Lock and Lesser Key, Part 1

I had to hand it to Divah. That Peter Pan reference would have been a hard code to crack for anyone who hadn't lived with her for the last five years. Seriously, my master devoured human pop culture like they were priceless treasures, which they were, but she was especially enamored by the classics; Dickens, Stoker, Barrie, Shelley, Tolkien, and the rest. That made them my bedtime stories too.

"We shouldn't be in here… Only novices of the expert and master ranks are invited inside the special section," Liara whispered. Although I didn't see her walking back to the exit either.

"Too late now." I waved at the librarian eyeing us from behind the table she was leaning over. "Hi!"

The librarian was a female half-orc who was three times Liara's size. She had an oval face framed by long braided hair that was a shade darker than her fiery red skin. She had almond-shaped scarlet eyes and a long nose that widened at the tips. The twin tusks protruding from her lower lip were decorated with gold rings.

"I assume you didn't find the door to the special section through sheer luck?" she asked in a soft, husky voice that didn't quite track with what one usually associated with librarians.

While the half-orc Kaveera was all brawn and muscle, this older, red-skinned half-orc had a voluptuous figure barely hidden by her tight kimono-style robe that just oozed the kind of sex appeal that made the cave boy in me blush and look away.

"Um," I cleared my throat, "we came here on purpose."

"Hmmm, interesting…" the half-orc sounded more curious than suspicious. "I suppose you know the rules of the room then?"

I nodded. Although I still couldn't look her in the eye. Sigh, I was a noob when it came to handling adult females. Not that I was any good at handling teenage girls either. I blamed Divah for this glaring flaw of mine, of course. It wouldn't have killed her to teach me some social skills, wouldn't it?

"There are rules?" Liara asked.

"As you've managed to get here of your own accord, you're given the right to browse the special section's secret collection," the half-orc explained. "Assuming you also have the skill to unlock the wards that keep these tomes from incapable hands, Ms. Lockwood."

I glanced sideways at Liara. "You know who she is?"

Liara nodded. "Mistress Grimsever is the instructor for Black Magic Defense."

"Which I assume you'll be missing today considering where you are right now," Mistress Grimsever chuckled lightly.

"I—"

"It's alright, Ms. Lockwood… if you're bright enough to find your way in here then it's fine for you to miss a class or two…" Mistress Grimsever raised a hand. "Assuming you learn something from your time in the 2nd stack's special section."

"We're not staying long," I answered.

Finally, I'd found my voice again. Perhaps it had something to do with the way Mistress Grimsever gazed at Liara with amusement. As if she didn't expect Liara or me to make good use of our time here. It annoyed me a little.

"Oh, interesting." Mistress Grimsever trained her cool gaze on me next. "Most people who stumble into this room for the first time rarely know what they want and are unable to fully utilize this opportunity… I am curious to see what you will make of it, Mr. Wisdom."

It didn't surprise me to know that Mistress Grimsever knew who I was. Not after my encounter with Dess. I didn't bother responding to her though as I'd already moved over to the bookcase mounted on the wall that had caught my eye. It was the one right next to the door and was exactly the one I was looking for.

The book sealed within this case was an old, leather-bound tome with an intricate magic circle and triangle formation emblazoned on its frayed cover. It was a thin volume, suggesting that there were only a few yellowing pages within its binding. I knew for a fact that there were a little more than seventy-two pages in total. The magic circle on its cover suggested as much.

"The Ars Goetia… a macabre choice," Mistress Grimsever noted. "Do you perhaps have an interest in studying demonology?"

"Nope," I said as I unclipped Divah's journal from my belt. "Demons would be too hard to control at my level."

A glance at my master's notes—a review of the magical hacks she'd thought me—and I clipped the journal back to my belt before it caught Mistress Grimsever's interest. Then, after a deep breath that helped to calm the nerves, I raised my right index finger to the Aegishjalmur scrawled over the bookcase's protective glass and—

"What are you doing?" Liara whispered into my ear.

Her interruption had nearly cost me my finger because my concentration winked out right before I brushed the protective rune that would have burned me if I had touched it without the proper preparation.

"Seriously"—I was acutely aware that her lips were close enough to my ear for it to tickle, making it even harder to concentrate—"can I have some space to work my magic, please?"

"You think you can bypass a 'Helm of Awe' with just your finger?"

"Yes… now, stand back and let me shock and awe you like usual…"

Liara hesitated a moment longer before finally backing up. "If you die—"

"Then you can tell me you told me so," I interrupted. "So, shush…"

I took another deep breath to help reclaim my cool before I pushed just the right amount of mana into the tip of my forefinger. Not enough to trip the Aegishjalmur's alarm but just enough trickling mana that I could disrupt the inner workings of its complicated magical system.

See, the 'Helm of Awe'—a realmsverse symbol of protection in the form of a circle with eight tridents emanating from its center—was what scholars called a near-perfect lock. If one had a key—like how Liara's bronze token had been enchanted to act as a key for the fairy well's chamber—then the Aegishjalmur's protection was easily dealt with. However, if one lacked a key, then anything short of overpowering the Helm of Awe with high-tier destructive magic wouldn't work on the lock. Especially if the Aegishjalmur in question had been cast by a powerful mage. Still, for those few knaves who dared challenge such a powerful enchantment, its creator, a 5th-century Sorcerer Extraordinaire named Myrdinn, devised a trick that could unlock its seal without risking someone's life in the attempt. Divah had somehow rediscovered this long-lost trick and passed it on to me through her journal.

'Like all complicated magical enchantments, the Aegishjalmur's got a magical circuit embedded within its array. To unlock it, you just need to link these circuits in reverse of the complicated order they were made in. Every Helm of Awe is different, however, which is why you have to locate the end circuit first with your mana and a little help from—'

"Spirits of light, let my sight peer into the unseen so I might know the unknowable," I whispered the chant that activated True Insight—and then the world around me shifted from one that was full of color into shades of gray where only the ghostly hint of magic was noticeable. In this case, the eight tridents that made up the circle of the Helm of Awe lit up like ghostly Christmas lights, with one in particular—the trident facing south—glowing brighter than all the rest.

"Easy peasy"—I traced a line leading from this first trident over to the trident in the middle facing eastward while maintaining just the right amount of mana leaking from my fingers which was the real hard part of this hack—"lemon squeezy."

From there, I traced another line that led to the trident facing southeast, then northwest, north, southwest, and finally, the left-facing trident—and voila!

The Aegishjalmur began to blink once, twice, and then a third time before it winked out entirely from the bookcase's protective glass surface.

I wiped at the sweat on my brow before I glanced over my shoulder to wink at Liara who was looking at the bookcase with her mouth open.

"See." I chuckled. Honestly, I sometimes impressed even myself whenever I did something to ruin others' expectations. It was quite cathartic. "Told you I'd shock and awe you again,"