Chapter 9: Chapter 9: A Bibliophile’s Wonderland

CHAPTER NINE

A Bibliophile’s Wonderland

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Thursday was a day of electives, but, as I had yet to choose which courses to take, I had a free day to roam around without Doomsday giving me flak about cutting classes. The same couldn’t be said for Liara who had electives for Blade Dance, Journeyman Enchantments, Hexes and Charms II, Black Magic Defense, and Shieldball training on her schedule. She was willing to cut with me though for obvious reasons.

“You’re seriously in the same Blade Dance class as the Elementals?” I couldn’t help getting wide-eyed at the thought of my favorite pop band being novices of the same Academy I went to. “What are they like? Is Yura really half-human? What kind of nymph is Rosa? Is Lisha secretly dating—”

Liara cut me off with a glower that would have made my wolf-eyed glare seem tame in comparison.

“Are we here to raid the secret archives of the Great Library or did you drag me out today to discuss how much of an Elementals fanboy you are?” she asked in an icy tone.

“Um, sorry, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get back on topic…”

I glanced up at the wooden façade of the building Liara guided me to, although I doubted that it would have been hard to find the Great Library on my own. I just had to look for the one place on campus that had a bus load of blue cloaks walking into it.

The Great Library was a stack of rectangular buildings piled on top of each other like a five-tier wedding cake. Each stack had slanted shale tile roofing which got smaller the higher up they were on the structure. Wooden dragons were carved at the tips of each roof like gargoyles on old Earth cathedrals. On that note, the very structure of the library—from its wooden walls and its stone base to the steeple bell tower at its summit—was like a supersized version of a stave church that one might find in Earth’s Norwegian countryside.

How would I know what a stave church was, you ask? Well, I’m a nerd, and reading books on all manner of topics was how I passed the time between training and the next seasons of my favorite Realmsflix shows.

Liara led me into the warm, high-ceilinged interior of the first stack which was exactly what one would expect from an ancient repository of realmsverse knowledge; a large space filled with tomes of all sizes sitting on row upon row of burgeoning shelves. This spacious reading room also had the standard tables and chairs as well as comfy couches and ottomans positioned by the many fireplaces lining the walls.  

“Nice,” I whispered appreciatively. “Are all the stacks like this?”

Liara shook her head. “The second stack is similar, but the third and fourth stacks are lecture halls for courses that require easy access to the reading material.”

“And the fifth stack?” I asked.

“The fifth stack is a small temple dedicated to Mimir, one of the chief gods of knowledge in the realmsverse,” she explained. “And the final stack houses the Academy’s steeple bell.”

“Let me guess,” I eyed Liara knowingly, “it hasn’t rung in nearly a hundred years, has it?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “How did you know?”

Because that was right around the time Divah attended the Academy. I didn’t say this out loud though. Instead, I said, “You know, it might just ring today.”

“What are you planning?”

“Patience is a virtue, young padawan.”

Surprisingly enough, the first stack was nearly full of novices in red and green cloaks. Why was that surprising, you ask? Well, because one didn’t expect warriors or rogues to waste their time reading when their brains were geared toward more practical training than understanding theory. However, the novices of the Academy were clearly breaking the mold in that regard.

I spied a group of red cloaks who were pouring over a folio of yellowing pages depicting a series of martial arts moves that I recognized instantly. It was a secret arcane arts manual written by the late and great Bruce Law, one of Earth’s most famous adventurers who was renowned for his victory over the Iron Dragon of the Tian Yu realm.

To combine martial art and spellcraft is simplicity itself… The closer one gets to the true way of martial art, the less wastage of expression in casting spells. These were words I’d taken to heart when I was twelve and they had helped save my life on more than one occasion. Most recently when I’d battled Doomsday in the Crucible.

“I guess they’re not all muscle brains,” I noted.

Weirdly enough, there were zero blue cloaks on the first stack. It was an observation I posed to Liara, who answered with, “The library’s first stack is mostly filled with skill books and martial training manuals. Mages go up to the second stack where the grimoires are kept.”

We didn’t go up to the second stack right away though as I was curious to read the stuff the Academy had on martial arts. This got me into more than one glaring match with a red cloak who didn’t like that a blue cloak like me was sniffing around for goodies the red cloaks believed were exclusive to their Warrior’s Lodge. Luckily for me—or them, really—Liara was around to diffuse any situation before it escalated into a full-on brawl as just her mere presence was enough to melt icy glares and distract others’ attention from the human novice trying his best to be inconspicuous. Well, pretending to be a wallflower wasn’t exactly a good thing either as it turned out.

“Duck!” a high-pitched female voice screamed at me.

Instinct drove me to listen to the warning, but I would quickly realize that ducking wouldn’t be enough to evade the stack of brick-sized books about to fall on top of me. She dove in at the last minute and pushed me out of the way, forcing us both to crash onto the hardwood floor near the very back of the first stack.

“Yow,” I sighed. “What the Hel was that about?”

“Sorry-sorry-sorry!” my rescuer said in one breath. “My body tends to move on its own when someone needs rescuing...”

“What are you”—I took the long-fingered hand she offered me—“some kind of hero...?”

The person who helped me to my feet was a pale-faced, slanted-eyed teenage girl with long raven hair that fell off her left shoulder in a single thick braid. She might have passed off as human if it wasn’t for the sparkle of her alabaster skin or the pair of blue gossamer wings sprouting behind her back. 

“I’ve never heard of a do-gooder fairy before,” I said as I took in the sight of her.

The fairy was half-a-head shorter than me, and I wasn’t exactly tall for my age—something I will never admit out loud. She had an angular face, high cheekbones, a pointy chin and nose, and a pair of dimples around the edges of her puffy lips. Through her form-fitting apprentice leathers, I noticed that she had a runner’s build—broad-shouldered with a slim waist, long legs, and well-toned arms.

“Least I could do since it was kind of my fault you were attacked,” the fairy explained in a strangely pleasing, high-pitched voice.

I glanced up at the now empty top shelf of the bookcase that attacked us. “You pulled out a book that caused the rest of them to fall off?”

She chuckled half-heartedly. “Ye-yeah…”

The fairy dropped to one knee and picked up a thick volume which she quickly tucked into her knapsack. But not before I caught a glimpse of the title on its black and yellow cover. Shield Tactics Made Simple for Dummies.

I smiled as I realized that there was another opportunity here to make a potential ally. A glance at the pile of books now strewn over the hardwood floor and I caught sight of the one I needed.

See, it was a common practice in most libraries to put books with similar topics on the same bookshelf, and the Academy’s Great Library was no exception. This made it easy to pick out a tome I thought the fairy might want if she’d known what to look for.

I picked up Lagertha, the Last Shieldmaiden from the fallen pile and then offered it to her, earning myself a skeptical look from the fairy girl’s amber irises.

“That’s a novel,” she stated flatly.

“Sure, it is,” I agreed, “but Lagertha was also one of the best shieldmaidens in the realmsverse, and embedded inside this novel are the secrets to some of her advanced shield skills.”

How did I know that? I’ve read it. Duh. Cover to cover too because Divah had insisted that I practiced the ins and outs of shield tactics to make it easier for me to beat up people who liked to use them.

You are reading story Adventure Academy at novel35.com

“Just read it.” I shoved the book into the fairy’s hands. “You’ll get what I’m talking about if you’re worthy of the hidden knowledge inside it.”

“Um,” she raised a long, thin eyebrow at me, “why are you helping me?”

Sheesh, this fairy was just like Liara in her skepticism. Yes, I knew everyone considered everyone else their rivals at the Academy, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to be helpful to rivals. Especially fairies who had access to rare alchemical ingredients that only their species was allowed to buy. Bigotry was alive and well in the realmsverse after all.

“Didn’t you just dive into me to rescue me from falling books?” I reminded her.

Truthfully, I wasn’t being altruistic. But, like Divah often told me, “A favor given is a favor earned, kiddo.”

“Let’s call this me thanking you for saving me from a nasty headache,” I shrugged. Although I couldn’t quite hide the smirk that appeared at the corners of my mouth. “Bu~~ut… if you do find that book useful, maybe you can return the favor in the future.”

The doubt in the fairy’s expression was quick to melt away. Replaced by a smile that could have lit up the room. Fairies and deals—that was the secret sauce to getting into their good graces.

“I’m Dess,” she chirped. “Short for Desdemona Dewleaf...”

Dess offered me her hand.

“Will. Will Wisdom,” I said as I shook her hand.

“Yup, I know. Your match with Doomsday’s the talk of the lodge right now.” Dess revealed.

Oo~oh… does that make me one of the ‘popular kids’ like the ones in the teen shows I’d seen on Realmsflix, I wondered.

“Um, are you okay?” Dess asked, her brow furrowing slightly. “You look kind of dopey all of a sudden…”

“Ah, ahem…” I coughed to hide away my embarrassment. “Yup, I was just thinking I’d never met a good fairy before.” Way to shift the conversation into even more awkward waters… fairies hated talking about good and evil. But I knew I had to follow through now. “I thought you guys were all nasty little tricksters who liked driving people mad.” 

“You’re thinking about those bastards from the dark realm of Unseelie…” Dess puffed up her chest before pointing a thumb at her heart. “I’m a fairy of the Seelie Court. We’re the good ones.”

I’d never been to the mirror realms of Seelie and Unseelie where a war of good and evil between light and dark fairies has endured for a thousand years—a fight that started when the Unseelies sided with the Trickster god Loki against their Seelie cousins in a long-ago war of realms—but Divah had once described them to me as beautiful worlds that were mirror images of each other which had been worn and torn by a seemingly endless conflict.

“They used to be paradises where darkness and light lived together in perpetual harmony… but that was a long time ago… Now they’re just hells where balance has shifted to one extreme or the other…” Divah had spoken these words with a wistful expression on her face. As if she had seen these realms before they were ravaged by war, which was impossible considering my master was less than a hundred years old.

“You’re spacing out again,” Dess noted.

I cleared my throat. “Sorry, I was just thinking…”

“Desdemona!” came a shrill voice. “What have you done this time, silly girl?!”

A look of horror flashed on Dess’ face. “Oh, frigid Hel…”

Both Dess and I glanced over her shoulder to discover that the first stack’s librarian—a surly-looking middle-aged woman with frizzy hair tied back in a ponytail and the attire a typical human librarian might wear—was stomping toward us with murder in her eyes.

“Time to go,” I said.

I gave Dess an apologetic smile before I high-tailed it out of the line of fire, which was conveniently when Liara decided to reappear. She grabbed at my arm just as I passed her and then pulled me into the hallway where the stairs up to the second stack were located.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you and your new friend.” Liara turned her back to me and didn’t wait for me to follow as she climbed up the steps. It wasn’t until we’d reached the second floor when she deigned to look over her shoulder and add, “You know, I think that was your first meeting where you didn’t immediately antagonize someone.”

“Um, but I nearly got clobbered by a bunch of books,” I reasoned.

“Well, there is that…” Liara pushed open the doors to the second stack’s main room. “…maybe you’re just unlucky at meeting new people?”

That was food for thought. One I’d have to analyze another time as my focus had shifted from bad first impressions to wide-eyed wonder at the scenery before me.

Magical Grimoires! Row upon row of thick colorful tomes that leaked out their special brand of mana—many of them strangely chained to the bookshelves they sat on—lined the walls of the second-floor stacks. Blue cloaks, some of who I’d met at last night’s party, had taken up most of the seats in this stack so that Liara and I couldn’t find a single free table to discuss our real reason for coming here. Not that we needed seats for what I had planned.

I high-fived each of the brothers’ Grimm—we were chili mead buddies now—and led Liara to a back row of bookshelves whose secret had been thoroughly described in Divah’s journal.

“After the second star to the right of the largest fireplace”—I glanced up at the five-pointed star someone had carved at the top of the bookcase and then shifted my gaze toward the tall window by the room’s eastern wall—“and straight on till morning…”

“Is that a code?” Liara asked as she followed me on the narrow path between two rows of bookshelves.

“Haven’t you heard of Peter Pan?” I asked.

“Of course, I have… I’ve been to Neverland,” Liara stated.

“Huh, I didn’t know Neverland was a real realm…” I led the way to the end of the row so that we could reach the window by the eastern wall. “Divah was a fan of Earth classics, so a lot of her codes are derived from them… like this one.”

I pointed to the tall window and the rays of morning light that peeked out of its curtains.

“Do you get it?” I wondered.

Liara glanced over her shoulder, and her face turned contemplative for a long moment before she nodded. “The fireplace represents the north star because it’s the brightest one in the second-floor stacks… And once you move over to the bookcase two rows over, you’ll notice the window facing the east—”

“And the Earth’s sun rises in the east, representing the morning path…” With the flare of a stage performer, I pulled back the curtains and stepped toward the tall, door-sized window—and just like Divah’s guide promised, I didn’t smack my face against the glass. Instead, I passed through the illusion and walked into the secret room it hid.

Liara took a second or two longer to follow me. Once she stepped onto the carpeted floor of this hidden room, her eyes lit up with the same wide-eyed wonder reflected in my gaze.

“This is… Blessed Freya, we’re in the special section of the 2^nd stacks,” she realized.

“Yep… And it’s not Neverland…” I grinned as I took in the sights before me—a cozy little room with its few books kept inside their own special display cases mounted on the walls. “…but this is definitely A bibliophile’s wonderland.”