Robin grimaced as he wrapped a bandage around the bleeding bite-wound on his left arm. He was a few miles outside of Noviel, deep in the Livris Wood, fighting off gorge-rats. The things weren’t dangerous by themselves, but they tended to move in colonies and it was impossible to weed out all of the little blighters without taking a few nips and bites.

‘I want to eat that one,’ Rerebos pointed with his tail at a gorge-rat at least ass big as he was. Considering the little dragon was about the size and mass of your above-average house cat, that was no little meal he was insisting upon.

If he actually planned on eating the thing, that is.

‘Help yourself,’ Robin said. ‘But I’m not carrying it for you.’

Rerebos hissed his displeasure but flitted over the carcass and began tearing into it.

Little bastard went for the soft parts first.

Robin glanced away from the gruesome repast. At least that was another benefit to this little side-quest. Not only did he get the chance to score some points with the librarians of Noviel, but Rerebos got a free meal or three.

The Livris Wood was used almost exclusively to sate the ongoing appetite of the Library of Noviel for paper. The trees here were swift-growing, and actually thrived on regular trimming of their branches. To provide the necessary materials the librarians desired.

Gorge-rats gnawing at their roots, however, was another thing. Too much damage and the tree would die, and because they were a renewable, self-replenishing resource it was a huge loss to the library whenever one did. Especially as they were not native to the area, so growing new ones to replace the old was a slow, costly proposition.

Robin winced as he flicked through the gestures of [Legerdemain]. He wanted to clean off a bit of the blood and grime before wading in to see if there were more gorge-rats about. Rerebos was still eating, anyway. He settled himself against the trunk of the closest tree, large support roots arcing out over his head, and opened his interface.

It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at the details of this particular quest, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Quest: [Secrets Chained in Ink]

You have found hints of more detailed knowledge of the Church of Rhyth and their secrets in the Great Library of Noviel. Follow the trail to uncover this information and gain its insight and power for yourself!

So far you have discovered you need to achieve the following:

1 - Acquire a permit to access the library and its resources. [Completed!]

2 - Win the goodwill of the Head Librarian.

3 - Gain Access to the Restricted Section!

4 - Locate the sources in question.

5 - Unlock the secrets, riddles, and spells which may conceal the information from the uninitiated.

Reward(s): Access to a set number of spells and peculiarities commonly employed by, or unique to, the Church of Rhyth and other practitioners of advanced illusion magics.

‘This is much more satisfying than flying around underground,’ Rerebos observed around a mouthful of rat.

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ Robin said automatically. Honestly, sometimes it was like having a toddler.

The little dragon glared at him, but swallowed and repeated himself more distinctly.

‘Fewer shinies, though.’ Robin winced as he flexed his arm and the bites along it stung. ‘A lot fewer.’

‘We’ll get shinies in exchange for rat-tails, though. You said!’ Now the little dragon was staring at him through slitted eyes. ‘You said.’

‘And we will!’ Best head off the tantrum before it started. ‘Not as many as from down below, but we will get shinies.’

Pocket change, really. Robin was more interested in the goodwill that saving some trees would get him from the librarians. So far he and the Head Librarian had not gotten off on the best foot.

And speaking of their underground adventures and authority figures less than pleased with him there was also Guildmagister Zahn. The man had not exactly been ecstatic to hear that the only jewel Robin could find matching the description the Guildmagister had given him was the dungeon core—which everyone in the party confirmed Khavren had shattered.

Robin had felt the guildmagister’s eyes on him that whole interview—weighing, measuring, penetrating—but in the end Zahn had let him go with a wave of his hand and an instruction to ‘go make yourself useful to the guild’. If another mission was forthcoming soon, the Guildmagister had given no indication of it.

So Robin did as he was told. He went and made himself useful, exploring the guild’s workings, finding out where his privileges were—such as the library—and picking a few minor quests to run through to get the hang of things. Sometimes Drev or Jhess completed a mission with him, but mostly he was running on his own.

Well, with Rerebos’s help.

‘How many more rats are we hunting?’ The little dragon was cleaning blood off of his scales at this point, the choices bits of the large rat now consumed. He had also neatly snipped off the gorge-rat’s tail and had coiled it possessively around his foreleg.

‘As many as we can find.’ The quest hadn’t been specific as to the number of rats currently living in the Livris Wood, but they’d be paid for the tails in sets of 5. ‘If Savra had been able to tell us exactly how many were here, we’d know, but since she didn’t, we’ll just have to keep hunting and killing the wee beasties until we can’t find any more of them. Or until it starts to get dark. I don’t want to camp out here again. I’d rather check back in at the tavern and sleep under a roof tonight.’

Now, if only he had a bed to go with it…

Annoyingly, Robin’s interface didn’t always grant him a quest reflection of the notices on the guild job board. Sometimes it did, but most of the time it didn’t. This was one of the times it hadn’t. Robin wasn’t quite sure why. He’d have thought it would, since the quest to slay rats was a way to get the approval of the Head Librarian.

Not that he could even read much into the lack of quest. That the system hadn’t generated a quest could mean he was either on the right track (and he hadn’t gotten a new quest because this was part of achieving the second objective on the quest he already had) or because he was way off track (and he hadn’t gotten a new quest because this was a total waste of time and wouldn’t advance any of his objectives).

He really wished he understood more about the mysterious system that framed so much of his understanding of the magic of this world. Actually, that was another reason to spend some time in the library. Something else to search for in his quest for answers.

Answers. Knowledge. He needed more. A lot more, if recent events were anything to judge by. Living dungeons, strange entities, a whole new world of wonder and danger…it was a lot to process and even more to understand.

So that was what he’d do. He was in Noviel, one of the greatest cities in the land. There would be answers here, somewhere, if he could just find them. Probably not all the ones he wanted or needed, but certainly even more than he currently possessed.

It would be easier with the Head Librarian on his side. It wouldn’t be easy, though. The man was like Savra, almost Robin’s opposite in heritage, and somehow he was even wore than the seeress. It was like the man could taste deception on the air and found the flavour of such things to be like eating hot garbage drenched in soured milk.

Robin had tried flattering him right after they were introduced. It hadn’t gone well. It wasn’t that Robin had tried to deceive the man; it was just that he didn’t know him and he thought a bit of flattery wouldn’t go amiss.

It went amiss. Oh how amiss it went. Robin definitely knew better now than to lie about reading a person’s academic work and say nice things about it.

Robin shuddered at the memory of the cold that had swept through the room after that. How was he to know the man was so sensitive about his work? But that brought everything back full circle, didn’t it? Robin should have known. Should have asked around. His lack of knowledge did him in, got him even further into a mess.

The bard sighed and slammed his back against the rough back of the tree trunk behind him. The sensation was a welcome change from the still and swirling morass of his thoughts. The trees all around might not be judging him, might even be a willing audience to his woes, but they wouldn’t be able to offer him any insight, nor give him a hint as to what to do next.

They weren’t those kind of trees.

No, regaining the favour of the Head Librarian wasn’t going to be easy. A few gorge-rat corpses weren’t likely to do the job.

But it was all he had so far, and it was something. If nothing else, it put some money in his pocket and got Rerebos a free meal or three.

Speaking of the little dragon, Rerebos had been hunting amongst the roots, flitting from shadow to shadow, perching here and then there as his draconian senses teased out the potential hidey-holes of the gorge-rats. He was a far cry from a bloodhound, but the wee fellow was keeping close to his targets’ territory and the gorge-rats were not exactly creatures built for stealth. Sure, they were smaller than Robin, but they stank, made plenty of noise, and didn’t seem to have a lot of natural predators in the area to teach them to be overly wary.

That was an idea. Maybe he could figure out what natural enemies gorge-rats had and if they could be safely introduced to Livris Wood. Invasive species were something to worry about, of course, but maybe there was a spell that could help with that? Or some kind of spaying or neutering that might control things.

Robin filed the idea away for now. He couldn’t do anything about it from here. Here, he could only kill rats and think up more questions.

Because before he could find his answers, he needed greater access to those who held them.

And right now, that meant killing rats.