The Labyrinthine Tower part 2

Investigation
Professor Mossbrook waited near the Restricted Wing, a small lantern in one hand, a rune-etched dagger in the other. Her expression was grim.

“The tomes are speaking,” she said. “And worse — they’re listening. We need to find which ones are the source before their enchantments unravel completely.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t thrilled about the “unraveling enchantments” part.

She handed me a Rune-Lens, a small crystal monocle used to detect active illusions. “Search the aisles. Look for distortions — shimmered air, runes shifting too quickly, anything that hums when it shouldn’t.”

“Anything that hums,” I repeated. “Got it.”

Rows upon rows of books loomed around me. I passed one shelf where a tome whispered flirtatiously — “Reader, dearest reader…” — before snapping shut like a jaw. Another shelf rearranged itself when I looked away, titles muttering curses under their breath.

A random student stumbled past, looking terrified.

“Someone’s been talking to the spellbooks again, haven’t they?”

I pretended not to hear him.

Eventually, the Rune-Lens flared to life near a section labeled Pre-Dimensional Theory — Vol. I–XII. The air shimmered faintly. Through the lens, I saw shapes — tall, wingless silhouettes coiling through the script itself, words twisting around them like chains.

I reached out, fingertips grazing the spine of an old tome. It pulsed, once, like a heartbeat.

And then the illusions broke loose.

The Whispering Tomes
Books exploded from the shelves, pages swirling into the air, forming a storm of ink and sigils. Runes screamed, sentences peeled from parchment like writhing snakes. The entire section came alive, possessed by some unseen intelligence.

In the center of the maelstrom, a shadow took form — a half-shaped entity built of letters and dust, its face a collage of words that spelled “REMEMBER US.”

It lunged.

I barely managed to summon a containment ward — a shimmering bubble of light — but the creature slammed against it, shattering runes as fast as I could chant them.

Professor Mossbrook’s voice echoed from somewhere down the aisle: “Seal it with truth! Speak its name if you can see it!”

Through the Lens, I caught fragments of text flitting through its form: Archivus… Erudane… Forgotten Custodian…

“Archivus!” I shouted.

The entity froze — then collapsed into a rain of ink and shredded parchment. The books fell silent, pages scattering across the marble floor.

When the dust settled, the library’s glow returned to normal. Mossbrook appeared beside me, brushing soot from her robes.

“You’ve done well,” she said softly. “Archivus was once one of our own — a librarian who tried to preserve forbidden knowledge. When the Academy was founded over the ruins, his spirit lingered… twisting the books themselves.”

“So, the whispers were him?”
“Partly. And partly something that used his voice.”

Her gaze lingered on the shattered pages. “We’ll need to ward the library again. The labyrinth’s corruption spreads upward faster than I feared.”

Return to Dormitory (Night Dialogue)
On my way out, Ira the Whisperer drifted beside me once more.

“The books are quiet now,” she said. “But silence too can lie.”

Then she vanished, leaving only the faint rustle of pages and the scent of burnt ink.

Demon Among Us
There are few things more unsettling than realizing your teacher might be a demon.

But in the Labyrinthine Tower, it wasn’t exactly unheard of.

The professors here weren’t saints — most were brilliant to the point of madness, the kind of minds that looked at cosmic horrors and said, “Interesting, let’s take notes.” Still, when Professor Dareth began talking to mirrors in the hallways and laughing at invisible jokes, even that was too much.

The Rumor
By the time I reached breakfast, the whispers had already spread across the dining hall like wildfire.

Calistra, the pyromancy instructor, muttered grimly into her cup.

“So, another one got possessed? That’s the third this term.”

Someone nearby coughed nervously. Someone else dropped a spoon.

Possession wasn’t rare in a place built on a labyrinth that hated sanity, but it was never treated lightly. When a mind cracked here, it wasn’t madness — it was invasion.

Eleanora — my study partner and occasional headache — crossed her arms and leaned close, her monocle flashing with a faint blue rune.

“Keep your mind guarded. They slip through thoughts. If you start hearing whispers that rhyme, report it.”
“Noted,” I said, though I was already pretty sure I’d heard something humming in my sleep.
“Good,” she said, squinting at me. “You already look like the type they’d try to possess first.”

I wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or insulted.

Later that evening, I found Lirien Mossbrook waiting for me near the Hall of Reflections — a chamber lined with enchanted mirrors that shimmered like liquid glass.

Her voice was calm as ever, though her eyes flickered with pale light. “Professor Dareth is no longer himself,” she said. “His aura is fractured — and something has taken root inside. We’ll have to go in to pull it out.”

“In?” I echoed.
She gestured toward the sealed mirror at the end of the corridor. “Into his reflection.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

But before we could begin, she handed me a parchment scrawled with instructions. “To stabilize the portal, we’ll need three Focus Crystals — one from the Astral Laboratory, one from the Meditation Garden, and one from the Clockspire Observatory. Without them, the Mirror Chamber won’t open.”

When I first tried to approach the Mirror Chamber without all three crystals, the reflection shimmered faintly and… stared back.

Then the glass rippled and whispered in my own voice:

“The reflection stares back, but does not move. The gate is not yet open.”

That was unsettling enough to make me step back and not do that again.

Focus Crystal Retrieval
The three errands weren’t simple fetch quests. The Astral Laboratory required solving a sigil puzzle while gravity kept shifting sideways. The Meditation Garden’s crystal was guarded by spectral monks who only moved when I looked away. The Clockspire Observatory’s one was spinning inside a floating time-loop — I had to grab it during a specific bell chime or it reset.

By the time I returned, I was drenched in sweat, covered in moonlight dust, and had an unshakable suspicion that the Tower was watching me back.

The Mirror Chamber Opens
When the final Focus Crystal slotted into its pedestal, the mirror quivered like water in a storm. Shadows bled from its surface. I could see Professor Dareth’s reflection inside — eyes blackened, smile stretched too wide.

Lirien placed a hand on my shoulder. “Stay centered. We’ll go in together. If you lose focus, you’ll become just another reflection.”

The mirror swallowed us whole.

The Mirror Realm
It was like walking into someone’s dream — or their nightmare. Every wall reflected something impossible. Fragments of the Academy hung upside-down in mirrored skies. The floor rippled underfoot like quicksilver.

In the center stood Dareth — or what used to be him. The creature’s grin was too sharp, his shadow moving faster than his body.

“Do you truly think you can see what hides beneath your own skin?”

The voice echoed inside my skull, not through the air.

I tried to summon a defensive rune, but the lines bent backward, reflecting themselves endlessly in the mirrored ground. Lirien raised her hand, her eyes glowing white.

“His mind is trapped. I’ll anchor your consciousness. You fight what’s inside.”

Before I could respond, the mirror under me shattered — and I fell into my own reflection.

Inner Exorcism Duel
The battle wasn’t with blades or spells — not exactly. Each thought I formed became a weapon, each fear a wound. The demon wore my face, fought with my doubts, whispered every secret I’d tried to bury.

“You envy them,” it said, slicing through the air with a blade of light. “You hide in jokes because you’re afraid to be seen.”

I countered with pure willpower, pushing runes of clarity through the haze. “I hide in jokes because I’m smarter than you,” I snapped. “And funnier.”

It screeched — the sound like glass splintering in my veins — and lunged again.

Lirien’s voice echoed faintly from somewhere above: “Don’t fight the reflection — resolve it. Accept it!”

So, I did.

I stopped struggling, stopped denying. And as the demon raised its blade for the final strike, I reached out — not with anger, but understanding — and drew its power into my palm, turned it into Focus-Crystal Pendant.

The mirror burst apart in a rain of light.

When I opened my eyes, we were back in the real chamber. Professor Dareth lay unconscious on the floor, his skin marked with faint runes that slowly faded.

Lirien knelt beside him, exhausted but composed. “It’s done,” she said softly. “The demon is banished. His mind will recover in time.”

She looked up at me — studying me with her piercing gray eyes. “Few can walk through another’s madness and return whole. You’ve done well… but the cracks are spreading. The labyrinth stirs again.”

The Forbidden Vault
You could tell something was wrong the moment you walked into breakfast. The air was tense — not the usual kind of “someone turned the dining hall silverware into frogs” tense — but the heavy, brittle kind that made every spoon clatter sound like thunder.

Professor Magnos, the Tower’s alchemy instructor and resident safety hazard, stood at the front table, gripping his staff so tightly the wood creaked. His beard smoked faintly — always a bad sign.

“The Orb of Containment,” he growled, “has been stolen.”
The students froze. Someone gasped. Someone else whispered “again?”

Lirien’s gaze flicked toward me across the room. She didn’t need to say it — I could already feel trouble circling like a hungry bat.

The Missing Orb
The Orb of Containment wasn’t just some shiny relic. It was the Academy’s failsafe — a spherical prism that could imprison a demon’s essence, sealing it away for eternity. Or, if mishandled, unseal it spectacularly.

Magnos slammed his staff against the floor.

“Someone broke the seals to the Vault. The wards triggered, then failed. We have reports of… chanting.”

That last word did it. The entire hall collectively winced. Chanting was never a good sign here.

Lirien stepped forward, calm but cold.
“Send me. And one assistant.”

Magnos’ eyes fell on me like a guillotine.

“You. You seem unlucky enough to attract the right kind of chaos.”
“An honor,” I muttered.

The Vault of Seals, buried deep beneath the Tower, was normally locked behind arcane wards and faculty sigils. When I first tried to approach it without authorization, the air shimmered, and the barrier whispered in a voice that wasn’t entirely unfriendly:
“A shimmering barrier denies entry. A whisper echoes: ‘Not your time.’”

Charming. Even the architecture had an attitude.

Gathering Information
Before diving in, Lirien sent me to gather leads — which mostly meant interrogating students who looked shifty. That was, unfortunately, all of them.

Fennick, a habitual troublemaker with ink-stained robes, greeted me with a grin that screamed guilt.

“It wasn’t me this time. Probably.”
I stared. “That’s not exactly comforting.”
“Hey, if I’d stolen an artifact capable of ending existence, I wouldn’t still be here eating porridge.”

He had a point — but I made a note anyway. Possible accomplice, possible idiot.

Sera, one of Lirien’s senior assistants, was less amused.

“They thought they could bind demons,” she said flatly. “Fools. Even a minor binding can go wrong if you flinch mid-incantation. Or breathe.”
She didn’t add ‘or exist’, but it hung in the air.

Finally, I cornered Magnos himself in the laboratory, surrounded by half-finished experiments and enough volatile fumes to start a new sun. He didn’t look up from his notes.

“Don’t touch the orb unless you like being vaporized.”
“That’s… motivational.”
“Not motivation. Experience.”

I decided not to ask.

The Descent
Once we had authorization sigils, the barrier to the Vault dissolved like mist under moonlight. The staircase wound down and down — stone slick with condensation, torches flickering blue. I could hear faint voices ahead. Chanting.

Real chanting this time.

Lirien raised a hand for silence. The glow from her staff dimmed until only our breath fogged the air.

“They’ve formed a pact,” she whispered. “Rogue students. They think they can harness demonic energy for power.”

“Typical academic overachievement,” I murmured.