As the trio walked back to the reception room, heading towards the stairs, Osmond couldn’t stop himself from asking questions.

“Was there a lot of apprentices in the guild before the war?”

“Seventeen,” elder Derris answered while slowly walking forward. “Five of them are still children below the age of ten. Six of them are slightly older but still not adults. The other six were already acknowledged by Qadir as young spellcasters and were taken along with him to join the war.”

“I assume the younger ones were left at elder Jonas’ care.” Regis added as they began to climb the stairs.

“Qadir took them away, saying that they would be staying at the temple with the few remaining priestesses.”

“And then he locked you in here to take care of the place.” The pale youth stated the obvious ending of the story.

The old scholar let out a faint sigh is he nodded. Atop the stairs, a wide hallway greeted them with a long, rust coloured carpet running along the floor’s entire length. The walls themselves were even and smooth to the touch, an obvious sign of high quality craftsmanship with a late baroque style of design in mind.

As they took a few steps forward, the sight of another set of stairs leading upwards could be seen beside the one they used to reach this floor. Derris headed towards the middle section of the hallway while pointing fingers at the doors when he decides.

“This one leads to the alchemy room while the opposite one is the room for practising enchanting.”

“Are they fully equipped?” Osmond asked with an obvious interest in his tone.

“The alchemy room has both storages with resources and the necessary tools for the craft. The enchanting room however is of a lesser quality, since none of the students hailing from East Fork have shown a talent for it over the past decades. “

“So it’s empty?”

“Not at all,” the elderly man shook his head. “But it mostly has the tools meant for alchemic enchantments.”

“What about the books that contain the necessary knowledge for the crafts,” the dark elf stopped for a moment. “Are they locked in the rooms as well?”

“No,” Derris stopped as well. “They are on the second floor of the library, along with the rest of the higher tier knowledge, locked behind a barrier to prevent those that Qadir deemed unfit to study them.”

“I like the guy less and less by the minute.” Osmond grumbled as he kept trudging forward, his cane releasing muffled thuds while tapping carpet.

“These next two doors lead to the common study room of the apprentices and a guest study room for visiting spellcasters approved by Qadir.”

“And the door in front of us needs to the library. Am I right?” Regis pointed at the last door of the hallway.

“Indeed. It leads to the first floor of the library.”

“Why are we going there, if the important books on the second floor?” The shadow touched spellcaster questioned the old scholar.

“This is the only entrance to the library and the door to the stairs that leads to the second floor is inside as well. Whether your friend can break through the barrier is yet to be seen.”

“What kind of books can be found on the first floor?”

“Mostly the copies of tomes regaling common knowledge regarding the kingdom and it’s neighbours. Of course, there are plenty of initiate ranked spell books as well, covering all of the known and acknowledged elements and schools of magic. Do not,” the scholar stopped in front of the door. “Expect too much of them. Qadir and his predecessors were quite frugal when it came to trading knowledge with others.”

“Got it,” Osmond and nodded. “We’ll keep our expectations low.”

After hearing that, elder Derris opened the door with a large bronze key he pulled from his robes, letting the two outlanders inside the library. Although Osmond tried to keep his expectations to a minimum, he still let out a defeated sigh after looking around. The library was located inside the tower of the guild, having a size of about six square metres with a door on the right side of the entrance they used.

Looking up, they could see two more floors above them, both made from a hard wood scaffolding that reached inwards about two and a half metre from the wall. Large wooden beams held them up with a waist high railing at the edges of the scaffolding. The walls of the first floor were scarcely dotted with large bookshelves, three large and simply crafted couches placed in front of the biggest shelves to provide seating. A long table with two benches was placed in the middle of the room.

The space between the shelves was decorated with oil paintings that head lavishly decorated frames. Several tomes were haphazardly hewn across the large table; the sign of reckless students or a very bored and tired elder.

“Welcome to the library, such as it is!” The elderly scholar greeted them.

“It’s quite cosy,” Regis looked around the room, noticing a large lambskin on the wall with a map drawn on it. “Is that the map of the kingdom?”

“Oh yes,” the scholar wobbled closer with a content expression. “It’s one of the better maps I’ve come across my years, although it mostly shows Ecragurne. As you can see, both Harmarond and Menelrond are less detailed. I believe the cartographer who made this never set foot on the land of the other kingdoms and instead decided to copy a less detailed map of those regions.”

“It’s still quite impressive.” Osmond praised the well drawn map before turning his attention to the nearest bookshelf.

“What are ‘X’ markings over some of the settlements mean?” The dark elf took a closer look at the map, easily finding their current location on it.

“Those are the settlements that were abandoned over the decades due to one reason or another. A sad occurrence, but not an uncommon one.”

“I guess there’s trouble even in peaceful times.”

“There is,” the elderly man sighed as he looked over the kingdom’s territory. “Some were abandoned due to the battles between the nobility, others due to plagues or natural disasters. Some simply ran out of the resources they were built to harvest or due to their Landwaker dying for some reason.”

“Regis,” the young spell weaver heard Osmond call out to him. “I don’t want to butt into your chat, but could you bust this barrier for me? As interesting as these books are; we only have about an hour or so before the food gets ready and I want to see if there’s anything that could be useful for our gate closing mission.”

“Closing the gate,” Derris mumbled. “Are you planning to close the north-eastern gate?”

“That’s what we’re supposed to do today,” the pale youth nodded. “It’s just that we decided to try our luck here first.”

“I see. In that case, I could point out a few books and notes on the second floor for you to look at.”

“I would appreciate that.” Osmond nodded while the young dark elf stepped beside the door, taking a look at the barrier that protected it.

It was the same kind of barrier the entrance had, only this one was made up from pure white runes instead of green ones. It was a clear proof that it was only meant to keep the lower ranked spellcasters from entering the second floor without permission.

“This should go quickly.” Regis said as he touched the left door frame where the familiar connection rune was.

Closing his eyes, he entered into his meditative state, the glowing white rune floating in the darkness of his mind. He pulled at it with force and intent, tearing out the 6th fragment he knew to be in there, making the rune shatter. When he opened his eyes, he could still see the remains of the symbol fade into nothingness. He quickly repeated the process with the right-most and the upper door frame as well, making the barrier fade away completely.

“After you.” He opened the door to allow the old scholar to go upstairs first, leading the way.

The hardwood steps gave out a slight creak beneath their footsteps as they reached the second floor of the library, Derris walking over to one of the bookshelves with a surprising eagerness.

“It’s been quite a while since I was allowed up here,” He said. “Qadir would only let me visit the second floor when he was present. He guarded the books the second and third floor with a ludicrous fervour, even though I did not possess any magic myself.”

“How could a man like that become the leader of the guild in the first place?” Osmond asked, as he finally caught to the elderly scholar.

“From what I know, he was the son and successor of the previous guild master of East Fork.

“So it was hereditary instead of being an earned position.” The dark elf noted has he looked had the old yet well kept tomes on the only bookshelf of that side of the room.

“It’s not an uncommon occurrence, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s gone now and judging by the time that passed since he left, I doubt that either he or his apprentices will return. Either way; you’ve come here to look for knowledge, but you haven’t told me what you’re looking for exactly.”

“Novice ranked spells would be the best, although there are likely useful ones even amongst the initiate ranked ones. We have a shadow touched spellcaster,” he pointed at Osmond. “And we have one who specializes in lightning and another one that uses blood magic. I mostly practice weaving runic spells and infusion enchanting, but I don’t mind taking a look at anything you would deem to be of use.”

“We only have an hour,” the pale youth reminded his companion. “Let’s just look at the appropriate offence and defence spells for now. We’ll check out the rest when we come back later.”

“You cannot head out into battle without preparing at least a few utility spells as well,” the elderly scholar shared a piece of his wisdom with the two. “You never know no when you need to mend a wound or repair your equipment.”

“We already have lesser healing and lesser mending shared amongst ourselves.” The pale youth stated.

“Lesser spells might be good for a small scuffle, but not for against a tide of fallen like the one that’s crawling across these streets.”

“Does this library by chance have a copy of the spell of minor healing, sir Derris?” Regis enquired, earning a firm nod from the man.

Derris reached out towards the bookshelf, his fingers skipping over several tomes before pulling out a book, that was barely thicker than his pinky finger. He handed it over the young spell weaver with great care, as if his sheer touch could the damage the precious tome.

“If my memory serves well, this one is a copy made of a collection presented to the Royal Spellcaster Academy by a famous lumina magus about two centuries ago It is a well written initiate ranked spell tome of the light domain. Inside it you should find three distinct sections. One for combat spells, one for defence and of course, utility.”

“Were all of the different elements and schools of magic recorded in such ways?” Osmond looked at the tome with a newfound excitement.

“Most of them were,” Derris nodded. “But as I said before, Qadir and his predecessors were quite frugal when it came to gathering such tomes.”

“I’ll take this one and the initiate ranked enchanter book, as well as the novice ranked one if it’s alright with you,” The dark elf said as the old scholar picked out and handed over two other thin books. “I’ll leave you two to your chat.”

With that, he walked back down to the long table with the tomes in hand, taking a seat on the bench. He opened the book that held the records of the light element focused spells, turning the pages over while having a quick look at their descriptions. The tome recorded and explained the origin and function of six common light elemental spells in total.

It only had two offensive spells, one being a light element infused magic arrow. ‘It must be the light element equivalent of the fire arrow spell.’ He thought as he remembered reading about the big brother of the fire bolt spell in his own family’s records once. As a light element based spell, it was obviously most effective against the creatures of darkness, dealing extra damage to them.It seemed to be useful, given that they were facing an undead horde and demons.

The second offensive spell was a ray of light that created a wide beam of light that dealt continuos damage, but only to darkness affiliated beings. An ordinary creature would only get blinded by the strong light that was cast on it.

When it came to defence oriented spells, there was a light infused shield spell that seemed to be an elemental variant of his arcana shield. Its only advantage compared to the original was that it provided extra defence against shadow and necrotic spells. ‘Somewhat useful.’ He rated as he moved on.

The utility section of the book held a flare spell that was pretty much what the name implied. The spellcaster would create a condensed ball of light that he or she could then shoot into any direction for a base distance of fifteen meters. This flare would then slowly fall down on the ground and fade. ‘Good for open area fights during the night.’ Regis concluded as he flipped the pages once more, finding the one spell he was pretty much desperate to get.

‘Minor healing.’ The title stated clearly and he was all too happy to learn the contents of the related pages. It was indeed the next level of his much used healing spell, also noted to be recorded in the tome of evocation. Regis pulled out his dagger and slit his thumb before trying to cast the spell on the small cut.

His words flowed in an ethereal way, empowering the spell that formed a glowing light on his right palm, letting it cascade down on the injury. The blood that was dripping down evaporated and the red mist seeped back into his flesh while the cut stitched itself shut, leaving a faint pink line on his skin that soon faded away. Golden words burned through the air in front of his eyes, stating the obvious yet welcome fact.

{You have successfully cast the ‘Minor healing’ spell. This spell is now carved up into your Shardwaker’s mark.}

‘Phantom light wisp.’ He read the name of the next spell, his eyebrows slowly rising as he went on to read its description. This particular spell was a somewhat artistic upgrade of the familiar light wisp spell he knew. It was considered ‘artistic’ due to the spell’s ability to alter some of the properties of the wisp spell along with its shape to fit the caster’s imagination.