Chapter 134: All We Need is Time

  Castile returned with the others over an hour ter. Three specters had stumbled into the rge library while we were gone, and the pany had been killing them repeatedly as they restituted, waiting for Castile to return with the kettle of souls. As the pany arrived, Adriahe five offices ahem up as small bunk rooms. There were twenty-five of us if you included Maveith, Castile, and Schor Favian.

  I was rooming with Maveith, Konstantin, Mateo, Felix, and Schor Favian in the rgest office. Our job was to protect the Schor while he worked through the books. Every offi the small library had a firepce, but we were warned only to burn enough to fight off the chill. The firewood was being hauled up from the colpsed shelves of the main library in shifts.

  As we set up our room, Favian paged through the single shelf of books in the office. Half of them fell apart at the spine as he flipped through them. I cimed the only desk in the room to sleep on. This desk was made of the same bck wood as the other desk but was much rger. I guessed this office beloo the chief librarian of this tower.

  Felix scoffed from his positiohe fire at me setting up my bedroll, “Wish I had thought of that; this stone floor sucks the heat right out of you.”

  I ignored him. “Anything iing?” I asked Schor Favian as I sat in the chair at my bed/desk ahrough the drawers.

  He didn’t answer as he paged through his most current book and repced it on the shelf with a huff, “No—mostly administrative books. One is a log of books to be copied and loaned out to requested parties. I think other a elven libraries, but I am not sure. The titles listed are iing anyway. It would really be useful if I had an elf fluent in the nguage here to help.” He didn’t say more as he y down exhausted on his own bedroll he small fire Felix was starting.

  I found a lot of paper in the desk that crumbled to dust when I tried to move it. I sifted through the dust and found what looked to be, a bag of shiny steel marbles. The bag was brittle and cracked as I took out the seven marbles. I rolled them in my hand, and they had a good weight to them. They were perfect spheres—maybe ball bearings of some kind, or I thought they might go to some game the elves pyed or possibly ammunition for a sling. I left them on my bedroll in front of me as I meticulously searched the rest of the desk.

  The only other thing of i was a dozen vials with murky bck liquid. They were obviously potions that had not deteriorated over time. The elvish writing on the vials had faded entirely with the turies.

  The room was filling with light blue smoke as Felix’s fire started to get going. It was a more fining space than the massive open library, and the small amount of smoke was building up. “Open the flue!” Konstantin barked as he ehe room. He went to the firepce himself and operated a small stubborn k. It groaned, and we found it had been a mistake to use it as turies of dust in the ey vent crashed into the fire. The fire went out, and the room filled with dust.

  Everything and everyone was coated, and no one looked happy. Schor Favian started coughing. Angry eyes tearing, as the smoke and dust filled the small space, trained on Konstantin. To me, it felt like an unnatural anger. I started ughing, a loud, boisterous ugh, “Damn it, Konstantin. I ’t believe the all-knowing legionnaire didn’t realize there were fifteen hundred years of dust in there. You are never going to live this one down.” I was trying to cut the tension, and finally, Maveith coughed hoarsely and started ughing too, taking my lead.

  Konstantin finally joihe ughter, and it was awkward to see him jovial. “You are right. I will shake out everyone’s gear. We should see if that window opens.” He spent some time, but the block of clear stone had no hinges or method to remove it. While Konstantin was ing the room, we made two trips for firewood from the primary library while the dust settled.

  That night, as we all ate an insignifit dinner, as I studied everyone in the pany. It was clear they were depressed. It was hard to tell if it was lio our circumstances or if the ruins were doing something to them. I was leaning toward the tter.

  That night, I was tempted to use my dreamscape amulet. I asked Maveith to sleep close and remove it if necessary. I also only po be ihe dreamscape for two four-hour sessions. In the dreamscape, I added ten of the elven books on herbalism to my secret shelves. That was as much backsh as I thought I could handle when I left.

  I was not ed with practig with the men in the ankheg room. Instead, I went to the shelf and pulled off the pendium of spell forms for the dispt affinity. Dispt magic was used to run the massive telepates iy. Dispt Mages were highly sought after, and with my sixty-one affinity, I thought I might be able to imprint the spell form for their ability.

  I ope to the index. It was remarkably simir to the time spell form pendium. There were fgested spell forms at three different power levels. I was happy to see that with my sixty-one affinity, only two of the major spell forms were not avaible to me.

  Dispt Affinity Lesser Spell Forms (10-25)

  Anchor (10)

  Quick-Step (20)

  Summon Object (10)

  Ethereal Body (25)

  Dispt Affinity Major Spell Forms (25-40)

  Blink (30)

  Dimensional Door (35)

  Send Object (40)

  ect Portal Gates (40)

  Dispt Apex Major Spell Forms (40-70)

  Teleport Other (50)

  Pne Shift (60)

  Create Portal Gate (7reater Teleport (70)

  I skipped the spell forms beyond my affinity so I wouldn’t know what I was missing out on. I spent all four hours I had allotted figuring out the portal gate spell form.

  Create portal gate also required the anchor and ect portal gates spell forms to create the portal gates that the Empire used in the rger cities. There was more to the process as the gates themselves had to be artificed to create a perma weave to feed aether from ley lines, which was then activated by a dispt mage with the ect portal gates spell form or the actual spell. It allowed me to cross off anchor, ect portal gate, and create portal gates off my list.

  With the ability to cast actual spells being so rare, I could see why they had these spell forms in this book for Telhian Mages. The thing was, I did not see myself spending the rest of my life making portals for the Empire.

  I exited the dreamscape to the room’s chilly air, even with a fire burning. My head ounding from adding the books, and I couldn’t imagine doing that twenty-nine more times just to get all the herbalism and apothecary books into the dreamscape amulet. I eveioheir value as I couldn’t read Elvish.

  I focused on the room arouilling my breathing. Maveith was breathing loudly in his sleep, and Mateo was sn softly. The Schor, I was happy to hear, was also sleeping. He had been too excited by the massive amount of elven knowledge we had entered. I let my headache fade before returning to the dreamscape.

  I started to review the simplest of spell forms, quick-step, also referred to as fsh-step. It was a very she teleport that was always the same distan the dire you were fag. The distance was depe on your affinity for dispt magic. With a ten affinity, that distance was just under five feet, acc to the text.

  I started to do the math to see what my sixty-one affinity would get me. The answer was about one hundred ay-o. Utterly useless unless I was trying to run away—so maybe not that useless. The good thing about this spell form was you could not materialize inside objects.

  It shortehe distail there aplete the teleport. And if you didn’t teleport, your aether was still expended. I looked at the aether requirements and swore, “Fuck!” Oscar jumped a o at my foul nguage, barking and looking for the problem. I started ughing at the absurdity of someone invading the dreamscape. Quick-step only moved the mage—not their possessions. How was it eveely useful?

  Okay, I had misread the text. The mass of the mage’s equipment would add to the base aether cost for the quick-step ability. You could also not take anyone else with you when you fshed forward due to their aether resistance. I did not find this spell form appealing.

  The summon object spell form did appear much more useful. This spell form brought an object to you. The distand mass determihe amount of aether. The object had to also be within the mage’s line of sight. It was aremely useful bat ability for disarming foes. The problem was the orientation of the object was fixed. So, I would be summoning a sword poi me.

  I read a little more on the spell form. It was useful in evading arrows as the arrows were light, and all iia was halted when an object was summoned. But once again, the aether cost seemed prohibitive to me.

  I moved on to the spell form, hoping it was a better option for me. It required at least an affinity of twenty-five, so it had to be more useful. Ethereal body allowed the mage to push himself into the astral phis meant my afterimage would be immuo damage. Well, runic ons aheric magic spells could hit creatures iral pne. We were doing that with the specters, so this was not an invulnerability spell.

  The blink spell form was a more advanced form of the quick-step spell form. This spell form funs the same way but lets you trol the distance you travel. It only required a thirty affinity to learn, so I moved on to the spell form, dimensional door.

  The dimension door was a very impressive spell form that required two castings. The first casting was the anchor used on any doorway. The sed casting was also cast on a doorway and ected to the first. As long as the mage sustaihe e, people could pass through from one doorway to the other. There was ri on distance. However, ohe mage dropped the e, both anchors faded and would o be reset.

  The limiting factor for me came down to the distahe doors were apart, which determined how much aether would be required per sed. I just did not have a rge aether pool. Send object could teleport any non-living object to a pce with which the mage was familiar. The mass and distaermined how much aether was required.

  I couldn’t even cast the higher affinity spells once. So, teleport other, pne shift, and greater teleport were off the table for me. I was having enough trouble on this pne of existenyway. Not being able to learer teleport was a disappoi. This spell allowed you to send your mind to a location and pull your body there. The cost iher was immense.

  Maybe there were more spell forms options out there. If these were my only choices, then it would either have to be blink or dimension door. I started thinking maybe dimension door would be a good way to escape a terrible situation. I certainly wish I had it at this moment.

  I returned from the dreamscape. I sat up, my back ag from the hard surface. I wished I had pulled out my pillow. The window had the gray of the m light shining through, and Konstantin was sitting there looking out the window. It was just the two of us awake.

  He slowly turo me, “The snow has stopped. But I do not think we are doh the elementals.”

  “Why, what is going on out there?” I asked, moving to the window, and almost tripping on Maveith.

  I reached the window, and the blue fshes in the sky were still there, but Konstantin was right. The sky was clear, and just an o of white was out there. “They are dropping the temperature. I have been scraping frost off this window for the st two hours.”

  “We were not pnning to go outside anyway,” I responded while notig a huge amount of snow drop from the massive hearth tree in the distance. A giant eagle took flight and circled into the sky; it quickly returo the tree, not daring to approach the elemental lightning.

  “Those eagles are going to freeze to death,” Konstantin nodded out the window, “They might be our best ce of food if we get to them.”

  “Breakfast!” came a call from the tral room. The entire small library instantly came alive as mehe start of the hunger pains. I went with Konstantin to find a thick soup for breakfast.

  Lirkin smiled, “Mashed up the stale bread and used a little extra jerky this m in the soup. Don’t tell Delmar.” His request was moot as Delmar was behind him and just rolled his eyes. I guessed that Delmar had told him to use what he did this m.

  The starchy soup had pea-sized pieces of rehydrated jerky in it, but Lirkin made sure to scoop from the bottom for everyone, so they got the sediment. My protesting stomach thought it was one of the best things I had ever eaten.

  The air felt colder, but the five side rooms all had small fires, making the tral room bearable. Delmar spoke after everyone arrived, “We are all going to remove our armor. Armor is not much use much against the specters anyway, and it should help you bundle your cloaks tighter to your body. If you have spare clothes, yer them. Castile is going to lead an expedition to the other tower this m. Mateo, Bze, Brutus, and I will thin out the specters there with Castile.”

  After Castile left, my job was to guard the men whathering firewood from the shelves in the primary library to haul up to our rooms. Adrian was supervising, making the floor of the tower we now occupied more hospitable. He had groups taking what they could from the upper floors. I think most of us realized it was busy work to keep our minds off our predit.

  I was on my fifth trip with firewood when Castile’s group joined us, climbing the stairs. Maveith was carrying a rge bundle of wood and was not afraid to ask, “What did you find iher tower.”

  Delmar answered for Castile, “Half a dozeers. The roof pletely colpsed, and there was nothing to salvage on any of the floors. All the books have long since beeroyed by weathering.”

  Castile said steely, “We will start thinning the specters uhe city. It will take time, but as long as we have the kettle, we clear them all.” As we climbed, she reassured everyone around her, “Schor Favian will find out where the dungeon is located soon, and we seek refuge there.”

  ? Chted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne

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