Chapter 13: Speed Reading

         Stacks of books descend from the stairs creating towers on and around the table, baffled about the task that was set before him. "Magi Vashti, how do you want me to sort all this?" Rowan looks at the spines of these books and sees that some have titles but a grand majority are blank on the spine. Some don't even have a title on the cover, he opens a blank cover book hoping that there is something on the inside. "Oh a geographical analysis for the Ulterium Kingdom!" Vashti chimes in from upstairs, "Oh yeah that place is a wasteland, blown to bits since the war." Rowan unsure if this book is a toss or how to sort it, "How did you sort these books in the first place!?" Vashti pops their head down, "I didn't, the last Magi here did."

Rowan sinking in the ever constant stream of paper, "Please tell me there is a least a sorting system this empire uses and I can just follow that!" There is a worrying amount silence before a response was heard from the Magi, "Just follow your heart, let the books speak to you." Rowan calling the bluff, "You don't know either that's why your making me do it!?" The dirty blonde Magi reveals themselves from upstairs with more books, "I didn't want to ask for help, Alphis set me up in organizing this." A thud can be felt with the stack of books that were brought down to the ground. "Otherwise I was just gonna leave this as it is, but he wanted to check the archive for something specific."

Vashti attempts to make a cute face through the baggy green eyes, "So I thought why not get some extra hands to help?" They try to justify their decision, "If you want you can read some of them and take a little break in between, it'll be much better than rotting in that cell." While correct, Rowan would rather be here than in waiting for a worse task. He can not but fear what the others might be force to do. "Lets be honest with ourselves even if I was there..." He thinks back to earlier when he tried to help Eribella, he still feels raw stinging sensation despite its absence.

Rowan takes a deep breath and reaches his fist out as if he is completing a team huddle hyping themselves for a difficult game. Then exhales, Rowan grabs a stack of books and descends into the archive. Unlike the circular floors above, this room extends to house about twenty-four bookshelves stacked back to back, with two rows creating six columns as well as the walls are lined with more half empty shelves. Rowan looks any markings on the columns to see if they was any forgotten form of organization only to be find nothing.

Almost reaching a level of tiredness to rival the taskmaster that set this upon him, Rowan starts by going to one end of the bookshelves. He takes a book, with no title on spine, and thumbs through it, after skimming the contents he reaches for another book. This book is a completely different subject matter than the last, he headbutts the sturdy bookshelf. "By the god of this fresh hell, where do I start!?" In a fit of frustration he takes all the books from the their shelf in front of him and puts them on the ground.

An idea strikes him Rowan rushes to the stairs, "Vashti do you have any ink I can use?" Vashti perplexed, "What do you need ink for?" Rowan responds with self brilliant vigor, "I want to put the titles on the spine of the books as well as on the covers so it will be easier to find." Vashti almost sounds impressed, "Ooooh, why?" Thrown off, "What, what do you mean why? It's so we can sort this faster!" Vashti still not understanding, "What do you mean? I just need you to organize the old books from the new ones, and put the papers into easy to reach areas."

Rowan feeling deflated, "How em I suppose to know what are old books from the new ones?" Vashti casually going upstairs, "You can read now, not my problem anymore." Rowan almost misses the whip, now filled with a new form of energy boiling inside him. He takes a stack of books and walks them to the empty shelf and starts reading. Once he begins reading the intro page of the book, where the title hides itself in the worlds worse act of hide and seek. Then skims a few pages to grasp what type of book this is, he crates a pile. "accounting, geology record, mathematical study, accounting, Magi memoirs, rune research?"

In between some of the books, most seem to be accounting records, but some of an interesting subject matter he set aside. After Rowan starts putting books of a type of subject matter on the empty shelf, he would clear another shelf. Once cleared he would take a break and pull one of the book regarding runes upstairs. Wanting to test a theory, Rowan shifts his breathing as he sees Vashti descending with another tower of papers. Rowan enters a realm of calm then notices that Vashti begins to step slowly, then Rowan looks at the book and shifts his seat.

With a pleasant surprise he can move in this state, he reaches for the book and carefully opens the cover. He then fingers the first page but cuts himself, "Gah paper cut!" He sucks on the wound, "I think I am going at this too fast... Could I just alter between breaths?" Rowan now trying increase his breathing just before he turns the page then calms after the page is turned. Using Vashti as a gauge whether he is slowing his world down or not, he begins to read, shift his speed between page turns, then reads again.

Everything is this book seems to be a complex set of formulas of runes and what they translate to, but there seems to be an advance trick to this runes. It is not limited to a particular set of languages, Rowan wonders if his language could work as well. While completely absorbed in reading this book, Vashti manages to sneak up on Rowan. They sit on the table and grab Rowan on the chin to examine him. "That's what I thought, if you keep breathing like that your core is going to explode."

Rowan flabbergasted he responds with a heavy breath, "I uh, not sure what you mean?" Vashti rolls their eyes, "Your not skimming or just a fast reader, you are altering your perception so you can retain what you read at a quick pace." They hit the nail on the head, Rowan just breathes and stares at Vashti. "I said you can take a break and read a book." They look at the open pages of the book Rowan is reading. "If you want to start with that subject matter you need to read the fundamentals first, come." Vashti hops off the desk, scratches their waist where the cord of the bloomers rests, and walks downstairs to the archive.

Getting his breath back to normal, Rowan joins Vashti downstairs and see them looking through the archive. On one of the shelves that Rowan has not gotten to yet Vashti quickly pulls out a book and walks back to him. "Here you are, these are the new basics." Rowan opens the blank cover book to see the title page, "New Traditional Understanding of Runic Fundamentals and Summoning".