A Bibliophile’s Wonderland, Part 1

Thursday was a day of electives, but, as I had yet to choose which courses to take, I had a free day to roam around without Doomsday giving me flak about cutting classes. The same couldn't be said for Liara who had electives for Blade Dance, Journeyman Enchantments, Hexes and Charms II, Black Magic Defense, and Shieldball training on her schedule. She was willing to cut with me though for obvious reasons.

"You're seriously in the same Blade Dance class as the Elementals?" I couldn't help getting wide-eyed at the thought of my favorite pop band being novices at the same Academy I went to. "What are they like? Is Yura really half-human? What kind of nymph is Rosa? Is Lisha secretly dating—"

Liara cut me off with a glower that would have made my wolf-eyed glare seem tame in comparison.

"Are we here to raid the secret archives of the Great Library or did you drag me out today to discuss how much of an Elementals fanboy you are?" she asked in an icy tone.

"Um, sorry, sorry." I cleared my throat. "Yeah, you're right. Let's get back on topic…"

I glanced up at the wooden façade of the building Liara guided me to, although I doubted that it would have been hard to find the Great Library on my own. I just had to look for the one place on campus that had a busload of blue cloaks walking into it.

The Great Library was a stack of rectangular buildings piled on top of each other like a five-tier wedding cake. Each stack had slanted shale tile roofing which got smaller the higher up they were on the structure. Wooden dragons were carved at the tips of each roof like gargoyles on old Earth cathedrals. On that note, the very structure of the library—from its wooden walls and its stone base to the steeple bell tower at its summit—was like a supersized version of a stave church that one might find in Earth's Norwegian countryside.

How would I know what a stave church was, you ask? Well, I'm a nerd, and reading books on all manner of topics was how I passed the time between training and the next seasons of my favorite Realmsflix shows.

Liara led me into the warm, high-ceilinged interior of the first stack which was exactly what one would expect from an ancient repository of realmsverse knowledge; a large space filled with tomes of all sizes sitting on row upon row of burgeoning shelves. This spacious reading room also had standard tables and chairs as well as comfy couches and ottomans positioned by the many fireplaces lining the walls.

"Nice," I whispered appreciatively. "Are all the stacks like this?"

Liara shook her head. "The second stack is similar, but the third and fourth stacks are lecture halls for courses that require easy access to the reading material."

"And the fifth stack?" I asked.

"The fifth stack is a small temple dedicated to Mimir, one of the chief gods of knowledge in the realmsverse," she explained. "And the final stack houses the Academy's steeple bell."

"Let me guess," I eyed Liara knowingly, "it hasn't rung in nearly a hundred years, has it?"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "How did you know?"

Because that was right around the time Divah attended the Academy. I didn't say this out loud though. Instead, I said, "You know, it might just ring today."

"What are you planning?"

"Patience is a virtue, young padawan."

Surprisingly enough, the first stack was nearly full of novices in red and green cloaks. Why was that surprising, you ask? Well, because one didn't expect warriors or rogues to waste their time reading when their brains were geared toward more practical training than understanding theory. However, the novices of the Academy were clearly breaking the mold in that regard.

I spied a group of red cloaks who were pouring over a folio of yellowing pages depicting a series of martial arts moves that I recognized instantly. It was a secret arcane arts manual written by the late and great Bruce Law, one of Earth's most famous adventurers who was renowned for his victory over the Iron Dragon of the Tian Yu realm.

'To combine martial art and spellcraft is simplicity itself… The closer one gets to the true way of martial art, the less waste of expression in casting spells.' These were words I'd taken to heart when I was twelve and they had helped save my life on more than one occasion. Most recently when I battled Doomsday in the Crucible.

"I guess they're not all muscle brains," I noted.

Weirdly enough, there were zero blue cloaks on the first stack. It was an observation I posed to Liara, who answered, "The library's first stack is mostly filled with skill books and martial training manuals. Mages go up to the second stack where the grimoires are kept."

We didn't go up to the second stack right away though as I was curious to read the stuff the Academy had on martial arts. This got me into more than one glaring match with a red cloak who didn't like that a blue cloak like me was sniffing around for goodies the red cloaks believed were exclusive to their Warrior's Lodge. Luckily for me—or them, really—Liara was around to diffuse any situation before it escalated into a full-on brawl as just her mere presence was enough to melt icy glares and distract others' attention from the human novice trying his best to be inconspicuous. Well, pretending to be a wallflower wasn't exactly a good thing either as it turned out.

"Duck!" a high-pitched female voice screamed at me.

Instinct drove me to listen to the warning, but I would quickly realize that ducking wouldn't be enough to evade the stack of brick-sized books about to fall on top of me. She dove in at the last minute and pushed me out of the way, forcing us both to crash onto the hardwood floor near the very back of the first stack.

"Yow," I sighed. "What the Hel was that about?"

"Sorry-sorry-sorry!" my rescuer said in one breath. "My body tends to move on its own when someone needs rescuing..."

"What are you"—I took the long-fingered hand she offered me—"some kind of hero...?"

The person who helped me to my feet was a pale-faced, slanted-eyed teenage girl with long dark hair that fell off her left shoulder in a single thick braid. She might have passed off as human if it wasn't for the sparkle of her alabaster skin or the pair of blue gossamer wings sprouting behind her back.

"I've never heard of a do-gooder fairy before," I said as I took in the sight of her.

The fairy was half a head shorter than me, and I wasn't exactly tall for my age—something I will never admit out loud. She had an angular face, high cheekbones, a pointy chin and nose, and a pair of dimples around the edges of her puffy lips. Through her form-fitting apprentice leathers, I noticed that she had a runner's build—broad-shouldered with a slim waist, long legs, and well-toned arms.

"Least I could do since it was kind of my fault you were attacked," the fairy explained in a strangely pleasing, high-pitched voice.

I glanced up at the now empty top shelf of the bookcase that attacked us. "You pulled out a book that caused the rest of them to fall off?"

She chuckled half-heartedly. "Ye-yeah…"

The fairy dropped to one knee and picked up a thick volume which she quickly tucked into her knapsack. But not before I caught a glimpse of the title on its black and yellow cover. 'Shield Tactics Made Simple for Dummies.'

I smiled as I realized that there was another opportunity here to make a potential ally. A quick glance at the pile of books now strewn over the hardwood floor and I caught sight of the one I needed.

See, it was a common practice in most libraries to put books with similar topics on the same bookshelf, and the Academy's Great Library was no exception. This made it easy to pick out a tome I thought the fairy might want if she'd known what to look for.

I picked up 'Lagertha, the Last Shieldmaiden' from the fallen pile and then offered it to her, earning myself a skeptical look from the fairy girl's amber irises.

"That's a novel," she stated flatly. "What am I supposed to do with a novel?"

Hah — these were words I'd once asked Divah myself mere minutes before the book she gave me blew my mind. Boy was this fairy in for a treat.