“Open it already Zeph” an impatient Davy almost banged at the table with his hands. Luckily Iudy (will be referring Iud as Iudy from now on) had withheld those hands before it broke the table into pieces. The three of us were in an Inn having some snacks and juice to drink. The golden book was inside a bag we had bought earlier as walking with such a thing would invite unwanted attention.

“Are you an idiot. If we take it out now, then things would get really hard. Let us take a room first and then we will take out the book.” I tried to reason with Davy and then looked at Iudy to back me up.

“That’s right. Let us get a room for the three of us. We need a place to stay tonight in case we could not find the entrance to the vault.”

After a little persuasion Davy agreed and the three of us booked a room for ourselves. Once inside the room and jolting the door the book was taken out. Flipping the cover to the side, we prepared ourselves to accept the quest. A golden light began to emanate from the book and golden words floated on the air. Slowly the words began to fly here and there finally forming sensible words. And the words were as follows,

One who wishes to attain the God’s knowledge, you may not pass if you do not possess a vessel suitable for the knowledge. You who wishes to step into the God’s territory, be warned, danger lurks in every corner. Leave behind your hesitation and cowardice or only death shall embrace your weak heart.

The path to the vault will not show itself to you. Search for it with earnest heart and it might appear before you.

Complete the following tasks if you desire to start the quest

1. Search for the book, Librarian’s Diary.

2. In the Diary, you will find the Librarian’s Map.

3. If you wish to enter the vault, create a key as per the blue print in the Diary.

4. Search for the Librarian’s Tomb

Finish these tasks and the vault will find you.

Stride carefully, for death awaits you were ever you go- Librarian

“Library? Is there even a library in our city?” I asked not knowing much about the place I was in.

“Hm! I heard there was one but not any more. All the books in the library was bought by someone which I am guessing is the old man. I also heard that the new guy who wants to buy the books plan to build a new library here. Other than that, there are shops that sells books. If there is some particular book you want then you make an order and then wait till the book arrives from somewhere else. Wait, there is one. Not a library, but something similar. I heard that it had been in existence since this city was built. Why don’t we go have a look?”

Time was 7 in the evening. The peculiarity of shops in these huge cities was that they were open for almost 24*7. This guaranteed the adventures a place to shop whenever they wanted to. A few minutes’ walk and we stood in front of a three storey building which was well maintained, a board called out its name, ‘Talmer’s Library’. I knocked on the door lightly and the door was opened by middle aged man, wearing a worn out rob. He smiled at us, showing us his slightly yellow teeth. He welcomed us in and then offered us a seat.

“How may I help you?”

“We are looking for a book called ‘Librarian’s Diary’” Iudy spoke out first, his eyes was wandering all over the place, books filled every nook and cranny of that building.

“Again with that? A senile old man had asked me for the same things years ago and now it is three brats.”

“Senile old man? What do you mean? What happened to the book?” I asked, impatiently only to hushed by the shop keeper.

“If you are not going to buy a book please get out. I don’t have time to answer your questions. Get out you devils.” He rose from his chair and tried to grab Davy by his collar. But that move cost him dearly. In a flash, the man lay on the ground, his right hand twisted behind his back by Davy. Davy’s left hand pinned down the man to the ground while the right hand kept the man’s hand locked at a very bad angle. The man screamed in agony but was immediately shut by a piece of cloth that was pushed into his mouth. Iudy had acted swiftly and avoided getting people’s attention. I felt a chill run down my spine when I so how fast the man was beaten and the agony he was feeling.

Deciding to step in, I took out couple of silver coins from my wallet and squatted down before him and placed the two coins on the ground. I kept my fore finger on my lips and indicated him to keep quite. He nodded his head slightly, tears flowed out of his eyes. I pulled out the piece of cloth and asked Davy to let go. The man free from his hold scrambled away from us in fear. I took the two coins from the ground and approached him. I extended the coins towards him which I accepted readily. And then it was time for answers.

“Sorry for that stunt before. Now please tell us everything you know”

“Fine, I will tell. Just don’t hurt me. Years ago, our city had a library built in it, an extravagant and beautiful one. The last librarian of the library was a man named Naran. The guy loved books and collected so many books that he even had ancient spell books in his collection. Among them was a tome, I do not remember its name but it had a golden luster to it. The guy said, that tome was a key to some vault and to open the vault he needed another book called, Librarian’s diary. He promised to share a part of the reward he got from the vault and so I agreed to help him. Being a librarian myself, I had connections with many librarians and bibliophile throughout the world but none of them had ever heard of such a book. We then began searching for this book by going from one library to other but that too was in vain. The search for that damn book had caused me a fortune and so I beg you three to not ask anything more about that stupid thing.”

“Thank you. Goodnight” and the three of us got out of the bookstore and walked back to the inn.

“Iudy, I think this thing called Librarian’s diary is some sort of riddle. Rather than a book named Librarian’s Diary, the thing we have to look for is something a librarian would call as his diary. But is there such a thing?” I racked my brain but nothing came in to my mind.

“Something a librarian would call his diary? An autobiography perhaps?”

“If that were the case, then the name of the person should have been mentioned somewhere in the quest. The ‘Librarian’ mentioned in the quest could come from any of the library in the world. Even if he is from this town, a city that was hundreds of years of old like this one might have hundreds of librarian. Damn, the tome could have mentioned something about hi….” It was then it hit me. I ran to the inn at my top speed with Iudy and Davy following me asking me all sorts of question. I ran into out room and took out the tome which was in the bag. I opened the first page and there written were the words,

‘Stride carefully, for death awaits you were ever you go- Librarian’

I could not stop laughing, the thing we wanted was right in front of us. The old man had spent years looking for the answer and there lay in front of us the solution to the puzzle. Iudy looked at page and soon it clicked it to him, he fell to the floor while he face palmed while Davy looked at us dumbfounded. When my laughter stopped, I explained to Davy,

“Librarian, look Davy Librarian. These words were told by a librarian. Now all we have to do is find out who told these words and everything will be solved”.

The three of us were so excited that we danced around merrily. The next day was something we really looked forward to.

---***---

“Why did it turn out like this?” I complaint sitting under the shadow of a tree.

“Sigh! Why is it so hard to find out such a simple thing?” Iudy accompanied me complaining about the turn of events while Davy sat with is unmoving.

“All we had was to find who said those words but none of the book we looked into had the phrase and not even the books store owner or the old man knew who said those words” I groaned pitifully. The time was two in the afternoon and today was the last day of our holidays. Tomorrows once again school started. Though the quest did not have a deadline, waiting a week was too much for us, well at least for me.

A little was from us, were a couple of children were playing around. One of the two was holding a bottle in his hand while the other was simply following. The two kids were so cute that I felt like cuddling them to death. I let my gaze follow them and I saw the two stop before an abandoned well. The child holding the bottle then began to pore the content of the bottle into the well while the second one stood still, with trembling legs.

“Big brother, why are you pouring daddy’s drink into this well? Somebody might find out”

“Idiot, don’t shout. Be quite. If daddy doesn’t not drink this thing then he won’t hit us so we have to throw away this thing. And if we hide it like this no one will find out, this is called ‘hiding a leaf inside a forest’ so nobody will know that the drink is here.”

I wanted to stop the two, but something clicked struck my mind. ‘Hiding a leaf inside a forest’ this phrase kept lingering inside me. ‘Hiding words inside a library’

“Wow” I shouted out loud scaring Iudy and Davy as well the two children.

“What the hell Zeph? Don’t scare us like that you idiot” Iudy hit me on my head lightly and scolded me.

Rubbing my head slightly, I asked him “Iudy, were is the old library?”

“Why? I told you right, the library has been shut down. It’s now a museum, there is nothing there except for paintings of some old librarians” Iudy looked at me with wide eyes. His mind was much sharper than mine or Davy’s and so he could easily figure out the reason why I had asked the question. Iudy dashed towards the old library with me and Davy following him. It took us fifteen or so minutes. Today was the last day of our holidays and we knew that we did not have any time to loose. The museum looked pretty much vacant. At the reception we were asked to pay 1silver each by a female receptionist who looked like she was going to explode of boredom.

When inside the museum we were surrounded by paintings of people. Each painting had a quote followed by the name of the librarian who had said those words. The library had three or more floors and so we had to hurry. Each floor had almost thirty to forty paintings and it took us more than an hour to find the guy we were searching for. On the fourth floor was the floor of the museum was the portrait of a man that was in his late sixties holding the golden colored tome in his hands. Below the portrait were the words,

“Stride carefully, for death awaits you were ever you go- Librarian Adam Gilst” I read out loud.

“With this we can look for the autobiography. Sigh this quest is really extreme. So troublesome” saying so Iudy fell to his back, hitting the wall on which the portrait was placed. The sudden thud to the wall caused the portrait to shift its position slightly.

“Oi! Be careful. What would have happened if it fell down or something.” I warned Iudy and then tried to place the portrait back to the way it was. Suddenly Davy shouted, his fingers pointing to the portrait.

“What is it Davy?” I asked in an irritated tone.

“Eyes, his eyes! They are moving”

What the hell, I thought. How can the eyes of a portrait move? While ridiculing the idea of the eyes moving I looked at the portrait which was slightly off from the original state. And there, in place of the eyes were two holes. I tried correcting the position of the portrait and then suddenly the eyes came back to where it belonged. I and Iudy stared at each other and then getting up we asked Davy to help us remove the portrait. The portrait was placed on the wall with help of some nails. Some of the nails had long ceased to exist, time had taken its toll on them. And so with a little effort, the portrait came out easily. We placed the portrait down carefully and then examined the place which was now visible to us.

There lay a door in front of us and the globes that served as the portrait’s eyes protruded out of the door. The peculiar thing was, the door did not have any handles nor did it have a key hole.

With both my hands, I grabbed hold of the two globes and tried to push them in. With a strong push, the globes slid in perfectly and with the sound of metals sliding on each other, the door split into two, opening up a path forward. The pathway lit up as soon as the door opened and lead us towards a small chamber. Inside the chamber were three small altars and on each altar were a book.

We approached the three book and read out the names that was etched on each of the book. Three windows popped before us and the first one was,

Librarian’s Log Book- Adam Gilst

Followed by,

Librarian’s Diary- Adam Gilst

And finally, the book at the left end was,

Librarian’s Autobiography- Adam Gist

There lay in front of us three books that belonged to the same librarian. With this we understood that the guy we were looking for was Adam Gist. But where one problem ended, another problem opened up. We had no idea which among the three was the real ‘Librarian’s Diary’.

---***---

Hey guys, got myself busy with editing a chinese novel. Sorry for the late release. pls do rate my ff

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