Chapter 14: 6/24605

         Heeding the advice of not abusing the ability to personally slow down time, Rowan has been organizing the books by genre till the pile reaches a breaking point. Then he sets them up on the shelf, he asks Vashti from time to time again if this was okay. To which frustrates the tired Magi as, "It does not really matter I already know which book is which." Rowan still a little baffled at being able to remember each and every book when they don't even have a title on the covers and spines...

Rowan pauses during his sorting by at which point he is working on the third bookshelf, to now recall which books he has already sorted. He walks up to the first blank book and recites, "Ledger of the Militia Finances Predating the Zechs Empire." He pulls the book off the shelf then reads the title page, "Ledger of the Militia Finances Predating the Zechs Empire." He puts the book back then takes a step back and look at the books he put away. Rowan always had decent memory but even he will admit that his memory was never this sharp, he scratches his head where the runes where placed.

Scratching his head an unexpected sensation touches his fingers, there's fuzz, like freshly grown hair kind of fuzz. He thinks that with his 32 years of age that his hair would be falling out than growing at a rapid pace. He looks back at the paper cut finger to see that it has completely healed, baffled once again Rowan takes another break to read up on the fundamentals. As he reads on and from what was explained from Kiri, magic as a whole has to have a grounding foundation and or style of practice.

It is true to how she explained it, learning is at its easiest when observing someone but that's not all of it. Magic in of itself has no limit but it needs a price to be called in the form of mana in order for it to work, then if the price of mana is correct or over than you will achieve the desired effect if not more. "But I need to crack open my well first, but how?" Rowan pounders, "Vashti has been helpful and at least does not seem to hate me or desire to torture me."

On an off chance it could work Rowan heads upstairs to at least give a progress report. "Pardon me Magi Vashti, but I have a question?" After stepping up stairs Rowan is greeted with Vashti lounging on a series of books propped up like a lounge chair. With their Magi robe as a sheet to lay on, while reading one of the tomes that are scattered around. They don't even respond with a response, just tilting the book slightly to show their baggy green eyes. Rowan continues, "I was wondering, I know that people of this world already knew how to." He thinks of a translation, "Summoning, at least in the traditional sense." Rowan gestures his point, "What would it take for someone like me to start using magic? To open my well so to speak?"

A deep sigh comes out of Vashti, "There are a few ways people have learned, but for someone as yourself there is only one method we know for sure." Rowan braces for whatever the answer could be, as Vashti continues. "Survival." Rowan freezes on the word, "You have to want to survive, or undergo a huge burst of emotion." They reach for some pieces of paper from a stack, "Something that draws you to change the outcome around you." Vashti holds out the piece of paper, "But its fine if you are not able to, we've only had 6 reported successes anyways."

Rowan reads the paper, it has a list of names and their status, "Out of how many that were summoned?" Vashti thinks it over, "What was your number? Well since you came in add 4 more to that number." Dread sinks in further, "24605 people total." Rowan almost in a state of panic, "But that number is so low! How could anyone keep a project like this going?" Vashti not surprised with the false conclusion, "It's simple, because it does not cost anything." They elaborate, "We Magi give everyone a sustaining rune so they don't need to eat. So that eliminates needing to feed them and covers waste, we Magi get fresh ethical volunteers for our projects and research." They wave their hand to point out the facts on an invisible board, "We don't have to worry about running out of prisoners of war and side step the ethics of using the citizens who commit crimes."

They close their book and stand up, "With the experiments we do we get, it improves our quality of life, by summoning creatures from more mana rich worlds, we can use them with our restoration efforts." Vashti continues this horrid monologue, "We've even found breakthroughs in expanding our own personal mana wells." They look at Rowan's dread stricken face, crossing their arms and sighs, "Man I was hoping that would get more of a rise out of you, it's not often you hear that you are a plaything to someone who holds your life and be told that you can be discarded like food waste."

Vashti walks up to a sullen expression Rowan and stares at his face, "I figured you would try to rush me and choke me out." After a pause, they let their head droop down and sigh, "Either beat the odds or give up, so in the meantime make yourself useful and get back to putting the books away." Vashti returns to their lounge chair of tomes, and Rowan pitifully takes a stack of books from the table and steps back down into the archive.

Rowan continues to sort the books, while before it was a goal of making sense of the madness. Now its a matter of putting them on the shelf, Rowan goes back to the sorted stacks, instead of setting up a shelf to a genre of books. He just packs them onto the first empty shelf he sees, he looks at the stack of books pertaining to magic and runes and leaves them on the ground. Rowan starts with all the books on the ground in the archive, he would flip to the title page, if it had anything regarding magic he tosses it to a pile. Otherwise he places it on the shelf, once the floor was done he would take a break and read up on some of the tomes about magic and its histories.

After skimming he would then silently grab more towers of books from upstairs and put them in the archive. Once a shelf is done he would return to read some more then put them on a specific shelf. Despite feeling done in doing favors for others, he at least held his end of the bargain by pulling books off a few shelves along the wall so he then can place all the loose paper and documents in them.

Night arrives as the sun finally gives up in piercing the curtains, the last stack of papers are put away. Rowan then walks to his pile of tomes in the corner of the archive, he sits down and just reads. Hoping that whatever information he memorizes might awaken the well within him.