaled to stop. A bright light shining a purple color suddenly blasts the wall to our right.

“No, not again!” a man’s voice shouts. “Why can’t I get it right?”

“Do you need any help?” a woman’s voice replies.

“No, I got this.”

Zealle makes an abrupt sound. I grab her from the top of the hat and held her close.

“Did you hear that?” the woman hears Zealle’s cry.

“Hear what?” the man replies.

“Nevermind.”

Melojean signals to go back. We head back from our last turn and make a right. She tells us to stop again and takes a look at the next junction. She looks back at and tells us to be very quiet.

An old arcanist is sleeping in the next junction. He looks worn out. Strange markings stroke through his face and a sun symbol is in his forehead. On his feet is a tome and a quill. There is also a bottle containing ink that is spilled on the floor.

Melojean leads the way. Keith takes a peek at the tome. His eyes lit up as he reads the contents. I pull him away slowly. Zealle makes an abrupt cry again, but the arcanist is still sound asleep. Moving forward, we stumble on a forked path. Melojean takes the right path, which led us to a stairway. We scale the stairway and found ourselves in front of another double door with a barrier.

After dispelling the barrier, we go through the door.  The upper chamber is a large room lit with light magic. The floor, walls, and the ceiling is made of smooth marble. There are numerous slabs of marble that floated throughout the room. Some flit low, some reached the ceiling. Arcanists sat on the slabs, some using them as chairs, some as tables, and some both. There are a lot of arcanists, but they were all caught up in what they were doing. There are some who are writing stuff in tomes, some are meditating, the markings on their skins and faces lit up purple.

“Let’s be as discreet as possible,” Melojean whispers. “They will attack us if we disturb them.”

I held Zealle really close and tried to keep her from making a sound. We pass through each arcanist like we were invisible. We walk in front of one who is writing a tome and we passed him as if we never existed. We found the next staircase and climbed it.

“This is the last chamber until we reach the first floor of the library,” Melojean reveals. “However, it is the headquarters of the library guards. We should expect skirmishes to happen.”

The last chamber has a circular shape. It is a room filled with weapons and books. In the center of the room is a spiraling staircase that leads up. When we took our first step to the staircase, guards surrounded us.

“By the order of the guardian of the Great Library of Mysinda, you are under arrest for unlawfully trespassing into the library,” the captain of the guards shouts. “Surrender now or be obliterated!”

“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?” Melojean steps forward and raises her hands. She clicked her fingers and in a blink of an eye, three tornadoes flung the guards away. “Go ahead to the stairs, I’ll hold them off. The librarian is in the topmost floor. I’ll be there when, I’m finished here.”

Keith cast Levitate and flew us toward the staircase. Library guards tried to attack us but I cast Gust and blew all their spears and arrows away. Guards who use magic, cast Fireball, Wind Blade, and Rock Javelin, but Zealle used her Freezing Breathe and thwarted all of them. I look back and see Melojean surrounded but numbers were not an issue for her. Once they got a taste of her magic, some guards would run away.

I order Zealle to cast Freezing Breath to secure Melojean’s rear. We finally reach the staircase and we hurriedly climbed it. The first floor is still flocked with guards, so we flew all the way to the third floor, where we found familiar faces from Maramus. We told them the situation and they quickly went to Melojean’s aid. They direct us to the stairs. We smoothly proceeded to the third floor and to all the proceeding floors.

After floors of flying directly to the staircase, Keith’s MP is halved. We decided to climb the spiraling staircases. The tower has a lot of floors. We take a break on, what I think is, the 30th floor. The floor contains historical texts, explaining the sheer number of scholars and scribes present on the floor. They all carried scrolls and copied sections of the texts.

Once Keith’s MP was full, we flew directly to the next floors. Going up and around the stairs. It is a long flight, that even Zealle thinks that the tower is endless.

“Did you know that ice dragons are the rarest type of dragons in Reversia?” Keith starts talking to pass the time. “There are countless fire, water, earth, air, lava, lightning, and nature dragons, but ice dragons are very rare. Ice dragons live in the frozen wastelands north of Fensir, where food is very scarce. And with illegal poaching, their numbers have decreased significantly, and now you have the last ice dragon as your familiar.”

He continues talking until we reached a floor where the walls are transparent. It is at that floor that we find out that it is already night. We spent an entire day going up! Keith and I called it a night and rest on that floor. It was a deserted floor, not a single soul could be seen.

Another day has come. We continue our journey to the top of the tower. In a certain floor, we finally meet people. They were Elementalists who told us the spell Teleportation and its ability to move us between floors. It is a very useful spell, but we could only teleport to a spell that we have already been to. A day passes in a blink of an eye. We spent the night again on the tower. Thankfully, we prepared provisions for this expedition, just as Melojean instructed.

On the third day, we finally reached a floor that has two giant stairwells intersecting on a balcony that hang on top of the wall. The floor has a map of the entire world and the ceiling has all the stars on the night sky painted on it. The walls are covered with crimson curtains that hang down the floor. On the balcony is a double door decorated with golden motifs and insignias of the different nations in Reversia. Beyond it is the final floor, the librarian’s floor.