So. Thanks everyone for reading. I'm not veru sure about this chapter so some critics would be appreciated.

This one is from Sam's perspective. It's probably obvious but if somebody didn't got that wel...

I hope you enjoy it.

The golems stood up in synch with a metallic and sharp noise that sounded like death. The lights of the library shone over the skin of the statues stealing gleaming flashes on its surface that joined with the changing lights coming from the gemstones growing along their bodies.

As the library came back to life dozens of artifacts started buzzing around with little tunes and glowing signs as if they were welcoming their long gone occupants. The golems moved, a single step forward that shock through the stones like a thunder strike in a silent valley.

They performed a perfect choreography one step at a time. As one they brandished their spears and moved slowly to the center of the library where I was. I gulped staring at the display before summoning the crossbow even when I knew I couldn’t figure out what it could do against stone.

Adam on its part was running back to the center of the room, crossbow in hand too.

“What do we do?” I asked passing my hands over the table.

He, in its quite normal mode ‘can’t talk I’m thinking very quickly’, choose to answer only by throwing a table to the ground followed by a second one, turning them so they were facing the golems.

I caught on quickly, helping throw the rest of the tables and making an improvised barricade between the golems and us. In a moment we were down on the ground covered behind the tables and watching the golems move.

They were slow, but perfect, not leaving any hole in their formation as they walked the distance between the walls and the center of the library passing through bookshelves without disturbing its contents.

I watched Adam as his expression shifted from something close to being afraid to being very afraid. For a minute I waited hoping he would answer me, but he showed no signs of having heard me in the first place or being aware I was there.

Finally he roused himself over the table looking around and asked. “They are magical beings, right?”

I blinked looking back at them over the tables. “They are moving stone statues. I imagine there is magic behind them, yes.”

He nodded gripping hard the table surface and going down. “It’s the same thing as with the tree, we have to attack the magic that animates it. The wolf horns or your arrows should work on them.”

“Adam, that…” I paled visibly not daring to finish the sentence for a moment. “The tree was soft enough to pierce it, but we can’t pierce stone.”

He nodded quickly as if he had been expecting that answer. The golems were closer, moving at the same speed, not fast, not slow. Just at the same pace, almost as if they couldn’t bother with us trying to escape. Not that it mattered, the doors were closed and escape of the library was impossible. I glanced up seeing for the first time the celling illuminated with thousands of stars.

“Can’t you use magic?”

Adam sighed turning to look at me. “I could grow the wood into something, but there is barely any life mana here?”

“Why is that?” I screamed a bit louder than I meant to while cursing inside.

“Because we are the only things alive that had been inside here for a long time Sam!” he yelled back.

I sighed moving my hands nervously trying to come with an answer. Then something in a higher level of the library glowed.

“What about the upper levels?” I asked.

Adam glanced up the other levels of the towers. “Good idea. Have you seen a stairway?”

My eyes darted faster than ever trying to find it. We have not seen it at the beginning for the darkness in the room, but now that wasn’t a problem with all the lights on. There were hundreds of bookshelves cluttering the way, making it difficult to see where-

“There,” I pointed to a stairway camouflaged within a set of bookshelves.

Adam took a moment to observe the way. It was dangerously close to some of the golems who despite their slow movement were halfway closer now. If we started to run now we could get to there in time, but it was going to be a close call.

He jumped over the tables. “Now or never.”

And we ran as fast as we could towards the stairs. The golems didn’t change speed, they just changed direction enough to keep moving in our direction. It made me nervous, as if they didn’t care that we were running.

The stairs appeared when two of the golems were close enough to barely reach us, and we flew up giving our last sprint in hopes that the stairs would make it difficult for them. It’ didn’t. As we reached the end of the stairs to the second floor another statue jumped from the wall just at the way out.

Adam stopped completely reaching with his arm to make me do the same. A heavy metallic sound came from below the stairs and I gulped. One of the golems was at the other end of the stairs. We retroceded inside the stairs waiting in the middle as the sharp noises repeated and the golems surrounded us both ways.

I launched rapid looks to Adam waiting to see a gleam of hope, but there was nothing. The moment one of the golems was visible for our position I aimed the crossbow and fired a black arrow praying for the best. As expected it bounced off the rock directly without doing any damage whatsoever.

The statues stopped just a few steps from us aiming their weapons slowly. I grabbed Adam’s hand with mine trying to transmit something. I’m not sure what, a goodbye, a silent wish, a last moment of warmth, and closed my eyes.

Then the golems stopped completely. The lights in the library dimmed down until we were back in darkness. I glanced at Adam smiling stupidly, not believing what just happened.

“What?” he asked confusion creeping from his tone.

He touched the statue with a finger and when nothing happened flew back down the stairs with me following behind him.

“What just happened?” asked Adam to ARC. “Why did the golems stop?”

ARC repeated his sound pattern. “Not enough energy to maintain the golems and the sealing simultaneously. As per the protocol all available mana is used in maintaining the sealing.”

Adam snorted rolling his eyes. “Great. So you just want to make sure the ‘intruders’ don’t escape.”

“Negative. Scanner offline. No intruders detected,” he said.

The message hanged in the air for a moment before both us yelled at the same time. “What?!”

“Scanner offline. No intruders detected,” he repeated.

I glanced back towards the entrance. The shimmering white shield still held in place.

“If there are no intruders why is the sealing still in place?” I asked looking at Adam. “Shouldn’t it deactivate too now that there is no reason?”

Adam nodded slowly while ARC talked again.

“Negative. In case of energy lose the sealing will remain in place until a sorcerer with enough security clearance resets the alarm system.”

I gulped. Adam and I shared a look for a moment.

“Well, that could take a while,” he said with a smirk.

---

The next hours were slow and painful as Adam tried to find a way through the shields, and I spent my time trying to ask ARC how to stop them without actually asking him in case a direct question made the defense golems come back online.

My vision passed slowly over the table drifting quickly from the flashlights dropped in the table. There was something I didn’t want to think about right now, and I was trying to concentrate instead in what the golem was speaking.

It ended being a waste of time as ARC couldn’t or wouldn’t stop the shields without authorization, and I started asking about magic hoping to find an answer there. He repeated his presentation the same way as before until the point where Adam had interrupted him.

“The nine minor affinities or nine elements,” ARC announced projecting the blinking image of nine spheres in the air. “It is believed that the nine elements are a conversion of primal mana. As visible light can be divided in several colors, the nine elements are similarly so born in some way from the primal affinities. Since the only way to acquire one of the primal affinities is as a direct gift from the gods, although that fact is still widely refuted in the studies of the old gods, it is acknowledged that most magic performed in the world is of these nine types. Acquiring one of the nine minor affinities by comparison is a relatively easy task.”

I went up in my chair suddenly very interested. I almost believed I heard it wrong. Having magic was easy? I had to stop myself for asking before the golem kept talking. I played nervously with my hands in the table.

“Over the course of your studies sorcerers will offer opportunities to obtain some of these affinities, but please, remember that although the rituals to obtain an affinity are, in most cases, easy and harmless. Trying to obtain more than one affinity will severely difficult the mastery of them. As a reminder of the rules we hope all students remember that it is prohibited to acquire more than three minor affinities under penalty of expulsion.” There was a brief moment of silence as the golem let the words sink in and then the sphere lighted up in different colors. “The nine elements as named by modern studies are: earth, water, wind, fire, thunder, spirit, decay, ice and blood. By advised that-”

“MELLON!” yelled Adam behind me at the shimmering shields.

But the doors didn’t open. Adam sighed and I snickered a bit more loudly that what I wanted.

“Had to try,” he said smiling and turned to hit the shield another time.

ARC didn’t stop explaining the peculiarities of the elements, but the exposition turned dry very fast when, explaining the element of earth (which lets you control earth, duh) he launched in a wild and long explanation about great geomancers of history, and repeated the pattern with the next element in line.

I found myself half listening to what he was saying and started looking mindlessly at my status screen.

NameSamClassNoneRaceHumanLevel5Physical AttributesMental AttributesSTR:42INT:48DEX:58WIS:77VIT:43CHA:58Luck5

Handicraft Lv. 7

Obtained ability.The ability to manipulate and interact with objects and tools.+25% easier to understand new objects.

-25% probability of making a mistake.

+5% using tools and weapons.

Probabilities improvement based in WIS and DEX.

Efficient runner Lv. 4

Obtained ability.For training your your body to whitstand a costant rythm of life you have obtained a resistance to grow tired.Passive ability.

-15% in stamina depletion.

Mr. Friendly Lv. 3

Obtained ability.Your prone actitude to forgive and forget makes you an easier person to befriend.Passive ability.

+15% easier to make a good impression.

They weren’t very good abilities compared with everyone else, but they were useful, and I got the opportunity to prove that very frequently. In a sense the fact that now I had abilities and attributes was fascinating in and on itself. It was one of the reasons why I spend so much time thinking about the system and all those numbers.

Because, where do those numbers come from? Did the system just had a random value for how much a point of strength was? How could you calculate that 25% less likely to fuck up when crafting things? And luck? Luck was a one of those things I tried not to think too much about because it always ended the same way all time travel arguments ended.

With a headache.

I glanced back as Adam threw a table at the shield and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Alohomora!”

Adam seemed to just go with the flow not trying to freak out too much. He had always been like that since I met him. Just going for it without a care in the world, making jokes so nobody notices he is scared shitless, but that attitude of his seemed to have grown since we grew apart. He had changed.

Either that or the apocalypse was making him freak out much more than normal.

“Spirit and Blood are the most esoteric and dangerous of the nine elements,” said the golem gaining again my attention. “Spirit is intrinsically connected to the ghosts and fading consciousness of those who have died, but their applications to contact other dimensions (like the Void) makes it a dangerous magic.” He said with a strangely deep voice. “Blood it’s the most foul element that exists. Because, although healing applications had been proved useful, its principal use takes shape in the ensnarement and control of minds. None of these two affinities will be shared or recorded in this library. Please, remember that if you have acquired naturally one of these affinities you are forbidden from utilizing them without supervision.”

ARC stopped talking and went black and cold having finished his presentation. There was a happy thought, some day if we survived there would be people trying to control minds. Some days it was almost easy to forget what had happened to the world, and some…

“YES!” screamed Adam suddenly. “Here, yes! No! You stupid idiot... Stop feeling! Okay, okay. Calm, calm, calm…”

He was kneeling on the ground with his head banged against a part of the wall, as if he was listening to some voice only he could hear. For my perspective there was only an uncomfortable silence that I didn’t dare to break. Time passed, Adam didn’t say anything more just moved uncomfortably in the same place.

“Fine,” said Adam with a long sigh and then jumped back with a scream seeing me behind. “Shit. I didn’t hear you.”

“What happened?” I asked giving him my hand to get up.

Adam smiled looking back to the wall before getting up. “The shield was interfering with communion and I couldn’t pick up Knight or John until I got here,” he said pointing to the wall. “They are okay, both of them. At least for what I can pick.”

“Oh, thank god,” I said letting a breath of relief wash over me. I had been trying not to think about them, but they were okay.

“Now we just have to open the door,” he sighed.

My eyes perked up looking at the wall. Aware of something obvious I couldn’t let go without checking it. Why he could only hear through that part of the wall?

“Can you aim the light there?” I asked without bothering to wait for him to comply.

There was nothing that was different in that stone, not to the naked eye at least. My knife was quickly pressed between the slabs. The stone was cold and strong, but it had deteriorated over the years. Something more than mortar had joined the walls, something magical, but not anymore. The magic had faded long ago. With a quick shove the blade did the job, and the stone fell on the ground loudly.

Behind the stone there was more stone and an inlaid triangle made with a silvery metal that joined to other lines of the same material disappearing inside the wall. A huge black stone decorated the interior of the triangle. It was a magic circuit.

“Okay. I wasn’t expecting that,” Adam said dumfounded moving his hand along the circuit before starting to scrap the rest of the wall around it.

In a few moments a big chunk of the tiles around the triangle were down and more parts of the circuit could be seen. It was mostly curved lines moving along its surface, but by the size of it I could imagine the circuit covering the entire library.

I stood there in silence for a second trying to come with words, and turned to look at Adam. “I think I know how to get out of here.”

Adam smiled following me back to ARC. Walking with confidence, with strength in every step as always happened when I started to unveil the borders of a puzzle. The thrill of getting close to an answer kicking in. I found myself back in front of the golem.

“I need something about magic circuits,” I said slowly.

“Sorry. There is no entry for ‘circuits’. Please, repeat your search more clearly,” said ARC pronouncing the word in strange English.

Adam sighed. “He means enchantment,” he said shocking his head and sharing a look with me. “For a second there I thought this tower was a relic from another world. But no. It was Apple all along.”

I snickered. “Nah, this works to well to be from Apple.” I answered turning my head towards the walls. “Although they have problems with the batteries so… Maybe you are right.”

ARC voice boomed again. “Rune crafting or enchantment is the art of creating objects capable of utilizing mana in an autonomous and predetermined way. Although the art itself does not have any requirements to be learned, it is by itself a complex and difficult art than can take many years to master. Please, if you wish to learn more about the art read Rune Crafting I, II, and III.”

“Yes, but where are those books?” asked Adam impatiently.

The golem illuminated brightly and projected a 2D projection of the first floor library with a section colored differently. Adam nodded and gave me a pat in the shoulder.

“I’ll go for them.”

We had work to do and while he went for the books I prepared everything else. I put back a table in place and all the lights I had around to make sure I could read with ease. Adam returned quickly carrying three big books that seemed completely new despite the time they had spent in this library. For someone else the fact that apparently those books hadn’t been used at all could be discouraging, but not for me.

Adam dropped the books on the table with a sigh and looked at me directly. “I think we have to read them the old way. For me they didn’t show the option to absorb the knowledge.”

I blinked already completely forgotten about that function and nodded opening the first book at a random page. “No, me neither.”

Adam sighed passing his hand along the spine of one of the books. “They are too big to read them in a few hours. And-”

He was talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. All my attention was swallowed by the book and its contents. In the first page I opened there was a drawn circle. A very complex circle filled with other figures and lines that crossed and connected in a pattern very similar to a circuit. And along the lines there were sketches and tiny annotations of every type.

In the top engraved in big words there appeared simply the words ‘Rune of Heat’. And the description basically said it produced a constant amount of heat to maintain the temperature of a room.

That was it, a magic heater. And it was awesome. I lose myself between the pages for a moment trying to decipher every little bit until Adam touched my shoulder waking me up.

“Are you okay?” he asked a hint of a smile painting his face.

Cheating emotion reader.

“Yes,” I said almost without breath.

“Okay… Well, we should start-”

I stopped him moving his hands from the books. “Leave it to me. I almost know what this is about from sketching Knight’s spear. I can do it.”

I knew that at the moment I must seemed like if I was crazy and rambling, but I knew I was right. Adam seemed about to say something for a moment, but then something changed. Perhaps he perceived how strong I felt about this, or perhaps there was something else, but I couldn’t care.

I plunged back into the book starting from the beginning and lost myself in it. Even when I heard Adam starting to ask things to ARC I didn’t listen. I couldn’t listen while trying to understand the magic circuits as page by page the mysteries unveiled.

It turned out that magic circuits weren’t very different to actual circuits. Mana flowed in one direction in a similar way to water and everything else according to the laws of thermodynamics, from a point of high density to a point of low until it reached equilibrium.

Every magic circuit had one beginning, a circular frame that enclosed the entire circuit, and was made from some sort of material specific to the mana being used. Silver attracted light; copper, fire… On that part at least I had been right with my theory. I needed special materials.

The other end of the circuit was a triangle holding a material that either absorbed mana or dissipated it. Everything else was secondary, from different types of lines that made the flow faster or slower, to tiny secondary circles that temporarily concentrated mana similar to a capacitor.

The only really unique part of every circuit was a rune, a symbol of some kind. That was the only part of the circuit that actually did something with the mana, and most of the pages of the book were dedicated precisely to this runes.

From some runes that made light, to others that made heat or joined to stones together. There were hundreds of different runes, and according to the book those were just the basic ones, and they could be combined in some way. For a moment my mind tried to explode with the possibilities, but I had a job to do.

The answer to our problem was there. A way to disconnect the shield that locked us in without making everything explode in the process.

For the corner of my eye I could see as moment by moment Adam disappeared inside the library and came back with books. The display had been repeated several times now, and one of the tables was filled to the brim with different books. I stopped for a moment to stare.

Adam caught my eye and smiled. “Like good old times, right? You trying to understand how things work, and I-”

“Trying to fuck around with a Superman cape as you try to save the world on your backyard,” I finished with a smile.

He huffed and squinted. “It was a Batman cape, and yes. I’m going to save the world.”

There was something on how he said that last part that made me go backwards. He had changed.

“Okay Batman,” I said grinning. “I think I have a way to disconnect the shield.”

His eyes perked at the mention and followed me. The plan was easy. If the triangle we found in the wall was the ending in the circuit we just had to disconnect it, and the mana will stop flowing.

I moved my hands against the dark stone embedded inside the triangle and carefully used my knife to scrap it. According to the book this part of the circuit could literally explode if the material was absorbing mana and I accidentally broke it, so I was as slow as I could be. The stone came out and almost fell before I took it and let it in the ground.

Adam looked at the shield. “Was that all?”

The shield was still up.

I sighed. “It’s not electricity, it may take a few minutes before it stops working completely. It has its own-”

The shield stopped working then with a loud bell noise and I turned to look at the closest entrance.

“Adam!” yelled Knight running to his brother.

“Well, that worked,” said Adam while his brother hugged him.

John walked in slowly, and looked at me. “You opened it?”

“It was easy once I had the books,” I said nodding.

Adam yelped. “Books! Right, I found some books for you too,” he said looking at the two. “But first things first, are you okay?”

They both nodded, and they certainly looked like it. In a moment we were back to the mountain of books with Adam doing wild moves with his hands explaining his findings. I tried to took the enchanting books meanwhile, but when I touched them again…

New quest created.

The Tinker.In the art of enchanting the Tinkers were the masters of the craft. No one could come closer to the impressive might of their creations. For deducing and understanding the basics of enchantment so quickly you have been granted an opportunity to be one of them.Tasks:

Upgrade 5 items with enchantments.

Craft 20 objects with different runes, at least one of every element.Rewards:

The Tinker class.

My brain skipped a second. That was amazing. I’m sure some part of my cheered very loudly for a moment while reading that quest. The group was still busy putting away the books inside their inventories.

“Hey. I have a quest for a class!” I said excited and explained it, probably too quickly for them to follow.

“Congratulations! Now we just need a Knight class for Knight and there will be peace in our times,” said Adam with a pat in my shoulder.

That was, of course, the moment that everything went to hell. ARC lighted up completely, but this time he didn’t talk. Another voice, a deeper more authoritative voice shocked through the entire tower.

“Alert! Catastrophic failure detected in the energy levels. Lower levels critical. Trying to re-route power to seals.”

“Impossible to- ALERT! THE VAULT HAS BEEN BREACHED.”

“Not enough power to reseal. Trying other- ALERT! PRISONER V HAS ESCAPED. ALL MEANS OF RESEALING FAILED. INTEGRITY OF THE MAIN SEAL AT 100%.”

“INITIATING MAIN SPACETIME SEAL! ALL MEMBERS OF THE TOWER FOLLOW THE LINES TO EVACUATION!”

We stared in silence unable to understand what just happened. ARC tried to move and instead fell to the ground breaking more parts of his body. It was so pitiful to see I didn’t notice when I walked closer. It looked like a broken doll, mangled and torn to pieces, but somehow almost human. I touched it and with a single thought made it disappear inside my inventory.

“Sam!” yelled Adam close to my ear while forcing me to get up. “Run!”

And we ran following purple lines that appeared along the ground and walls. We ran through rooms that we hadn’t explored and we ran through wonders that we barely had the time to register until finally getting to the room.

A silent white room whit a big stone arch that was pulsating with colors and mana. A room we barely registered before jumping inside the arch, and disappearing from the tower. Perhaps to never seen it again.