Explorer of Edregon

“You’re just the best at ruining a guy’s day, you know that?” Scule asked, standing on the common room table with his arms crossed. “Seriously, I want you to know that. It’s an impressive skill. You invest skill points into it or something?”

“I’d flick you off the table if this wasn’t so serious,” Shia said, frowning as she clutched her staff and stared at Vin. “Are you sure about this? You really don’t want to check in with Deorer first? Maybe Erik could help?”

“Alka herself said Deorer wouldn’t be able to do anything, and I’m pretty certain something this delicate isn’t exactly in Erik’s wheelhouse,” Vin said, shaking his head. “Though by all means, give him a call and check. It certainly couldn’t hurt.”

After confirming Alka was alright, he relayed the plan to her and informed her they’d start heading toward the library as soon as possible. He wished he could have pulled her fully back into his body like old times’ sakes, but she was still bound to the golem, and he’d been forced to let her snap back to its lifeless form. After that, he’d explained to the worried Slayers that he was going to try taking Alka somewhere to be fixed, and had a quick conversation with Epli where he tried to reassure the schlime that its new friend would be fine in a bit. He now had Alka's inert body propped up against one of the chairs in their common room while he broke the news to the team.

“I knew we’d have to go back to the library one day, but I didn’t think it would be so soon,” Lumel said, fidgeting with her stolen translation bracelet. “Do you really think she’d be willing to help us?”

“If she’s not, we have to try and find a way to convince her,” Vin sighed. “Even if we could pull off another heist, stealing another golem and swapping Alka into it isn’t something we can do a second time. Madam Trebella is gone, which means our only option is to repair this golem.”

“Convince her? How exactly do you think we can manage something like that while she’s busy trying to kill us?” Scule asked. “I still have nightmares about hundreds of face-less golems chasing me off a cliff every now and again! I’m going to have wrinkles before I’m thirty at this rate!”

“I don’t know,” Vin admitted, finally choosing to reveal his trump card. “…But there might be someone who can help us on that front.”

“Really?” Shia blinked. “Who?”

“Lumel and I ran into someone a while back who told us he spent a lot of time in the library. He even said he was personal friends with the librarian,” Vin explained.

“Groth!” Lumel gasped, her eyes lighting up. “The Necromancer!”

“A Necromancer? How in the hells does a Necromancer manage to get up to a floating library?” Scule scoffed. “Does he have a few hundred corpses all stand on each other’s shoulders?”

“I don’t know, but he did say he was a Resourceful Necromancer,” Vin shrugged. “It’s a prestige class that sounds rather good at solving problems.”

“It’s a good idea, but saying he’s ‘personal friends’ with the librarian might be a bit of a stretch,” Lumel said, giving him an apologetic smile. “I remember him mentioning that she didn’t initiate conversation all that frequently.”

“Maybe she’s just a quiet person,” Vin said hopefully. “Asking for his help is about the best idea I’ve got, so unless you guys have something else, I say we at least try it.”

“I do have one other idea,” Shia said, tapping her chin as she thought. “Though I’m not sure how well it will work.”

“Might as well throw it forward anyway. No idea is too crazy when we’re about to purposefully walk back into the divine sanctum of someone we know wants to kill us.”

“Well, you told us after the fact last time that the librarian specifically said she wasn’t interested in any of the knowledge in your journal, right?” Shia asked, and he nodded, recalling the same. “Her choice of wording makes it sound like she is in fact willing to trade, it was just what you had to offer wasn’t enough. What if we brought her something she actually wanted? Books she’s definitely never seen before.”

“You mean some of the textbooks from Earth?” Vin asked. “It’s a good idea, but Spur would probably demand we copy the information down before we go, and that could take ages.”

“Or, we bring something even better,” Shia said, grinning wickedly. “Someone who hasn’t just read the majority of the books your people have, but who has a perfect memory and can recall each and every word.”

“Kym?!” Vin asked, looking at her like she was crazy. “Your idea is to bring Kym of all people to the library? You do realize even if the librarian didn’t kill him, we’d probably never see him again. It would take an army to pull that man from the library when it was time to leave. I doubt Spur would be willing to give up such a valuable resource.”

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“Well, it’s not up to Spur, is it?” Shia asked, raising an eyebrow. “If you brought up the idea and the library to Kym, letting him know we can bring him there in exchange for his help brokering a deal with the librarian, do you really think he’s just going to sit back and stay here? He’s his own person. I highly doubt Spur would shackle him to a fencepost and force him to stay.”

“I bet the Slayers would all come together and try to physically fight the librarian and her swarms of golems if worst came to worst, to try and force her to fix Alka,” Scule pointed out. “It’s really a matter of which is the bigger blow to Terra. All the current and future Slayers, or Kym and his knowledge?”

Vin sighed, tapping his foot as he tried to figure out what the right move was. Obviously, he’d move heaven and earth to get Alka fixed, but he knew Kym was a massive resource for Terra and its people. That said, Shia had a very good point.

Who was he to decide what Kym’s future held?

“Alright, I’ll ask Kym for his help,” he decided. “There’s no point in entertaining the idea before we get a confirmation from him anyway, seeing as it’s not like we’re willing to kidnap him and force him to come with us.”

“I mean, if it helps Alka…” Shia said, shrugging while he stared at her. “What? We’d bring him back!”

“I’ll get some stuff prepped while you do that,” Scule said, letting out a weary sigh. “I grew tired of being so utterly useless against things immune to poison, so I’ve been working with Bill recently to try and come up with some solutions. If sword comes to shield, I think I’ll be able to actually help out in a fight this time against the golems.”

“I’ll warp over to Bill and make sure our health and mana potions are topped off before we head out,” Lumel decided, looking determined. “Maybe even pick up one or two of his new temporary death potions. I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”

While everyone ran about getting ready, Vin jogged over to Kym’s apartment, knocking on the door and shouting after remembering how neither Kym nor Xaril cared much for visitors. “Kym, if you want the chance to read more books than you’ve ever seen in your entire life, I need to talk to you!”

After a moment of silence, Kym opened the door, peering out at him. Even directly facing him, Vin couldn’t help but feel as though the man wasn’t entirely there, and he had to remind himself that Kym had a strange passive that diverted attention from him.

“What do you mean?” Kym asked, looking curious.

“There’s a floating library larger than all of Terra in one of the other fragments,” Vin explained. “The librarian is someone we stole something from months ago to save a friend’s life, and now we need her help. We’re pretty certain she’s interested in trading knowledge, and seeing as you spend every free waking moment of your life reading and have a perfect memory, we thought you might be able to help us make a deal. In exchange, we can bring you there safely and help you get up there. It’s floating a few hundred feet off the ground.”

Kym stood there, looking contemplative as he took in everything he’d just heard. Vin half-expected him to take some time to think about it, but the man nodded after only a few seconds. “Okay. I’ll come with you.”

“Thank you,” Vin said, letting out a sigh of relief. “…Are you planning to come back?”

“That depends on if the librarian is willing to let me live in her library and has sustenance,” Kym said. “If so, then no. I’ll stay there.”

Oh boy, Spur is going to be pissed when he hears about this, Vin thought. Still, fixing Alka was more important, so he simply nodded. Shia also had a good point. Kym wasn’t some prisoner of town, he was free to choose what to do with his own life. If Spur couldn’t accept that and tried to force him to stay, he’d be setting a dangerous precedent, and Vin was pretty certain he might end up sparking a civil war within town as people chose one side over another. At the very least, the hundreds of Bands who had fully integrated themselves into Terra at this point would probably be in uproar over one of their own being treated in such a way.

“Allow me to grab a few things and then I’ll join you,” Kym said, closing the door. Vin only had to wait a few minutes before the Advisor reappeared with a back pack on his shoulders, presumably filled with what little personal belongings the man had. The Advisor tucked a small black notebook with an attached quill into his front pocket, before nodding.

“Xaril said he will take over the apartment if I do not return,” Kym said simply, as though that was all there was to it. “Now, whenever you’re ready.”

Vin eyed the edge of the black notebook curiously, able to sense the magic contained within at this close range. What was strange, was that the notebook wasn’t registering with his Artifact Extraordinaire passive, which meant it wasn’t an artifact. And it wasn’t covered in visible runes, which meant it wasn’t a runic object. The thought stumped him for a moment, before he remembered that infernals didn’t deal with artifacts. They specialized in charms. Magical items that were functionally identical to artifacts in nearly every way, other than the fact that they wore down over time and eventually lost their magic unless properly maintained.

It seemed Xaril had given the Advisor a charm for whatever reason.

Vin was beyond curious as to just what the notebook did, but one look at Kym’s passive, blank face convinced him the man probably didn’t want to talk about it. Nodding, Vin led Kym back to his own apartment to see if his friends were ready. He had to admit, with how much the infernal loved reading, he was mildly surprised Xaril hadn’t jumped at the chance to come as well. Either he did in fact have a sliver of duty left to his people after all and wanted to stay close, or there was more to the infernal than he’d originally thought.

“You guys ready?” Vin asked, poking his head inside just in time to see Shia finish strapping Alka’s lifeless body onto Blossom’s back, the wooden cat construct looking entirely unperturbed by this turn of events. Vin still wasn’t entirely convinced the cat didn’t have some level of sentience, but Shia always told him he was crazy when he brought it up.

“Ready as we’ll ever be to willingly walk back into the dragon’s den,” Scule snorted, hopping onto his shoulder. “Seriously, why can’t it ever be a nice surprise? Like, ‘hey guys, I just discovered a fragment filled with nothing but gold coins! Let’s go swimming in it!’”

“Metal is too dense,” Shia pointed out, directing Blossom outside. “You’d break your neck if you tried diving into a lake of coins.”

“No bringing logic into my fun daydreams!” Scule argued, throwing up his hands. “If we’re all about to die, the least you could do is let me have this!”