Chapter 76: Arcanium Archives
“Many believe that the Arcanium Archives arose after the founding of the Graheel University, but it is in fact the opposite. The archives predate the university and is the primary reason for why the seven founders of the university chose the location they did to build their school. In the simplest terms, they wanted quick and convenient access to the Arcanium Archives.
“The Arcanium Archives from antiquity to today remains the greatest source of knowledge on arcane matters in the western continent. It is no wonder as to why the founders wanted access to such a resource.
“However, it has only been in the last two hundred years that people from the university have been able to regularly access these archives. As the archives from the old days operated under a principle they called ‘Knowledge for Knowledge’. The principle dictated that to gain access to the archives, you needed to submit some sort of written work or research documentation related to arcane study. And, it needed to be works that the archive did not already have stored in their libraries.
“This practice greatly increased the size of the archive and its wealth of knowledge, but made it extremely difficult to gain access. As the amount of information you were allowed access to was limited by how much you could contribute yourself to the scholarly work of arcane study, which was extremely difficult if you couldn’t access the archives in the first place.
“The more modern incarnation of the archive now simply charges a nominal fee for access.”
—Writing of Archmage Setta on “The Founding of Graheel and it’s University”
Joe walked into the Arcanium Archive with most of his team in tow.
They had stepped into an expansive reception area designed to welcome visitors. The space was lined with rows of reception desks, all conspicuously unoccupied. To the side, a cluster of seats offered a place for people to sit and wait. Just a bit further in, an imposing, grand door caught their attention. The door had countless glowing runes carved into it and looked to be magically locked.
Despite serving primarily as a reception area, the room's walls were adorned with bookshelves overflowing with volumes on a myriad of subjects. The number of books on display in this area was more than any normal library would have, and yet, everyone in the group understood that there was somehow even more further inside.