{-Myr-}

She was exhausted when they got back to the inn; nothing sounded more appealing to her than curling up in a ball and falling asleep. She barely got any, though, given how quickly Zetai and Reynneak were able to brush it off. They weren’t dragged down by what they felt here—this wasn’t their reality.

They were all gathered in the main room of the inn, but Cahacu didn’t seem to mind.

“The owner has to be somewhere in Anthalas City,” Zetai said. “Since one of our quest rewards is access to a library, it’s probably someone who works there. Does anyone know where that library is?”

They all collectively shook their heads.

“Isralla lives right across the street from here,” Cahacu remarked casually, as if she wasn’t talking to them at all. “It’s the older house, it has a typewriter sitting out on a table in front of it. If anyone’s going to help you get into the library, it’s going to be her.”

“You’re not supposed to be telling us this, are you?” Still, the gratefulness of Reynneak’s tone was clear.

“Call it our little secret,” she responded with a wink. “I don’t have the will of Fininri, being able to keep doing something even after they try to fix it… and if at all possible, I’d like to keep the higher-ups from messing with my code any more than they have to.”

Zetai nodded and gestured for them to get going. “Well, we’re not going to get any more done by standing around here. Let’s try to find Isralla.”

Myr still managed to give the innkeeper a smile and wave before leaving to follow the others; it didn’t feel right to simply leave without expressing a little more of their gratitude.

It wasn’t that hard to find what must’ve been it when they knew what they were looking for. A woman was sitting out by the typewriter, pressing away at the keys like she was angry at it. She was too absorbed in what she was writing to notice them.

“Are you Isralla?” Llewel prompted once they got closer.

That was when she looked up, seeing the four of them and giving them a wide smile. “Ah, my apologies! I was writing an aggressive scene and when I start, it’s practically impossible for me to stop. Yes, I’m Isralla. Is there something that you need?”

Reynneak pulled the [Mysterious Scroll] out of his Inventory and showed it to her. “Is this yours?”

She gently took it and looked through it. “It is! You know, this went missing a couple of weeks ago. I was never able to find it, and unlike most missing things, no players ever came up and returned it! I’d assumed it was lost for good. Where did you find it?”

“Duuzlo had it,” Myr replied. “We brought it with us here but we weren’t given the quest to return it after we saved it from being stolen…”

The calm look on Isralla’s face very clearly contradicted what she actually felt. “Duuzlo probably recognized it and held on to it… he knows the kinds of stuff that can be done with this.” She paused. “Wait, I should thank you for all that you’ve done. Here, take these spare coins I have lying around. Would you like to see the library? I need to go to return this anyway, so I don’t mind bringing you all along with me.”

Zetai shrugged. “We might as well. I think it’s getting a little too late to start anything now anyway.”

“I’ve got classes tomorrow,” Reynneak agreed.

Isralla, much like the twins for every part of the journey so far, pretended to understand. She handed them a bag of coins and motioned for them to follow her.

She led them through the more notable streets into less crowded ones; ones where few players cared to go, since there was nothing for them there. They reached a grand building similar to Emmyth’s temple in Nafrius. She fumbled around with the doorknob, mumbling something about replacing it, before being able to open it.

“Welcome to the Saint’s Library. Please, stay as long as you’d like and look around to see if anything interests you. We’ve got plenty of books for all kinds of knowledge-seekers.”

The sheer vastness of the place, with the countless books that she could see and knowing that there were many more that she couldn’t, was enough to awe Myr. She stayed closer to Llewel, too, unwilling to get lost or to be alone.

“First thing’s first,” Reynneak remarked, “Zetai, give your sword to me. I’m not letting you set this whole place on fire.”

“I wasn't going to set anything on fire!” she protested, all while fulfilling his wish. “Not intentionally!”

Isralla stopped and stared. “What?”

“You don’t need to worry about that part,” Llewel assured her. “She just has a record of doing stupid stuff, but we’ll keep her from doing any of that here.”

Though not seeming completely convinced, Isralla slowly nodded. “I’m going to put this scroll away, then I’ll come and find you. That way I’ll be able to answer any questions you might have about the contents of a book or any of the other things here.” After giving them all a wary glance, she walked away.

“So, any guesses on where the actually interesting stuff is?” Zetai prompted, beginning to wander around.

Llewel walked off in a different direction, saying nothing but being the one that everyone else followed. He found an area full of history books—some appearing to be rather old—and looked through them all until he saw the one he was looking for. He carefully took it off the shelf and glanced at Zetai.

As he handed it to her, he said in a completely emotionless tone, “I think you should read this before you start setting more statues on fire.” Myr was able to see the cover; it was the full story of Emmyth's achievements.

“Haha,” Zetai responded sarcastically. “It was one statue.”

Reynneak took the initiative, though, and pulled down an identical book from another shelf. He skimmed through the pages, though there couldn’t have been much on them. Books meant for the players were always short.

Isralla returned and couldn’t hide a bit of relief to see that they hadn’t done any harm. “The scroll should be in a safe and secure place now. Have you found anything interesting while I was gone?”

“This says that Emmyth had a love,” Reynneak pointed out, showing her the specific lines. “Did they have kids, too?”

Llewel muffled a laugh. “Of course not! We’d know about them if they existed.”

Reynneak, in his attempt to understand, only made it worse. “Did she die young, then?”

“She lived longer than he did,” Myr said. “It was because of people like her that we remember Emmyth as the one that helped the world instead of just a faceless stranger—he disappeared too quickly after helping for anyone else to really know him.”

“Usually there’s two reasons lovers are put into games,” he explained, at this point hoping to get them to understand as much as understanding it himself. “They either have kids later, or it’s all a part of a tragic backstory where one of them dies. There’s very rarely anything in between that.”

Isralla took a moment to look over the book herself before giving an actual answer. “Selanar, the shopkeeper in Anseshara, speaks of Emmyth’s descendants. Time and time again they’ve tried to fix him—it’s a bug, apparently, or at least that’s what they tell the players—but it doesn’t work. He still keeps proclaiming that Emmyth’s descendants are real and that they’re here to help us all again, since his sacrifice is beginning to wear off.” She shrugged. “So, I suppose, it’s all up to you. All logic points towards them not existing, but there are some things that just can’t be explained without them. Even the few of us closest to the codes aren’t certain.”

Zetai glanced at the twins. “I guess it isn’t that impossible of a thing to believe, after what ended up happening in the cave.” She decided to move on from the subject completely, instead turning to Isralla and asking, “How do you know all those NPCs, anyway? Have you left Anthalas City?”

“Oh, of course not,” she replied. “I’ve always been here, offering the knowledge provided in this library and helping others understand it. A lot of us are coded to know and write to each other; innkeepers, shopkeepers, and knowledge-givers like Duuzlo and myself are responsible for keeping track of things here. We have to be familiar with each other before we can efficiently collect information, after all.”

“You send information to the developers, then?” Llewel asked. There was clearly something going through his head and Myr wished she knew what it was.

Isralla nodded. “Every week or so, they stop by to hear what we’ve heard and seen from the players. They always know how to choose the worst time to show up, too.”

“Would you know anything about someone named Zuradu trying to find us?”

Her immediate silence was enough of an answer. She pretended like it wasn’t, though, and put on a bright smile to say, “Nope! Never heard the name. Now, didn’t you say it was getting a little late? Why don’t you head back to the inn?”