New Year's Discovery

Aayla walked through the crowded shelves. Tall and short, thick and thin, elaborate and plain, brightly colored or somber. A variety of different books were stuffed into every nook and cranny. Each had clearly aged despite the faint glow around them. Their pages were worn and yellow while their covers were often cracked.

Most of the covers were hand designed and barely legible with their fancy scripts. From what Aayla could tell, the language was the same from the signs in the maze. If so, the books should be just as old as the maze is, or at least similar in age.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Why find this room now? How could someone not have found this place so far? Even the gremlins didn't seem to know about this place. Dormi could have hidden it purposefully. The only thing that changed recently was passing through the maze.

Whether it was a coincidence or not, Dormi wanted for her to enter. Aayla peeked through the aisles. Fortunately, the door was still open. Aayla placed her current book back on the shelf and kept looking around.

As she sat down in one of the reading chairs, a cloud of smoke rose from the cushions. Aayla coughed and gagged as she stood up from the chair. The side table fell to the ground with a thump as she knocked it away.

Her vision cleared as her coughing fit stopped. The rags and mops quickly went to work again cleaning up the dust. Aayla picked up the side table to put it back on its feet. A small black journal lay beneath it on the floor. Curious, Aayla took a closer look.

Its rich black leather was only slightly worn. The silver accents and side locks looked untarnished. The cover was ornately embossed with five different colored gems in it. They were the same colors as the main elements: blue, red, yellow, green and purple. The pages inside only looked slightly yellowed.

Aayla fiddled with the locks but the book just wouldn't budge. It stayed shut tight no matter what she did. As she looked closer to the locks, she realized that one of the remaining keys had a silver motif similar to the journal. Was it a mere coincidence?

If she was a betting girl, then Aayla would place her money on 'No, it's not a coincidence'. Sure enough, the key easily fit into the locks. A minute later and the cover opened for the first time in a very long while. The faintly yellowed pages held a neat cursive script.

As Aayla thumbed through the pages, she realized that it looked like a journal. Several pages had numbers on them that looked like dates. Whatever calendar was used, it was not the modern one. A name was scribbled onto the back of the front cover.

"E. Naphreon? Who's that?"

She squinted even closer at the cursive script. Sometimes it was hard to tell with the really ancient texts. Ancient wizards really loved their flare for the dramatic.

"Maybe it's A. Nafriton? Like the first headmaster."

Aayla sharply inhaled. If so, then this book could be extremely important. Suddenly, something pushed on the back of her leg. When she looked down, a chair had hobbled over and was trying to push her away. Dormi was saying that it was time to go.

The chair quickly forced Aayla back into her room. The entrance slammed shut behind her and the key fell to the ground with a small twinkling sound. Aayla fumbled around the back wall in search of the keyhole. No matter how hard she looked the keyhole was gone.

**********

"Are you sure that this is the wall that opened to reveal the secret room?"

"Yes. There is no other stone wall in my room."

"And the keyhole was about here?"

"Yes. I don't know where it went either."

"Hmmm."

Ramona closely examined the wall for clues. After several minutes, she too came up empty handed. A frown crossed her face. The head faculty suspected that there was a hidden room. Afterall, no one had found the back of the main stained-glass windows and mysteries were extremely popular back when this place was originally built.

"How peculiar. You just completed the maze, then just happened to find the keyhole to open the secret door to the hidden room."

"That's really what happened!"

Ramona chuckled and patted Aayla's back.

"I'm not chastising you. Just making an observation. I'll take the key, but for now you should probably stay in a different room until we get someone to make sure that its safe. *sigh* we really need to get the master controls back for the artifact spirit.

"Anyways, the book just has some basic magic theory in very old Tellan. Like, the equivalent of Old English in a cursive style that's just as ancient. The book has a crumbling preservation spell, but that's fine. You can keep it. Just treat translating it as a side project. That's good for practice.

"Don't actually use any of that theory though. It should be from the late Revival Period. Not all of the theories from that time were founded in proper reason. There were a lot of pompous, excessive fools during that period."

That night, Ramona dragged Aayla around to see those still remaining on campus. Most had divided into their own little groups to party. Aayla had never seen so many wasted wizards. The professors weren't the only ones who had things rough.

The next day was very painful for the drunkards. The line to see the only remaining medical staff went out of the front door. Aayla secretly clicked her tongue. Didn't they have a spell to get rid of hangovers yet? They would be having a very unpleasant New Year's Day.

While the medical wards were slammed with patients, Aayla snuck into the main library. With no watchful eyes, Aayla had free reign to do whatever she wanted. She could be as loud as she wanted to. The librarians would never know. Aayla had at least several hours by herself.

Finding information about the language was surprisingly easy. As an international renowned university, Nafriton had several bookcases dedicated to ancient magical languages. Clearly, none of the other students were interested since none of the books were checked out. That worked out for Aayla though.

There were also several texts about the first headmaster. However, they only had superficial information no better than common knowledge. Aayla couldn't even figure out the First's full name. He was an intensely private wizard who came from an unspecified foreign land, like many others at the time. No family was left behind after his death. All of his notes were left to his university and students.

Giving her even more a headache, 'E. Naphreon' didn't seem to exist. Two days later, she couldn't find anything about 'E. Naphreon'. If they were related to Nafriton, then they were not very famous or lived long ago. Fortunately, wizards had severe hoarding and fame seeking tendencies. The university saved much more than books.

University staff saved every newspaper article, student ranking and anything else related to the university. Without much luck, she searched through the public records in the Central Administration Building. Aayla wracked her brains for ways to find out about 'E. Naphreon'. She couldn't just google the name.

Was there no other way to confirm if 'E. Naphreon' existed? Most of the records from hundreds of years ago had been locked into special preservation archives. There was no way that the university would let Aayla check those archives or the private student and employment records on a whim.

Suddenly, a light bulb flickered to life in Aayla's mind. She quickly left the golden monstrosity and returned to the residence hall. All of the current resident's information was in the main office, but the basement happened to store older records. Those records should be from before that former headmaster.

Several hours later, Aayla finished digging through the records room in the basement of the residence hall. To her frustration, her search still yielded no results. She couldn't even open many of the cabinets so she just ripped off the doors. Some of the records were very messy or partially in other languages.

Apparently, the beginning of the Chinebar Republic was rocky at best. Wizards had fled to the northern western reaches from persecution during the Dark Period. They built their own cities, which had massive influxes of immigrants during the Revival Period. Many had their names changed due to language differences, safety reasons and racism. The nation only settled down after The Treaty secured peace across all of Tellus.

This meant that 'E. Naphreon' could easily have been known by another name. Aayla groaned as she thought of the main library and the Central Administration Building now teeming with faculty and staff. If she went anywhere near those buildings, Aayla would be assigned a long list of tasks within minutes. The next semester was about to start and the headmaster wanted the maze to be solved soon. She had run out of time.