Aya used the same process as before to translate the remaining runes. It took her over one and a half hours, but she was quite pleased with the final product. Having relied on guesswork for all of it, there was no way to know if it was right or not. Since there was no way for her to check, she didn’t spend time worrying about it.

Stretching the stiffness out of her shoulders, she considered her next move. The incomplete right double-circle beckoned. The scholar had spent months on trying to fill it in and there were still only a handful of symbols. She regarded them closely, trying to figure out his methodology. In his notes he had simply written, ‘reverse’.

Now that she understood the runes a bit better, she could actually read the left circles. The outside one was a mixture of capture, imprisonment and neutralization runes that the scholar described as the ‘cage’ foundation. The inside circle, on the other hand, contained the runes for purity, balance and cleansing.

Unlike all of the other scrolls she had translated, the circles had no clear storyline or progression of events. Instead, the runes were simply laid out with apparent randomness. However, going by the scholar’s emphasis on the importance of order, she doubted that was the case. She looked over at the right circle, trying to find the connection between them.

One of the runes stood out to her: it meant ‘peace’. The rune was the closest to the opposite left circle; her eyes just happened to lock on the rune for ‘war’. ‘Peace’ and ‘war’ were opposites; there was no question about it. Them being so close to each other gave her the idea that each rune needed to be paired with its opposite in a mirror fashion.

The theory was immediately cast into doubt when she realized that ‘peace’ was on the inside of the right circle and ‘war’ was on the outside of the left. Before she discarded the idea though, she wondered if even those had to be reversed. Aya used the handful of right runes to check if she was right.

She unknowingly sat up straighter, excited, when it still looked like she could be right.

“Alright so… Reverse…” she mumbled to herself. “Inside circle on the left means outside circle on the right. Bad on the left means good on the right. So far so good…”

She thought it couldn’t be too hard to match the runes with their opposites- at least, not if she had all the meanings right - but a minute later, she realized she was wrong. Even if she had guessed them all correctly, there were so many runes that had such similar meanings that there was no way she could be sure which one to use. It was like deciding if the opposite of good was bad, corrupt, destructive, wicked, or horrible.

“No wonder it took you so long, man…” she said, eyes locked on the scholar’s scribbles. “And here I was, thinking you must have been stupid not to have worked it all out already…”

Unwilling to give up, she sat staring at the circles, trying to find any more patterns. When she’d exhausted all possible comparisons of runic meaning, she started looking at the diagram from an artistic point of view. It couldn’t be a coincidence that it was laid out so carefully, with such attention to order and detail.

At first, nothing jumped out at her, but then she noticed something odd. ‘War’ sort of looked like ‘peace’… only it wasn’t quite right. It was actually backward… and upside down. Aya was excited for a moment, but then she realized that the final curvy ending on the ‘war’ was straight and the angle was a bit different.

They weren’t exact opposites, but it seemed like too much of a coincidence and so Aya checked the other runes to see if there was a pattern. Three runes later, she confirmed there was! The scholar hadn’t mentioned any of that in his notes and she wondered if it was possible for him to work on the project for months on end without noticing something she had in minutes.

Aya frowned, realizing she wasn’t doing him justice. She’d only gotten as far as she had because of his notes and previous work and she had already been at it for hours, not minutes. In fact, the only reason she’d even noticed it was because she’d had to work out what side was up for each rune, and she still wasn’t sure if she was right or not.

In fact, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it herself if she’d been taught properly, knowing the meaning of the rune before the shape. The fact that she came in with no prior knowledge was, for the first time since she entered the game, giving her an advantage.

Aya tried placing a new rune on the right circle after she made her own copy of it on a page of her notebook. Although the opposite runes weren’t exactly the same, they were similar enough that she was able to work out the matching runes from the ones available to her. It turned out to be quite easy after she separated the known runes into groups of similar meaning.

Half an hour was all it took for her to have a rough draft of the runes. The last dozen had been harder to place, since she’d apparently misjudged the meanings. Even after sifting through the remaining and unused runes, she was left with nine blank spaces she didn’t know what to do with.

Drumming her fingers, she stared at the nearly-completed circle, hoping for a sudden flash of inspiration. Ten minutes passed and nothing happened. Aya became aware of the silence as time continued to tick away. She was so close, she just wished she could finish it. She continued to fidget with her fingers on the desk.

Henry started clucking more loudly and strutting around obnoxiously, or maybe she only noticed it because she wasn’t busy. She sighed and realized he was just hungry. Seeing as he’d literally just made a bloody mess, she had no idea how it was possible but she reached for one of her blood pouches anyway. He obviously wasn’t a fan of real food and she’d already learned her lesson the hard way. Aya opened one of the few remaining blood-filled skins and beckoned at Henry. She’d also learned not to let the bird fed himself.

It went surprisingly well and he didn’t even put up a fight when she raised him to her lap so she could continue ruminating over the scroll while he drank. She just hoped he didn’t decide to attach himself to her again, but hopefully keeping him happy and fed would prevent that.

Tired of staring at the unfinished circle, Aya drew in the final nine runes by just flipping the matching left runes diagonally. At least, she was in the process of doing that when Henry jerked the blood bag in her lap, almost tipping it over. She caught it at the last second, but ended up messing up the last rune.

Aya sighed but decided it could be a good idea to get a fresh copy of it anyway. The one she’d been working on for the last hour wasn’t very neat anymore. She started the tedious process of transcribing and immediately realized she was being dumb by doing it manually. She thought of the minor fixes she wanted to do in the diagram - adjusting certain angles to match the left circle - and activated the skill.

Her hand followed the familiar pattern of almost machine-precision drawing, but her mana bar suddenly dropped to nearly zero. Henry hadn’t moved and she knew the skill didn’t require any mana. She pursed her lips in confusion while her hand finished the transcription. It was almost done when she finally noticed something odd.

Although the circle was laid out exactly as she had envisioned it, the nine runes she had filled in looked different. They were no longer exact copies of their left counterparts; they were slightly different, in the same way the rest of the runes were slightly different. The moment her quill stopped, she knew she’d finished it. She had no idea how, but there it was.

Aya grinned in excitement, but after a moment, her spirits deflated. Now what? She didn’t know what she’d expected, but her effort was supposed to result in something more than just a plain double-circle of gibberish staring flatly back at her. Perhaps nothing was meant to happen or perhaps she had gotten something wrong. After all, she’d guessed all of it.

She pushed the page closer to the original scroll to compare. As she went over it symbol by symbol, almost hoping to find a mistake, she noticed something odd. Aya rubbed her eyes, thinking she was imagining it, or maybe she was just tired. But when the anomaly persisted, she realized it wasn’t a delusion; the runes on her double-circle were actually vibrating.

The ink looked like it was liquefying before her eyes, like it wanted to leave the page. In fact, as she held the page closer to the original scroll, she realized that the same was true for the ink on it. They were attracted to each other, as if by magnetic force.

The closer she held them together, the more the ink shivered, trying to release itself from its papery confines. She observed how they preferred to be face to face. Aya was holding them like that, her version over the glowing scroll, moving them ever closer when, at three inches apart, her page just tore itself from her hands, dove into the original scroll and exploded.

There was no time to process the event. She was suddenly sprawled on the ground in front of one of the shelves, three feet from the workstation. Her ears rang and the back of her head was throbbing. Too many things were happening all at once.

Notifications were filling her field of vision. Beyond the ringing, she heard squawks of pain. Her own health bar was sinking rapidly. Everything hurt. Her hands were burned and the smell of burnt hair and heated iron filled the room. She tasted blood in her mouth and barely processed it when Henry ran by her, tail ablaze.

His status bar was lower than her own, but at least it wasn’t sinking like hers. Aya didn’t want to move from all the pain that filled her body. She wished the ringing would stop but her ears popped and it just got worse. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out the pain and almost didn’t notice the smell of burning paper.

Henry ran by her again, squawking. She squinted at him. The fire on his tail was spreading and now he was sustaining damage. She hurt all over but she needed to put the fire out, if not to save Henry, then at least to save the scrolls he set ablaze. After struggling to her feet, she chased him around the room.

Two laps was all it took her to know she would never catch him that way. She wished she had a blanket of some sort to throw at him to smother the flames. Unfortunately, the only thing she did have was a bag of blood that she still miraculously clung to. When she remembered it she stopped in her tracks and waited for Henry to lap the room one more time.

The moment he ran by her, she doused him with blood. Although the bird’s flames immediately died out with the help of the crimson liquid, the flames he’d set throughout the room were already spreading. She shuffled about, ignoring the burning pain on her arms as best as she could.

Using rags, she snuffed out the budding flames as quickly as she could. It was a losing battle until the door suddenly banged open. She’d been too preoccupied to notice the muffled shouts outside her door.

“WHAT IN THE…” Aizan’s voice boomed into the room. Aya jerked in reaction but didn’t turn to acknowledge his presence. Flames needed to be put out and her brain was already at its maximum processing capacity. She couldn’t add angry Aizan into the mix just yet.

Aya heard shouts, hurried steps and frantic voices. In less than a minute, there was a regular army of librarian firefighters in the small room, but she kept her attention focused solely on the flames ahead of her. She was in too much pain to consider anything beyond the task at hand.

Fortunately, with the abundant help of enlisted librarians, the flames were put out before too much damage could be made. Unfortunately, the lack of a problem to be busy with gave her a new problem: Aizan.

“Explanation,” he growled. “Now!”

The remaining librarians didn’t need any further motivation to scurry out of the room, abandoning her to the wiry man’s wrath. Her hands fidgeted, aggravating the burns on them.

“I’m…” she began. “Sorry,” she concluded, not sure what else there was that she could say.

“You better be!” he shouted, a thick vein throbbing on his neck. “I demand an explanation, not an apology! What happened in here and why is Junior Ta nowhere to be found?”

Aya parted her lips, trying to come up with something, anything, but the words simply wouldn’t come.

“I don’t know,” she said, partly because she didn’t know what to say and partly because it was true.

The notifications were distracting her, disrupting her already slow, thought process and she scrolled through them while Aizan eyed her skeptically. He surveyed the room.

“Alright… Let’s keep things simple,” he said, rubbing his temple. “Where did the fire come from?”

After the fire had been put out, he had calmed considerably, but definitely not enough to forget it had ever happened in the first place.

“Hen… The LayHen was on fire and… before I could put it out it…” she motioned helplessly around the room.

“… And how did the it catch fire? Scrolls don’t just spontaneously combust…”

Aya was almost through the notifications when she came across one that was longer than the usual damage notifications.

Manic Achievement!

You have successfully freed a manic creature from corruption.

It was followed by others.

WARNING: Your manic tree is not yet able to support a second creature.

Do you wish to forfeit your own?

Yes | No

WARNING: Giving a manic creature a forfeited spot will permanently decrease its manic powers by 15%.

Trying to process the meaning of the notifications, she scrolled through the rest to make sure she wasn’t missing something that gave a clearer explanation. In her distraction, she did not notice Aizan bend down to pick up a singed scrap of paper.

Aya didn’t know what to do; she had no idea if replacing her manic creature was the right thing to do or not. She didn’t even know how one was different from another. And if they were, she didn’t know if hers was stronger than the one she had apparently just released. The thought of percentage losses brought Donovan to her mind. He would definitely not approve of a loss of that magnitude. But could it be worth it? Was the new manic creature special because she’d released it or were all manic creatures like that?

“Where did you find this!?” Aizan’s voice suddenly broke into her thoughts. The impatience leaking from it, suggested he had already posed the question more than once.

“Find wh—” her eyes landed on the scrap of paper he was holding up. It was the right incomplete half of the no-longer-glowing scroll. “Oh. That.”

The left half had probably disintegrated into ashes but that probably wasn’t something Aizan needed to know.

“Yes. This,” he said, annoyance leaking from his tone. “Speak. Was this in here?”

“…Yes.”

“Do you know what it is?”

She wondered if she should lie.

“Not really…” she said, deciding to skirt the truth.

Aizan’s eyes scanned the room once more until they landed on the ground. Aya cringed when she realized they had locked onto her discarded notes. He carefully picked them up and after looking it over, his eyes widened in astonishment. His head swung her way and he said, “Where did… Is this… Did you…?”

He took a deep breath and straightened his back before starting over.

“This is your handwriting,” he said, holding the up the first draft of her right circle.

She nodded, it was a little burned but it was undeniable that the handwriting was hers.

“You can see this?” he asked.

Aya scrunched her brow in confusion

“Well… yes?” she asked, wondering what he was getting at.

“Where did you learn the Forgotten Language?”

“…Here,” she answered.

“When?”

“…Today.”

“How?!” Aizan asked in a raised voice.

“I…” she began. She could see that her answers were annoying him but she was being honest and decided to continue that way since she was in no condition to come up with anything convincing. “…guessed?” she finished, shrugging.

He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Alright,” he began after a moment. “From the beginning. Explain what happened here today.” He moved his hands around frantically. “Does the Forgotten Language have anything to do with it?” he asked. “Was it a failed contract?”

“I… don’t really know.”

The librarian looked at her, really looked at her, like he was evaluating every aspect of her being. She wanted to step back from his penetrating gaze but the shelves were already right behind her.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You can tell me. If you do… and are completely honest with me, I might be willing to overlook this…” he jerked his head to the side in an all-encompassing gesture. The smell of smoke still hung thickly in the air, making his meaning unmistakable.

“Well…” she began. It never ceased to amaze her how even the slightest connection all of these ‘Forgotten’ things immediately changed the librarians’ attitudes towards her. Unfortunately, the time had come where she needed to use its leverage. It might be the only way she could save her standing in the game. “I was doing the transcribing…” she continued. “Like you told me to…” she stressed, making sure he remembered the only part of the account that involved her actually following instructions.

He nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“Well,” she said, unable to stop fidgeting. “Then I came across this scroll that sort of glowed…” Unconsciously, her eyes darted to the high shelf it had been on.

When her eyes returned to Aizan, he already looked like he wanted to ask something. She paused to let him speak, but he shook her head and gestured for her to continue.

“Anyway… There were these runes in it…” she began again and then proceeded to tell him the whole story, including a detailed account of her process. His eyes lit up at the subject and she obliged with as much information as she could on the matter.

The only thing she left out was how she’d fooled Junior Ta into thinking she had done her work. She also didn’t mention he was probably at the prison on a wild goose chase she had invented.

By the time she finished, Aizan looked ready to burst, a very unexpected look on the stoic librarian she had come to know.

“That’s… impressive, to say the least,” he said.

“Imp— Oh,” she said. She’d expected something along the lines of chastisement for insubordination or perhaps, reprimand for her destruction of precious library property; praise hadn’t even been considered.

“If it’s true, anyway,” he added, deflating her bubble a bit. “There are a few parts of your account that do not add up.”

“… What parts?” Aya asked, gritting her teeth. She’d decided to be completely honest so it bothered her a little that he was doubting her.

“From what you have said… you only learned the scribe skill today,”

She nodded, not sure at what he was getting at.

Aizan tilted his head and crossed his arms, the universal body language for ‘I don’t believe you’.

“That in itself is an impressive feat,” he said. “but it should still be impossible for you to even see the Forgotten Language. Only those who have mastered the scribe skill can. It takes years to master it; only a handful of even the most Senior Librarians have.”

Aya gave him a confused look, hoping he would explain himself. She’d definitely seen it but since ‘slow’ was still in the description of her skill mastery, she doubted she fulfilled the requirement.

“But I can see it…” she added. “I saw them before, when I got my manic creature.”

He stilled at her words.

“You… got your manic creature… here?” He pointed at the ground. “Today?” he asked with emphasis.

“Yeah,” she answered, shrugging and not understanding what that meant.

“Oh. Well…” he said with a pensive look. “That changes things,” he mumbled.

“How?” she asked.

“It’s possible that you— Well, it’s rare… but not unheard of…”

Aya nodded, urging him on. Now it was he who was irritating her with his roundabout answer.

“Your manic creature could have been a Corrupted librarian, before it was freed from Corruption.”

“A librarian?” she asked in confusion.

“Well, anyone with the scribe skill really. If he, she or it possessed the skill before Corruption, there might be enough remnants of it to allow you to see the Forgotten Language,” Aizan walked to the fallen desk as he continued his explanation. “But seeing as you got yours here, in the library, it is, more likely than not, a previous librarian. Manic creatures are known to imprint on things from their previous existence, at least for a while. The stronger the manic creature, the longer it… remembers.”

Aya considered his words for a moment and headed over to help him rearrange the desk. Her wounds were well on their way to healing and over half of her health points had already recharged.

“Wait,” she said, suddenly understanding. “You’re saying all manic creatures were once… Corrupted Creatures?”

They settled the desk in its rightful place before he leaned back to look at her.

“Yes, of course!… Didn’t you know that?” he asked in shocked amazement. “All creatures were Corrupted at one point. Do you not know the history of Era? Why Outworlders like you are even here today?”

“To close the… gates?”

He eyed her skeptically until he once again pinched the bridge of his nose. Aizan held up her bundle of discarded notes and regarded them with indecisiveness. Eventually, he sighed and turned to her.

“Come here,” he said, beckoning her towards him as he picked up one of the far-flung quills, an inkpot and a scrap of paper. “It is time you had a history lesson.”

Aya approached Aizan and watched as he dipped the quill in ink.

Henry watched as the two creatures in the room converged, but seeing as they had nothing to do with him and his wounds from the evil one’s machinations still bothered him, he settled down out of the way, where they could not disturb him.

With a practiced hand, Aizan began drawing while he spoke.

“Thousands of years ago, there was only chaos…” he said while his quill drew a perfect black circle. Aizan set his quill aside but continued speaking, “Only Corruption could thrive in that darkened chaos… That is, until one managed to break free…”

Aya’s jaw dropped in amazement when a small dot of white appear in the middle of the black circle. Aizan hadn’t touched it, but it suddenly had a life of its own.

“This happened in the Forgotten Realm, where Corruption is stronger than anything. No one knows how the Forgotten One managed to defeat it but, after he did, he helped others break free as well…”

More small dots appeared inside the black circle and moved toward the first one as it grew in size.

“Corruption fought back, though…”

The white circle quivered inside the black mass.

“And the freed ones began returning to their original state. It was a losing battle and they didn’t stand a chance in the face of Corruption…” Aya found herself entranced in the story, eyes riveted to the page, hoping the diminishing white circle managed to survive somehow.

“Seeing that they were about to lose, the Forgotten One sacrificed himself so the rest could have a chance to live…”

A hole suddenly formed inside the white circle and the page itself folded in half. Another hole appeared where the first one met the folded page.

“His sacrifice allowed the freed ones to escape to another realm… this realm. Era.”

The white circle moved through the hole into the other side of the page, where a smaller black circle waited.

“Corruption also reigned here, but not as strong as in the Forgotten Realm and, with time, they managed to defeat it…”

The white circle slowly grew and consumed the small black one.

“They are the Gatekeepers, but they only became known as such when the Corruption of the Forgotten Realm came after them…”

The page turned again, revealing that the big black mass was still after them, encroaching on the hole in the page.

“The Forgotten One’s death had given them the Forgotten Language, which in turn gave them the power to lock the passage to their realm. Unfortunately, time and their new struggle against Era’s Corruption made them forgetful…”

Aizan paused dramatically.

“By this time, Era had already been liberated from Corruption and the Gatekeepers were revered… That is, until the Corruption of the Forgotten Realm came after them…

The black mass reached the hole.

“They were able to shore up the Forgotten One’s gate just in time to stop the Corruption from infiltrating Era… But it was already too late. The Forgotten Corruption had gotten close enough to lock onto the Gatekeepers’ ties to the Forgotten Realm…”

Aya watched the ink carefully, wondering what would happen next.

“Focusing all their attention on the Primus Gate, the Gatekeepers didn’t notice, at first, how the Forgotten Corruption was ripping new crevices to connect the realms. It used the Gatekeepers to guide the new passages. The Gatekeepers couldn’t escape the fact that they were originally from the Forgotten Realm and while they shored up the Primus Gate, all the other fissures started cracking open. By the time they realized it, there was a hole for each Gatekeeper…”

Seven more holes appeared on the page between the realms.

“At first there were only seven, but when each one tried to hold a fissure closed, they realized it was impossible… At least not without the help of the other six… Being unable to be in all seven places at once, they each broke apart to form seven pieces of themselves. Each piece was smaller, and less powerful, but the number seven was powerful in itself. It reflected the number that had defeated the Forgotten Corruption once before…”

The white circle broke into seven circles which then also broke into seven more.

“Forty-nine of them stemmed from the initial seven and they broke apart no more. They knew each added fragment would give an additional tie to the Forgotten Realm. Instead of continuing to break apart forever they enlisted the beings they had freed in Era…”

He paused, allowing for the tension to settle.

“Drawing on the power of all Erans, they were able to keep the Corruption at bay for hundreds of years but… Time forgets and that is how we find ourselves in our current predicament.”

“But why do you need Outworlders? Wouldn’t it be easier to just… remind people?”

“That it would but… There is tension between the Gatekeepers and Erans. They, that is we, have never known Corruption ourselves. Erans do not remember the time before the Gatekeepers and since it is only the Gatekeepers who live long enough to remember… many blame them for bringing the Corruption to us.”

Aya pursed her lips in consideration, wondering why Hawthorne hadn’t mentioned any of this.

“The Gatekeepers in turn deem them ungrateful and are unwilling to bend to their will. Especially when they are forced to justify the fact that Dayus caused all this to begin with. If one of their ranks had not succumbed to Corruption in the first place… We wouldn’t be in this situation… In the end, it all comes down to the sides no longer trusting each other. And one of the main reasons for that is how the Gatekeepers now refuse to share any more knowledge with Erans…”

“OH!” Aya said, sensing the way things were coming together. “Forgotten Knowledge?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Exactly. It’s what allows balance to exist in the first place. But it’s also what Dayus used to free Corruption and they are now scared of the knowledge landing in the wrong hands… so all the Knowledge we have is what we have been able to keep through the ages…”

The page with the illustrations fell back to the table devoid of ink, holes or any other sign of use. Aya was momentarily distracted, but Aizan continued speaking.

“All of the contracts used today are drafted by librarians and scholars who can use the Scribe skill. Unfortunately, there aren’t as many of us as there used to be. The scarcity has driven up the value of contracts which in turn has facilitated the spread of Corruption as people choose to go without.”

Aya thought of the contract she had made with Hawthorne, her Gatekeeper, and wondered if it too was written in the Forgotten Language.

“But today, you have achieved something truly remarkable!” Aizan said. “You have recovered the Knowledge of purification!”

“It was lost?”

“Oh no! We recovered it years ago, but it doesn’t make your feat any less impressive. To manage to do work it out yourself… Without any previous instruction… Is truly remarkable.”

Aizan was greedily going through her notes and she was afraid of reminding him of her situation, but wanted to take advantage of his good mood as much as she could.

“So, what now?” she ventured. “Should I go back to transcribing?”

“What!?” he said, frowning. “Of course not! Don’t be absurd! I could never let you go back to work in here!”

Henry cackled at the man’s sudden change of tone. A lump lodged itself in Aya’s throat.

“Now that we know you can read the Forgotten Language, you will be working in the Vault with the rest of the Seniors! We mustn’t let your abilities go to waste!”

“Unfortunately,” Aizan added with a warning tone, once more putting Aya on edge. “I am not at liberty to release you from your sentence. You will use the remaining time to walk us through your findings here today… This method of yours is unorthodox to say the least… Imagine all that we could accomplish!”

There was a pause, which Aya didn’t know how to fill. It seemed to clear Aizan’s head, because the excitement in his voice was replaced by his usual stoic gravity.

“Later, we can discuss what a fair recompense for your work should be.”

His words made her realize that she’d actually gained leverage in the situation. His subsequent words took it away but she decided not to fight it. She didn’t have enough information to know exactly how valuable she had become and work in this “Vault” should enlighten her. Aya hid a smile; the librarian thought he was getting the better of her but really he was just bettering her chances for the future.

“Alright,” Aya said. “But first, I have a few questions.”

Aya watched Aizan’s features pinch uncomfortably before he said, “Of course.”

“You mentioned how Manic Creatures are created… Purification and all that, but why did you say mine was rare?”

Her words relieved his features.

“When a person is Corrupted, the chaotic nature of the Corruptive force drives the person’s Manic Creatures to break free,” he said, avidly latching onto the change of topic. “We know of only one way to prevent this, and that is to capture the Corrupted person before its Corrupted Creatures have managed to break away.”

Aya considered his words before saying, “So… the Manic Creature I freed today… Could have previously been a person!?”

“Well, yes and no,” Aizan said. “The moment a person is Corrupted, they are no longer a person. They become a breeding pot of Corruption and that is it. Don’t ever forget that.”

A pained look crossed his features before he continued.

“The reason yours is so rare is because it possessed enough remnants of the Forgotten Knowledge to guide you,” he said. “For that to be the case… it was probably a very ancient manic creature, which in turn is also very rare. Manic Creatures forget with time what they were in a previous ‘life’. For yours to remember, it must have been truly powerful at a certain time.”

“So not all manic creatures are the same?” Aya asked, unable to withhold the excitement from her voice.

“Of course not,” he noticed her excitement and added. “Don’t fool yourself, there is very little chance your manic creature has much power left in it at all. While it’s true that the Manic Creatures released from people with multiple Manic Creatures are stronger… that is only true for a time.”

Aya deflated, remembering the ‘ancient’ aspect Aizan had attached to her manic creature.

“Usually it only takes days, sometimes months if the Manic Creature is particularly obstinate, but with time, the Manic Creatures the person accumulated in their life detach themselves… Eventually there will only be one Manic Creature left. The inherent one from the Corrupted person, the one they were initially born with at its weakest level… it will be no stronger than the rest…”

Aya couldn’t help sulking a bit.

“It’s a balancing process,” he added. “If it didn’t happen this way… Manic Creatures would just keep bundling together until eventually there was one massively powerful Manic Creature Left.” He watched her dejection with a hint of amusement. “Do not worry child, Manic Creatures get stronger when you use them… Yours too will grow. You should be appreciative of what it has brought you instead. The Forgotten Language… That is a prize many would kill for. Be thankful your Manic Creature chose you.”

“Chose me?” Aya asked, remembering the notification. “I thought they just went for whatever was acceptable.”

Aizan shook his head.

“While it is true that Manic Creatures are inherently looking for a host, until they attach themselves to your Inner Tree they are their own being with… not personalities per se, but definitely… natures. Usually, they are remnants of their previous lives. The Manic Creatures of Librarians often hang around libraries… the Manic Creatures of LayHens…” he gestured at the once again forgotten Henry. “Usually chose to stick around their breeding grounds and so forth…”

Aya nodded slowly.

“Yours is special in the sense that it took so long to find a Host. An ancient creature like that should already have chosen its Host centuries ago. Very few are so… picky.”

Aya considered his words and looked at the notification window she still hadn’t closed.

“What about the Manic Creature I just… freed?” she asked.

“Oh! Of course, how could I forget!? You must accept it! We must find out what nature it has. That way we might be able to work out who or what it belonged to in its Corrupted state!” Aizan said in excitement.

“Nature?” Aya asked.

“Yes, yes. All Manic Creatures have a certain affinity. Some excel at fire magic, others at water magic, others at earth and so on and so forth. Yours, for example, is probably of a neutral nature, meaning it isn’t particularly strong at any kind of spell but then it also doesn’t have any particular weaknesses…”

Her head was beginning to hurt with the amount of information being lobbed at her but instead of pursuing the tangent he offered, she stayed on the topic of the new Manic Creature.

“I can’t take it though, my… Inner Tree isn’t strong enough yet to support another.”

“Your… oh, of course,” Aizan said with a sigh. “You Outworlders are so weak when you arrive. You’re like toddlers…” he eyed her up and down as if taking her age into consideration for the first time. “Not that you’re that grown to begin with.”

Aya gave him a flat stare, waiting for him to answer her question. He caught the hint.

“Well… The choice is entirely up to you. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend giving up your current Manic Creature. There are drawbacks and considering it gives you the ability to read the Forgotten Language… it would be quite… obtuse of you to release it in favor of the freed one…”

The choice might be hers but he was making his opinion quite clear.

“You should have a day to make your decision before the Manic Creature is free to roam again. Freeing it only gives you ‘rights’ to it for that long.”

“Where will it go?” Aya asked, wondering if she could level up her Tree and go back to retrieve it at some point. “Will it stay in the library as well?”

“It is possible, but it depends entirely on what it was before it became Corrupted.”

Aya tabbed the notification window. She decided to keep her Manic Creature but she wouldn’t give up on the Freed one until she absolutely had to. There was still a whole day before it left and she might be able to grow her Inner Tree enough until then. Doubtful, but possible. She hoped.

A moment of silent reigned before Aya noticed Aizan’s expectant gaze.

“Well?” he asked.

“What?”

“Well, are you going to keep it?”

“Oh,” Aya said. “Yea, I’m keeping the… ancient one.”

“That was the correct choice,” he said, bundling her notes together. “It’s a shame we won’t find out the circumstances behind the scroll you found. Not without knowing the nature of the Manic Creature… but there is more important work to be done. Now, come along,” he said heading toward the door.

Aya quickly gathered her things, the forgotten Henry amongst them. She found her notebook discarded on the ground, close to her pack. Hiding it amongst her things, she breathed out in relief, realizing how close he had come to seeing it. She doubted he’d be leading her to the Vault if he found out she was effectively stealing library information.

At first, Henry refused to follow them out the room, but a couple Manic zaps encouraged him to behave. After the damage of the blast, she almost felt bad for the bird. The notifications had pretty much proven that without him to take part of the damage, she would have died. And if she’d died, she would have had to wait a whole real-life day before entering the game again. Perhaps his attitude toward her would change if she changed her own. He gave her a look she could only interpret as a glare. Perhaps not.

Once they left the room, Aizan told her about her new assignment as he led her down the hallway. They had just rounded the first corner when they ran into a panting, disheveled and splotchy faced Junior Ta.

“I heard… there… was a… fire!” he gasped between breaths. His eyes darted between Aizan, Aya and Henry in confusion.

Aizan frowned momentarily, the subject of the fire long forgotten.

“Ah, yes…” he said. “Of course. That’s been resolved. There is no need for you to concern yourself with Acolyte… Aya was it?” he asked looking at her for confirmation. She nodded, worried about how the Junior would perceive her sudden surge in rank. “Any longer. She will be in my care from now on. Now, if you could please return to the processing room and finish setting it to rights…” Aizan considered the Junior. “In the future, I would recommend you actually carry out the tasks that are assigned to you…”

Junior Ta looked at Aya, opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, and closed it again.

“Now if you would please…” Aizan said, motioning at the hallway behind them.

The Junior looked like he wanted to ask something, but instead closed his mouth, eyes tightening as he walked past them.

Aya looked back at the Junior. She felt bad, but Aizan was already walking away. She hurried to catch up to him.

“This section of the library is reserved for Seniors only,” he said opening a large set of doors off the hallway. “This is where the Vault and all of our accumulated Forgotten Knowledge rests…”

Aya felt a shiver of apprehension run down her back. Feeling watched, she looked back toward the Junior again to find him glaring at her. She swallowed. Before she could muster an apologetic look, he scuttled out of sight.

“Well, I guess that answers the question of where my Junior librarian went off to,” Aizan spoke up behind her, commenting on the Junior’s sudden departure. “I guess that only leaves one more thing,” he said. “Why does your LayHen look like it was doused in blood?”