The next stop of the moving platform was the third floor. The third through sixth floors were taken up in what the Magus called 'his library'. There had been previous mention of a massive compilation of books, and while Orja knew what a book was (a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers), he had never seen one before.

The library did not disappoint. The three levels that held Hajdu's collection were combined into one over-sized room. The circular walls of the tower were lined with a vast array of reading materials. While there were, of course, books by the hundreds (or maybe thousands), there was also a collection of more esoteric materials. The Each floor of shelving had a walkway running a ring around it, connected to the other levels by stairways. One wall on the fourth floor was taken up with cylindrical tubes that the Magus identified as scroll tubes. There were bronze plates, stone carvings, tapestries covered in hundreds of images. The sensory input from attempting to absorb his surroundings almost caused Orja to lose control, his internal processes intensifying to collate and catalog every image and design. Instead, the gem decided to focus on the rest of the room.

The platform's tunnel formed a pillar in the middle of the grand room, with multiple doors connected to the rows of books by free-standing walkways. Aside from that, the ceiling soared above them, the floors of most of the fourth and fifth levels removed to give the library a grander, more open-air feel. Between shelves were massive windows, floor to ceiling. They were slightly opaque, letting in light but little in the way of a clear picture of the surrounding area. It made better sense to Oriandus now why the first stop on the tour had been the roof. It sense only conveyed the correct sense of scale as to the size of the building, but it also quelled his curiosity of the outside world for the time being.

On the bottom level of the library there were multiple desks, tables and chairs. These ranged from simple wooden sets for the desks to overstuffed numbers set away from the rest, most likely for secluded reading. The amount of seating did not make sense to Orja, conflicting with the scenario he'd built in his mindspace of his current situation.

“There would appear to be far more seating than is needed for one person,” the gemstone said.

Oriandus snorted, waving dismissively at the furniture. “I once had plans for a school.” With a sigh, he ran his fingers across one of the tables. “I thought that once I had become a great Magus I'd have my pick of talents from across the world.” The bearded man looked up to Orja, a bitter smile across his features. “Life doesn't work out that way, though, does it?”

Orja felt a kinship with his creator. He didn't know why, but there was a universal element to his sentiment that struck a mental chord in the gemstone. Again, self knowledge and indecision tormented him. What sort of pers...Core was he going to be? He had few mental defaults, no childhood memories to rely on. His choices about the future would have to be made fully consciously, no excuses. He needed a firm foundation for judgment. More than that, he needed wisdom. Was this the sort of world that would allow kindness, or would he become as cold and unyielding as the crystalline matrix that composed his body? For now, he needed to probe.

“What happened?”

Oriandus raised his hand and brought the knuckles down hard on the table. The dull thud reverberated throughout room. The Magus exhaled slowly, looking down. He wasn't lost in his memories like before, but there was something from them that he could see clearly.

“What always happens in this twice-blighted land when someone tries to change things,” his voice was seething, the anger almost palpable, “The guilds protected the power they'd coerced and murdered to obtain. They couldn't attack me directly, I was too powerful even back then, so they went after my reputation. I was blamed for everything from bad harvests to miscarriage. They paid for plays to be acted out for the commoners, making me out to be some kind of demon king out to enslave their souls, held at bay by their combined might.” He grunted contemptuously, “As if those half-trained children could have been a threat to me even then. It did the job, though. In the span of a generation they managed to close the hearts of the people to me.” Oriandus looked up at the ceiling and, against his creation's expectations, began to laugh. It was high pitched, with an edge that the gemstone tentatively identified as hysteria.

“Would you like to know the best part?” Oriandus asked. He continued without waiting for a response, “I should have realized. I thought that, since they weren't allies, I'd be able to work myself in with little trouble. I didn't look at the historical precedent. Every time someone has tried to intrude on their choke-hold on power, they close ranks against them. All I did was make a target that allowed them to focus all of their energies on it instead of the little power games they normally contented themselves with.”

Silence reigned as that story sunk in. It filled in many cultural clues for Orja, as well as add to his attempt at understanding the reasoning of creating a being such as him in the first place. Oriandus Hajdu, for all of his power, was left with no recourse other than to create a student. It was a sobering thought when considered in relation to Orja's place in the world. He was the creation of someone who was considered such a threat that a decade spanning hate campaign had been focused on keeping him from opening a school. Again, there was something niggling at Orja's conscience. It wasn't an emotion, however. There was an aspect of his creator's story that conflicted with previous observations. Orja replayed his encounter mentally up until this point until he located it.

“The spans of time you have mentioned conflict with your physical appearance,” he noted, “You would have had to start at an implausibly young age to accomplish the list of achievements you presented upon first communication with me, the creation of Cloudrise, and be a victim of a generation-long negative publicity campaign.” Orja was actually rather proud he noticed. The knowledge of human aging he had, while mostly focusing on internal effects like bone density loss and dementia, did have a list of visual confirmation points pertaining to age. That was how he had pegged (idiom meaning: to fit in one's proper place, to make an accurate guess) the Magus' age in the first place.

The bearded Grandmaster raised an eyebrow, giving his subordinate a sideways glance. “In your professional experience, then, Master Rock, how old do I look?” Extra emphasis was put on the word 'rock'. The tone of voice Oriandus had decided to use put the gemstone on immediate guard. Somehow his creator's mood had shifted once again. A casual question had made him defensive.

Orja's thoughts corralled knowledge on emotional states. For a being that wasn't really supposed to feel anything outside of hate, he had a breadth of information about expressions, body language, and tone. Grains of fact were mixed together until they presented a complete image that Orja could be comfortable with.

Asking someone's age was a taboo. He had to assume this was because all lifeforms had a fixed span of life. Asking would, then, be a reminder of the inevitability of death. Emotionally troubling, especially when one had suffered the loss of people important to them in the past. The term Orja's mental database presented him with was Survivor's Guilt. A few of Hajdu's previous statements went a long way to suggesting a kind of internal strife built upon negative memories. The gemstone would need to proceed with caution and stick to vague answers.

“I am unfamiliar with the aging process of your kind,” Assuming Oriandus was a human, that wasn't exactly true, but once again Orja felt the need to keep the breadth of his information to himself. “However, all physical indicators suggest you being a young adult example of your race.”

The bearded Magus chuckled softly. “I suppose I can take that as a compliment,” with a grin, he spread his arms, “I'm sixty seven, as of four weeks ago.”

“Congratulations at keeping such a youthful appearance.” Something about that statement caused Oriandus to laugh. Unlike previously, this was a softer, gentler sound. This laugh Orja associated more with a mild amusement than the near-hysteria from before. This was fed into the internal collection of reactions and emotional states that Orja had seen from his Master up until this point, and concluded it was a good change, from previously. This boded well for the gemstone.

“I cheat.” Oriandus shook his head self-consciously. “Of course, you won't be able to understand how until I actually teach you something, so how about we get down to business? I don't know about you, but I've had quite enough of treading over past mistakes.”

Orja would have smiled internally if he was capable. Social interaction was perfectly acceptable, but somehow, to him, it felt criminal to be in such an impressive library without at least attempting to learn anything. The conversation his master had engaged with him up until this point had lead to a long list of questions he was looking forward to getting the answers to.

“By your will.”