Chapter 5: Library Terrorists

Waking up on the floor, half naked and in a puddle of my own vomit brings back memories of Miguel's 21st. Those memories are quickly tamped down where they belong as I remember where I am.

I am starving, and I am dehydrated. And oh, what a gloriously woozy way to learn that this new form needs sustenance; when there's none to be found. Peeling myself off the stone floor, I let out the least dignified moan of “Euoochugh” I've ever made as my body forms a stiff picket line and sorely protests against any movement. But the executives of brain and stomach call in the union busters, and I get to kneeling.

“God—” my words are cut off by a dry cough. “God damnit. A bath. My kingdom for a bath.”

I strip off the sash of white campy robe, and begin to wipe the heterogeneous mixture of unmentionable fluids and the ash, dust, and detritus that have stuck to it off of my body. Thoroughly ruined, I toss the robe aside. Un-thoroughly cleaned, my body begins to move towards where I remember the angry shitstorm of flaming undead viking finally keeled over and died.

“What the fuck happened to me?” I ask myself, as I kneel to the threshold and examine the smoldering corpse.

The smell of burnt and rotten meat is disgusting, but my empty stomach rumbles all the same, then roils in shame at the thought of eating that.

In my delirious state, thinking about my hunger and whatever the hell made me so damn sick, it takes me a moment to notice something curious.

Examining the vikings corpse, I realize that, while her dress is covered in various unmentionable substances, it is only a filmy surface atop it.

Taking a good ol’ fashioned Pokin’ Stick™, I– respectfully– lift the hem of her dress and watch as the contaminants slough off the fabric, leaving a perfectly clean and undamaged cloth.

“Score.”

My queasy grin quickly falls as I realize I'll now have to take it off of her.

“God fucking damnit.”

My palm hits my forehead.

“Whelp, sorry Helga. But trust me, this'll be much more unpleasant for me than it will be for you.”

Thank God for Pokin’ Sticks™.

***

After one of the more disgusting sessions of graverobbing that I've ever taken part in, I hold the perfectly clean and undamaged blue dress against my torso to compare size.

While it was looser on the viking, I am bigger than her. (Only slightly though. Short kings represent.) So, it may be just tight yet unrestrictive enough to fight in. But before I start brainstorming my drag queen name, I pry the scorched yet still sharp shortsword from the corpse's hand.

It's lighter than I expected, and I look for any signs it might be a magic sword.

No runes along the blade, no gem in the hilt, nothing. Might just be a sword.

But hey, free sword.

Taking the sword, I push it against the seam of the dress, where the torso meets the skirt. Intending to cut it and make it into something more my style, but it doesn't budge.

Wedging it on the table with some heavy things, I begin sawing. Nothing. I start jabbing the tip into the dress as it lays on the table. No holes.

Desperately, I have it hang firmly between two surfaces, stretched tight, and slash down.

The sword bounces off the dress like a trampoline, wrenching itself from my grip and cutting my thumb and forearm as it spins off.

“Ah!”

Hand trembling I quickly look for something to staunch the bleeding. My eye darts to the previously white robe discarded on the floor.

“Nope. Not unless I want an infection.”

I turn back to the dress. I snatch it from where it hangs and press it against the wounds.

I sigh. “You win, dress. But you're a band-aid for now.”

Wrapping the dress tightly around my arm, as the wounds throb with pain, I collect the sword and walk back out of the laboratory, stepping over Helga.

I thought about draping the previously white robe over her, out of respect, but with it covered in dirt and vomit, that somehow seemed worse than just leaving her.

Wounded arm clutched against my chest, I summon the light orb, and look for the glint off the gold coins that fell from her eyes. Quickly finding them, I immediately realize I have no pockets, and settle for stuffing them down one of my boots.

Approaching the large double doors at the end of the hall– after double-checking the ash of Helga's coffin for any leftover loot, I put my ear against the door.

I don't hear anything through there, but that doesn't mean there won't be anything. Thankfully, even hungry, dehydrated, bleeding, half naked, and thoroughly humbled, I can still cast spells.

Heading back to grab another Pokin’ Stick™, I push it against the door, but it's too heavy. I lean hard and painfully into the plank of wood and the door begins to noisily grind open.

I take several steps back and try to peek through the opening in the door, and what I see are… books?

At the very least the remnants of books.

Carefully stepping past the threshold, I step into a small private library. A floating ball of light– much like my own but larger, yellow, and not based on trauma– lights the room up brightly. Torn apart books are scattered across the floor, and the undamaged ones line various shelves. Twisting and climbing those shelves and, looking to be eating the books, are 6 or 7 small, serpentine and winged lizards. Their front arms are much like a bat's; wings with little grabbers at the end. They are long, thin, and flexible. While mostly shades of forest green, a few flecks of beige or yellow are among their scales.

I stance myself ready to throw a [Magic Missile], but when they notice me, most just skitter off to various hideaways like cockroaches. One drags a book off with it, and another, much closer to me, hisses before flying off to another corner.

I chuckle slightly. “Cute little pests.”

Stalking and examining the room more closely, I catch a glimpse of a large stone door on one wall from between the aisles. It has strange concentric circles and circuitry carved and painted within it. A small section is carved but left unpainted. On the floor next to it is a brush within an empty jar. The jar has a faded blue glow to it, like a dying glowstick.

“Unfinished” I note.

Most likely, I'll need to finish it somehow to continue.

Coming to the end of the aisles, I reach a small inlet, with a laboratory desk similar to the first one with the cryptic journal. Atop this one is various instruments, a birdcage with a sheet over it, some shelves, a few tubes and drawer cabinets full of weird liquids and plants, and, of course, another journal. Except this one is currently being eaten by one of the winged lizards.

“Shoo! Scat!” I wave my non-wounded hand at it, and it hisses and tries to drag the journal with it. I quickly snatch it from its mouth and it hisses again, indignantly.

“Great.” I sarcastically exclaim, opening the journal and examining the torn and chewed pages. Less than a third of it remains.

I turn to insult the flying miscreant and notice a tea tray set up next to the desk, directly on my right so it was previously in my blind spot. It has a plate of little biscuits as well as a silver teapot and teacup with matching saucer.

Sustenance!

I'm not stupid, but I am desperate. First I break apart the biscuit, noticing it as very stale, but nothing weird within it. Thankfully, I have no allergies— besides buckwheat— but sniffing and taking a single small nibble to test its flavor, it doesn't have the nutty, earthy tones that buckwheat has. Then, I pour a bit from the teapot into the saucer. The tea is tepid, smells sour and has a slight film. It's definitely not completely safe. Likely has a bit of mold in there. Thankfully, I'm at a lab workstation.

I find the medieval equivalent of a bunsen burner, and set the teapot above it to boil the tea and kill any bacteria as I sit down with the journal and a few stale biscuits and begin to read.

I don't know how much of this is orchestrated by The Great Work, or if it just stole or copied a fitting real place for my tutorial. Regardless, it's mighty convenient, cliché, and not just a little suspicious to have these journals constantly torn apart. Outside of a few loose chunks, only about 60 pages halfway through were left un-sullied by the little library terrorists.

I look up and see one of the flying lizards– I think the same one that was gnoshing on this journal– eying me from atop of a weird fantasy fumehood.

“I'm naming you Ted Kaszinski.”

Flipping through the journal, written in the same handwriting as the original one, I discovered that the woman whose head I bursted was trying to open that door. Sipping on the now boiled but still disgusting tea, I infer from a few references, allusions, and half-eaten passages that she picked this crypt as her base of research because something useful was behind that door. The carved circuitry on the door was apparently an elaborate unlocking spell, but she must've hit some breakthrough and foolishly self-injected the serum before she finished.

Her description mentions that the painting fluid is some kind of “mana conduit” for the spell, but all it says about how to make it is;

“Unfortunately, the only conduit fluid capable of handling the mana input consists of very expensive and rare ingredients. Any other permutation either fails or is explosively volatile.

Take absolute care when combining—”

The rest is eaten.

“God damnit Ted! Couldn't have eaten a trashy beach read or something?!”

The lizard flaps away when my voice raises.

I sigh and look around the room, before turning back to the desk.

I have a guess at what I'm expected to do, and it's, again, too convenient. If this place was at one point real, it has definitely been tampered with.

This damned game wants me to go around the room and research magic or alchemy or whatever to finish this thing, and in the process learn a whole bunch about how all this works.

“But oh! Be careful! This stuff will explode if you do it wrong! Come on.” I mockingly yell into the library.

Is this the fate of those who choose the Game of Gods? If you fall short your corpse gets used as set dressing for another aspirant who might have a chance?

I'm obviously still going to read all I can, knowledge is power, but will the game be this overbearing and railroading the whole way to godhood, or is it just for this little tutorial floor?

I spitefully mutter to myself as I stew on this.

“Rare and expensive… explosively volatile… little shitty lizards…”

Then, an idea hits. My smile creaks into a vicious grin, and I go to rub my hands together like a cartoon villain, forgetting my other hand is still bandaged.

“Ow.”

“You want me to play along? Do things your way? Waste these oh so rare and expensive ingredients to unlock this door?”

I lean forward and begin examining the ingredients.

“Fuck that. I'm building a bomb.”