Chapter 13: The Library Tower

The vast library, filled with books upon books, was a maze Ariella struggled to piece together. While she had a small list to work with, finding them inside such a large place felt nearly impossible. It was one of the several towers she witnessed when entering the city for the first time, and the size was larger than she had originally thought. So large that she wondered if she was even inside the same tower. Shelves floated and shifted around, hiding secrets. It looked magical.

“Hello?” Ariella whispered, not wanting to scare anyone who was reading, but also because of her flashbacks of being shushed by the librarians when she was younger. However, as she wandered around the shifting library halls, Ariella rarely came across another person. The place felt barren, yet there was no way that was true.

The things she learned about the library in her history class said something different. Built by an unknown mage who tossed in his own library of books and spells. It started off small, yet grew to the endless size it was today. There was so much hidden information that it became sought by everyone around the world, yet only the students of the academy had permission to enter.

“How do I even find the books I’m looking for?”

“You need to think really hard,” a voice from behind her warned.

“That doesn’t help me much?” Ariella turned around with a puzzled expression. “Who are you?”

“Chloe,” she smiled underneath her wide-brimmed witch hat. “As you can see, I’m a mage. Senior at the school.” Her black robes hid her figure, but her striking ruby eyes that peeked from under the brim of her hat looked at her with curiosity.

“Ariella,” she answered with a wary smile. “What did you mean by thinking really hard?”

“Maybe I simplified it too much. If you wander around aimlessly, you will never find what you’re looking for. Instead, you need to dig deep and think about what it is you’re searching for. If you do, the library will show you the way.”

“Is it magic?” Ariella questioned.

“Created by the one who made the tower. It’s a miracle in itself that the magic is still active, even if there was a gigantic magic stone at the top to supply the mana.”

“Then do I leave the same way I found a book?”

“Yes, but it’s a lot easier and simpler. Trust me, you’ll see.”

While she didn’t completely understand what Chloe was telling her, she closed her eyes and thought about the list of books given to her, and after a few moments of nothing happening, she spoke. “Nothing is happening.”

“That’s because you’re searching for the wrong thing,” Chloe answered. “Your search needs to be broad, or else the library will never listen to you.”

With a shrug and a raised eyebrow, Ariella changed the way she approached it. Instead of focusing on anything specific, she thought about Leviathan as a whole. The things she already knew and the things she wanted to know. “I don’t think--”

The monotonous rhythm of the library fizzled into stillness. A quietness that overwhelmed the senses. Then, a moment later, a loud and thunderous sound struck, followed by the quick movement of the bookshelves and stairs, and when she finally opened her eyes, a long stairway formed with bookshelves lining the sides.

“It worked,” she turned behind her, but there was nothing but her and the stairs. “And she left,” Ariella rolled her eyes. She had a few questions she wanted to ask her. Chloe seemed quite knowledgeable about the library, so she wanted to ask a few more questions and maybe find out what else the library had in store.

Making sure there wasn’t anything she missed, Ariella checked the books as she slowly ascended the flight of stairs, and when she made it to the top, a single bookcase awaited her.

“So that’s how it works,” Ariella rushed to the bookshelf filled with books about Leviathan. “I feel like Alice would love this place.” After plucking a book from the shelf and skimming it to make sure it wasn’t anything important, she placed it back, then moved on to the next one. She asked the professor for some books because she was worried there would be too many, and while Ariella was going to grab the ones that were recommended, there was no reason not to look over the rest. After all, a single bookshelf wasn’t too many to skim through.

Ariella clicked her tongue while sliding a book back to where it came from. “Most of them have new information in them, but they’re not what I’m looking for.” The thought puzzled her. While she knew a lot about the dragons, more specifically Leviathan, it wasn’t as much as she would like.

Each library she had searched before offered the same limited selection of books, and their content was shallow at best. They explained theories, but never anything deeper to truly understand what they were.

“Another one,” she sighed while snapping the book shut. “There has to be something.” Ariella ran her finger along the book’s spines as she mulled over what to do. “Here’s that book that…” Her finger came to a stop on a particular book that looked quite different from the others. Leather-bound and notebook size, it was smaller than the others and looked to be more personal too. While all the others were uniformed, as if they were manufactured, the one that stood out like a sore thumb.

“This has to be it,” she eagerly but carefully opened the notebook. “What?” Her grin turned to a frown at the sight of the first page.

The world had a small pool of languages that were used. Elven, dwarven, human, and the common tongue used by all. It was simple and easy to understand, yet the notebook, which was clearly a diary considering the way the author dated their pages, was in a language she had never recognized. And while she barely knew any Dwarven or Elven, she could tell immediately it was neither of them.

“Wait a second,” Ariella gently flipped through the notebook while pacing around the bookshelf. “If it’s in a language I don’t know, then it had to be from a long time ago, and since the only books here would be things about the Leviathan, then whatever they wrote had to be something they experienced themselves. It seems far too personal to be anything other than that.” She smiled. “But how do I read it? And how did this thing even get here?”