Library of Rain

Rain followed Ms. White into the shaft with its balcony of carved, grasping hands. She had never considered that the door always led to the same place. Traveling anywhere in the library felt random, but this never changed. Rain wondered if there was some rule that governed this place, but before she could think about it too hard, she stopped. She didn’t want the library to change like the last time she figured out rules for how it worked.

 

Rain made sure to leave a coin by the door again as she approached the rail. Already, she could feel her heart rate rise as she thought of jumping over the rail and feeling the wind rush past her. However, to her disappointment, Ms. White didn’t motion towards the rail this time. Instead, she pointed them towards a bronze ladder bolted into the wall that Rain had never seen before.

 

“We need to climb?” Rain asked.

 

Ms White only smiled, her light void mouth curling past her eyes. 

 

Rain shrugged and started climbing the ladder. Both side rails had flowing interweaving patterns carved into them, leaving the ridges shining a beautiful bronze while the grooves were engulfed in shadow. 

 

Rain was still climbing five minutes later, yet the floor above her seemed no closer. Looking down, she realized the floor below her was very far away. If she hadn’t been used to being on high buildings, she might have gotten vertigo from the view. Still, she kept climbing, and Ms. White casually floated beside her.

 

“How much farther?”

 

“Not much. Keep climbing.”

 

Rain continued her climb, her arms starting to burn. If she didn’t reach her destination before her arms gave out, she would have to wait another day to do this. Her corruption had already risen back up a point since she started this climb.

 

Hopefully, leaving before finding the information she was looking for would stop Ms. White from raising her physical corruption. Although, based on the little she knew about Ms. White, that didn’t seem likely. 

 

“Alright, here we are.”

 

Rain looked around at Ms. White's declaration and found herself still between floors, with nowhere to get off the ladder.

 

“Um, where am I supposed to go?”

 

“Give me your hand,” Ms White answered, offering one of her long, sharp-fingered hands to Rain.

 

Rain took the hand and let herself step off the ladder following the direction that Ms. White was pulling her.

 

She didn’t fall.

 

Her foot hit solid ground, and the world around her rearranged itself into a rope bridge over a casem. Rain didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, she followed Ms. White across the gorge and through a door carved into the white stone on the other side. 

 

“Here we are,” Ms. White said, motioning towards the room beyond the carved door. 

 

Rain stared around slackjawed. She was in a temple so large and well decorated it made the temple of Agro look like a small hovel in comparison. 

 

Rain walked forward, admiring the row of pillars with stories of some kind carved into them. She saw images of humans talking and fighting, but there were also animals and beasts she didn’t recognize.

 

As Rain walked forward, she could feel ridges and bumps through the soles of her shoes. Looking down, she realized that the floor was far from polished and flat. Instead, divots and ravines scarred the floor. Some of them even made patterns that reminded Rain of the skills stamped into her soul. 

 

“Where is the information about the Zimir?” Rain asked Ms. White as she pulled her attention from the ground. 

 

“There,” Ms. White answered, pointing towards the far wall past a shattered altar where a bookshelf sat under a sculpted wall of names, symbols, and figures. It seemed to be the central image in the room.

 

“Is it one of the books or the wall?” 

 

Ms. White smiled at the question.

 

“Both.”

 

“I don’t have time to read all that. What’s the best source.”

 

“Do you want to activate the skill again to ask a more specific question?”

 

Looking at the wide grin on Ms. White's face, Rain realized that she was being deliberately unhelpful. Probably out of spite because Rain wouldn’t murder some innocent person so Ms. White could have their body.

 

“Never mind, I’ll figure it out.”

 

Rain needed to do this as efficiently as possible and get out of here before her corruption rose to a high level. Her best bet was to take what she could and study what she could not.

 

Approaching the far wall, Rain inspected the relief carved into it. It made absolutely no sense. There was a large circle with smaller circles around it. Were these smaller circles moons? They seemed to be getting fuller and then emptying out again as you followed them around the larger circle. Then, there were the things that interacted with the circles. Half of the wall was populated with human-like creatures with different numbers of arms, legs, and eyes. They were pouring pots of something onto the circles. The other side was full of odd shapes and twisted ideas that pulled chunks out of the moons. Or were they plates? Was this just a picture of people feeding monsters? At the top, one of the humans with six arms was shaking hands - or tentacles, maybe - with one of the bizarre creatures.

 

[WARNING: You have gazed on The Forbidden Record. Mental corruption has risen 5%.]

 

Rain blinked at the unexpected message.

 

“Thanks for the warning, Mr. Purple.”

 

She needed to memorize as much as she could and leave. She could piece together what it meant later because whatever this was, it was dangerous. 

 

Rain burned the scene into her mind and approached the bookshelf below it. She pulled a book from the shelf and almost dropped it. The book was far heavier than its size would lead her to believe. It felt more like lifting solid gold than paper. 

 

Looking at its plain leather cover that gave no hint of what the book was about, Rain opened it only to see the letters dancing across the page. With a sigh, she put the book back on the shelf. 

 

Rain wouldn’t be able to take many of these books with her, so she needed to choose carefully. Looking at the shelf, Rain found one book that looked promising. It had the title ‘Encyclopedia of Known Zimir.’ Rain had read an encyclopedia of trees before as part of her studies with the Estom tutors. If this was anything like that, then just knowing it existed told Rain something about Zimir. 

 

Rain pulled the heavy silver book off the shelf and let it fall to the floor.

 

“One more book,” she muttered to herself.

 

Rain reached for a promising black book but couldn’t remove it from the shelf. Trying a few other books, Rain found none would budge. 

 

With a suspicion of why she couldn’t remove the book, Rain replaced the encyclopedia she had removed and tried again. The black book easily left the shelf. It looked like Rain would only be taking one of these books with her. 

 

Scanning the books, Rain saw several mentions of the Zimir and the Aimir, but between the titles and the complex runes and patterns on the books, Rain wasn’t sure if any of them would teach her the basics or if they were on advanced subjects. 

 

Deciding to play it safe, Rain grabbed the encyclopedia and staggered away from the shelf.

 

With one last look at the bookshelf, Rain warped back to the entrance of the mist room and staggered back to safety. 

 

She wasn’t surprised to see Ms. White appear next to her.

 

“It seems you found what you were looking for. Then we part for now. I'll see you soon.” With that, Ms. White returned to being Rain’s shadow, and Rain once again felt her emotion, the pain from her soul, and a filthy taint fill her body. 

 

The rush of sensations caused Rain to drop her book and fall to her knees.

 

[WARNING: Physical corruption has risen 2%. Current Physical corruption 5%.]

 

Rain groaned on the floor as her mind slowly processed that message. Two percent? It should only be one, right? The price had increased last time because she made an extra bargain with Ms. White, so why was it costing more now? 

 

Unbidden, a passage from that cursed book Whispers of the Soul floated to her mind: ‘when affixed to a suitable vessel, becomes a conduit for power, albeit a diluted and less efficacious iteration of the original skill.’ if she had to guess this meant that any magic item she created would be less powerful or cost more than the original skill. 

 

Rain managed to distract herself long enough with those thoughts to get reaccustomed to the pain. After that, finding what had changed with her body didn't take long. The darkness at the tips of her fingernails had spread and swallowed her nails completely. 

 

Rain examined them in the gloomy light of the mist room. She supposed they would make a good addition to her Lady Tyix costume.

 

“With those nails and that ugly hand, you’re finally starting to show the world what a twisted monster you really are. When people see you, they won’t make the same mistake I did; they’ll run from you.”

 

Rain froze at the familiar voice, a voice she hadn’t heard in months. Looking up, Rain saw him standing there with his twisted bones, three arms, blood running from his severed neck, and a look of pure hatred on his face. Lon had returned.