“Hey Skye, wanna grab dinner?”

The Yuki-Onna looked at me with her large eyes, slowly blinking.

“Sure. What brought this on?”

I shrugged.

“I can finally speak the language well enough, and I figured we should get to know each other a bit!”

“Alright.”

“Brrrpt?” Auri flew over, offering us a… well, I’ll be damned. It actually looked like a cookie for once. Skye leaned back, clearly not wanting to be a taste-tester again, but I gave it a shot.

My mouth puckered up at the taste.

“Good cooking.” I forced out. “Too much salt.”

“Brrrpt… BRPT!” Auri exclaimed as she realized she’d mixed up “teaspoons” and “cups”.

We ate lunch in the central park. Varuna caused a commotion every time he went to the cafeteria, and even here we got double-takes as people were like ‘wait, is that a unicorn!?’

Made me thankful that Auri was easily mistaken for a regular hummingbird. Magic was wild.

After some small talk, I asked Skye.

“What’s your story?”

“I was born to the royal family of the Tuvan Tribes. A [Princess].” She only had a small trace of bitterness to her voice. “Then I met Varuna. We bonded, and I got Immortality from the bond.” Skye smiled affectionately at the unicorn. “Immortals in mortal lands… you know how that goes.”

I froze. Did Skye know? Had Iona leaked something? Was Auri a worse blabbermouth than I thought!?

Skye gave me a look.

“I’m Immortal, I don’t bite.”

Oh.

OH!

She thought I was anti-Immortal or something. Or wait, was it the purple-robed healer? This reading people thing was haaaaaaaard.

“Eh, yeah, that’s cool. How’d you end up here?”

Real smooth Elaine. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeal smooth.

Skye studied me a moment longer before answering.

“Working on finding a new path in life. I initially wanted to be an ambassador, figuring a former mortal royal turned Immortal would be able to bridge the mortal-Immortal gap, but there are just too many elves studying to be ambassadors right now. It just doesn’t make any sense, but that’s life. I’m now working on becoming an [Advisor] or [Steward]. While I have a sponsor, I’m unaffiliated, and a School-trained [Majordomo] looking for employment?”

Skye shrugged.

“I should do alright. Just need to class up before I leave.”

I tilted my head at her, swallowing a bite.

“Why’s that?”

“Those damn gates still detect I have the [Princess] class.” Skye shook a fist in the general direction of the entrance, and Varuna pawed at the ground.

“How about you?”

“Well…” Skye got the moderately abridged version of my life. ‘Military commando-healer, went through a fairy ring on a mission, and pop! Ended up here. Fuck my life.’

I tried to commiserate how we’d both had our lives roughly adjusted and thrown off course, but Skye didn’t seem to really agree.

All in all, the whole thing felt stilted, and I was reminded why I usually liked interacting with people in a ‘defined’ setting. Like when I was a trainee, or a Ranger, or a Sentinel, or visiting a shop, or…

Except with Iona. She was always fun to interact with.

[*brrrrring!* Time to put down the books - yes, books, DOWN, I know, I can’t believe I’m the one saying this either - and find something fun or relaxing to do.]

[*brrrrring!* THAT ISN’T READING! That’s how we got into this mess in the first place!]

I cursed past-me knowing current-me too well, and put the book down. Reading was totally fun and relaxing! It totally counted! Sure, I was reading a wizardry reference book for class but still!

Except then I’d end up buried in books again, and that just wasn’t healthy.

Fineeeeeee. I’d carefully worked out when and why I needed these breaks. Auri was off, either setting the firing range on fire again, “baking”, or getting a proper education. Fenrir was dozing in a patch of light though, which implied Iona was around.

I uncurled from the sofa - much more comfortable than trying to read in my room - and wandered over to Iona’s door. I knocked.

“Hey Iona, you in there?”

“Yeah. Come in. What’s up?” I went in, and Iona leaned back in her chair, running her hands through her hair in frustration.

I thought my room was small for me. Iona dwarfed her room, looking out of place. She had drawings of people pinned up on her walls, and I recognized artwork of me, Auri, Reinhard, Fenrir, Skye, and Varuna among dozens of others papering the room. Her room also reeked of sex.

Bless whatever enchantments in this place kept smell and sound from moving around.

“Hey, I was going to go to the flight center, wanna join me?”

Iona pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Elaine. How do you have any time?? It’s finals next week! Shouldn’t you be buried in a book like usual, like the rest of us?”

I gave Iona my best smug smile.

“I have been carefully studying this entire time. I have a few skills dedicated to learning and studying. I don’t need to do any extra studying, I’ve kept on top of things. So no. I don’t need to be buried in books right now, I need to relax. I seem to remember a certain Valkyrie telling me to take it easy? Something about sharpening axes?”

Iona groaned and planted her face in her open book.

“I hate you. So much.” She mumbled into her book, with no hard feelings and just a trace of affection.

I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Nyeah! That’s what you get for… having tons of sex instead of studying all quarter…”

I realized my burn wasn’t quite as devastating as I’d hoped it would be, and I bailed before Iona could follow up.

Flying! Woo!

The School’s flying area was amazing, like everything else they had. It was easily the tallest building on the campus, runes etched into the clear glass that enclosed the space. Slowly spinning platforms, thermal uprisings, undulating hoops to fly through, there was even a ‘hostile’ section that would shoot paint!

The most annoying obstacle was all over the course though. Large biologicals that randomly lurched around, occupying the best flying spaces, and generally chattering a bunch.

Other people.

It was finals week, which meant there were legions of students softly sobbing in the hidden corners of the library. It provided a pervasive background noise to the entire place, and all the new library workers had gotten a quick, quiet word to just leave them alone, and not try to [Silence] them or anything.

They were having a hard enough time.

The library presented a clean, well-lit view to the outside world. Most people had no idea how much work went into keeping the library functional and operational. Like my current task.

I was circling through the various levels of the library, fixing or recharging the light runes. For the most part. A few books that caught my interest were under one arm, for later reading. What was annoying was that about half the titles or spines that caught my eye were smut, most of them put back. Why was there so much smut scattered around the library!?

Other people didn’t seem to have the same issue, and I was starting to wonder if I had an erotica-attractor or something. Between Briga the wood dwarf, Lun’Kat’s… interesting… artwork, and now this? I was suspecting a curse.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t read and walk around the library. The librarians would yell at me. Something about it ‘not being a good look’.

Bah. Library workers weren’t Sentinels. We could afford to have a bad look. Still, I liked the job too much to protest loudly.

I spotted a dimmer area of the library, one of the light runes dying. Welp, that’s what I was here for. Recharging runes in the older, less-frequented sections of the library. Great for hiding out when studying, but all the blasted students kept making a mess by hiding books under chairs so they’d have them later, and the like.

“Excuse me.” I politely asked a girl who was curled up crying in a chair. The chair was at the end of a row, and the light above her wasn’t working. An experienced look at it suggested that it had simply run out of mana, not that the rune was broken.

She didn’t seem to hear me, just kept slowly writing as tears rolled down her face. I rolled my eyes.

Honestly. Some people didn’t study all quarter, and when finals came around, were surprised that they couldn’t manage ten weeks of studying in one.

The bookshelves were just a bit too close together to be able to properly fly. My wings would hit the edges, and everything would go wrong. I was usually a fast learner, but that particular bit of knowledge took me seven attempts before giving up.

I bent my knees, and deftly leapt over her head, onto the top of the chair. Delicately poised there, I fiddled with the runes.

Fortunately, this was a “newer model” of lighting, which meant it was only a few centuries old. Recharging it was as ‘simple’ as tapping my wand on the right mini-mana nodule, and channeling in the appropriate amount of mana.

The light did have an Arcanite stone in the center of the array, but the draw of the sigil was just a hair stronger than the regeneration rate of the stone, hence needing me to come around now and then.

I had my conspiracy theories about it. An Arcanite stone just too small? And it seemed like half the lights in the library had stones just a hair too small? And they were never the critical ones?

It lent fuel to my “they’re just making jobs for us” fire. Half the jobs and tasks I was assigned to could easily be done by a high-level [Librarian’s] passive skill, and I knew we had a few of those running around. I had my [Cosmic Presence] passive, able to multiply regeneration rates of everyone nearby hundreds of times. I could barely imagine what a librarian with thousands of levels could do.

Or even an arcanite Classer. Take one of the many chunks of arcanite scattered around the campus, get a fist-sized piece of the stuff, and distribute it to all the lights here, so they ran at a slight surplus, not at a slight loss.

I sensed shenanigans, but said shenanigans kept me paid. I wasn’t going to protest too loudly.

I hopped over the still-sobbing student, rolled my eyes again at her utter lack of mental fortitude, reminded myself that I didn’t know what was going on in her life and I’d broken down plenty, found a bit of sympathy for her, and moved on.

I made sure to carefully patrol every set of bookshelves, just in case I couldn’t tell the light was dim from 10 meters away. Mmmhmmm. Yup. That was why. It had nothing to do with me skimming the titles of as many books as I could, trying to find hidden gems in the depths of the stacks.

I was at three neat finds so far, and I’d set my personal limit to six.

Skimming titles was an ok, but not great, way of practicing my other languages. More reinforcing words I already knew, rather than learning anything, but speed-reading dozens of different languages and identifying them was just generally good exercise.

As I skimmed, a title jumped out at me. Rather, part of a single word. The start of Biomancer, which was fairly similar in a number of different languages.

I wasn’t sure which language this book was in, or heck, if I was being terribly misled by a similar word sharing a start. I grabbed the book off the shelf, and started flipping through it.

Anatomical diagram after anatomical diagram flew in front of me. A few two-page diagrams had careful arrows from one elvenoid figure to another one, clearly marking out changes. There were scribbles along each line in a language I didn’t know.

Jackpot!

I closed the book, sticking it with the rest of my loot. I’d need to check with Martin or one of the [Archivists] what language it was in, then try to hunt down a book to translate.

Or bug Iona to do it for me. I didn’t want to ask her to do that often, since it felt like I was using her. The practice and learning parts of another language were useful to boot.

Oh wait, Martin was taking a few days off, not wanting to see the mess all the students were inflicting on his library during finals. To the [Archivists]!

This was totally work, I was getting a book properly classified and into the right place. Mmmhmmm.

“Hey! Question for you!” I stuck the book I found on the [Archivist's] desk, over a little plate with… was his name really Ratcatcher?

Then again, I was in no position to judge.

The wizened old goblin - I wasn’t going to get used to that anytime soon - peered up over his half-moon glasses at me, and grunted.

“What.” He put his hands protectively over an ancient scroll he was looking at.

“What language is this in?” I flipped the book open to a particularly word-dense section.

“Not supposed to be a blasted language detector.” The goblin muttered darkly under his breath as he pushed his glasses up. “This is Alethi. Old, but not ancient.” He pushed the book back to me. “Now shoo.”

I debated asking him if he knew where an Alethi-High Elvish dictionary was, but decided that was a better question for Martin. Ratcatcher didn’t seem friendly.

This was the best in I had for asking my authentication questions.

“Hey, how can you tell if a piece of work is an original or not?” I asked him.

He studied me over his glasses for a moment before answering.

“Academic curiosity, or did you stumble on something in the stacks?”

I hesitated. On one hand, I’d need to tell someone eventually. Ratcatcher was a solid start. On the other, I wanted to have some idea of what would constitute evidence, otherwise I’d just get laughed out of the room.

“Nine-tenths academic curiosity, one-tenth I got screwed by a fairy ring and might have an exceptionally old first-hand document from the Remus Empire on me…?”

Ratcatcher blinked, then swore up a storm.

“First hand from the Remus Empire!? Do you have any idea how valuable that is!?” He shouted at me.

I backed up and held up my hands. I was honestly unsure if [Oath] would penalize me if I worked the old man up into a heart attack or not.

“No…? And it’s theoretical…?” I tried to placate him.

He sat back down, muttering darkly under his breath. Again.

“If it’s theoretical I’ll eat my socks.”

He sighed at me.

“Verification of old documents. Right. Most of us have skills around preserving documents, restoring them, or telling how old they are. For a fairy ring? Most of those skills are worthless. I’ve got a few accounts that say the fae realm completely… blanks, for lack of a better word, our skills. Never got a chance to find out for myself. Half the accounts contradict that, and if the stories are believed, the fae find it entertaining just to screw with us. Either it registers as a new document, or it registers as an extremely new document. It’ll be hard to prove.”

Damn. That sounded like I was completely out of luck.

“Any other ways of proving old documents? Or, like, authorship?”

I got another long glare, and the silent treatment.

Ratcatcher had nothing on the Rangers, and their silent treatments.

“Author signatures. Bless the bloody elves and their obsession with credit. To the novice, untrained eye, a copied signature looks exactly the same as the old signature. That’s entirely wrong. There’s subtle degradation that occurs each time, and it’s passed on every time it’s copied. This lets us build a tree, if you will, of which edition got copied when and where, and lets us trace a map of the book’s history.”

Ratcatcher was starting to get more animated as he spoke. He was one of the [Archivists] here; he didn’t make it without passion.

“One moment.” He vanished into the labyrinth that was the archives, coming back with a tightly bound scroll. He unraveled it on the table. A tree-like diagram unraveled in front of me, some nodes having names, others with question marks on them. Five nodes were at the top, every other one branching out from it.

“Jiwa. The giant [Runesmith] who invented the wizardry language named after him.” Ratcatcher explained, pointing to the five nodes at the top. “He wrote five books detailing the language, and spread them far and wide. Scribes then copied it, distributed them, and copied again.” He traced a line going from the node, tapping on it and tracing down.

“These days, when a new copy is uncovered, we can analyze the signature, and depending on how degraded it is, we can determine where it belongs in the history of the book. Lost ruins are fantastic for that.”

“Wait, how can you tell how old it is from the signature?” I was getting interested in what Ratcatcher had to say, and keeping a lid on the bubbling excitement I had developing.

“Well, it degrades. If the vibrancy of the lower J is weak, and the top of the A is clipped, that places the providence of the volume about here.” Ratcatcher pointed to a spot in his diagram. “If the A is clipped, but the vibrancy is solid? It’d be placed here.” He pointed to a new spot. “If the A’s only half-clipped, then that’d be a new node, here.” He pointed to a third spot. “However, that’s unlikely, since [Scribes] or [Copiers] rarely only make one copy, they make a bunch, and as a rule, tend to make the same mistake repeatedly with their skill.”

I thought I had it.

“The purer the signature, the older the document, the more authentic it is?”

I got another withering glare from Ratcatcher.

“That has nothing to do with authenticity.” He growled. “Leave such things to the [Auctioneers]. No, authenticity only matters for originals. We believe there are no originals of Jiwa’s notes. Preservation skills can only do so much in the face of time. Someone dies. Someone takes a vacation. Some damn Immortal blasts a mountain to pieces.”

He perked up, and gave me a sly grin.

“Unless you have some originals from the Remus Empire on you. Eh? Eh?”

[*brrrrring!* Work’s DONE! We’re not getting paid to be here anymore, so let’s wrap up, check out the books, and make like a tree and leaf!]

I made some polite noises and fled.