Abyssal Archives (part 2)

     I walked to the nearest bookshelf and combed over the various spines, glancing over the selecting while I collected my thoughts. There were a few things to look for: a way back to the upper strata, a way to deal with the demon god, and some kind of permanent solution to ensure that no one else has to go through what I went through.

     The first should be the simplest, some kind of map, ideally one that marks any other portals like the ones Sero and Arx had between their territories. If not, perhaps how to make an electric motor so that I could make a helicopter of some sort.

     But even that seemed like it might prove difficult. Not every book had a title on its spine, and some books didn’t anything on their covers either. Even those that had titles were grouped in odd ways. Diaries, cook books, textbooks, transaction records, historical accounts, all of it was mixed together on the same shelf, often side-by-side. Where were the categorical sections? Where was the decimal system? There was just one indicator imprinted on each book that gave any kind of hint. Four numbers, often the first two being different and the latter two being the same, and four letters: P, T, M, U.

“Goddess, can you make any sense of this?”

“It appears to be a date that uses the Flow for time-keeping. Pulsare, Tinnitus, Murmur, Unda. These are the measurements that are used in the Divine Realm, and it is likely the residents of the Demon Realm copied them from us.”

“So larger numbers would mean later then?”

“Indeed. Pulsare are minuscule, a few will happen within a deep breath. Tinnitus are longer, roughly the time for the sun to rise, set, and rise again on many worlds. Murmur are longer, about the time it takes for the sun to go to every point in the sky along its procession, then return to its original point. The Unda is the longest, oftentimes entire civilizations will rise and fall multiple times within one Unda.”

“Hm, so the P is something like seconds. T about a day, but probably differs from world to world. The M is...years? The U could be...Centuries? Millenia?”

“I do not know how you track time in the Hidden Realm, but the Flow is consistent across all Great Realms, the Divine Realm and the Demon Realm. Differences in worlds or stars change nothing of the Flow’s frequencies.”

“That would be nice to have, but we make do with what we have. Anyway, now that I know that, these numbers make a little more sense. There’re dozens of thousands of P’s per T, some hundreds of T’s per M, and I guess I need to look at more books to find out how many M’s per U. Thank you goddess, that was helpful!”

     With the symbols understood, the sorting method made more sense: the library was organized chronologically with the oldest books at the top and the newest at the bottom. Organization beyond that was up to luck, it seemed. History and diaries make sense to place chronologically, but not all books made sense chronologically. I especially couldn’t tell the fiction from the history when both seemed to come from many different places that I’d never heard from. Were these places countries? Continents? Planets? I had no way of telling.

“Ah! If I’m looking for a map of the Demon Realm, I should try to find the most recent one, right? Then I’ll just head straight to the bottom!”

     I ran to the center of the library where the circular opening was and created a hook, attached it to the railing, and began forming a long line of chain to lower myself. But, as soon as my body entered the central opening, I began to float and drift inward.

“Wh-what?!”

“It would seem flight magic is in use here. You should be able to control it with a bit of focus.”

     I focused on myself, on keeping myself in place and, sure enough, I held in place no matter how much I waved my arms and legs.

“Alright! This makes things much easier!”

     Orienting with my head facing the floor, I began lowering myself and accelerating, making sure to avoid the oncoming paper women that might be ascending the opening. Even with all the interior lighting, I couldn’t see the bottom of the tower, but that only encouraged me to accelerate more and more as the various floors and shelves quickly became a blur around me.

     The moment I could see what looked like the very bottom, I focused and stopped myself in place immediately. It helped not having a fully-human body or the whiplash might’ve killed me even if the impact hadn’t.

     Down at the bottom, there were still the same circle of shelves as every other floor, but more than half of them were empty. I could see where the tail end of the newest books were, as well that it was constantly shifting in place as chronologically older, but new acquisitions were presumably being added up above. I moved towards the newest books and began checking through them. I was looking for an atlas, a collection of maps in book form. I was confident that there had to be one of the Demon Realm, but I didn’t know who would have made it. Demons? Demon Gods? Divinities? Humans? I didn’t know, but I hoped, and was certain that there must be a map, no matter how crude, that could show me where to go.

“Goddess, is there any way you can help with this? Could you create angels now?”

“Yes, but it will take some time.”

     And we spent countless hours pouring through books, flipping through the pages to find anything that would suit our goals. With each new angel added, the task went faster, but with how long it took, even Andre became bored of waiting and decided to try helping, but he didn’t even understand what we were looking for, so he became a distraction instead. Eventually…

“I found one! An atlas!”

“Finally, can we go now?”

“Let me actually read it first!”

     I flipped through the pages upon pages of maps. I didn’t understand what unit of measurement they were using, but one page measured the size of Sero’s settlement, and from there I could figure out other distances. I knew what I was looking for, a map of portals, but my curiosity still drew me to looking at each page, to learn about all the different places within the Demon Realm. There were pages depicting the territories of Lords, Kings, and even Gods. There were pages showing that there were multiple libraries scattered across the middle strata. I could even glimpse into the lower strata and find that there were cities and tunnels below the ice.

     Finally, I found the pages depicting all known portal connections. There were thousands upon thousands of them, yet they were all connected between other places on the same strata. I checked and checked and checked again, every single one that I saw stayed on its strata except one. One portal connected the middle strata to the upper ones, yet the distance was astronomical. Forget days or even months of travel, it was worlds away from where we were. Even using the libraries to travel from one to the next would hardly bring us closer.

     So I continued flipping through the pages for any other information, anything, any alternatives, any shortcuts, while some noise kept ringing and ringing in my ear. I ignored it as best as I could while I poured through the pages and-

     The book was slapped from my hands and I just stood there, stunned. I looked up and saw Andre standing there.

“You awake now? Trying to become a raisin?”

“Wh-what?”

     I looked at my hands and noticed that my arms had started to shrivel up. I remembered those demons outside, how they were withered and even dead with books in their hands.

“How long have I been reading?”

“Two tinnitus, which I suppose you compared to ‘days.’ I tried calling out to you, but you would not answer me. Even attempting to control your body almost immersed me in the book as well. This place is dangerous.”

     I clutched my head, an intense thirst and hunger starting to hit me along with a headache all at once.

“B-but I needed to find another way! The closest portal to the upper strata was lifetimes away! It even had details on the Demon Gods’ territories! Maybe we could use-”

“James, immersing yourself again may kill you.”

     As I reached down to take the book, I froze at her words. What good would the information be if I died for it? Hesitantly, I grabbed the book by its spine, closing it and facing it away from me as I picked it up.

“You’re right. I won’t read it, but we might still need it, so I’ll take it with me.”

“You intend to steal it?”

“Well, it’s a library isn’t it? I should be able to borrow it. That’s probably how those other demons took their books out of here.”

“I understand, but you will have to be careful when reading it again.”

“I will. But I’m going to need both of your help again. I didn’t find anything that could help us here, so I wanted to look for something else.”

“What might that be? Where will you find it?”

“The history of the demons in power right now. I remember hearing that things were different before and after Libero was in power. Maybe we can find some kind of weakness to the Demon Gods, or at least someone who might want to work with us to take them down. As for where, well, I’ll just have to go to the oldest records and work my way down.”

“Uuuuugh you’re going to do MORE reading?!”

“Yep, sorry Andre, but this is important. It’ll help us protect the, uh, steak and fruit friend.”

“Uoh?! Say no more! Let’s get going!”

“He’s very simple.”

“Better than being complicated. Now, let’s get going.”