Chapter 807: …into the L(library/abyrinth)
Despite how dire this moment was though, Pathos was taking his dear sweet time to come up with a solution. After all, he still had thousands upon thousands of nanoseconds to come up with something.
[Not exactly. The jarl was caught completely off guard of the void explosion because of his family members. He’s unconscious right now, but that berserker flame he absorbed earlier is acting up again in an attempt to hijack his body. I need to try and sap all that heat out of his body, but I can’t do that with them watching. Any suggestions?]
=Oh you have got to be kidding me!,= Logos suddenly exclaimed. =That guy is here too? Seriously?!=
=Our lord’s cousins weren’t the only ones to get dragged in.=
=Take a look,= Logos instructed Pathos as they gestured towards a set of holographic displays. =Now I know why our emergency protocols had to be activated.=
It only took Pathos a moment to thoroughly stare both displays before muttering the exact same complain as Logos.
On one screen, a large Ignarii with purple flames coming out of his back was walking through a section of bookshelves that the curator spirit recognized as being, ironically, the section where all the books holding the Ignarii’s lost history was located.
On another screen, three hapless looking, yet familiar, thieves were doing their best in trying to figure out where they were despite looking like panicky bitches. A peek at the shelves revealed that these three had somehow ended up in the recently added mystery fiction section of the library.
It took less than two nanoseconds for Pathos to recognize the Ignarii as Olstenna and the trio as being the same guys who tried to kidnap Jasper, Janice and Mini on separate yet related occasions.
A grimace formed on Pathos’s ever shifting face as she realized the implications of their presence.
=Apparently, they’re one of the rare few members of the Spatial Beaver bloodline able to actual use their teeth to do more than just storage shit,= Logos grumbled while rubbing a pair of eyes they manifested. =So now we have not just one group of possible issues, but three. How the hell are we going to handle all of them?=
<=Hmm...=>
The two curator spirits were a bit stumped on what to do, because while they would normally opt to go for the classic options of scaring the living shit or outright kill most of intruders to the library, the intruders this time around were people of interest to their lord and themselves.
The aetherii knew more about the kaijin than they let on, the trio of thieves had somehow managed to break into their teleportation arrays while the group of clan scions were family members to none other than their lord.
In other words, all three groups were people that their lord had either wanted to eventually rope into being in the know, or extract information from. Except for the trio of thieves, maybe, but they wouldn’t know for sure until they somehow-
=What kind of idea?=
*Snap!*
With a snap of their fingers, a new screen display appeared right in front of the curator spirits. On the screen was a list with over a thousand entries titled, “RPG Dungeon Maps”.
*Snap, snap!*
With two snaps of their fingers, over a dozen new screens appeared one after the other, depicting a variety of different maps, each listing and describing different types of traps, monsters and items that could be found inside of each of these “dungeons”.
Logos started to understand what Pathos was planning once these maps manifested, but still allowed his more emotionally focused to explain themselves.
=I get what you mean, but maybe we should focus on present, yeah? What’re you thinking? Zombie crypt? Nature overtaken?=
At Pathos’s gesturing, a majority of the manifested map screen disappeared in an instant. The only screen left depicted a maze that could be oddly described with the word…dreamy.
=Let’s see…”The Labyrinth of a Thousand and One Nights?” Sounds…mystical.=
=It does, actually.=
The curator spirits watched the array activate in silence as it began to integrate the map screen into itself.
All around the duo, the room that they were hiding themselves in started to change in height, width and even the furniture. During this process, Logos made sure to bring the original three screens back into focus around the main array screen.
=Do you think they’ll notice the sudden change?=
*SOUND OF SEVERAL TONS OF STONE SUDDENLY SHIFTING LIKE THOUSANDS OF GEARS.*
“HOLY SHIT!”×10.
_____Literal seconds ago…_______________
“Can you guys see anything?”
“No, it’s too bright.”
“Wait a minute…I think that’s-”
*FWOOM!*
“-WHOA!”
“Defensive positions! Huddle together, now!,” Zhen Yue commanded as the world around her and her cousins began to suddenly shift.
One moment, the Zhen Clan scions were about to see who this mysterious giant warrior really was under their [Regalia]. The next, all six of them almost lost their heads as a giant wall of stone suddenly shot up from the floor below and blocked them from the smoking crater they were staring down.
“Holy shit!”
“What the fuck is going on?!”
“I don’t know, but do you feel that? This aether feels ancient!”
“It’s not just aether…something else is mixed into it!”
“But why does it feel so familiar…hold up, what the fuck are those?!”
As the Zhen Clan scions did their best to keep their guards up, the room around them drastically changed as they heard the rumbling and grinding of stone against stone.
While dozen upon dozens of stone walls rose from the ground and entrapped them, twinkling light crystals began to manifest above them like stars.
“How much longer is this going to…oh hey, it stopped.”
When the rumbling eventually stopped, the scions realized that the room they were standing in was now entirely different, as obvious as it sounded. More specifically the room had somehow went from being completely open with no visible doors, to being very confined, due to the presence of multiple walls covered in geometric patterns,with four different pathways pointing in the four cardinal directions of their current position.
Their instincts told them that they were located in a place similar to that of a wandering ruin, but…they also felt there was something else to it.
Either way, the Zhen Clan scions now had a new decision to worry about.
“Okay…it looks like there are four pathways and six of us…”
“Should we try to stick together or…”
And right now, they were thinking of making a very bad decision.
________________________________________
“Meow.”
“Hmm? What is it, Spectra?”
“Meow!”
“What?!”
In a small courtyard decorated with plum trees and citronella bushes, a woman with a mature charm was sipping rose scented tea while reading a well-worn book.
The book was titled, “Memoirs of an Executioner, How I rose up from a simple torturer to beheading monarchs,” but that wasn’t the important part.
What was important was that this woman was none other than Zhen Liu’s mother, Daria Nerrisa-Zhen, and that she just had her teatime interrupted by her pet mutant Phantom Cat, Spectra.
Spectra was Daria’s eyes and ears around Stone Claw City, with a very strange ability that allowed the cat to be seen but never remembered.
Which is why Spectra was able to tell Daria the following statement.
“Meow, meow!”
“Xiao Liu,my niece and nephews all got sucked into a portal gone haywire? How?!”
“Meow, meow, meow!”
“Dammit!,” Daria exclaimed as she angrily threw her book on the table, somehow not spilling her tea in the process.
“Get Jin Fang and meet me at the stable. I might as well see in person what this so-called Library of Nowhere looks like…”
