Mystery of The Forbidden Book: Part 8 - Requests

Darkness was all that they saw.

Both of them could hear a liquid bubbling in the background and a voice that sounded like it came from a man.

"Hope this potion works."

The warmth that surrounded the siblings felt again, familiar and comforting, distinct from the decrepit dimension they encountered three times before. But this time, something was off.

Beyond the bookshelves, fireplace, crates, and brewing stands was a familiar young man with long braided dark hair, chipped emerald eyes, and fair skin. Just by the appearance alone, both Asahi and Aletha recognized who he was.

"Belial?"

This time, instead of being greeted by Akwan, Belial welcomed them. Asahi paused, scanning the room and mentally replaying his last actions. He remembered—he had dropped his bow in that dimension. Realization dawned; Asahi and Aletha exchanged tense glances, aware that Akwan's theory was right.

Actions in the strange dimension affect this dimension as well.

Struck with skepticism of this discovery, The Wanderers ignored Akwan and immediately raced to Belial. But before they could reach him, they noticed he had run too far from their reach. Inasmuch as the event, Asahi and Aletha were forced to partake in the same recurring event as before.

"Ugh, why are the words so difficult to read? I can't even see the price!"

Akwan chuckled, hearing carriages pass by behind.

"Ha, yeah. I suppose some of what you were familiar with may have changed completely. Remember, it's been five thousand years since you left. Of course, your world ought to change." And so in this scenario, Asahi thought he lost control of his own body.

Despite the changes, Asahi and Aletha were forced to reenact the same events they had done two times before.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Carriages started moving, people continued squandering, and Akwan scratched his head. After a slight silence, he picked up one of the starch goods from the market and gave it to Asahi, replying as life continued to flow in motion.

"See, time dilation is…"

As what happened previously, it seemed as if the world slowed down for both Asahi AND Aletha as they tried to look over to the roof. But this time, instead of seeing the long, dark-haired, braided boy or the tall, dark-haired woman, all they were greeted with was silence.

This quickly startled Asahi and Aletha; it was the fault of their actions in the separate dimension that drove this event.

Now that the problem had been solved, Asahi could finally hear the full answer Akwan wanted to give him.

"...are you listening? Okay, I was just making sure. To repeat, time dilation is an element when one is too far from the area, thus… time works differently. Since you two were outside of this world for ten years, because of the distance that you were at, time in this world had fast-forwarded to five thousand years instead of ten years. Does that make sense?"

Asahi slowly nodded his head, his eyes cruising around the area to see if anyone else was around.

(This would be the time someone would attack, but it's been…) He looked over to the eight-hour clock tower at the center of the street. (Ten minutes and not an ambush is to be seen.)

After pondering the sudden shift, Asahi and Aletha decided to show Akwan what they had found and discovered two loops afterward.

They pulled out The Forbidden Book and walked along the streets, paranoid about the ominous peace within them. Aletha turned the pages to the two with both the clues and the list out in the open.

However, this time, something had changed in the book; moreover, the list. Aletha's shock robbed her of speech, stammering as she saw the words change.

"Eh?! What happened?!"

"What is it?" Asahi asked as he leaned over to the book. "Wait, did the page change?"

Suddenly, HIS eyes widened in astonishment at the sight of the magical glowing sentences forming from top to bottom on the page.

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Find out what the ingredients mean.Follow the places where the drawings are.Use the clues, illustrations, and figures on the page to find the ingredients.:// :/// :/:/ :// :/// :/:/ ://:/// :/:/:// :/// :/:/ :// :/// :/:/

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Fourth, with this sight, Aletha's hand covered her mouth, her breath hitching with surprise as her eyes widened. Asahi mirrored her shock, his eyes fixed on the book, both siblings momentarily frozen by what they saw.

"HUH? H-How?! I… could have sworn I made only three. But now..."

Asahi, equally stupefied, finished his sister's sentence, his voice matching her disbelief and apprehension.

"...There are eight. Eight things to do, and five of them are missing. I'm guessing that we should follow what the three say, and maybe the other orders would be revealed."

Awe-struck and distracted, Aletha added as she held her hand up, showing three fingers.

"Yeah, but I wrote three," She said. "Not eight."

Struck with this remarkable discovery, Asahi decided to snatch the book himself. Indeed, he was clueless about The Forbidden Book and what its nature holds, much like his sister. Only the distant chatter of a few people could be heard. As his eyes traveled the writings, he muttered one of them aloud.

"Use the clues, illustrations, and figures on the page to find the ingredients," He said as his eyes turned over to the sun. "Isn't that what we were doing?"

And then momentarily, his vision flashed to the encounter with Dawn, Chip, and Landon.

("All three elements are fragmented together. Only by the help of a force outside would the ingredients be melded back together again.")

Then his vision narrowed to the empty alleyways, remembering the overgrown buildings in Dimension A

:// :/"The Leaf rests high near a gigantic forest of bristles covered in the luxuriance of green. It is not to be guarded by people, but nature itself." ://:/

With memories sewn together and flickering, Asahi and Aletha race back to the arch barricading the entrance. If they ever wanted to escape, they had to do it sneakily. This led them to resort to another option, which was listed by none other than Landon himself.

"The Trunk serves as the foundation for the leak. It is to be located in multiple areas where no one was interested in going."

"Multiple areas where no one is interested in going," He said as he reanalyzed his words. "Do they mean the slums?"

Quickly, Asahi and Aletha dashed through the people and dodged the sights of guards running all over the place. They had no time for caution, using every second to pass by.

Drimi and Belial were nowhere to be seen, and they had abandoned Akwan as if in some sort of rush, before sprinting towards the slums. Then they remembered the catalyst they dropped from the dark-haired woman, causing her position in this loop to change.

When Asahi reached for his pockets, he noticed that something was missing. His eyes broadened in surprise, noticing the Forbidden Book gone from his grasp. The golden-textured magical book, the one that drove them here in the first place, had left its way out of their clutch.

"Aletha," He said as he tried to look everywhere for the book. "The book… It's gone."

Aletha, shocked about this sudden reveal, hurriedly retraced her steps, saying,

"You dropped it!?" She said with a genuine look of stupefaction on her face. "Where did it go? How clumsy do you have to be?"

"I suppose it dropped from my pants…" He said. " When we were in the slums. It must have slipped. I could have sworn it was attached to my person."

At this notion, Asahi and Aletha raced down the stairs from level one of the city, heading towards the slums, retracing their every step.

As time ticked in rapid succession, they tried to reach the fountain at the center. It was the beacon of hope, the one that marked Akwan's territory.

But something, or rather, someone had stopped them.

A magenta-haired woman stepped down from the steps, clutching on to what looked like The Forbidden Book in her hands. They hurriedly rushed to the bushes and saw her stepping down the stairs. Her aura seemed to radiate in the shadows of the buildings, giving off an arresting presence as the wanderers recognized her face from somewhere.

"The Librarian!" They said with half-shut lips.

But she couldn't hear them.

They couldn't believe it. The woman who had given the Forbidden Book was the one who snatched it when they weren't looking.

Before she turned over to the bushes, a group of males approached her.

Surprised to see her with The Forbidden Book clutched in her hands, they both knelt down to her.

"Mrs. Liora! You're all right."

Holding onto an eraser, she started to rub it on the pages, as if removing the illustrations from their existence. Then, something caught onto them. The group of males, the ones that had approached this woman, were the exact same set of thieves they had met in the other dimension. With confusion swirling over Asahi and Aletha, they kept quiet and analyzed the situation above.

"Of course I'm alright," She said as she slammed the book down on the floor. "Have you gotten them? Have you gotten the ingredients?"

As she picked up the book and tried to shred it, she instead grabbed ink and written words on the book.

Now it was clear. The one who had tampered with the book was the giver who gave it in the first place. Liora.

(Why is it that now, out of all the places, that she chose to rewrite the book? Did she have a copy? Was she affected by the loops? Or is it something more sinister?)

Struck with a foreboding sense of awe, Mrs. Liora, the Librarian, demanded the group of males.

"Make sure no trace of me is left behind. We must keep them imprisoned in these pages as long as we can," she said as she kicked the Forbidden Book up the fountain. "For The Ending. Don't stop searching for the ingredients. It is I who shall control this space."

"Control this space?" Asahi muttered in confusion. "What does she mean?"

Aletha hastily covered Asahi's mouth as Liora stepped near the bushes.

She looked left and then right, but saw no trace of the wanderers. She then squinted in disgust and kicked Aletha's leg with her high heels, thinking she was a bush. Aletha tried to scream, but her scream was suppressed by Asahi's cold hand. Then, something sinister unfolded.

Kept in Liora's hands was a duplicate of the Forbidden Book.

There were two of them, one on the ground and another on her hand.

"Is that... a copy?" Aletha muttered as she saw two golden books shimmer in the distance. "What is she doing?"

After placing the copy down and writing on it, she closed the duplicate of the book and placed it in her pocket.

A tsunami of questions flooded their minds as they began to recall the many instances of The Forbidden Book.

(Could it mean that all this time, these loops were actually the pages themselves? And if so, how could they change fate and escape the looping three days? Could it be that these were mirrored plains of existence?)

Now, it made sense how these books were mirrored. It explained the requests made at the beginning of their pursuit.

"Are there more people trapped in this book? Are we not the only ones?" Asahi questioned in his mind as he silently gazed at the magenta-haired woman.

After this, it made sense to them why the requests were made, why they pursued the illustrations in the first place.

It was none other than the Librarian who revealed these messages and illustrated the drawings.

Not only that, but it seemed that the copy and the original text were connected.

As Asahi and Aletha watched, Liora, the Librarian, departed toward the city with the group of males, intentionally leaving the original book behind. They hastily scrambled to snatch the book, seeing more requests written in ink.

"What?!" Aletha said with broadened eyes. "There's more..."

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Find out what the ingredients mean. Follow the places where the drawings are. Use the clues, illustrations, and figures in the page to find the ingredients. Run outside to find Clover Find parts of the medals and gems Give them to the thieves. :// :/// :/:/ :// :/// :/:/

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"There are more requests," Aletha said as she scratched her head. "Wait, so she's the one who made this? Um, that kind of makes sense. Asahi, I think we have to…"

Trying to grapple with his senses, Asahi scratched his chin and muttered.

"It seems to me that UNTIL these requests are fulfilled, we might be stuck looping these three days constantly," Pushing himself and the book up, he continued as he grabbed Aletha's hand. "Let's try it. Let's use trial and error. Remember Akwan's analogy? Pawns on a chess board?"

"Yeah," Aletha said while she scratched her head in confusion. "So you're telling me to do everything possible to get these ingredients? To use the artifacts and place them around like some sort of game? Are you sure that will be sufficient?" Aletha asked as she peered with her gray eyes at the book's pages.

"Quite sure." He replied as he closed the book and put it in his pocket. "Now come, Aletha. Let's pass the day, and once we return to the other dimension, we will start anew. And find a way out of this prison."