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vilanian landscapes are not picturesque. They do not have great oaks with leafy green coats, or fields of gold, or daisies a plenty. They do not have happy woodland creatures other than the occasional feral chipmunk. They do not have butterflies. Not usually.
Fluttering along the wastelands, a single golden butterfly haphazardly traced a path through the air. Its thoughts, like the thoughts of all butterflies, were very simple; find flowers, flutter, flutter, find flowers, flutter, attract mates to get it on with, flutter. Right now it was in 'flutter' because it wasn't sure how it got here, since it was planning to go south in annual migration like its species was supposed to, but the wind currents drifted it off course here, chaotic eddies that can stem the path of nature.
The butterfly flapped around in a tight circle of confusion, its beautiful wings of gold beating at the air, swirling air currents that seemed very small to begin with...
Lina awoke from uneasy dreams to find herself transformed into a giant insect.
Actually, that wasn't entirely true. She was still human, but the surprise value was just as high; because when she woke up, the first thing she saw was a large tentacled monster.
"KYAAAA!!!!!" she shrieked. "I'm still hallucinating!"
"No you aren't, he's just an oni," Naga explained.
"As I was.. ah... saying," the hideous abomination said, "We're twenty minutes away from the dig site of the Great Library, which Evilania recently unearthed as a result of territorial expansion as planned by Dictator Cain the Fourth of The Horrible Reign of Blood, the current Dictator of Evilania, who in this year decided to dedicate a temple to himself on that very site, except the digging--"
"I have a headache," Lina said. "Does anybody have a remedy or some--"
A warm feeling rushed through her head, clearing it instantly.
Lina blinked a few times, turning to look at the sorceress responsible for that. "Ah... good work," she replied.
Lily said nothing, sitting back to listen quietly.
Of course, last time Lina saw Nigel the horribly boring civil servant, it was at the Evilanian Board of Tourism. And yes, he did have a dozen flailing phallic tentacles, but Lina had chalked that up to her very interesting dinner which was making her see things like giant pink elephants stampeding through her navel. She hadn't counted on her sight being perfectly clear at that time.
She learned later in the trip, which took entirely too long to be interesting enough to go into detail on, that apparently Nigel was from a race of hellish beasts created by an insane genius who wanted to take over Evilania. Unfortunately, his people were more suited to basic paperwork and having tea and crackers before lunch and discussing popular sports, so they went into government instead. Which, in a lot of ways, put them in a proper position to take over the country; if they weren't too busy typing reports to care.
Apparently, it was the tentacle-oni who first pushed to have the site of the Great Library declared a historic landmark, when the Dictator was planning to destroy the site and build his temple just because he'd be an evil bastard to deface such a place. The oni, however, knew the intricately demonic laws of Evilania much better than any human, and managed to preserve the site from harm, so that tourists could stomp through it and leave used coffee cups and handprints and destroy it slowly over the course of a few decades instead.
All of which didn't really matter as far as Lina was concerned, because she was planning to raid the place for the Mirror Lores anyway. Gourry slept through the entire long-winded monologue of their tour guide, while Naga was busy doing her nails and Lily just.. stared at the wall of the coach cabin.
"Are we there yet?" Lina asked, five minutes after the last time she had asked.
"...which is interesting, because the inner chambers have a particularly neo-decian style of furnishings, contrary to the findings of explorer Jean-Custurd who believed that the Great Library would be designed entirely in the style of the elder Alextribikians, who..."
"I have to go to the bathroom."
"...onto the third generation of interior decorators, which believed in a more monochromatic system of indexing by chamber, which was of course patterned after the great halls of early Sailoon courts of justice, designed originally by..."
"Can I just get out and walk the rest of the way?"
"...that time after the reign of the third Bishop of Antiok, who was responsible for the various draperies added to the Library with depictions of the Lord of Nightmares renamed to the Lord of Dreams, which was her name during the reign of the Empire of Tazminjek, which..."
"My brain is melting."
"...fond of the color blue, as it applied to the..."
"Aaa! Make it stop!"
"...sixteenth generation of the art movement known as 'broke', which enabled the library to incorporate deconstructionist elements into the foyer and--"
The oni fell asleep, its eyestalks fluttering closed and a gurgling snore rising.
The thick haze that was forming over Lina's brain snapped away at the near silence. "Wha?"
Lily shrunk back into her seat. "ano... you said to make it stop, so.. I used a sleep spell. I'm sorry, I--"
"Thank you! Thank you!" Lina exclaimed. "THANKS!"
The white sorceress, who wasn't used to that word, much less it being used three times in a row, tried to remember the right response. "Um... you're welcome?"
The Great Library of the Empire of Alextribik was nearly a quarter of a mile long and wide. It had floors upon floors upon floors, majestic spires of crystal and marble, the shining forms of architectures long gone. One of the seven and a half wonders of the world, matched only by the Upright Tower of Pasta in Justivalero, to gaze upon it was to see a sliver of brilliance, of perfection, of majesty.
Except that it was buried under a million tons of rock at the moment, so the site of the Great Library could only be described as 'a large pile of uninteresting dirt'.
"Whee," Lina said flatly.
"I don't get it. Where's the door?" Naga asked. "How do they expect us to get into the library if they haven't even finished digging up the door?"
"Seems the progress in uncovering this archaeological treasure is a wee bit slow," Lina said. "Okay. Team meeting. What do we do next?"
"Let's blow up the rocks with high energy magic until we uncover the antechamber!!" Naga suggested, clenching a fist of might.
"We're not trying to DESTROY the library!" Lina said. "We're talking a structure buried under hundreds of tons of rock! Any really huge explosions down there and we'll have to learn to breathe granite. I hereby propose a moratorium on strong magic beyond basic Shamanism while underground. All those in favor?"
"I'd rather not die," Gourry said, raising his hand. "Besides, I've got the my Sword of Light. We'll be fine."
"I won't go in there defenseless on a personal level!" Naga scoffed, crossing her arms. "I vote no."
The three of them looked at Lily, who was busy trying to look anywhere else.
"um... um?" she said, a bit scared.
"You're a part of this party now, so you get to vote," Lina said. "What do you say? Interested in being crushed?"
"Only a fool would toss aside a powerful weapon when unknown dangers are ahead!" Naga said.
"I-I agree with Naga-san," Lily said.
Lina wasn't convinced. "Reason being?"
"Be.. because I agree with Naga-san."
"Don't just give us the answer Naga wants to hear because you're tagging along with her after your boyfriend got eviscerated, say what you mean," Lina suggested bluntly.
The other sorceress swallowed hard. "I... I, uh... I really don't have an opinion. Don't mind me. Please...?"
Lina sighed. "Okay... two for no powerful spells, one against, one.. abstain. Decision moved."
"Objection!" Naga said.
"This isn't a courtroom! Motion carried."
Naga grumped.
"Now, Gourry, help me look for a way in," Lina said, peering around the ruins. "There's got to be some sort of entrance for them to haul relics and stuff through."
Naga watched the other two head off, poking around the rubble, before peering oddly at Lily, who again was staring off into the distance.
"You're not helping anybody by playing Miss Servant, you know," Naga said.
Lily jumped in surprise at the sound of her voice. "Uh... I'm sorry, I--"
"Didn't I tell you earlier not to apologize?" Naga asked. "Look, that abusive redneck megalomaniac freak is gone now."
"Who?"
"Your boyfriend!"
"Oh.. oh," Lily said. "Right."
Naga waved a finger in a 'tisk-tisk' motion. "Therefore, you are your own person and can make up your own mind. And I don't want to see any of this moping about in guilt because you think you failed to protect him, okay?"
Lily stayed quiet.
"This is not going to be easy, is it?" Naga guessed.
"Sorry," Lily apologized.
Naga gave up for the moment, and joined the others to look for a way in.
There are a lot of things you don't want to see when you wake up. Although the blasted ashes and remains of your former Mazoku ally are very specific, they do rank up there.
The girl who called herself Lina Inverse was feeling very strung out that morning. She had slept under a bush because she didn't trust the innkeeper not to sneak into her room last night, but her back was aching from the high tension she was running the previous day. She was getting a rash from the leaves on the local plants, which obviously weren't meant to be friendly to humans. And now, when she was hoping to see Ozek's empty temple, having filled his job and erased Naga and Gourry -- who weren't supposed to be alive anyway, she saw him die, she saw him burn he went away and Naga probably went with all of them and -- she instead saw a large crater.
Why did this weird nightmare Lina that had her old hair, her old powers, her old stupid attitude keep doing this? She should see, she should know why everything wasn't supposed to be! Instead she managed to wipe out the most powerful ally Lina could manage to get.
Rage pulsed through Lina's mind. Again! Again and again! Every time she thought she was clever enough she fell too far and they had her. But there was still a chance, a chance to escape and get it right.
The crater was dusty, but she knew the smell of low-grade Mazoku anywhere, the unmistakable smell of ashes and incense. Skidding down the side of the round indentation, she approached the center, sniffing; and found it. She gathered a handful of the ashes, approximated the location where the altar must have been beforehand, and readied the ritual.
The ashes glowed and burned as Lina repeated the ritual, like yanking the reigns on an old mare, trying to start it going. Eventually, a weak form appeared, solidifying, but not nearly as impressive as it had been the other night.
'THE... THE IRRITATING HUMANS...' Ozek growled. 'THAT THEY THOUGHT A DRAGON SLAVE WOULD KILL A MAZOKU...'
"You're not a very strong Mazoku," Lina explained. "One good hit and your physical form is sawdust. You're lucky I managed to revive your astral form out of what was left or you'd be in limbo for awhile."
'REVENGE. REVENGE. REVENGE.' Ozek pulsed with the word, throbbing like Lina's heartbeat. For a moment the fear jumped up her throat, threatened to snap her back into her memories-- down, down. Business to attend to.
"Your job isn't done. I ordered you to kill Naga and.. and him," Lina said. "Get to it."
'POWER. I THIRST FOR STRENGTH.'
"I'll find a villager to flay," Lina said calmly.
'MORE. I CAN SENSE DARK THOUGHT NEARBY. IT SMELLS SWEET...'
Lina got up to go. "I'll hurry and get you--"
'NO.'
"No?"
'YOU'LL DO.'
And with a flick of the wrist, Ozek turned on the tap of her memories, the bottled away pain and hatred that Lina tried to keep sealed. She collapsed to her knees, thought after thought flashing past her memory of the things that she'd experienced, what happened to her, what she heard and saw, and most importantly, how she felt, sadness, despair, anger, pain, depression, madness...
Ozek filtered Lina's emotions, triggered by his will, growing stronger than he could from any six humans. The little one had plenty of good choice delights inside her; obviously she had been conditioned before to be an excellent source of Mazoku power.
Done, he let the girl collapse, and roared into the... nicely daylit sky, his body smaller than before but very, very nasty.
"I WILL ANNIHILATE YOU THIS TIME, FOOLISH MORTALS!!!" he bellowed, and his leathery wings flapped, carrying him off into the sky.
Moments passed.
Lina twitched slightly on the ground.
Although she didn't think to call for help, since she'd never been helped before just by asking for it, help came.
Footsteps, the tap of a staff as they walked.
"You should have realized he'd do that," the voice said. "He's not exactly the most professional sort of hired help. Are you hurt badly?"
"...gh..."
"Time is tight, Lina," her benefactor said, crouching down to ease Lina up into a sitting position. "You're so close to the lores now, but if Ozek succeeds, he could bury them in the process. You need to hurry. I'll compress a night's rest into you without dreams..." the figured held a ruby headed staff, and chanted a quiet spell.
"N... nn..." Lina started, before drifting into sleep.
The man eased her back down to the ground. He concentrated, speaking through her mind, a momentary dreamvision. 'You will wake in a few minutes outside the ruins of the Great Library. Get to the lores. Get the book. Then you will have the means to what you seek.'
don't trust you
'You don't have to. Simply listen to the reasons behind I suggest and decide then.'
who are you
The man smiled. "That is a secret, Lina-chan," he told her sleeping body, then walked off, a few steps this way, a few hundred miles the other.
nder sunlight skies, a pair of golden wings beat at the air once, twice... the air shifts and flows, adding a minute amount of force to a passing breeze. The breeze flows over Evilania, towards the mountains, brushing past the ruins of a library...
It slips through the makeshift door. There was an entrance, which was large enough for one of the ecchi oni which maintained this place to get through, but it was also guarded by some of the same. Lina, Naga, Gourry and Lily started to form a plan for how to sneak past the guards, and when they finally decided on a good course of action, they returned to the door which was unguarded and left with a little sign reading 'OFF TO LUNCHTIME AND TEA : BE BACK SOON.'
"Well, that was easier than we expected," Lina grinned. "After you, Gourry."
"No no, men are supposed to hold open doors for women to go through," Gourry explained, some of his home country's influence rubbing off in flakes.
"Yes, but where I come from, men go in first so that if there's a giant monster with a throwing axe in there, they'll buy the farm first in distraction so the woman can blow it up afterwards with a spell," Lina smiled.
Gourry scratched his head. "That's an awfully specific custom..."
"Just get in there, Gourry!" Lina said, giving him a shove. Gourry stumbled into the dark cave, waving his arms frantically.
Moment one, moment two--
"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!" Gourry screamed.
"Aieee!" Lily screamed, and hid behind Naga.
"Look out! Monster!" Lina yelled in warning to the others, jumping back and readying a fireball--
Gourry peeked out. "I hib my nobe onna walle," he complained, rubbing his sore face. "Its prebby nabbow in bere!"
Lina resisted the urge to fireball him anyway.
For a moment, Lina wished she had paid attention to Nigel's mind-numbing monologue. Then the moment passed.
But she had to admit, even in the artificial light provided by her light spell, it was a strange sight. The Library had been passed down through three empires, even though it wasn't officially 'Great' until the last one got their meathooks on it. A weird variety of pillars, carvings, decorations, statues, tapestries, rugs, mosaics, and every other kind of decoration to can hang, paint, grind, attach, support, or engrave covered every possible surface.
And there weren't any books.
"Where're the books?" Gourry asked, inquiring about the obvious with an air of innocence.
"They aren't here," Lina obviously said. "We need to find a map of some kind. The Mirror Lores would be stored in a room of magical books, which isn't likely to be on this floor... stuff like that they always tuck away into some obscure corner of the darkest basement. Anybody see a guide or signpost or something?"
Naga looked around.
Gourry gazed lamely at his surroundings.
Lina paced in a circle, checking the ceiling.
Lily made a peep.
"Eh?" Lina asked, looking up. "You guys hear something?"
'a.. ano...' Lily said, at the decibel level of a mouse. It was a big library, however, and the sound carried.
"Spot something?" Lina asked.
"Um.. you... you're sort of..." Lily said, pointing down with her right hand, a short, soft motion.
Lina looked down, at the mosaic tile pattern. She squinted, trying to make out what it was... then got the idea, jogging to a nearby carved pillar and scaling it for about ten feet. THEN she looked down, at the perfectly obvious outline of a floor layout, complete with cunic writing, which covered the room's floor surface area.
"Hey, good work, Lily!" Lina smiled, hopping back down. "Anybody here know how to read Alextribikian?"
"It's a dead language," Naga said. "I don't bother with those."
Lily examined a nearby sample of the weird, pixellated writing. "'Travel'... 'Dictionaries'... 'Llama Farming'..."
Walking over, Lina squinted at the writing as well. "Do any of these places have a label like 'Magic' or 'Mirrors' or 'Really Big Amazing Books of Power' or anything?"
"Do they have a 'Gift Shop'?" Naga asked, perking up.
"I could go for a 'Steak'," Gourry added, feeling he should contribute.
"They don't just write 'Steak' on a map, Gourry," Naga said, rolling her eyes.
"They don't? Well... they should. I mean, what if someone really wanted a steak? They wouldn't be able to find it."
"It's a LIBRARY! Not a slaughter house!" Lina said. She dug in her pack, getting out the dinky box of dried fruit Naga had laughably purchased to feed them back in town. Lina lobbed it over at Gourry. "Here, eat these instead."
"These aren't dried frog pills, are they? Because one time my Aunt Melba had to take some, and she got really really strange for a week, and ran through town with her pants on top of her--"
"So, found it yet?" Lina asked, turning back to Lily.
The sorceress jumped in surprise, as the conversation suddenly focused back on her. "Uh... well.. I think maybe it might be... there," she said, pointing to a room on the basement map. "I think. I could be wrong. I'm probably wrong."
"Probably? Are you wrong or not?" Lina asked.
"I.. I, um..."
"Make up your mind, girl!"
"I'm wrong!" Lily blurted, going into panic mode. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I... I..."
Naga stepped in to intervene. "Lina, Lina! You need to learn diplomacy. Now. Lily-chan?"
Lily didn't look up.
"What does that word read in the room you pointed to?" Naga asked, simply.
"It.. it says 'Lost Lores'."
"So why do you think you're wrong?"
"I could be wrong..."
"Either way, it's a good lead, and you did a good job getting it," Naga said. "See? That wasn't such a chore. Now, shall we?"
"But.."
"Yes?"
"Nevermind," Lily said.
"Lillly..." Naga warned.
"It's just... that," Lily said, pointing to a large, red-lettered form. "It reads 'Beware of Librarian'."
"Oh, is that all?" Naga asked. "OHOHHOHOHOHHOOO! As if the librarian in this place would be alive after so many years! Besides, what harm could some old geezer do?"
A double-headed throwing axe whirled out from the shadows of the room, slicing neatly through Naga's cloak and embedding its steel head three inches into solid rock.
"He could do that," Lina said casually.
Naga sprang backwards, neatly avoiding the swoop of a bastard sword, as some freak in a leather loincloth and well oiled chest landed from his pouncing place, taking a few more strokes at Naga before pausing. He was roughly as wide as he was tall, with muscles on top of his muscles, gigantic pectorals that could probably crush an iron helmet between them, and definitely was not some doddering eighty year old man with a rubber stamp and a quiet voice.
"Infidel scum!" the Librarian said, spitting the words without actually spitting on anything, which he knew he'd have to clean up afterwards if he did. He twirled the sword in a flashy way, posing threateningly. "How dare you defile, besmirch, stain, pollute, and/or contaminate this holy ground with your rotten book-stealing presence!? I, Pendix the Librarian Warrior, will DESTROY, BREAK, ANNIHILATE, CRUSH, MAIM AND/OR KILL YOU!"
"OHOHHOHOOO!! So, the old geezer does have some moves!" Naga taunted, drawing her own sword. "Perhaps I shall practice my blade on you instead of my magics, to show how easily I can defeat you! HA!"
Clang, parry, dodge, thrust, spin, etc...
"You know, I refuse to be surprised by this," Lina said to Gourry. "And in fact, I've probably seen stranger things in the course of this trip. By this point, I should probably be expecting it, even..."
"Uh... shouldn't we be helping Naga?" Gourry asked, one hand on the hilt of his sword. "I mean, she is being attacked..."
"Eh, don't worry, it's just Naga," Lina shrugged. "Let's go get that book while she's occupied--"
A crossbow bolt snagged through the air, missing Lina in a way that suggested it could have hit target if its previous owner really wanted it to.
"NOBODY checks out a book without... a LIBRARY CARD!" Pendix announced, lowering his weapon.
Naga danced out of Pendix's reach, confused. "What, is that all?"
"Whoa, no, wait!" Lina said. "We've been down THIS road before. This is Evilania. You're going to make us sign sixty five thousand forms in triplicate or something insane like that, aren't you, Mr. Librarian Warrior?"
Pendix looked puzzled. "What good would forms show of your characters as book lenders? Bah! The raging spirits of a thousand Librarians, tied magically to the great Libraries of past and future, so that they may forever maintain the books as long as the books shall live SCOWL, grumble, mutter and/or scoff in disdain on such things!"
"Okay, then.. you're going to ask us to take a ring to the crack of doom or seek out the Magical Pond of Whatsimacallit or some other time-consuming thing. Right?" Lina hazarded.
"What would be the point of that, library offender?"
"Then.. you'll just give us the card?" Lina asked, astonished. "Great! My name is Lina Inverse and I live at no fixed address, and I'm here to check out--"
The Librarian held up a hand, motioning for Lina to stop. "You jump ahead. First, you must pass... THE FOUR TRIALS OF THE LIBRARY CARD ACQUISITION!! Tests of intellect, stamina, strength, prowess--"
Lina turned. "Forget it. Gourry, c'mon, let's go get that book."
"Wha-- you would dare check out a book without permission!?!" Pendix asked, Enraged.
"What'll you do if we try?" Lina asked.
"I will ATTACK YOU, LIBRARY CRIMINAL!"
"Been there," Gourry shrugged.
"Done that," Naga agreed.
"Got the t-shirt," Lina finished. "It takes more than an extremely large man with a lot of weapons and few clothes to get me to hop to on another random sequence of tasks and sub-quests. So, if you'll excuse--"
'ano,' Lily said, sneaking into the dialogue from where she previously had hidden under a table when Pendix arrived.
"--eh?" Lina asked.
"I.. I think we should get the library card," Lily said. "I mean, it's... uh.. it's the right thing to do. Right. I could be wrong."
Lina snapped. "I am NOT going to sit around all day and do a bunch of stupid tricks just to satisfy a man with index cards for a brain!!"
"eeep!" Lily yelped, and ran to hide behind Naga.
"Now now.." Naga said. "I agree with Lily. It couldn't be THAT hard, Lina! Don't be such a slacker."
"Ehhh? Naga?!" Lina gaped. "But... it's just a big hulky guy! No big deal! Let's go get the book."
Naga signaled a time out, then leaned over to whisper to Lina.
"Listen, I'm trying rather hard to get Lily here to think for herself," Naga said, "I don't think stepping on her idea is a good way to raise her self esteem, do you?"
"But... but I mean... ooooh!" Lina protested. She turned back to the Librarian Warrior, and talked through gritted teeth. "Okay, fine. We'll do the silly trials. What first? We don't got all day here."
A slow smile spreading over Pendix's incredible underbite, he snapped his fingers. A magically triggered library cart rolled in from nowhere, with a couple books on it.
"THE FIRST TRIAL!" Pendix announced, gesturing to the books. "Sort these."
Lily perked up. "Oh, that's easy," she said, and stepped forward, putting the third book behind the first in front of the second and swapping the fourth and fifth. "There. That's the right way, I think."
"CORRECT!" Pendix said, clapping once in approval.
"What, that's it? That's the entire trial?" Lina asked. She started to perk up as well. "That's so easy! Okay, I'll do the next one. Point me at the books!"
Instead, the Librarian handed Lina a card, reading 1004.51.5.
"THE SECOND TRIAL! You will find this book in the west wing. Bring it back to me," Pendix said. "You may not use any spells, simply your Library Skills!"
Lina snatched the index card, smiling. "Got it. No problem. Come on, guys, this is gonna be a breeze!"
The actual wings of the library were the real reason it was called the Great Library.
One copy of every book in existence was stored in this building. Thanks to a continuing enchantment placed on its shelves, each time a new book was written, anywhere in the world, it would appear on a shelf in the correct order and wing when nobody was looking. Granted, not too many books were published in the world because more than half of the population was illiterate, but it was enough to give the Great Library a sense of scale usually only found in ballrooms of very rich nobles.
Lina wandered along the sixty foot high shelves of this colossal room, scanning the numbers. The others tagged along, like curious travelers who feel like there's a road accident up ahead.
"1004.50.3, point-4, point-5, point-6, point-7," Lina counted, running along the bottommost shelf. "And onto the 1004.51's, point-1, point-2, point-3, point-4, point..."
The shelf ended on point four, wrapping back around to the top of the next shelf.
Lina looked up.
And up.
"Oh," Lina said, gazing at 1004.51.5, currently fifty five feet over her head. "Not a problem. Ahem. LEVIT--"
Pendix bopped Lina lightly on the head with a ruler.
"No spells!" he said. "You must use your LIBRARY SKILLS!"
"What library skills?!" Lina asked. "It's right up to the ceiling and there's no ladder in this room!"
"A good book-lender always finds a way to access the glorious information stored in these texts," Pendix recited from obsessively memorized holy books of the Librarian Warriors.
Lina looked back up. "Okay. We'll do it the direct way!" She cracked her knuckles, got a good grip, and started climbing and climbing and climbing and pulling a loose book accidentally and falling and falling and WHAM.
Twitch.
"Uh, Lina?" Gourry asked, crouching down and poking her lightly. "You're not dead, right?"
Lina got back up, rubbing a bump on her head. "Stupid shelf... no way is this gonna beat me!" And up she went again, finding toeholds among the empty spaces, grabbing at the near frictionless polished wood for handholds, until she slipped and fell on top of Naga.
"Oh, good, something soft," Lina said, relieved. "Okay. This isn't working. Suggestions, anyone?"
"We could throw you up there!" Gourry suggested, excited by the genius of his idea.
"No," Lina said. "Next suggestion?"
"Gff off mf," Naga suggested.
"Uh..."
Lina looked over at Lily, who had taken off her pack, and was digging through it.
"I think I might have.. umm... I'm not sure, but..." she said, mumbling her words as she searched. Then she withdrew a grappling hook and a long, long coil of rope.
"Whaaa?!" Lina asked. "What're you doing with that in your pack?"
"I.. I like to be prepared," Lily said. "My mom told me that the two most important things an adventurer can have is, um, a lot of rope and a book of matches."
"Oh, right!" Gourry agreed, clueing in. "That was in 'Soe, Youe Wante To Be Aye Hero Inne 21 Easy Steppes!' I read that book once when I was a kid, it was very big back home."
"Lucky!" Lina smiled. "Okay. Can I use your rope for this, Lily?"
Lily blinked. "Uh... okay. Here you go."
"Thanks," Lina said, snatching the rope, and whirling the hook around, aiming.
"Uh..."
"Yes?" Lina asked, not pausing.
"You're welcome," Lily said.
Lina Inverse nodded, then let the hook fly!... it arced backwards in a weak radius, and clattered on the ground. The limp rope still in Lina's hand.
"It occurs to me that I've never actually used one of these things before," she explained. "Er. How do you get the hook thingy to stick to the shelf?"
After a few false starts, and a couple more bruises, Lina finally scaled down the towering wall of recorded knowledge, book clenched between her teeth in victory. "Goff if!!"
"Excellent!" Pendix said, clapping once. "Now, the THIRD TRIAL! A seasoned book-lender must be able to face... the bookworm!"
"I'll take this one!" Naga said, tossing her cape with a flourish. "Combat and magic are my specialty, as a black sorceress. Bring on the little worm, I will crush it like a worm!"
The Librarian whistled.
An eighty foot long, ten foot wide brown worm with spiked, armored shells on its skin slithered into the cavernous book wing from the main lobby, opening a mammoth mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, hissing at Naga.
"THAT'S a bookworm?!" Lina asked, jumping back.
"He's well fed and trained specifically to instruct book-lenders in self defense!" the Librarian said. "Go get 'em, Rover!"
"OHOHOHOHOHOO!!" Naga laughed, her voice bouncing off the walls to the point of ear irritation. "This will be simple; I'll polish it off in one single shot!!"
Lina waved her arms around madly. "Naga! You promised no high energy magic! We're sitting under tons of earth!!"
Naga's gigantic fireball piffled at remembering. "Oh. I had forgotten. Very well! I have other ways of slaying my enemies, as Naga the White Serpent can strike from any direction without warning and with the deadliest of weapons! OOHOHOHOHOOHOOHOHOOOHOHOOHOHOHOOOHHOOOO!!!!!!"
The laugh bounced off the domed ceiling, flinging itself around the room like a mad ping-ping ball. Lina covered her ears in case they started bleeding.
The worm also flinched in agony at the sound of Naga's laugh, rolling around on the ground to shake it off. The room rumbled like a small earthquake, books on shelves clunking...
"It trembles in fear before my beauty and might!" Naga incorrectly observed, putting a hand up to her mouth to cut loose with a really confident one. "OOOOOOOOOOHHHOOOHOOHOHOOHOHOOHOHHOOHOHOOOHHOHOOHOO!!!!!!!"
The worm, unable to withstand this assault, thrashed and smashed its body against a shelf, before its brain gave up and lost consciousness. The books fell off the wall he impacted, like a tidal wave of bound paper, burying the bookworm in texts, lores, travelogues, farming manuals and pulp fiction.
Naga was impressed with herself. "I apparently am frightening enough to the cold-hearted monster that it would rather give up than fight me. I prevail! OOHOO--"
Lina clamped an iron grip over Naga's mouth. "So, that's that. Bookworm defeated."
"Now you will put all those books back on their shelves in correct order," Pendix spoke, gravely.
"Is that the fourth trial?"
"No. But you're doing it anyway."
eneath the ground, a lofting breeze started from the surface above swirls dust through the Great Library. The curves and surfaces along a hallway, by random chance, are just right to conduct the wind along like water flowing down a river...
A larger wind settled down outside the ruins of the Great Library. The wings that produced the wind were not golden, nor were they attached to a butterfly. They belonged to Ozek.
The Mazoku had followed the scent-trail of the stinking humans for a long time. He was not an excellent tracker, but he always found his targets eventually, and was exceptionally good at toying with them once found.
The trail led here, to the ruins of some underground cave. Ozek changed his body size, which was a mere ten feet thanks to his depleted energy (but still sufficient to rend that stupid bikini-wearing woman asunder when he felt like it) down to six feet, to squeeze into the door and through the hallways.
Now it was just a matter of finding them in this human-constructed place...
Lily, Lina and Naga frantically used magic and improvisation to get the wall full of books back in place (Gourry wasn't allowed to help because he kept getting them in the wrong order). The whole thing took about an hour, and left them all exhausted.
Despite being tired, Lily was actually enjoying herself, not that she felt she should enjoy herself. Nobody had yelled at her recently. This was a big revelation for her, since she naturally assumed she was supposed to be yelled at, since he tended to do it a lot. She deserved it, after all, for constantly being a screwup, a messup.
Here, she was actually doing her job well, and everybody seemed happy. But that wasn't the strange part. When putting books back up, she accidentally got a few in the wrong order, and Lina didn't hit her or scream, she just pointed it out and helped Lily get them back in the right order. That's all. Strange, because Lina seemed the most irritable of them. Naga, despite having a scary laugh, was treating her better than she had expected. Lily couldn't imagine why, although...
Somewhere deep inside, she knew that people acted like this with each other a lot, and it was really very normal. She just never knew she could be part of those 'people'. Naturally, she decided to feel a bit ashamed of this, that she could think her new friends would treat her badly. She tried to prompt them to treat her badly from time to time, but nothing really happened. Things were different, things were strange... but she wasn't sure that was a bad thing.
Now that she had already done a trial, Lina had done a trial and Naga had done a trial, it was Gourry's turn.
"Gourry's more than physically fit," Lina said. "This won't be too bad."
Gourry flexed a bit, warming up exercises he usually did before a battle, and turned to Pendix. "Okay. I'm ready for my challenge!"
The Librarian handed him a single book.
"Ano? But this is light," Gourry said, testing its weight.
"THE FOURTH TRIAL!! This is 'The Sixty Wars of the House of Ogg,' by the famous writer Louis Penderfaust," Pendix said. "Write an essay comparing and contrasting the protagonist Melford and the antagonist Dyne, explain, use examples. You have two hours to complete this exam."
"Can he read?" Naga asked, honestly curious.
Lina gaped. "Write an essay?! You can't be serious... but.. but Gourry--"
"Contrast? Isn't that like chiaroscuro?" Gourry asked.
"..." Lina said.
"Gosh, it's a really big thick book..." Gourry said, opening the book and squinting as he flipped through. "Lotta words. Where are the pictures?"
"You can use this room," Pendix said, gesturing to an open door, and passing a stack of empty paper and a stylus to Gourry. "The trial starts now!"
"Uh..." Gourry said, a bit dumbfounded.
Lina gave him a shove into the room. "Hurry up and write an essay!" she commanded, and shut the door. She slumped against the door, looking tired. "We are doomed. Doomed, doomed, doomed. Gourry couldn't contrast and explain if you explained and contrasted for him ahead of time. Trust me. I know this from personal experience."
"We'll know in two hours," Naga said. "If you'll excuse me, I saw a section on fashion back there. I think I'll do a little light reading to prove I am far more stylish than any silly book writer can hope to be... OOHHOHOOOO--"
"Go, go!" Lina begged. "I have a headache."
Reaching over, Lily immediately erased Lina's headache like an eraser across a chalkboard.
The pain was swept away effortlessly. Surprised, Lina looked at Lily. "How do you do that, anyway?"
"It's just white magic.." Lily said, not stumbling over her words. "I'm very good at it because my family have always been strong at white magic."
"Yeah, but you're VERY strong. As in, unreasonably strong," Lina said. "For someone who's trying so obviously to fade into the scenery and not be noticed, you're an interesting person in that way..."
Lily blushed. "Uh... thank you. Thank you, right?"
"Yeah, that'll work. So.... what was that spell you used back in town? To cure the zombies?"
"That's a secret," Lily said.
"YAA!!! XELLOSS!" Lina panicked, scooting away.
"Wha--wha??" Lily panicked, scooting away as well. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"Oh... ehheh... sorry," Lina said, recovering her wits. "Knee jerk reaction. That was my fault. Um.. secret. Why's it a secret?"
Lily settled, slightly, still a bit shaken. "It.. it's a family secret. We pass it down the women's side... so I learned it from my mom. It's the.. it might not be the strongest white magic, but it's... it's very strong, and... it's called Ultra Restoration."
"A healing spell, then?"
"Not exactly.." Lily said, looking left and right, to make sure she wasn't being overheard. Pendix had wandered off for some reason, Naga was gone and Gourry was busy, so she was secure. "It illuminates the darkness."
"A light spell?" Lina asked, confused.
"Any darkness," Lily said. "Darkness in the body, darkness in the soul, darkness shadowing the mind... creatures of the dark, beings of utter darkness... it illuminates. Erases the dark with pure light. The light from the top of the pillar of white magic in the lake of chaos..."
"Whoooaaaa," Lina said, little stars coming to her eyes. "Teach me! Teach me! Anything that could cure death or restore a city or slaughter Shaburanigdo in one blast has GOT to be good!"
"It.. it can't do some of that..." Lily said, a little unsure she should be saying this much. "It can, I mean, theoretically. Maybe if you combine it with a stronger call. But you can spread it out thin, like I did to keep his bandits from dying, or you can concentrate and restore someone to full health... and you can destroy a Mazoku with it since it's anti-black magic. But it's not easy! It's not easy at all, and it can take years to master and learn..."
"Oh... damn," Lina said. "I don't have years. What an incredibly useful spell!"
"That's part of the balance," Lily said. "So difficult to control, so hard to learn if you're learning conventionally... it's out of reach of most people. But still, very dangerous in the wrong hands, so my family has guarded it and protected it."
"I can see how.... wait," Lina said. "Back up. Conventionally?"
"Uh..."
"What do you mean? There's another way?" Lina asked. "Tell, tell! This is really amazing stuff!"
Lily shifted around a little. "It's a secret, I mean..."
"I won't tell a soul," Lina said. "Pleeeease?"
"No!" Lily said. "I'm sorry, I can't... I can't!"
The two fell silent, Lina contemplating something. Heavily. Lily watched her face, seeing a serious look there, unlike the giddy eager looks she had been giving before...
"...you say this can heal the darkness in someone, right?" Lina asked.
"It can, if you apply it right."
"Then let me pose a situation to you," Lina said. "Then you can decide if it's worth breaking that secret over. Fair?"
It wasn't known to many, other than Pendix and the rats, but the Library is riddled with secret passages. Mud-lined tunnels, drafty but narrow stone passages behind walls, twisting and turning. Like a rabbit's warren.
The sorceress was used to tunnels like these. She had made and escaped through many in her day, fleeing capture from the Mazoku, escaping the humans who had her locked up as a madwoman or worse. It was surprising how many old castles and dungeons had secret passages, once you learned the ins and outs of how they were made. The trick bricks, the telltale signs of a false wall... and then freedom. Limited freedom, freedom for a time, but the time was savored.
Lina Inverse scooted through the underground tunnels of the Great Library. Her strength was back, her memories capped, she ignored what Ozek had done to her and moved on. The strange priest who kept egging her on, helping her occasionally, he had a point -- she needed to move fast. Ozek would finally kill Gourry, Gourry who was already dead and should be dead, this damnable phantom Gourry that teased Lina so often.
But there was a chance her book, the mirror lores, would be destroyed in the fighting. She calmly worked her way through these passages, instinct carrying her, exploring the rooms she arrived in for magical books.
One passage opened to a small study room, with a single lantern to illuminate the working desk. Gourry was reading a book, with a dumb look on his face.
Curse him! Lina thought, biting her tongue. Why did he have to come back from the dead? She had accepted that Gourry was gone, that she'd never see his smile or hear his stupid laugh again or have to whack him when he just didn't catch a clue. And here in this dreamworld, this impossible world, he was back. She raised her weapon. She could take him down right now.
She could, she knew she could.
Just pull the trigger and he would die again.
Easy.
Lina lowered her weapon and ignored why. This situation could be exploited in other ways.
For instance, the chair Gourry was sitting on was very large and awkward. You can't wear a swordbelt when you're sitting in it, it'd poke directly into your ribs.
Smiling, Lina reached for the Sword of Light, propped up on the wall nearby...
Lina paced around the study room, nervously fingering a knife she was carrying with her.
"This is a very, very dangerous way to learn Ultra Restoration," Lily warned again. "It's sink or swim. If you fail..."
"If I fail, you're here to bring me back, right?" Lina asked. "Nothing lost, nothing gained. I can do this, no problem. I'll handle it. You taught me the incantation, the preparation, the rest is just practice. Okay?"
Lily looked around nervously. "Maybe we should get Naga-san or Pendix-san to--"
"Gotta do it privately," Lina said. Because I don't think I could in front of anybody I knew well, she didn't add. She had a seat on the floor, crossing her legs under her. "Okay. Let's do it. You ready?"
Lily sat as well, and nodded.
Opening herself to white magic, the power she never really had much practice with, Lina strained to bring as much of the energy into her body as she could. Not an easy task, as black magic had to be wrestled into control, but white magic needed to be coaxed. Lina never could coax well when a poke with a sharp stick worked just as well.
Nothing lost, Lily's here, nothing can go wrong. Lina started the spell.
"As tall as the tallest pillar...
As bright as the lightest sun...
Final level of power, final spell of might,
Shining brightness that brings all life,
Let the darkness be repaired in this place...
ULTRA... gh... RESTORATION!"
Before the last word, Lina plunged the dagger into her stomach, and slumped forward.
Time slowed to an absolute halt. Lina floated free inside her body, riding a wave of the light she had collected. Would it be enough light? She sought out the darkness, the pain-feeling she could sense throbbing in this Lina-body she coasted through, circling it, looping it. Then she realized the horrible mistake she'd made.
She was SUPPOSED to take the dagger out before the last word of the spell, so she could heal the wound closed. Instead, stupid, she left it in. She couldn't feel the pain, just sense it detached, but knew it was going to be a bad situation if she couldn't do something about this. Sure, Lily would pull her out of it in a minute, but... she wanted to succeed. Had to.
Task one. Get the Lina-meat to move the dagger out, pull the hand. The light raced up Lina's spine, shifting into nervous signals, to the brain. She knew nothing about anatomy, but the spell knew about life, and life was what she needed to guide. The hand wanted to pull out. She guided the light through the mind, down the arm, into the hand...
Time started back up, the dagger withdrew, and Lina concentrated to shut time down again.
Okay. Close call. Now, for the hard part.
Lily explained that it was not just a wave-wave-poof it's all healed sort of spell. Lina had to get small. Repair a little at a time, tiny pieces that accumulate slowly into the whole.
Examine the ripped flesh, know the way it should be. Get down, get small, get cellular. Find the rends, mend them, bit by bit... painstaking tasks, like threading a needle under the wrong end of a telescope, working...
It was ridiculous. A normal healing spell could patch that wound up in seconds -- Lina slaved away inside the light of the Ultra Restoration for what felt, to her, like an hour. Minute work, tiny details... why would such a powerful spell take so much effort, just for this? Lily said it always was difficult, the light management, the purifying of darkness. No matter how big the task seemed in the physical world, it always took about the same time inside...
Patch, paste, heal, reform, cleanse. The wound seals slowly. No pauses, no breaks, Lina keeps working, taking from the reserves of light she brought with her, which are frighteningly running low... how could she start this with such low power? She needed practice at white magic, clearly... it was such little light...
But enough to finish the task. Satisfied, she closed up, surfaced, ran back to her physical world...
The dagger clattered out of Lina's hands onto the stone floor, her body refreshed and not feeling the tiniest slip of pain. She carefully prodded the new flesh, very tender, very delicate, but healed.
"Lina? Lina?" Lily was asking.
"I think... I think it worked," Lina said. "I got it."
Lily sat back, amazed. "It took me years..."
The younger sorceress smiled. "I'm just a lucky kinda girl, I guess."
A crowd nervously waited outside of Gourry's obliette.
"What do we do if he fails the trial?" Naga asked, curious.
"I guess we have to go get the book anyway..." Lina said. "Not going to be easy, of course."
Lily took strong words. "You should have some faith in Gourry-san!" she warned. Then caught herself. "I mean.. if you want."
"No, you're right," Lina said. "But it's a little hard to have faith in someone who can barely spell their own last name, you know? If--"
The door opened slowly. Gourry, holding a slim piece of paper, peeked out. "I'm done..."
Pendix the Librarian nodded. "Read it."
"Okay..." Gourry said, taking a deep breath. "For my book report, I read a book about a lot of wars. People ran around and hit each other and I think they had a lot of problems in their family, because my family never hit each other or started wars. There are these two guys, Melford and Dyne, and they really hate each other. I can compare them because they're in the same family, but I can contrast them because they have different hair colors. Also, Dyne likes bacon and Melford does not. I thought this book was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very..."
Gourry turned the page over.
"Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very long and boring. I'd give it two stars. That's it. How'd I do?"
Lina's stomach sank.
"Excellent!" Pendix said, passing out library cards to the group. "You are now book-lenders. Enjoy our written works!"
"Whaaa?!?!" Lina gagged. "But... but it was a lousy essay!"
"He never said it had to be good," Gourry said. "So I just wrote how I felt about the book and didn't worry. What, you mean you guys were worried about that?"
Lina fell over.
"OOHOHOHHOO!!" Naga laughed. "We have overcome the four trials! Now, on to the Mirror Lores, and GLORY!"
The Library rumbled.
Naga poked her stomach. "That's funny. I just ate before we came here.."
Stonework collapsed, as the entrance to the hallway was filled by a large form, a figure with great leathery wings.
"AHA!!!" Ozek the Mighty Mazoku yelled. "AT LONG LAST, I HAVE FOUND YOU IMPUDENT SCUM! NOW, YOU WILL FEEL THE UNHOLY WRATH OF OZEK, HIS FLAYING CLAWS UPON YOUR FLESH!!"
"Oh, come on!" Lina groaned. "Not him again!"
"OHOO! Come for another tongue lashing, foul thing?" Naga asked.
"Nobody's lashing anything," Lina said, calmly. "Gourry? Sword of Light, please. Let's get this guy gone for good."
Ozek stepped back. "SWORD OF LIGHT?! BUT IT IS LOST!!!"
"How little you know!" Lina smiled. "We happen to have it... right... what is it, Gourry?"
"I think I lost it," Gourry said. "I just looked in the room, and it's... gone."
The humans looked at the Mazoku.
The Mazoku looked back.
"RUN!" Lina yelled, turning one eighty and sprinting for it.
werving around a corner at high speed, Lina's cape whipped through the air, amplifying a passing breeze on its travels through the lofty corridors of the Great Library...
Nobody was following her.
Daring to pause, she looked back, listening to the sounds of a really wild struggle going on where she was previously. Then around the corner came Naga and Gourry, followed by a terrified Lily.
"Where's Pendix?" Lina asked, joining them in a brisk stroll away from menacing evil.
"He's fighting Ozek!" Gourry said. "We tried to get him to leave, but he said something about library criminals not obeying the 'Quiet, Please' sign..."
"I think we should hurry up and get that book and GO," Lina said. "Lily! Where's the room with the lost lores?"
"It's... it's... it's down there!" Lily said, pointing to a stairwell that they almost passed. The group cornered like a pack of lions and scrambled down to the next level.
"What about my Sword of Light?" Gourry asked. "It's gone! I left it up against the wall, and it vanished! My grandfather Raudy gave me that, I can't just leave it behind..."
"We'll go back and look for it after," Lina said. "First get book, then sneak past demon, then get sword, then leave. Good? Good."
Ozek the Really Really Bad Big Nasty Thing squared off against Pendix, confused.
"YOU WISH TO DESTROY ME BECAUSE I AM LOUD? THIS MAKES NO SENSE."
"Blackhearted library fiend!" Pendix said, spinning his double-headed axe into grip. "Nobody defies the order of the library and lives. I will vanquish, banish, punish, and/or get rid of you!"
The Mazoku looked around the corner, where his real quarry had scampered like mice away from a tomcat. There were no exits that way, he assumed. He could catch up to them. Better to gain strength before he tries to face them, even if they apparently did not have the Sword of Light.
"FIRST, I WILL DINE ON YOUR FEARS, INSIGNIFICANT MORTAL!" Ozek said. "THEN I WILL--"
Pendix chopped his arm off.
"HEY! DO YOU MIND?" Ozek asked. "I JUST GOT THIS BODY BACK!"
The two pounced each other, claws and knives and talons and axes and teeth and swords a-flyin'.
When the Library was shiny and new, and more importantly above ground, an unusual request was passed down the line.
John Harvey, an independent contractor who was designing the lower levels of the library, was busy at his drafting table trying to invent indoor plumbing when the carrier pigeon arrived at his desk.
The little bird perched on his messaging perch. He glanced over, used to this sort of thing, and tugged the feather marked PLAY.
"Hello, I'm a prominent sorcerer and I'd like to establish a room for 'Legendary Lost Lores'," the bird sang, parroting spoken words he had heard a few hours previous. "I know this sounds silly, since there isn't any such thing as a Legendary Lost Lore, but I've looked ahead and seen that a lot of our lores we've made are going to fall into obscurity and be misunderstood. I'd like to set up an archive, which will be time locked to release at a date of my choosing. I will set up the spells if you set up the room. I'm willing to pay approximately five thousand gold in a heavy donation to the Help John Harvey Retire Early Fund in return. Signed, S. Quick."
Not being an idiot, John helped this strange, bookish sorcerer design some dinky backroom in the Library. He figured it wouldn't impact on any of his plans, anyway, and would probably add to the mystery of the Library in the years ahead and maybe get his name in the history books.
There were a few shelves of books, stocked by this Quick guy himself, but in the center of the small octagonal room was the real prize.
"So, why lock it down?" John Harvey asked, as Quick set up the spell. "To return spells to humanity that it's going to lose?"
"No, not all of humanity," S. Quick said, his fingers dancing over the lock, light playing across its iron surface. "But someone very specific is going to need this book, in exactly three hundred and forty seven years and sixty three days and ten minutes."
"Huh," John nodded, writing off the sorcerer as a loon. The room for Legendary Lost Lores, whatever those were, was marked on the Library map and John went back to work on his invention, which would eventually be the only way his name was ever remembered by history.
Exactly three hundred and forty seven years, sixty three days, and ten minutes after the conversation between John and Silverquick outside the room, the lock disengaged, and clattered to the floor.
A moment later, Lina Inverse peeked around the corner. "They're here!" she said excitedly, leading her little group over to the door to the Lore room, easily opening the portal, and stepping inside. The lock was pushed off to a dark corner of the hallway, unnoticed.
Lina stepped inside the room, centuries old dust stirring in the breeze from the corridor. Book after book lined the shelves, some titles noticeable as gold print glittered in the light; 'The Ways of the Shamans, by Alison Swift'. 'A Thousand And One Fun Party Tricks Using Black Magic'. 'How To Lose Weight, the Reduction Magic Way!'. 'Going Postal! The Art of Correspondence Magic'...
Like a kid in a candy store, Lina dashed here and there, looking at all the pretty books. "Waaaaai!" she found herself saying in a childish squeal of delight.
"Uh... you okay, Lina?" Gourry asked.
"Yeah, fine," Lina said, turning to face him. "I..."
Then she saw the pedestal.
In the center of the room, illuminated by blue light from above, as an ivory birdbath. A tall pillar supporting a chiseled bowl, filled with crystal waters without waves... a bowl about the height of Lina's arms. And floating above the water, rotating slowly by some unknown force, was a fairly thin bound book. 'The Mirror Lores, by S. Quick.' The book was reflected in the water below it, both turning together.
"That's it.." Lina said, stepping forward. She got her pack out, opening it up. "The Mirror Lores. The book we've been hiking all over this damn country to get..."
Two things happened at once.
One, the hallway rumbled with force, ancient stones shaking while a large beast slinked through its passageways, heading for the very room Lina was in...
Two, a slight breeze, a minute wave of wind that originated hundreds of feet up in the sky above hours ago from the beat of a butterfly's wings, was just enough to give a loose book a slight NUDGE as the rumble unsettled it, tipping the book unknowingly into Lina's open pack...
Then Ozek arrived at the door.
"I HAVE YOU NOW, HUMANS!!" he bellowed.
Lina smacked her forehead. "How many times do we have to kill you before you take a hint?"
Ten feet high now, running nicely on stolen power, Ozek pushed his way into the room. The stone doorway splintered and crumbled around him, dust stirring. "LOOK, AND OBSERVE THE FATE THAT WILL BEFALL YOU!"
He held up a human head that formerly belonged to a Librarian.
With a soft whump, Lily fainted dead away in fright.
"Oh, so you got Pendix," Lina said, refusing to be alarmed by this. "I always thought he had a good head on his shoulders."
"YOU MOCK ME?!"
"Yes, because if I run around going 'Eeek! Eek! I'm scared! Mommy! Daddy! Big sis!'..." Lina said, imitating a panicked child, before stopping to throw a knowing glance at Ozek. "...then you'll just feed on that fear and get nastier. Right?"
"I DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR LITTLE GAME, LITTLE GIRL. HOW CAN YOU HOPE TO DEFEAT ME? YOUR DRAGON SLAVE WOULD DESTROY YOU AS WELL, AND YOU HAVE NO SUPPOSED SWORD OF LIGHT!"
"I have a very cunning plan," Lina smiled. "A very devious and crafty one. Would you like to hear it?"
"NO PLAN CAN DEFEAT ME!"
"Ah, but it's a really GOOD one!"
"IS NOT."
"Is too."
"IS NOT!"
"Is too."
"Oh, I get it," Gourry said, clueing in at just the wrong time. "You're stalling him so you can think of something because you've got no idea what we can do. Right?"
Realizing he had been had, Ozek lunged forward, a sharpened claw tearing open Lina's chest.
Or rather it would have, if a headless Librarian Warrior hadn't stumbled into the room and tackled the Mazoku.
"Foolish Library Criminal!" the head of Pendix shouted. "Librarians will never die until every last book is gone to dust! As words are eternal, that is the magic and the oath of the Librarian!"
"GRRGHH! GET OFF ME, YOU FREAK!" Ozek shrieked, rolling around on the ground in front of a highly surprised group of adventurers.
"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?" Naga asked.
In the scuffle, Ozek grappled with the Librarian, intending to strangle him, but finding nothing there to strangle. He lifted Pendix up in his hands, hurled him against a shelf of books, took a deep breath...
Flames roared out of Ozek's mouth, the traditional bad breath weapon of the classically evil. The paper, which had last seen moisture about the time Lina's great great great great great grandmother was in diapers, went up like a torch, as did Pendix.
Time to move, Lina thought.
She grabbed the book of Mirror Lores from the pedestal, shoving it into her sack, and sprinted for the door; only to be blocked by a recovered and very angry Mazoku, lancing out at her with a great clawed hand--
The spell slammed itself into the front of her mind, the chant running through at automatic pace as she felt something tear--
"ULTRA RESTORATION!"
And time stopped.
Why hadn't she thought of it before? The flames, frozen in time, flicked around them. There was a nasty mess made of herself, the sight of which forced her to fight, not to lose control over the magic... do the spell.
Patch here, patch there. Heal herself with the light, spreading it thin over the damage, not easier than the last time she did this, but more instinctive. She worked fast, each move tiny, but fading together in a blur of strokes with her mental brush. It wasn't the best healing job, but she had to conserve her energy; this was still new to her and she did not want to run out of the power when she needed it.
She needed it, notably, to get rid of Ozek.
Now the light that was like a soft sponge became a flare, a burning ember of holy fire. Lina stroked the ember along Ozek's wings, slowly, slowly erasing them with pinpoint tips of heat. Time slid through Lina like an glacier, infinitely slow, infinitely tasking, momentary in nature.
She could feel the darkness of Ozek, like a freestanding puddle of ooze. The light burned the ooze as if it was crude oil, the darkness resisting, trying to gather strength; Lina pressing it down like bubbles under wallpaper, evasive and annoying. Hours passed, seemed to pass...
Time snapped back into focus, the energy gone as Lina finished melting the final shred of Ozek's being.
Her Lina-meat, her body, staggered. She felt she now had legs, and they weren't responding well, falling to her knees, her chest tender and painful but whole. Flames licked around her, the Mazoku was gone, as if he was never there to begin with, the last sound of his scream dying as it bounced from the walls, sinking into the stone.
Arms scooped her up, carried her out of the burning room. The spell was draining, very draining... casting it twice in a short amount of time was not something she would try again until she had practiced... yes, she would practice this spell, Lina the black sorceress using the highest white magic... had a certain amusing irony to it... Lina Inverse...
Sleep overtook her as her train of thought coasted to a gentle stop.
Stillness.
Lina Inversed waited for the noise to die down. The noise might have triggered her off again; she was finding it harder to suppress that in these recent days, getting twitchier. Play it safe. She was safe in this hidden alcove.
When it was quiet, she resurfaced. The door into the room of Lost Lores was gone; the stonework crushed. In a scared dash, she stormed into the room--
No. NO!
All the books had been burned to ash. Ruined! Her chances gone, burned away like so many times before. An empty room, full of soot and dust. Empty save the pedestal in the center, the strange birdbath, which likely had the lores once. Nothing rested there now.
She stepped up to the dais, enraged, ready to kick it over and spill the water when she noticed something.
In the water, the reflection of a book of magic still waited, turning quietly. She checked to make sure there wasn't a book above it that could be casting that image; there wasn't. Curiously, she reached into the water with both hands...
The Mirror Lores, the reflection of them at least, were pulled from the water easily. A slow grin sneaked its way onto her face, as she paged through the spells...
Lina awoke from easy dreams to find herself transformed into a giant butterfly.
The sensation was so totally convincing, that she flew from her bed and out the window, except that she actually was human and simply dropped to the floor. Gourry's head snapped up, the sound waking him.
"Lina?" he asked, helping her back up. "You're awake?"
"Pretty sure.." Lina responded, rubbing a bump on her head. "Ugh. How long was I out?"
"Uhh... well..." Gourry said, checking an hourglass on the nearby table. "'bout eight hours. We're back at the inn in town. Pendix was really upset that we kinda led that thing down there and burned all those magic books and kicked us out of the library. Fortunately he forgot we had a book with us. I figured I should stay with you for when you wake up, 'cuz..."
"Cause?"
Gourry shrugged, smiled. "Wanted to make sure you were alright and stuff. I changed you into your sleepclothes, so--"
*WHAM*
"You WHAT?!" Lina asked, believing in hitting first and asking questions later.
"I didn't open my eyes or anything!" Gourry said, covering his head. "But your cloak was pretty badly burned and that weird costume Naga got you to wear didn't look comfortable, so..."
Lina sighed. "Okay... fine. Whatever. Where's my pack?"
Gourry presented Lina with pack and Lina opened it and took out the book.
The Mirror Lores. At long last. Lina opened it to the first page, and her eyes bugged out.
'Dear Lina. I saw that you were going to need this book when I looked into the future once, and since I deliberately didn't write down my magic anywhere so people like Luke wouldn't get it, I had to transcribe this from hand. It's the only copy left in a lot of ways. I hope you can understand it all; turn to the back page if you have any questions which you likely have. Yrs truly, Silverquick. PS - Gourry didn't really look.'
"..." Lina said.
"Does it have any pictures in it?" Gourry asked, leaning over. "I could use a good read after that awful book from the library. Or can I read that other one?"
Lina shook her head, clearing it, and set the Mirror Lores aside. "What other one?"
"The one in your bag..."
Curious, Lina reached into her pack, and pulled the thicker book out.
It was titled : 'The True Human Magic, by Merlin Giga.'
Lina once found a page from this book, but that was all. Just a page, with no hint at where it was from. It had a spell on it called the Giga Slave...
"Gourry?" Lina asked, not able to take her eyes off the book.
"Yeah, Lina?"
"Never tell anybody that I have this," Lina said, hurriedly stuffing it into her backpack.