Chapter 10

Ash crouched in a ready position, he slowed down his breathing and focused. He slowly pushed on the bricks one by one, the brick at the centre moved a little and the whole wall in front of them moved to leave a little space for one person to squeeze in from the side.

After a second's hesitation, Ash slid in. He felt the sudden increase in the ether as he stepped inside the familiar corridor and on his chest, a different feeling encircled his whole body generating from Relik.

He looked both sides he was at a bend and he had three directions to go in, he thought about where they had landed over the ruins and guessed the corridor in front and ran.

Relik remianed quiet, Ash could hear a whisper of a continuous chant being chanted somewhere in his head, too complex for him to understand. It was kind of comforting.

Ash ran through passageways and corridors in search of Vanessa, he hit himself on the head when the idea came to him, he started heading towards the way where the ether was thicker, since that's where his cell must be.

He soo found himself in the familiar corridor and sped up past the old cells.

He spotted the cell at the end of the next corridor he turned into, he hesitated afraid of the evil ghost to jump out anytime but then forced himself to move on.

Fortunately he reached the cell without any ghosts in the way.

The strange scene of broken reality again appeared in the cell.

"What is wrong with this place?" he asked Relik, he closed his eyes as they were again pulling him in there own world and memories.

"These are the remnants of his soul, every dark thing he ever did broke his sould into pieces, he did so much evil in this prison, that the density of ether has created a sort of vortex bending the plane in all dimensions. It is small and contained, looks like my master's spell was dealing with this too, that's why it got weaker so soon, it's spiritual energy was leaking through these small worm holes into empty dimensions " answered Relik, Ash tried hard to keep up but he didn't understand most of it.

"Did you get it?" asked Relik.

"Kind of" He lied.

"It means we cannot mess with the wards, these worm holes will explode outwards at once if there is even a bit of a crack in the spell's shell" said Relik.

"I expect this is how he was able to get your friends physical body in here, and was able to Influence her into coming here too, somewhere, one of these holes must be linked to the earth plane" said Relik.

"So how do we save her now?" asked Ash.

"He obviously didn't know, exactly what he was doing, but he has pretty much made the whole situation worse for us, to get your frind back we'll have to jump through the same portal he pulled her in from and that would mean going through the dense mass of ether in there" said Relik.

"That doesn't seem like something we should do" said Ash.

"Definitely not, even my ancient magic will either away in there, there is only one way I see now, it will solve all our problems" said Relik.

"What?" asked Ash.

"You'll have to eat all this ether" said Relik.

"What!?" Ash said shocked.

"Absorb more like it, but after purifying it of course" said Relik.

"Okay, maybe now it's time you started using simpler words" said Ash.

"It won't be anything uncommon actually, you'll be like a spiritual cannibal, I think there was an ancient race which used to do this, to increase there spiritual energy, and this here is a lot" said Relik.

"But would it be safe for me?" asked Ash.

"Yes, after purifying it, it should be like taking a warm bath in the sun, there will be a limit to how much your body can absorb but you can always stop on your own will, so there is never a danger" said Relik.

"Okay, now the main, part how do we purify this?" asked Ash.

"Yes that's the thing, there are a bunch of ways, but most won't work with you, the only thing I can think of right now is a blood contract with an ancient being" said Relik.

"And what's that?" asked Ash again clueless.

"Ancient beings or entities are phenomenons of interplanar level, you can make a contract with them, they'll lend you pure ether with which you can purify this miasmic ether and in exchange you'll have to do something for them" said Relik.

"Like what?, and how will we find one here?" asked Ash.

"I told you they are interplanar, they are pretty much omnipresent, like air, but they of course have there preferences to which plane they are more biased towards, and what they want depends on them, I know just the one for you, it's a place called the Nordic Library" said Relik.

"A library, I thought they were people" said Ash.

"They can be anything, on that level there are very few rules, look at me, I must have been created by someone like that, anyway, the nordic library was made by, Alrickt Nord the third, he was the sixteenth and one of the greatest fairy kings in the history, it is said that the library contains the knowledge of the whole world, there are books in that library that contain more power than gods, anyway after his death, the library became a being of it's own, it lives in the gaps of dimensions, which means nowhere, it appears only when called" said Relik.

"So, the library will talk to us?" asked Ash puzzled.

"Of course not, the librarian will, Lady Gwenil, a lovely woman I must say, very few times I have had the pleasure of meeting her, with my previous masters, the thing with the library is it doesn't just appear like that, it only appears to someone who truly needs it with a pure heart, but once someone sees what it holds he or she get greedy and it never re appears before them, so of the few who have entered it, none have ever gone in there twice, no matter who they were" said Relik.

"Well we only need to go there once for now, how do we do it?" asked Ash.

"Call for it with a pure heart, if your request will be earnest, it will stop time itself and you will be there" said Relik. Ash was very skeptic of it all now, as Relik stayed quiet, Ash looked around and then joining his hands started praying for the library to appear.

He felt stupid doing that there in the middle of all the chaos, when the evil spirit might appear at any moment.

Then he felt the ground beneath his feet change, it wasn't Rocky anymore, but felt smooth. He opened his eyes and stepped back at the drastic change in his environment.

First he was in his real body, and he was indeed inside a library, the library was straight out of a fantasy books. He thought it might be an architect's wet dream, it was in some places made out of wood and in some places glass as clear as sky, the walls seemed never ending and touching the clouds, the books were everywhere.

Then he saw the little reception like desk in front of him and the red haired elf women standing behind it. She had a mature and almost tree like aire around her. Ash first tried to recover from the fact that he was actually seeing a real elf, then the beauty and aura of the woman, she was like an otherworldly creature with her woody smell.

"That's a first, no one has ever appeared here in that pose" she spoke slowly, he had never heard an accent like hers, the words seemed to almost dance on her tongue.

Ash immediately folded back his hands and stood straighter.

"I had to pull you here with your body, but don't worry I'll put you back in the spirit realm when you are done" she said.

"Welcome to the Nordic library, it's a pleasure having you here, which book would you like to read, you can only read one book per visit and only until I deem it sufficent" she said, this part in a bit of less emotion, like she had rehearsed it and was tired of it.

"Hi Lady Gwenil!" piped up Relik, his voice rather cheery.

"Ah, I didn't see you there, how are you?" said Gwenil with a little bit more reaction.

Ash just wanted her to speak more, to see more of what her exotic face could do, even now just watching her twinkling eyes was doing things to his heart. It was like the color of them was changing slowly, and they were the lightest shade of green he had ever seen or was it blue?