Chapter 134: All We Need is Time
Castile returned with the others over an hour later. Three specters had stumbled into the large library while we were gone, and the company had been killing them repeatedly as they reconstituted, waiting for Castile to return with the kettle of souls. As the company arrived, Adrian used the five offices and set them up as small bunk rooms. There were twenty-five of us if you included Maveith, Castile, and Scholar Favian.
I was rooming with Maveith, Konstantin, Mateo, Felix, and Scholar Favian in the largest office. Our job was to protect the Scholar while he worked through the books. Every office in the small library had a fireplace, but we were warned only to burn enough to fight off the chill. The firewood was being hauled up from the collapsed shelves of the main library in shifts.
As we set up our room, Favian paged through the single shelf of books in the office. Half of them fell apart at the spine as he flipped through them. I claimed the only desk in the room to sleep on. This desk was made of the same black wood as the other desk but was much larger. I guessed this office belonged to the chief librarian of this tower.
Felix scoffed from his position near the fire at me setting up my bedroll, “Wish I had thought of that; this stone floor sucks the heat right out of you.”
I ignored him. “Anything interesting?” I asked Scholar Favian as I sat in the chair at my bed/desk and went through the drawers.
He didn’t answer as he paged through his most current book and replaced it on the shelf with a huff, “No—mostly administrative books. One is a log of books to be copied and loaned out to requested parties. I think other ancient elven libraries, but I am not sure. The titles listed are interesting anyway. It would really be useful if I had an elf fluent in the language here to help.” He didn’t say more as he lay down exhausted on his own bedroll near the small fire Felix was starting.
I found a lot of paper in the desk that crumbled to dust when I tried to move it. I sifted through the dust and found what looked to be, a bag of shiny steel marbles. The bag was brittle and cracked as I took out the seven marbles. I rolled them in my hand, and they had a good weight to them. They were perfect spheres—maybe ball bearings of some kind, or I thought they might go to some game the elves played or possibly ammunition for a sling. I left them on my bedroll in front of me as I meticulously searched the rest of the desk.
The only other thing of interest was a dozen vials with murky black liquid. They were obviously potions that had not deteriorated over time. The elvish writing on the vials had faded entirely with the centuries.
The room was filling with light blue smoke as Felix’s fire started to get going. It was a more confining space than the massive open library, and the small amount of smoke was building up. “Open the flue!” Konstantin barked as he entered the room. He went to the fireplace himself and operated a small stubborn crank. It groaned, and we found it had been a mistake to use it as centuries of dust in the chimney vent crashed into the fire. The fire went out, and the room filled with dust.
Everything and everyone was coated, and no one looked happy. Scholar Favian started coughing. Angry eyes tearing, as the smoke and dust filled the small space, trained on Konstantin. To me, it felt like an unnatural anger. I started laughing, a loud, boisterous laugh, “Damn it, Konstantin. I can’t believe the all-knowing legionnaire didn’t realize there were fifteen hundred years of dust in there. You are never going to live this one down.” I was trying to cut the tension, and finally, Maveith coughed hoarsely and started laughing too, taking my lead.
Konstantin finally joined the laughter, and it was awkward to see him jovial. “You are right. I will shake out everyone’s gear. We should see if that window opens.” He spent some time, but the block of clear stone had no hinges or method to remove it. While Konstantin was cleaning the room, we made two trips for firewood from the primary library while the dust settled.
That night, as we all ate an insignificant dinner, as I studied everyone in the company. It was clear they were depressed. It was hard to tell if it was linked to our circumstances or if the ruins were doing something to them. I was leaning toward the latter.
That night, I was tempted to use my dreamscape amulet. I asked Maveith to sleep close and remove it if necessary. I also only planned to be inside the dreamscape for two four-hour sessions. In the dreamscape, I added ten of the elven books on herbalism to my secret shelves. That was as much backlash as I thought I could handle when I left.
I was not concerned with practicing with the men in the ankheg room. Instead, I went to the shelf and pulled off the compendium of spell forms for the displacement affinity. Displacement magic was used to run the massive teleport gates in the city. Displacement Mages were highly sought after, and with my sixty-one affinity, I thought I might be able to imprint the spell form for their ability.
I opened it to the index. It was remarkably similar to the time spell form compendium. There were four suggested spell forms at three different power levels. I was happy to see that with my sixty-one affinity, only two of the major spell forms were not available to me.
Displacement Affinity Lesser Spell Forms (10-25)
Anchor (10)
Quick-Step (20)
Summon Object (10)
Ethereal Body (25)
Displacement Affinity Major Spell Forms (25-40)
Blink (30)
Dimensional Door (35)
Send Object (40)
Connect Portal Gates (40)
Displacement Apex Major Spell Forms (40-70)
Teleport Other (50)
Plane Shift (60)
Create Portal Gate (70)
Greater Teleport (70)