Let The Games Begin

The lands south of the Never-Ending Basin are always quiet. Nothing inhabits the majority of that place, save for the sole settlement of a reclusive people.

Their civilization thrived there for many years, and only saw the appearance of a single stranger in all that time. She came for the first time, almost a thousand years ago, in the time of the current villagers' ancestors.

She declared herself as some great person; they, being isolated, knew nothing of who she claimed to be.

Still, they did not challenge her claim to the land she chose to build upon. They simply agreed, and observed her swift creation of a giant structure which she made her home.

On the outside, it looked like a coliseum, only those people had never seen such a thing before.

As hundreds of years passed, the woman frequented that building quite often. She would come and stay for a few years, then leave for dozens of years at a time. Stories were passed down through the generations about her, but no one knew anything for certain.

Eventually, she came back one day, and announced that she would be living there full-time for the foreseeable future. She had accomplished all that she wished to accomplish, and was now going to settle down.

She was going to settle down... and raise her daughter. She went into the Library and never came out. Not for a long, long time.

...

"Come on, you guys," Little Tyra softly shouted over to her friends; they were lagging behind.

Behind her, two boys and one other girl were making their way through the bushes, coming off of a dirt road. Tyra was far ahead of them, and when she saw that they were making their way forward, she continued.

"Tyra, are you sure you saw what you think you saw?" A slim boy groaned with pained reluctance as he tried to find a way out.

"Yeah," a stocky, tall boy rubbed his nose as he looked around, "I've been to the Witch's Castle almost a hundred times. I've never seen a single open window."

The only other girl looked between the two boys and Tyra's back, seeming to weigh their words as she pondered.

Tyra turned back, and brushed the long tuft of hair that fell over her face. Her hair was faded on both sides, and seemed well taken care of.

With a twinkle in her blue eyes, Tyra flashed a smile. "See for yourself."

As they pushed through the bushes and cleared the foliage, they could see the massive structure. They approached from the side, and headed directly to an amalgamation of stained glass windows.

Just like Tyra had said, one of the windows was wide open.

"No way," the tall boy, Akeru, gaped.

"Come on!" The girl, Lyn, was actually the first to rush off in the direction of the open window. The others took her as an example and rushed off as well, leaving Tyra behind despite her having been at the forefront the entire time.

"Shh!"

When Tyra got there, they were all gathered together under the window, crouching low and whispering.

"Did you look inside when you were here earlier?" Akeru asked.

Tyra shook her head, to which the thin lad, Yosef, grinned.

"I'm gonna go first then," Yosef made to stand up, but was yanked by Akeru's strong arm.

"That honor," Akeru started as he pulled Yosef back down, "should go to Tyra. She's the one that found the open window in the first place. Once she looks in and we're sure the coast is clear, we can all look."

Tyra and Lyn both exchanged glances; Yosef glared at Akeru before folding his arms and sighing.

"Whatever."

They all made way as Tyra positioned herself beneath the window pane, and took a few deep breaths.

If the others back home got wind of this, they would surely be punished. However, what Tyra and the others were about to see was something that the villagers could only ever speculate about.

The allure was too great to resist. It was the answer to one of the biggest mysteries any of the children had come across in their entire lives.

With a big gulp, Tyra swallowed the last of her nervousness and slowly stood up. As she cleared the window pane and glanced over it, she gasped.

Seeing that she did not immediately duck and run, the others stood up next to her and looked in as well. They each gasped, and Yosef went as far as to stick his head further through the window.

"Are those... books?" Lyn asked as her eyes scoured the inside.

"I think so..." Akeru wiped some drool from his mouth.

"But... they're all flying..." Yosef's eyes sparked with interest, and he stuck himself a bit further in.

What they could see through the window was an almost endless hall of books, all grouped together and hovering in place, as if they were packed on invisible shelves.

A thin film of light covered every inch of the closed books, giving the children a sense that some sort of strange power was at work here.

"I don't see the Witch," Tyra looked everywhere she could see from the window, but there was no sign of the woman that was rumored to live there.

"No sign of her or her daughter. Hm." Akeru stepped back from the window, allowing Yosef more room to pull himself up onto the window pane.

"This is so crazy. How do you think that works?" Yosef was getting dangerously close to actually entering the space of the building, but no one paid him any attention.

While the children peered into and speculated about the place they were looking into, something interesting was taking place in another room of that very building. 

...

"She's beginning to learn," the Mother of Scriptures chuckled as she perused a glittering page. Fires blazed on the four corners of that page, but as they were without substance, they gave off no heat.

They were merely indicators of the page's activation; it was receiving a constant supply of scriptural power. Her power.

"Gilgamesh and Dorian, huh? Their identities were interesting, but they were still failures in the end. They won't be able to breach the 4th Wall."

Taking a finger to her delicate cheek, the Mother of Scriptures tapped her face slowly as she fell into thought. Suddenly, her finger began to trace lines and shapes on the page.

Even as words appeared on it, she drew various things that lingered for only a moment, glowing in gold, before vanishing from sight.

"I suppose I can give them one last chance to surprise me. Gilgamesh just might impress me again." Reaching to her right, the Mother of Scriptures picked up a book and opened it to the first page, which was blank.

"A trial, then? A chance to become something more?" She started writing things on that page with her finger, leaving many long lines of golden words that soon filled it.

Page after page was filled with content, and soon she had almost used up the entire book. "Hopefully the effort isn't wasted on them. Gilgamesh especially."

Adorning the walls of the room, a glowing fairy moved forward and hovered over the Mother of Scriptures' shoulder. "What is it, Daughter?"

"Are you going to torture my big brother some more?" The fairy asked. It was Ateah-- or what was left of her.

"Perhaps. All this is is merely a test of his identity. If he really is perfect, then he should be able to manifest that. He should be able to come to life without my input, and become an extension of myself here in the real world, much like you and your sisters."

The little fairy moved closer, her body composed of pure light with no indication of what kind of expression she wore. "So big brother Gilgamesh will finally join us?"

The Mother of Scriptures giggled. "He might, if he doesn't fail."

All of a sudden, the Mother of Scriptures stopped writing in the book and looked at the burning page. New words appeared on it every few seconds, and she was staring at the latest addition of words with somewhat wide eyes.

She seemed intrigued, and her fox tail was swishing excitedly. Ever her ears had perked up, and she quickly tied her hair to get most of it out of her face.

"Interesting."

Grabbing hold of the page, she began to write on it with her finger again. Whatever she wrote vanished just as fast, but it was evident that her effort was going somewhere.

Every time she wrote something, the insubstantial flames burning on all four corners of the page would grow, indicating a greater influx of scriptural power.

Her breathing grew rapid as she wrote, and her eyes began to sparkle. "To think that she would already be this close. It seems that this is all that's left now."

The fairy Ateah tilted her head in the Mother of Scriptures' direction. "Hm?"

"Florence is on her way. She's coming back to me." The Mother of Scriptures seemed... impatient...

There was a smile on her face that lingered for far longer than it should have, and as she wrote on the page it only grew.

"All that remains... is the choice."

Finally, she brought the page closer to her face and drew one final line of content before speaking into it.

"Let this be... your final test."

The little fairy clapped as she sat on the Mother of Scriptures' shoulder. Watching as the woman put the page down, the fairy seemed elated.

Abruptly, the fairy's head snapped in a certain direction. "Hmph! Some little rat is trying to sneak into Mother's Library."

The Mother of Scriptures stood up and shut the book she had been writing in. After that, she pressed it into the page until the book was absorbed by it, and walked over to her chair.

Once she sat down, a tabletop took shape in glittery gold, and she placed the page on it. "Go chase them away, then."

The fairy laughed gleefully as she obliged, and left to go deal with the children.

Yosef had pushed himself in a bit too far...

The Mother of Scriptures laughed in pure delight, and watched the page with every scrap of her attention. "Now, we can let the games begin."

"Show me who you are, Florence."