The chain of the amulet was warm and buzzing as it tugged Robin toward his destination. It sent a not-unpleasant shiver down his bones. Though it might have been the kind of thing that some people would enjoy and some people despise, like the way one’s stomach drops on a roller-coaster.

The stacks were a riot of colour all around him. A riot of colour and noise and motion, with the aisles beneath his feet always looking straight as an arrow but always seeming to twist around and back and in on themselves.

If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the amulet was trying to get him lost.

But perhaps this was the way to a secret tome of illusion magics? It would certainly fit. This whole experience might have been an illusion, a hallucination.

Robin knew well enough already, however, that even hallucinations could provide real knowledge and information. Even magical secrets. The idea for the ritual that brought him here had come to him in a dream, after all.

Finally, after Robin couldn’t tell how long, the amulet came a stop, hovering in place without moving further, and pointing at a gap in the shelf between an old tome that was both bound in chains and had the suggestion of a screaming face within the grain of the leather, and a small, puzzle-box-like cube that gave Robin daymares just looking at its unnatural geometries.

‘Here?’ Robin asked the amulet.

It didn’t respond. Not that he’d expected it to. Well, time to prod the mystery a bit more.

He reached out and gently ran his finger over the empty shelf space.

He didn’t feel anything. Not even dust. He blinked and rubbed his fingers. Yeah, there definitely wasn’t any dust there. But it looked like there was.

Illusion. He was in the right place! He just needed to figure out how this worked.

‘Seven-Fold Mysteries of the Nine-Fold Veil,’ he tried speaking the title aloud to see if that would cause it to appear.

No luck.

He tried conjuring it via the library identification number on its entry tag. No result. He tried searching the shelf to reveal any hidden triggers, mechanisms, or hidden compartments. No result. He tried commanding his amulet to reveal the book to him. No result.

Finally, grinding his teeth together with frustration, he decided to appeal to a higher power for help.

Robin took a deep, calming breath. He centred himself, reached for that place in his mind he associated with shadows and magic and illusion, and rubbed his fingers together where he had first touched that shrine of the God of Illusions.

‘In Rhyth’s name, I charge you reveal yourself to me,’ Robin entreated. For good measure, he used [Lesser Phantasm] to conjure a replica of one of Rhyth’s holy symbols, setting it spinning gently above his upturned palm.

‘Please,’ he added as an afterthought.

There was a glimmer of light. Then a flicker. Then a book appeared on the shelf, resting in a small stand which was clearly designed to support it and hold it open as the pages were turned.

Result!

Robin reached out to open the book.

His hand passed right through it.

The book was an illusion, just as he’d theorised! No wonder the amulet had trouble locating it. It both did and did not exist at the same time.

But wait. If it was an illusion, how was he meant to open it? To turn the pages?

Robin’s mind grappled with the practicalities of the situation. How did anyone even manage to bring this into the library at all? Was there magic that could move spells? Shift permanent effects that had been cast elsewhere? He was no master illusionist but what he’d read in his interface and from the database at the tower back in Wyndham Wood led him to believe that an effect like this was usually anchored to a physical location. Maybe an object.

Was there something small hidden within the shelving unit, casting the illusion in front of him like a projector cast a film in a cinema?

Robin searched the shelf again, even though he had but recently done so. He didn’t have high hopes and his expectations were swiftly fulfilled.

He couldn’t find anything.

He shoved the mystery of how the book was here to the back of his mind and concentrated instead on the practical challenge in front of him.

How did he open the book and turn the pages?

It didn’t matter how it got here. It was here. And inside, somehow, was the knowledge he sought.

If he could open the book to read it.

Robin tried to open the book again. Not because he expected it to suddenly begin to work, but because he wanted something to do with his hands while he thought. And he didn’t have a puzzle cube—

The mind-bending example on the shelf near the illusory book began to glimmer with a sinister invitation.

No. No thank you, fam!

‘Not you,’ he snapped at it.

The light flickered as if surprised, then went out.

‘Good.’ Robin nodded in satisfaction.

He had enough problems to deal with as is without unleashing whatever that was.

He couldn’t touch it. It wasn’t real. It didn’t even seem to have the semi-reality he had read about master illusionists being able to infuse their conjurations with. If it were at least semi-real he’d be able to turn the pages.

Was there somehow to imbue it with semi-reality, temporarily? Robin opened his interface and did a scan of the contents. He’d marked most places where the term had come up.

Unfortunately, most of them were outside of the current scope of his abilities. Of the ones he could theoretically access or would be able to soon, none allowed the caster to apply the effect to an illusion of someone else’s creation.

Robin closed the interface with a mental snap. Useless. The book and he might as well be in two different worlds.

He reached out to wave his too-real hands through the all-too-illusory book.

Robin froze.

His hands were too real but what if he had another hand? One that wasn’t real? An illusory hand might be able to turn the pages of an illusory book, right?

It made the kind of sense that Robin had come to associate with tricksters and illusionists. And it would be one more level of security, as those who hated illusions and trickery were much less likely to possess the ability to craft illusions of their own.

[Lesser Phantasm] wouldn’t do it, but [Visual Phantasm] shouldn’t have any problems.

Robin stretched out his hands as he willed the effect into existence. A pair of ethereal hands identical to his, glowing ghostly blue, appeared. The bard willed the left one to reach out and open the book.

The cover moved! As easily as if he were opening a real book with his real hands!

Robin stepped forward eagerly and began to read. The script—the language—was not one he knew but [Tongue of the Fallen Tower] easily solved that problem. And the language flowed into his mind, something he would be sure to recognise in the future.

It felt old.

Before Robin could ponder that further, a name leapt out at him: Tarin-Tiran. The author of this section of the book had been from there! Been a citizen at the height of the city-state’s power.

Did the Head Librarian know about this? Probably not. This was only an incidental mention, and Robin had no idea how many people over the years had consulted this tome. It had given him enough of a headache as it was, and he was theoretically rocking the exact build needed to interface with this thing.

Robin filed the detail away as a potential bargaining chip. Later. For now he wanted to get to the good stuff. The magical lore and knowledge.

Though he still took care to read through everything written on the page. There was definitely knowledge here, and there might very well be secret lore concealed in the text. Via allegory, or code, or something of that nature.

It’s what he would do.

The first several pages of the book were a personal account of the illusionist—Jha’Khar—and his life and studies in the great city of Tarin-Tiran. There were descriptions of his friends and the places they would go to enjoy themselves, even a map sketch of a section of the city he had lived in.

Robin carefully memorised that.

There were also Jha’Khar’s thoughts on the illusion exercises he studied, and some notes on various spells and abilities he was attempting to master.

The latter made Robin’s heart kick into high gear. Every one that was mentioned was one he’d been considering, or sounded like the exact hidden knowledge his quest line was pointing him to!

He began to read faster, turning the pages more and more quickly with the set of illusory hands floating to either side of the book.

The journal began to speak of more advanced spells and abilities, of rising through the ranks in the Faith of Rhyth. There were almost as many mentions of holy strictures and rituals as there were of magic and spells.

Thought Rhyth being Rhyth, many of these rituals and strictures sound more fun than serious exercises of faith. At least as far as Robin was familiar with it from his world.

Every so often a notification would flash by his eyes. Additional information on spells and abilities unlocked, even a few revealed that had been entirely hidden from him before he found mention of them in this book. Experience points racked up, noting an increased gain from his shadeling nature.

He was drawing nearer and nearer to ascending to Tier 2. He could feel it.

He’d have to be careful not to tip over too soon. That would leave him without as much experience to spend on boosting his stats.

Robin paused, reluctantly, and flicked open his character sheet long enough to funnel some of the experience into Arcane Lore and Learning. He even had some dedicated experience he was able to dedicate to Sleight of Hand after reading a particularly engaging section on Jha’Khar’s exploits in sneaking into a rival temple to tweak the nose of some over-serious priests of the Goddess of Austerity.

Then he continued reading. Though soon after he did, the pages began to have hints of trouble, of danger and dissatisfaction.

Something was wrong in Tarin-Tiran.

And before Robin could find out exactly what, the next page he turned blazed with a sooty-red light, and the image of a clenched fist flickered and raged across the page. Words in a far different language appeared, the text of them spiky and thick, unmovable and dour.

You have trespassed, O reader, upon knowledge forbidden by the Great and Mighty Urkhan! For your presumption you shall suffer his curse! The favoured of the God who you have challenged shall seek you out and bring you low!

The Curse of Urkhan? That didn’t sound good.

Robin’s stomach knotted. There was one petty tyrant he’d definitely ‘wronged’ recently that sprang immediately to mind. Dag. The leader of the Broken Knucklebones. Well, former leader. Former gang.

But still a very real, very present threat. And with the hand of Urkhan to guide him…

Fuck!

There was also Gis, the one-eyed priest with a snake in his skull.

Fuck fuck!

Robin attempted to turn the page, to move past the curse. Flames from the burning sigil leapt out and consumed his illusory hands. He only just managed to slam the illusory book shut before they vanished entirely.

Fuck fuck fuck!

Just what he needed.