Research and Poop

The Ancient Library of Wisdom was the main reason Hairur’s Fence had become the first stop in Nona’s journey.

Conveniently placed downtown - because the city had been built around it - the library was one of the most emblematic buildings of the Central Continent. Its modest exterior, devoid of any decoration, was more functional than beautiful. Though that simplicity vanished the moment its main doors were crossed.

It was not that the interior was highly ornate, but the best word to describe the distribution of the library would be ‘chaotic’. The library only had five floors, but each one of them was an intricate maze of shelves that reached the ceiling. The space was so full that even if the ceilings were pretty high, there was a feeling of oppression when walking through the excessively narrow aisles.

Due to this architecture, the arrangement of the books was also rather arbitrary. And as a result, books were not always in the place they were supposed to be.

“I’m so sorry, miss. I promise that this is the last place where I put it,” the librarian gnome profusely apologized from the shelf where he had been walking on during the past five minutes, trying to find The Ultimate Guide of Super Deathly Plants. “Maybe that damn berry-brain–I-I mean, maybe my slightly distracted colleague forgot to return it and it’s still at the reception. I will check as soon as I can.”

“No worries. For now we have enough books to check. Thank you, sir!”

Nona turned around way too quickly, forgetting for a moment that she had a tower of fifteen books in her hands. Her sudden movement shook the tower dangerously, arising a high-pitched cry from the librarian gnome. Fortunately, she managed to regain balance.

“A-Are you sure you don’t need help carrying all that?”

“Nah, don't worry. Yesterday I managed to carry twenty-three.”

Nona left the gaped gnome behind and resumed her way back to the others. She was rather proud when she only took a wrong turn before reaching their table.

“I’m boooored,” Thorny complained while lying face up on the table, in the only spot that wasn’t full of books or annotations.

“You know that you are not helping with those complaints, right?” Adish said in a mechanical, bored tone without even averting his eyes from the notes he was taking.

“Maybe but it helps me vent!” The imp groaned with annoyance. “We’ve been stuck in this stinky building for ages and I’m tired of it!”

“We’ve just been here two days,” Vesper corrected while Nona started to carefully place the tower of books she had been carrying.

“Yeah, but we haven’t found a single useful clue about the Rift or about that weakling’s antidote, so it feels like a damn eternity.”

“Thorny, you promised you wouldn’t call Adish that again.”

“No, dummy leader, I didn’t promise anything! And I’m too frustrated to care about that weakling’s feelings!”

“Wait, where are you going?” Nona asked when Thorny suddenly flew away from the table.

“To take a pee!”

“A pee? But the restrooms are too far away from–” But by then Thorny had already disappeared around the next corner. Nona took a deep sigh and looked at Adish. “I’m sorry. When he is frustrated, he can be pretty intense. Probably he will feel better after eating something.”

“Ah, don’t worry. I think I’m getting used to him. And well, I’ve also made my peace with being a weakling.” Adish chuckled nervously and raised his arms conciliatorily when Nona half-closed her eyes at him with a rather serious expression. ”Hey, at least let me laugh a bit about my bad luck.”

“You know that you are not helping with that kind of comments either, right?” Vesper said with a light reproaching tone, as Nona effusively nodded and Adish sighed.

“You are right, Vesper. I’m sorry. But I already told you that there is no cure for it. My mother and I spent years searching for one in this same Library. We even consulted a few books that came directly from the Elves’ Ancient Archive and the Dwarfs’ Registry of Ancient Rolls, and we found nothing.”

“That’s why I’m not searching for a cure but for a solution, even if it’s temporary. So if you are going to waste time talking bad about yourself,” Vesper offered Adish an innocent smile before sliding a book towards the mage, “at least do something useful and translate this.”

“Hey, Adish, how come you know the elven language?" Nona tilted her head with curiosity while Adish took Vesper’s book. “Did you learn it at school or something?”

“No, I’m self-taught. Speaking elven always gives additional points in academics, so I thought it would be worth it to learn it.”

“And it also helps enhance certain kinds of spells,” Vesper pointed out, “at the cost of wasting more energy of course.”

Nona hummed, impressed. From time to time, she couldn’t help but imagine how she would be in case of having been born with magic potential. It wasn’t that she regretted not having it, but she wondered if she would have been able to master those powerful, legendary spells that provoked seaquakes or that moved mountains. That would have been pretty cool to do.

“But enough talking about me,” Adish said, his eyes shining with anticipation. “If our impatient imp hadn’t left, he’d have discovered that I finally have some information regarding the Dawn Rift. Which news do you want to hear first: good or bad?”

“Bad news/good news!”

Adish chuckled while Vesper and Nona looked at each other.

“I knew this would happen. I will go with the good news first in honor of our leader. To summarize, I have been researching documentation of different sources related to The Dawn Rift: legends, essays, diaries, supposedly-reliable testimonies. After analyzing them, I have reached one pretty solid conclusion.” Adish made a dramatic pause - during which he adjusted his glasses, also rather theatrically - and continued after clearing his throat. “The Dawn Rift changes location and is never at the same place.”

Nona and Vesper gasped.

And then, they frowned at the same time.

“Wait,” Nona tilted her head even more, “why is that the good news?”

“Yes, I was wondering the same. It sounds like the journey is going to be even more complicated than we thought.”

“A-Ah, well, I haven’t revealed the good news yet,” Adish cleared his throat again, this time awkwardly. “This was just the preamble. To set the context.”

Nona exhaled an understanding ‘Oooh’, but Vesper raised her eyebrows while smiling with skepticism.

“So you wanted to make the most of Thorny not being here to boast a little about what you have found without the risk of being interrupted or mocked?”

Adish blushed slightly at Vesper’s words, clicked his tongue, and adjusted his glasses again.

“Good news is that we should be able to find the Rift with a Magic Tracker. The bad news is that these trackers are incredibly difficult - or expensive - to find, so it won’t be easy to find one.”

Adish had delivered the information with a fast, sulking tone, but Nona’s effusive claps made him blush again.

“Oh my god, great work Adish! You discovered so many things!”

And then her enthusiasm vanished as fast as it had appeared as she sank in a chair between Adish and Vesper.

“Hey, what’s wrong all of sudden?” Vesper said with concern.

“I just realized that I have been so busy gathering the books for you that I didn’t even do any research.” Nona gulped, her eyes looking in front of her without actually seeing. “One of the conditions to fulfill my mission was that I had to find The Dawn Right, but in the end it was Adish the one who–”

“Nona,” she focused again when Adish softly called her name, “I just found what I found about The Dawn Rift precisely because you have been running through the library floors gathering all these books for us non-stop. We have consulted almost two hundred books in total. Do you know how much it would have cost me, or Vesper, to do that on our own? Weeks.”

“Yes, not everyone can carry twenty-three heavy books in one sitting,” Vesper added, offering Nona an encouraging smile. “And besides, if I remember correctly, Thorny said your mission was to go to The Dawn Rift. You didn’t say anything about the method to find its location.”

“Exactly. So even if I had found about it on my own - which I have not - you have not failed any requirement.” Adish smiled with irony. “I mean, you are always insisting that you want me on your team. Since I’m a weakling that cannot use magic, at least let me do something useful.”

“Adish, don’t be so mean to yourself!”

Both the mage and Vesper laughed at Nona’s genuine, exasperated tone.

“For the record, I was just joking.” After a short pause, Adish talked again. “But now that we are talking about your mission, can I ask you an honest question about it?”

Nona blinked, surprised by Adish’s sudden serious tone.

“Of course. What is it?”

“Please, don’t take it personally. But if you want to have any chance to capture that ‘Goddess’ pet’...” Adish hesitantly pointed at Nona’s belt, “shouldn’t you buy a better weapon than that?”

“W-What?!” Nona placed a protective hand on her sword. “But why?! This is the best, most comfortable sword in the world! I have been training with it since I was born!”

“Yes, that I can see it. Surely that’s the reason it’s so rusty–”

“Don’t call it rusty!” Nona brought a hand to her mouth when a librarian gnome hushed in her direction. She let out a hurried ‘sorry’ before continuing. “This sword has been passed through generations from mother to daughter. And, ok, maybe it’s a bit used, but it’s a family relic! It’s a present that an ancient god gave to my great-great-great-great…” Nona used the fingers of her hand to count before continuing, “...great grandmother after falling in love with her, so I’m not throwing it away!”

“Okay, first, I never said anything about throwing it away, just that you needed a new weapon. And second, do you know that all those stories about gods falling in love with humans are just romance fiction to steal money from teenagers, right?”

Nona snorted and shook her head. “Sorry, Adish, but I can’t take the word of an atheist at face value in this matter.”

“Actually…” Vesper said timidly, “I do believe in gods, but Adish has a point here. According to the Holy Scriptures, gods have strict rules that forbid them from getting involved with humans, since the punishment is banishment. So it’s unlikely that a god dared to take such a risk.”

Nona was about to retort that she had proof that the story wasn’t made up, but before she could prove her point, she felt a familiar small presence next to her right before feeling some tiny hands pushing her.

“O-Okay, I think it’s time to take a break and eat, don’t you think, leader? For sure you guys are tired after so much hard work done–”

“Where did that filthy creature go?!”

“Damn!” Thorny cursed right before a group of three gnomes appeared running down the corridor.

“Hey, that imp was with you, right?” asked one of the furious gnomes.

“Well–”

“No, he wasn’t,” Adish rapidly said before Nona could finish the sentence. “He happened to sleep at the same table we worked on, but he is not with us.”

“Good,” said another gnome, right before blushing, “because he…uhm… he had the nerve of using his… raw matter as… uhm…soil fertilizer for our precious plants.”

Nona blinked slowly.

“Uhm…you say Thor–I mean, that imp did what?”

“He took a dump in a decorative plant.”

Everyone exclaimed, this time Nona included.

“In my defense I thought I was just going to do number 1!” Thorny whispered towards Nona. “B-But then my stomach betrayed me and I needed to do a number 2, but the restroom was too far away and–”

Thorny was still muttering excuses in Nona’s ear while they somehow managed to convince the gnomes that they didn’t have anything to do with the imp.

“Unbelievable,” Adish said mortified while they climbed down the stairs to leave the library. He stared at the spot in Nona’s shoulder where Thorny usually sat. “We are lucky that they believed us or for sure they would have put us on the blacklist to never allow us to enter the library again!”

“Come on, four-eyes, I already said that I’m sorry! And I took precautions! I was invisible the whole time, but I forgot that my poop was not and they happened to notice when–”

“I don’t want details!”

“Shhh, Adish, lower your voice, we are still in the library!” Vesper admonished.

“But he is the one who–” Adish exhaled a frustrated groan. “Nevermind. But it would be nice if you thought twice about doing things that could affect us as a whole.”

By then they had reached the library exit, and Nona decided it was time to lift the mood a bit.

“Come on, guys, let’s not fight: Thorny has actually apologized - and let me tell you that we don’t see that everyday - and you, Adish and Vesper, you have done a great job researching and we are closer to finding both The Daw Rift and Adish’s partial cure! So follow my lead!” Nona started to walk with brio in front but kept looking back at the members of her team with a happy smile on her face. “Today’s dinner is on your leader–!”

“Dummy, watch out!”

By the time Nona turned around, it was too late to avoid bumping into the group of Knights that were standing in the middle of the street.

And of course, when they turned around, Nona could perfectly see the small pink daisy decorating their breastplates.

“...Poop.”