This time, I wasn't alone. Well, nobody else was here, but I could feel both my blades at my sides. I was trapped. Being the eternal optimist, I did note, before I dove head first into a stream of expletives, that it was at least not a Groundhog Day. And also that I still smelled….bad.
At least I wasn't hungry. My stamina, mana, and vitality were all full again. I took a second to check my menu, but nothing had changed. I felt like meditation was appropriate but didn't want to. Mostly, I think this was to spite the fact that I was trapped, so I wasn't going to do what they wanted me to do…whomever they were. I progressed to the next room.
Mord started into his speel. I listened until he started glitching about the zero-obols thing. I got bored, and the glitch sound was annoying, so I went back to the armory. This time, this door was locked. I panicked for a moment.
The panic made the screeching even worse. I ran for it and grabbed the first door handle. The port-o-fall felt so nice. I didn't care where I was; I just cared that I wasn't in that room.
I took a moment to look around what can only be described as a library. The small private library of an obscenely rich dude, with which to impress his equally rich friends while never reading a single page library, but a library nonetheless.
There were thousands of books, tomes really, all leather-bound and old-looking. They were all in various stages of repair. Most looked readable. At least if I was stuck here, I would have something to keep me occupied besides getting punched in the face. I reached for one of the volumes closest to the door when I froze in my tracks, fingertips inches from the binding. Thinking of the door reminded me of where I was. I was in the Reliquary of Knowledge. The locked door of the Armory was why I was here. I nodded my head. It was too good to be that easy. I kicked myself for not seeing it earlier. Each of the three rooms was a once-in-a-lifetime treasure. I gripped the handles of my blades. Most people would only make it through here once. I somehow glitched in and got a second go, but the once-in-a-lifetime thing remained. I would get one book. But which one?
I started to look at titles, but they all were in a script I couldn't understand. The numbers in the vending room looked similar but a little more complex and much more ornate. I was wary of pulling one off the shelf to see if a cover could be of any use in the decision-making process. I would probably have to test it at some point, but I wasn't about to try that without scanning the room first.
The one good thing about a Groundhog Day scenario is that you have time. So I started looking. I was a fast shopper, much to my wife’s complaint. She wasn’t here, though, so I started scanning. This was not a new thing for me. After dropping out of college for the first time, I traveled a bit. I went to places where English was an afterthought. This is what it felt like, but worse. There, I had pictures, or smells, or something to go off of. Here I had book and variations of book. Is this fancy polished leather one a grimore or a cookbook? The tattered one on the third shelf from the door, fifth row up, eighth book from the left? Same question. It had a stain on it, so it probably was a cookbook. I looked back at it. The stain was a vastly different color from this angle, blue instead of orange. Alchemy? Maybe? I reminded myself I failed chemistry and kept looking.
After three courses around the room, I started to get tired and started to look for a place to nap. There was a nice cozy spot with my name in it between the ninth and tenth bookcases. I wedged myself back into it and got comfortable. Just as I started to feel my head drift back, a stray thought hit me with a shot of adrenaline. I woke up back in the gray room after I purposefully went to sleep on the stairs. I wasn't certain I'd be locked out of this room if I left it, but for grimoires and alchemy books, I wasn't about to risk it.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
With renewed energy and full stamina, I went back at it. Looking was getting nowhere, so it was decision time. I knew I was probably fine pulling a book and looking at its cover, but if I wasn't, I wanted to pull a winner. I skipped alchemy and grimoire and walked to the center of the room.
Meditation had helped when I first got here, and there was also this subtle draw to it. It just felt better than before. I let my body relax, and my eyes unfocus. I let the books become a mass of leather-colored blobs, just shades in the distance, and slowly turned. It took a minute or so, but finally, certain blobs stood out. I took a few extra rotations to be sure the blobs remained the same.
In the end, three really stood out. I still couldn't make sense of the words in the titles, but I got a sense of them. One had one long word, a symbol, and a short word. Another had four short words. The last was just one word. I liked to think of myself as a simple person. One word is as simple as it gets.
The one word was in the unknown script in yellow ink on an almost black cloth. It was in pretty good condition and looked like an encyclopedia or textbook. I reached out and touched it with my finger. When nothing happened, I grabbed the binding and pulled it out. I took it over to one of the side tables and then reached for four short words because it was closest. I met no resistance in pulling it out, so I set it next to one. This left symbol. A short moment and all three lay side by side.
Ironically, Symbol was the only book without a symbol on its cover. The brown leather tome I was calling Four Words had what looked like two “J”s on the cover in dark black ink. Symbol was a green book with a cloth binding and a series of three gold triangles, like a disconnected triforce.
I could feel it. I knew what I had to do. All I had to do was open the book, and my choice would be made. I could feel the Triforce book calling to me. I picked it up in my right hand. As I turned so I could open it easier; my blade tapped the table. It was a disaster in an instant. The Four Words book fell off the edge, and I tried to grab it. I caught just the edge of the cover….and it opened.
Two things happened simultaneously. One word and symbol flew back to their places on the shelves, and I fell back with a blinding headache.
I almost wanted to count this as waking up in a non-gray room, but I was sure that I had never passed out. My headache started to fade, and I looked at the book in my hand. It was already turning to ash. I caught a glimpse of the script on the binding, but this time, a word popped into my head….”Void”
The little gray menu bar flashed at me as I watched the void book finally crumble to dust. Without a book in hand, I went to the menu. I had a good idea of what was about to happen.
You have absorbed the tome: Way of the Void
Because this tome was written in a language, you do not know that language has been provided to you. This will cause a delay in the full absorption of the knowledge.>
Magic books were a thing here. I had just absorbed one, and as a bonus, I learned the language—well, a language, hopefully, useful.
I felt a little tension in my shoulders, so I gave them a slight roll as I walked over to where One Word had flown back to its slot. As I got closer, I noticed that there appeared to be a thin film or barrier in front of the books. It didn't obscure the books themselves, but as I went to look at a title, it was blocked. I tried to think of the titles and could see them in my mind, but they were the same, and no new meaning came from them. The change was when I thought of four short words or Way of the Void. The symbols were there for a split second and were then replaced by English. I thought wistfully that I may one day know what the other books were, but it was probably for the best.
I had no idea about the Way of the Void. It sounded like a monk fighting style, which sounded cool, but I stopped myself. I knew how other systems were from the books I read, but that didn't mean this system was the same. If it was a fighting style, I now knew it, or at least would learn it over time.
Despite my self-warnings, I still hoped it was a fighting style and that it was compatible with my half-spear. I was halfway to the door to port myself when I realized I’d called them ‘half-spears’ and not just ‘blades.’ I took a second to run my head through all the various weapons that they looked like. A few that stuck out were a cold steel survival spear from Walmart, a fancy (expensive) handmade one from some post-apoc webstore, and an ethnic African weapon belonging to a tribe I couldn't remember the name of. They all had a similar blade profile and blade-to-haft ratio. I also realized that I had shifted their position, and they, for some reason, were now in an optimum position. However, I felt I could also rig the sheathes for a behind-the-back draw with just a few adjustments.
It felt like I was right in thinking the Way of the Void was a fighting style, and it was compatible with my Blades. Yes, that was their temporary proper name. One way or another, as I reached for the teleport handle with a savage grin, lil’ Mord was about to help me find out.