Noble Arcana

Knowledge begets more knowledge. It goes on forever if one never stops pursuing it.

High Magus Luther

Solomon stepped over the god’s corpse and entered the hidden chamber within the hidden study. He stepped into the magical circle and placed a hand on either side of the orb filled with swirling clouds and emanating powerful mana. He poured some of his own into it, and after a moment of blackness found himself standing again in the repository.

The shelves as high as castle walls extended as far as he could see and he could see swirling clouds above him the same color as those he’d just seen within the orb. He’d been making steady progress going left or right and looking for spells he could recognize or that seemed familiar, but his luck had been relatively mixed. He decided that this time he’d try a different tactic.

He walked over to the nearest bookshelf and placed one fully articulated puppet hand as high as he could reach, placing his foot on one of the shelves, and pulled himself up. He hadn’t been able to reach the end of either side of the shelf he arrived near even after as much as a half an hour of walking, so he was going to try climbing one of them instead.

He moved slowly and deliberately. The puppet body he was in was not proportioned as he was so he needed to be very careful to ensure the placement of his hands and feet. He especially didn’t want to accidentally step on a book and had his wooden form burnt to a crisp or torn to shreds.

After roughly ten minutes he made it about halfway up the shelf and glanced around. Just as they were on the lower levels there didn’t seem to be any organizational method to how the books and scrolls were stored. They were simply scattered and random with leatherbound formal tomes next to scrolls of flesh next to stacks of paper roughly bound with twine.

He was grateful to be making the climb with the puppet body. He didn’t need to breathe in it, couldn’t feel any pain or exhaustion of his limbs, and was able to maintain his balance much more easily. His movement was powered by mana rather than flesh and blood. Had he been in his normal body he would’ve fallen and broken his back less than a quarter of the way up.

He resumed his climb, finding it easier now that he was more familiar with the distance between shelves and his own form. He could see the lip of the highest shelf and redoubled his efforts. He reached it and pulled himself up carefully, making sure he had enough room to stand and finding that he did as the shelf he’d been climbing had another one directly behind it.

He stood up and began to cast his gaze all around himself. From where he was he could see that the shelves extended for miles in every direction. At a far enough distance they seemed to curve and distort until the orderly rows became something more like a maze. Beyond those he could see the shadows of structures obscured by the same clouds that swirled above him. Some were bright and colorful towers, others seemed to be castles, and there were more in shapes he couldn’t recognize, but which didn’t seem to adhere to any structures he’d ever seen or heard about.

As he took everything in he saw in the distance he saw those buildings and shelves that were in the far distance rise ever so slightly. It was such a minimal movement that he didn’t think he would’ve been able to perceive it had he not been as high up as he was. The movement spread, causing everything else to rise almost imperceptibly before falling again. It was almost as if the Repository was breathing.

He turned around to look at the other side of the shelf, when suddenly he caught a glimpse of something in the corner of his eye. He looked to see a cluster of objects moving toward him. Unsure of what they were he dropped down off the opposite edge of the shelf he was on and hung off it in an attempt to hide himself. So far he hadn’t seen anything else living in the repository, so he didn’t know what to expect.

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After a few moments the approaching objects came into view. They were eyes. They were as large as a human head with iridescent irises that seemed to project light wherever they looked. Around them were clusters of mist that matched the color of the clouds above.

Solomon stayed still, watching as the eyes came to a stop where he’d just been standing. They cast their lights all across the area, as if searching for him. Then they dispersed, flying in different directions across the landscape of shelves.

Solomon gave it a few minutes then carefully lowered himself on the other side of the shelf. He found it much quicker to descend than it had been to ascend and he chose to simply drop the last eight feet, saving more time. On the other side he saw much the same as he had where he’d started. Thousands of books and scrolls lined the walls, filling every inch of shelves.

He carefully looked through them, hoping to find some Drakthic text or something else he recognized. He came across a scroll at the edge of which he could see what looked to be Drakthic lettering. He reached in and grabbed it, finding it sealed. Bracing himself for the worst he carefully broke the seal and unraveled it.

Decoy

Create a construct of mana in your shape to avoid enemies. This construct cannot interact with the physical world or move, nor can it make sound.

Requires: A shard of a broken mirror

Hold the mirror shard in one hand together, moving mana into your fingertips. Place your free hand on the center of your chest then push outward, envisioning yourself in your mind as you do so. The mirror shard will fade as the construct is created. A constant output of mana is required in order to keep the construct in place.

This scroll is property of the Union. If found, return or face prosecution

Solomon read through the scroll several dozen times. Memorizing each part of it and practicing the hand movements it detailed. He was concerned about the output of mana needed for the decoy, given his instability, but it simply said a constant output was required, not that it needed to be a balanced output. It wasn’t the fireball he’d been hoping for, but it was certainly something he could put to use both against the Lord of the Black Wood and elsewhere.

Once he was done with memorizing it he turned his attention to the note at the bottom. He hadn’t done much to question the repository. What it was and how it worked had been secondary to what it could provide for him, at least in the short term. Now that he’d seen the whole breadth of the place though, he found his curiosity heightened, and the note from the Union at the bottom of the scroll only further increased it. He doubted that the union had placed the scroll there, in fact he doubted that the scroll had been placed there at all.

The human skin scroll he’d read, the grimoire of spells that seemed to be a companion to the book of homunculus theory he’d read, and now this scroll. It would seem that whenever a spell was written or recorded, a copy of that record would end up in the repository. That was his theory anyway. He had no way to explicitly prove that theory, nor would confirmation of it tell him what the repository actually was, but it did further emphasize just how powerful it was. The only issue with it was the sheer breadth of the knowledge that could be found. For everything useful and usable there were a thousand things that weren’t or that might be, but required knowledge he didn’t possess to access or use.

He carefully placed the scroll back where he found it and began his climb back up the shelf. He could return back to Moonfallow by either dying or returning to one of the coffins. He’d rather keep the puppets in good shape if he could. The more he lost the fewer chances he’d have to gain knowledge.

When he reached the top he suddenly found himself staring at one of the eyes that had passed him by earlier. Its eye was closed, but the moment he saw it, the lids snapped open and he found himself suddenly blinded by bright light.

Solomon opened his eyes back in Moonfallow, his hands just barely removed from the orb that transported him to the repository. He blinked and rolled his shoulders, feeling stiff and sore from his body standing stock still for so long. It seemed he had more to worry about in the repository than just books.