Aliandra Ali closed her book a her Sage skill drop. She closed her eyes and reviewed the story in her mind, perfectly memorized by her skill. It was a delightful story about a clumsy adventurer who wahe nds solving problems by act, often not even realizing the impact of his as. She looked up and saw Ryn sitting oone floor of the library, her back up against ay bookshelf and her untouched diill resting in her p.
I o get some chairs. No. Old, fortable couches.
Ali got up and walked over, handihe book Ryn had lent to her a few days ago. “I loved it,” she said.
“I’m gd,” Ryn said, her face still looking a little downcast.
Something is b her. “What’s wrong, Ryn?”
“It’s nothing, I’m just being silly,” Ryn replied. But it clearly seemed to be enough of an issue to affect her entire mood.
Ali sat dowo her friend. After a moment, she prodded Ryn’s ribs with an elbow. “Do you want to share? I’m told it’s good for you.”
“When I got my css here, I had this idea,” she began, and suddenly her face lit up with a touch of her usual enthusiasm. “I wao help you fill the library with books. I thought we could work on it together – it would be so much fun!”
The empty library faded, as Ali’s imagination repced it with a se of bustling energy, shelves full of books, and many people reading and talking together.
“I love that idea,” Ali said quietly, refleg on how much she missed the old library, the sounds, the smell of books, the feeling of vast amounts of knowledge at her fiips, and the sense of studious learning taking pce within these very walls.
“The only problem,” Ryn tinued sadly, “is that I work in a bookstore. I will never have enough moo fill even a tiny er of this pce.” She fell silent for a bit. “I don’t think I’m going to be very useful for this.”
Did she want to try and buy enough books to make a library? Not even the illustrious mage-king, Thaldorien Stormshaper, had beehy enough to do that – and he had fouhis very library.
“I don’t think you’re being silly,” Ali said. In her heart, she desperately wao fort her friend. “Here, let me show you something I learned while we were preparing for the cil meeting.”
Ryn gnced up, a little curiosity peeking through her dejected expression.
Ali opened her Grimoire and began to create a book using the memory she had just formed from Ryn’s storybook. She hadn’t tried creating aire book yet, but holding the memory of what she had read in her mind while direg the spell was being easier and easier each time she tried it.
A short few mier, she was holding a brand-new book.
“Here,” she said, handing it to Ryn. “What do you think?”
“Ali, what did you do?” Ryn asked, surprise written pinly on her face. “Why did I just level up?”
“Wait, what?” Ali wasted no time using Identify on her friend. She leveled up?
Librarian – Human – level 6 (Are / Divination)
“How is this possible? I didn’t even do anything…” Ryn said, gng about as if a Bone Skitterer had tapped her on the neck.
“Hmm…” Ali sidered the order of events. Ryn had brought her a book to read, and she had just duplicated it in the library. “Ryn, you’re a librarian…” It had to be ected. “Is it possible that you tributed to enhang a library?” Ali asked. “Perhaps it’s the same as me getting experience when I help to defeat a monster. I was always taught that librarians should work to improve the library, rest books, acquiring new knowledge, things like that.”
“I think so,” Ryn said. “Maybe?” She paged through the new book, wonder shining in her eyes.
“Is there somewhere you could borrow more books?” Ali asked. “Then we could experiment and see how well it works while filling the library.”
“I could ask to borrow a few from the store, but I usually have to buy them if I want to take ohe only other pce is Myrin’s Keep Library,” Ryn said. “But I ’t afford the membership dues.” The sad expressiouro her face.
She’s broke, a she still bought me that expensive monster pendium? She really has a heart of gold!
Speaking of gold… “How much is it?” Ali asked, trying to keep her voice light and casual.
“Five gold a year,” Ryn said. “But that only allows you into the building to read. If you want to borrow books and be allowed to use the services of a scribe to copy them, you need a full membership that costs twenty-five gold. Ridiculous, right? The money is a deposit against the ce of losing one of the expensive books or damaging it. It’s a small library, but I always dreamed of beihy enough to be able to use it.”
I just figured out what to use all that gold for. “Hey, , I borroen?” she asked.
“Sure, here,” he said.
Ali retrieved some paper from her ring and jotted a note, signing it with her mana before handing it to Ryn. “Take this to Hadrik Goldbeard at the Bank. It authorizes you to withdraw gold from my at. Go get yourself a full membership.”
Ryn’s eyes widened in shod surprise. “Why? This is such a lot of money, Ali, I ’t…”
“gratutions,” Ali decred with a grin, “You are now the Head Librarian for the Grand Library Ara. Among your many duties, you are to be responsible for book acquisitions.”
“You wao find books for your library?” Ryn whispered.
“It’s now yours too,” Ali said. “Borrow whatever you think our library needs and I will copy them.”
“That’s going to be tons of books,” Ryn said, clearly reeling.
“We have a huge library to fill, and besides, I’m you about. It’s what friends do,” Ali smiled. “Your teleport works to any library, right?”
“As long as I’ve visited it, yes,” Ryn said. “Why?”
“Let me know when you run out of iing books at the Myrin’s Keep Library. I suspect we will get a lot of use out of your teleport skill,” Ali said, affeg a spiratorial tohere are many libraries out there to plunder!”
“Ali!” Ryn’s eyes grew round as she realized what Ali intended.
Ryn Ryn stood before the imposing doors of the Myrin’s Keep Library, her hand clutched nervously around her bulging money pouch. She had never carried so much gold around with her in her life, and she was terrified someone might try to rob her. In fact, she had been amazed that the bank clerk had just handed so much gold to her in the first pce.
I must have looked like a nervous wreck. I still do. Shoulders back. Let’s at least act fident here.
She cautiously opehe door and stepped into an opuleion area overlooking the main floor of the library. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the rows of books befistering anything else. It wasn’t nearly as big as Ali’s library, but the room was filled with books of all colors and styles. The heady st of part and ink mingled with the pregnant stillhat pervaded the room – and the weight of words just waiting to be read.
A polite, cultured voice, the kind that took years of training to develop, broke the silence. “ I help you?”
Ryn turo find a slender man rising to his feet behind a desk. He was dressed in rich blue robes and wearing wire-rimmed gsses on an angur nose, lending him an owlish look.
“Uh…” she said, feeling awkwardly out of pce.
That’s silly, Ryn, she chastised herself. This is a library, and you are a librarian.
“I want a membership,” she said, shuffling her feet. She noticed the expensive red patterned carpet in the reception area was quite new. Or very few people walk through here.
The man raised an eyebrow and looked at her for a moment. “It will cost five gold for a membership,” he said.
“Oh,” Ryn said, looking up. “I o be able to borrow books and have scribing rights, so maybe a full membership…” she trailed off at his stare. He’s really stern. She had a suddeainty that he would see through their pn to copy the library and throw her out.
You’re being irrational again; scribing is explicitly allowed. That’s what you’re paying this ridiculous amount of gold for.
He just raised his eyebrow again, a little higher this time.
“A full membership is twenty-five gold,” he finally announced, as if it pained him to pronounything so baldly ercial. He looked even more surprised when Ryn quickly produced the fee and ha to him with a soft king of heavy s. “Well!” he ented. “Well then. Very good.”
She had never spent so much money in her life. Ryn bit ba a feeling of nausea. “Is that… alright?”
“Exceedingly. Everything on the main floor is accessible. With your full membership, you are also allowed access to the rare books in the restricted area,” he said, pointing to the raised and roped-off area at the back of the main room. “Those books ot be removed from the library without an additional deposit. Or you bring your scribe here for a small fee. You borrow up to six books for a week at a time. If they are not returned, your membership and yold are forfeited. The magical catalog is at the tral pilr. Please ask if you have any questions.”
“What about using magic within the library?” Ryn asked.
“Anything that doesn’t damage the books or make noise is allowed,” he answered auro his desk. He prepared a small card with her name on it and added his mana signature. “This is your library access and proof of membership,” he said, handing it to her. “Please don’t lose it.” He theurned his attention to his work, dismissing her with a wave.
Phew. Ry out her breath. She still half-believed she might wake up any moment.
First thing, she thought. She activated her Library Teleport skill ahe lobby as her sed library destination. Now I teleport directly between here and Ali’s library without using the academy teleportation locus. The recharge time for Ali’s grand library still had a few hours to go, but her new destination seemed to be avaible immediately.
She stepped out onto the soft carpet of the main library, finding she had the entire pce to herself. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly as she ehe distinctive st of books, and the muted silehat always seemed to settle in pces of study. She had dreamed of this day, aely she had despaired of ever being able to afford it. But Ali had simply offered her the membership fee – the enormous sum of twenty-five gold – as if it were trivial. She had even joked about makihe Head Librarian of the legendary Grand Library Ara…
She wasn’t being serious, was she? The almost impossible thought flicked through her mind, both tantalizing and terrifying her. She collected herself, not allowing the crazy dream to take root – she had been given a job to do, and she meant to do it well.
What would Ali want? Something about magio doubt, but what?
She ghrough her skills once again; even though she had memorized them in every detail, she still o beore familiar with how her css worked. A Librarian without a library was rather sad, and her css had simply refused the bookstore as a library.
Seek Knowledge… Ali had described it as a ‘signature’ skill, and she had had only one real opportunity to practice it so far. It was rather spectacur, but – she g the librarian studiously deep in his work – it didn’t make a lot of noise and it would certainly not damage the books.
Before she could ge her mind, she triggered the skill, trying to hold the question of which books Ali would want in her mind while she did so. She got the sehat if she kept her focus, she could direct the magiewhat, but it was a rather vague feeling. Tendrils of her mana forked out into the room, flickering across the books and the shelves, as if caressing them. She could see it as flickering purple forked brahat reached out rapidly, deg and ref as if searg for a path the way lightning feelers did before the strike.
A sudden surge of mana pulled at her, and one of the feelers swelled with golden power, instantly eg her to a single book on a back shelf, heavy with darkness and significe, searing the sense and image of it into her mind.
Seek Knowledge has reached level 4.
She walked over excited to examine her find: Basieancy: Summoning the Undead.
Neanbsp;Ryn shivered slightly, her haating before she reached out and pulled it from the shelf. Neancy was a dark subject, and quite frankly, she was terrified of the undead. But it wasn’t as if the book itself was a ghost houl.
I guess this might have something to do with the skeleton army they were talking about. With a few hours before she could return, and a budget of six books she could borrow, she decided she should be effit a about familiarizing herself with all the books in the library. Making liberal use of her Are Archive and Enhanced Reading skills, she began w out a priority order for which books she should bring back first for Ali to copy.
Are Archive has reached level 3.
Enhanced Reading has reached level 5.
***
Name: Liu RynRace: Human
Css: Knowledge Seeker – level 6- Memorize – level 3- Are Archive – level 3- Enhanced Reading – level 5- Fly – level 2- Library Teleport – level 2- Seek Knowledge – level 4- [Locked]- [Locked]- [Locked]- [Locked]
General Skills- Identify – level 2- Summarize – level 3- Game Theory – level 4
Aptitudes- Languages: ana (Affinities): Are, Divination- Studious (Css): +20% to Knowledge skills- Librarian (Css): You learn quicker in a libraryAttributes- Vitality: 10- Strength: 6- Endurance: 10- Dexterity: 19- Perception: 22- Intelligence: 31- Wisdom: 32
Health: 100/100Stamina: 100/100Mana: 320/320
Aliandra “One more time, please,” Ali asked.
obliged, summoning his Mote of Light which slowly bobbed in the air, floating in front of her while she studied the flow of his mana and the stru of the glowing orb. But her Sage of Learning obstinately refused to draw any more of her mana. Nor could she find any new insights.
His spell was a rather simple magic, the only part real plexity was the way in which the light acted as an oppositional force against stealth magic. But that was mostly due to the fual nature of the light affinity as far as she could tell. The trol meisms that allowed him to direct the orbs wherever he wanted were retively plex, too, but for flushing out assassins she didn’t require that amount of trol.
I didn’t miss anything.
It was an admission of failure. She had already created several perfectly structed runic circles duplig ’s magid they would have been the perfect solution to her problem were it not for the limitations of mana affinities. She was truly stumped – her her nature-, nor her are-affinity mana could power the set of light-affinity runes essential to getting the spell to work.
She had tried having i his mana into the circle, but even that had failed. He would need a skill simir to her Runic Script to manipute her magical structs.
“Anything?” he asked.
“No,” Ali sighed. “Thanks for being patient with my experiments. I think I’m just going to have to find a different approach.”
There must be some effective way to defend myself against stealth and ambush.
“I don’t suppose you run around with your barrier up all the time?”
“I don’t think I get much done from inside a perma magical bubble,” she answered. Besides, it quite clearly didn’t protect her against some fairly important types of attacks and spells. The light magic beams of the Corust Rays or the Radiant Brawlers had ignored her barriers. She assumed spells like the Lich’s fear and Mieriel’s mind manipution would simirly ignore her barrier magic. Although, she had to admit the perma-bubble strategy would have been quite effective against the st assassin.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something soon,” offered. She knew he was just trying to be encing but her entire experieh this line of study had left her feeling frustrated, and more than a little grumpy. It was worse than being uo grasp the magic: the issue was that she pletely uood it – her experiment had been a total success. Apart from the very important factor she had not sidered – her mana was inpatible – making it vastly more frustrating than failing ht.
There was a brief flicker in the ambient mana, followed by a pop and a fsh. Ali jumped before she reized the distinctive signature of Ryn’s teleport spell.
“Hi Ryn, over here,” she called out, trying to get her rag heart bader trol. I ’t spend the rest of my life jumping at shadows.
“Ali!” Ryn called out, zipping down to alight beside her, flushed and out of breath. “I got the membership! I borrow six books at a time! I brought them all, and I got one book for me…” she paused, only to take a quick breath.
“Slow down,” Ali said, grinning at Ryn’s iious excitement, her grumpy mood evaporating instantly.
Ryn cast about quickly before frowning. “We need some tables.”
“Easy to fix,” Ali said, pulling out her Grimoire. With a thought, she summohe beautiful green marble from the Dal’mohran vault, making it flow like water with her Domain Mastery skill as she sculpted it into a beautiful, polished table. It erhaps not the cleverest design – she was no crafter – but it did show off the beautiful stoo its fullest.
“Maybe I should learn to make wood,” she muttered, studying her creation. While the green marble was certainly beautiful, it seemed more suited to floors and sculpture and was a little ingruous as a table meant for reading. With wood, she would be able t out the rich grain and softer, warmer tones, which would go a long way to making the library look more inviting and fortable.
“Wood is nice for a library,” Ryn agreed, unpag some books and pg them on the surface of the able. “But this is good for now.”
“Maybe you buy some chairs and couches for us?” Ali suggested.
“No money, remember?” Ryn answered, a flicker of the sad frowurning to her face.
“I didn’t put any limits on that bank release I wrote you,” Ali tered.
“Oh,” Ryn said, staring at her with wide eyes.
“So, which books did you get?” Ali asked, turning with mountiement to the stack of six books on her braable.
Ryemeurned as she showed off several magic books. Theurned a little more serious and pushed a thick bck book across the table toward her.
“Ali, I tried my Seek Knowledge divination in the library, trying to have it figure out what you might want, and it picked this. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I brought it just in case.”
Neanbsp;Ali looked at it with a rising premonition. She cked a death mana affinity so there was no way for her to learn useful magi the book – which meant it was likely that they would be entering the Neancer soon.
At least if the divination was accurate.
“Thanks,” she said, pg her hand on the cover of the problematie for a moment, thinking. Divination magic was notoriously fickle – a subtle and fusing magitricately lio time, probability, and causality. It could often find unbelievable es through yers of the butterfly effed chaotitangled es that only became clear after the events themselves were observed. Or, often, people would match outes post-fabsp;to the predi and cim success.
Schors had struggled to uand and quantify divination even back during the height of the Grand Library Ara’s prominence, simply because divination was so rare, and the skills were almost always highly specifid niche in nature. There was never a skill that simply told you the future, but most y people were certain that’s how it should work.
Ryn’s skill seemed to have provided her a resource based on the probability of entering nean the near future, and the ce of having a powerful neancer on their doorstep meant it would be irresponsible for Ali to ighe dramatic portent.
If nothing else, it should offer hints fhting a neancer. Ali put the book to the side, intending to study it properly.
“What about this one?” Ali asked, pig up a book on basic Elvish grammar.
“That’s for me,” she said. “I hope that’s ok. I thought I should try to learn to read and write uages if we’re going to help restock the library properly.”
“Good idea,” Ali said. “I also help you study if you like, I read and write Elvish and Dwarven. Those should be the most useful.”
“Thanks!”
Ali picked up the first book and began to memorize it. It didn’t take too long to work her way through all of them, though a couple of the magical texts tained magical runes. But it took her no more than a few moments to figure out how to use her Runic Script skill in bination with her imprint to reproduce the magic accurately.
Finally, she duplicated the neancy book. While memorizing it, one passage in particur caught her attention, so after she had copied it, she ope and read it out loud.
As a novieancer, you may be tempted to pass up the lowly skeleton in favor of the more powerful, fashionable, or exg undead summons that may be avaible to you. However, the skeleton’s attributes make them highly suitable for neancers of all levels. While they don’t have most of the css skills they possessed in life, they are exceptionally versatile, able to carry out simple instrus and perform menial bor. They are immuo poison, hard to damage with pierg ons, and do not require sleep, food, or air. The raw materials to summon them are plentiful and avaible almost anywhere, and if they are not powerful enough, you always summoons from the corpses of more advanced monsters.
- Basieancy: Summoning the Undead.
“I guess this firms what you said, . Skeletons are immuo poison,” Ali said. She had tried to use her wyverns on the skeletons at the small logging vilge and had discovered the hard way that their poisoh did not seem effective. The book also mentiohey would be immuo suffocation, and probably daggers and arrows would be poor choices too.
“That makes sense,” said, peering over her shoulder at the book.
“Fire mages, I guess,” she mused out loud. Fire and explosions work ohing, she thought, deg once again that she really wasn’t a pyromaniac. I help it if fireball is always the best solution?
Ali turned her attention to Ryn, notig her distra.
Librarian – Human – level 8 (Are / Divination)
“Two levels for that?” Ali asked.
“Mmm, yup,” Ryn said with a grin. “I think I’ll head back to town to do some furniture shopping for the library.”
“Didn’t you already use your teleport?” Ali asked.
“Each locatios a separate recharge,” Ryn answered, “I found that out today when I got my membership.”
“Oh,” Ali said. “Maybe we should get you more libraries soohan ter.”
“Why is that?” Ryn asked.
“With the way your teleport works, ’t you just do a round through all the ones you know every day?” Ali asked. The only challenge would be getting Ryn to the library in the first pce. But once she set the location, she could use it indefinitely. Ali could already imagihe piles of books Ryn would bring for her to copy.
“Oh, yes,” Ryn squeaked, “I think that would work!” Catg ’s wide grin at her rea, she turned redder than a tomato. “I’ll just… uh, go? Yes?”
“Mmm,” Malika drawled as the librarian vanished.
Spots of color leaped into ’s cheeks. “Don’t you start!”
“Start what? Do you think she’s pretty? Do you? ?”
“Oi, I get enough of that from my mom already! I’ve got work to do!”
Ali hid a chuckle behind her hand.
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https:///DungeonOfKnowledgehttps:///series/1135403/dungeon-of-knowledgehttps:///fi/80744/dungeon-of-knowledge-raid-bat-litrpg
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