—-------

  Present time

  —---------------

  As I got closer to the bottom of the massive grand library, I felt free of my burdens for a second, the gravity leading me to my destination.

  In the next second, I started slowing myself with my magical will. As I floated down, I noticed a library staff glaring daggers at me. She had the normal female academy staff suit on with a beige vest over a white-ish dress shirt and an ankle length whitish skirt. What caught my attention the most was the many books and scrolls that floated around her greying blonde hair. They practically radiated magical will.

  ‘Ah, is she a knowledge bank?’ I observed, half unsure. I shook my head, realizing another possibility. ‘Do people not fly in this library?’ I wondered, thinking I broke a rule on my first real day at the academy.

  My feet touched down with a soft metallic clank on the marble tiles of the main entrance, keeping an impassive look, I asked the librarian, “where is the supervised study?”

  She glared further at me, but answered anyway, “They are starting in just a few minutes. I was on my way there in the next moments, until I saw you launch yourself off the fourth floor railings.” She said in an accusatory tone that held anger and anxiety that could have a story behind it.

  “I felt zero magical will inside of you, so I sincerely thought you were offing yourself.” She said with a further bothered tone and a shaky, emotional voice. Her eyes were looking past me for a few seconds, likely remembering a past experience.

  One of her books glowed a tad with a whitish wisp as she forced a glob of magical energy from the top of her head to the said book.

  ‘Ah, she’s likely compartmentalizing.’ I realized.

  I felt really guilty. ‘Rusted, lead-brained fool, what do I tell her?’ My right eyebrow twitched, a nervous tic I hadn't exhibited in years upon years.

  “I have certain circumstances that I cannot disclose to anyone that the Headmaster of this academy doesn’t give me the expressed permission to do so.” I said in an impassive tone. My hand moving to my heart.

  That seemed to placate her, but her hands were still trembling. She got up and said with a calmer tone, “follow me, I will make my way to the supervised study, you may follow.”

  —--------

  ~Three minutes later

  —--------------------------

  As I followed the likely ages old woman with her many books following her, I wondered how this session would go.

  ‘Could she know about the dream-being?’ I wondered in my head. She seemed ancient enough to outlast maybe even that Agent Seer. If anyone would know of such a seemingly dangerous being, it would be someone so old, that even with multiple cogs to their name, they aged anyways. I could feel magical power from her, just not how much. A dead space.

  “Don’t you know it's rude to stare?” She reproached, not even looking back.

  “I was wondering if now was the right time to ask you about a personal inquiry?” I asked in an interested tone, feigning nonchalance.

  She turned around, looking at me with an impassive glance. For not even a second, I saw knowledge that I couldn’t perceive the depth to.

  She didn’t have any noble colors on her vest, so she would be obliged to accept.

  “Can it not wait until the study?” She asked with suspicion.

  “I don’t really want to ask about this topic with other people around.” I confessed.

  She looked at me like she could read my every thought, a glint of interest entering her eyes as the librarian sized me up. “You truly do need this answered, don’t you?” She observed.

  “A matter of life or death.” I stated, my hand moving over my heart once again.

  She sighed, likely feigning exasperation. Her piercing eyes told me all I needed to know about her interest in this matter.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  A pop of a will that felt magical but slightly off surrounded us, blocking the outside from listening in.

  I nodded, starting my question. “Do you know about a being who sounded like a regal man who appeared in my dre-” she appeared before me with a near instant teleport. Her hand covering my mouth. “Does anyone else know about this?” She demanded, her face furious.

  Her hand darted to the medallion under my dress shirt. “Curse that infinitely bored manipulator, I should’ve known.” She let the amulet fall into my shirt. Her eyes looked into my eyes expectantly.

  “One other, my fiancee, she was there when I was ejected from th-.” She shushed me before I could continue my story.

  Her whitish eyes stared through me as another of her books glowed. I then saw a floating glob of magic come through the book shelf to her right, entering a book of hers rapidly.

  “She is safe now, do not talk to her about this ever again.” She further demanded.

  She then stepped back and glared into my eyes with an intensity I found hard to hold my vision against.

  “I will not tell you more until you defeat Desmond and he takes the amulet back.” The ‘librarian’ spat with an anger I couldn’t quite understand.

  She turned around, the will coat fizzling out of existence with a perceptible loss of weight.

  “Come, you are to follow me, say nothing and attend to my class now.” She ordered me. I understood then, that she was the woman who Desmond got this amulet from. ‘Was she meant to protect me?’ Another thought poked its way through my active mind, ‘how could she not sense me through her own magic’? Then another, and another.

  She stopped, her voice going icy cold, “now, Erec.”

  A shiver ran down my spine, my hair standing up like a deer that detected something in the trees.

  I followed.

  —----------

  ~Three hours later

  —----------------------

  As I exited the so called librarian’s classroom, I shook my head.

  Nothing happened.

  I just sat there as she stared into whatever she saw.

  I assumed she was doing something alike searching people’s memories as she sat there. Sometimes, a glob of whitish energy would come out of one of many directions randomly and enter an even more random book or scroll.

  It was like she was a library all to herself, collecting memories from others. Did they lose those memories, or were they just unwillingly getting memories copied from their head? It may be either or, like how she said that Cerys was ‘safe’ after she collected a memory from her.

  My mind felt even more taxed as my thoughts span and span, like a runaway cog.

  My body was moving without my perception outwards as I thought through many scenarios.

  I then realized I was outside the main library. ‘Ah, the artificer.’ I reminded myself.

  I started to take a faster pace to her workshop.

  —----------

  Ten minutes later

  —----------------------

  ‘What a trash heap, Mary wasn’t exaggerating when she said I wouldn’t miss it.’ I observed to myself as I manipulated the magi-steel door open with zero effort.

  Scrapped materials lay everywhere. Even though it looked like an incoherent mess, with my magical will, I realized they were indeed organized in a loose use of the term. Still messy as all get go. I shook my head and continued into her workshop.

  “Mary, are you in here?” I asked as I opened the inner buildings’ cog-like door, much alike to mothers’ door that resided in Her Wrath. I noted that down in the back of my brain.

  ‘Surely not.’ I denied my mind from wandering to that possibility.

  “Ah, is that you Erec?” a muffled voice called out to me from an office far in the back. Windows that would have been see-through if there weren't even more papers covering that with a sticky substance that reminded me of a slime mixed with clay. I didn’t even try to dodge the mountains and valleys of papers. It looked like a tornado had suddenly formed and ran rampant before I entered. ‘Another eccentricity?’ I wondered, already keeping track of the mounting irregularities this woman exhibited.

  I used the metal from my belt and floated above the mounds, moving a meter above the surface of the warehouse-bunker-like building.

  The door slammed open with a strength I couldn’t place the scrawny woman being able to use.

  “Erec, have I got an idea for you!” Mary exclaimed excitedly. “I can make you a fold out claymore that is disguised as a shin guard.” She didn’t even take a breath. “I can also make you a steel wool harness that can act as a stabilizer for flight without having to use your right hand.” She continued further, “I can even make you an over coat that can be paneled with magi-steel, which you can fold out from low profile slits in the leather which can cover your entire body.”

  I raised my right eye brow, wondering if she had anything else more to say.

  She took a breath and continued.

  —---------

  ~ten minutes later

  —-----------------------

  I was socially drained. So incredibly sapped of my social energy that I wondered how in the world I never had the same feeling after eating lunch with some of the most egotistical ‘weapon-in-training’ people on the planet. For nearly my entire lifetime.

  She didn’t stop talking once for these ten minutes. Never asking me for any input. It was like ideas were spilling out of her head like the lead throwers those enemy crafts used back in the wormhole.

  Once the silence finally came, I was almost surprised. It was like she finally realized I was there.

  She looked up at me, sheepishly, as she apologized. “Uhh- sorry Erec, I get like this sometimes.” My gaze flowed through the room. ‘More than sometimes,’ I corrected in my head.

  “Mary, all those ideas sound extremely useful, one question though,” I said as I gathered my thoughts, “are you well?” I realized what I had just said after I said it. She knocked me so far out of my comfort space that I sincerely couldn’t think straight.

  She snickered, a maniacal grin spreading across her face. “I’m more healthy than any cog-engineer on this continent” She said with pride.

  I shivered. My only contact with another cog-engineer was the old man when I was five-ish years of age as he used to tell me all about his work. ‘Did I play said memories up in my head?’ I wondered until I snapped myself back to the present.

  “Please, make anything you want to make for me, I would gladly test it out.” I left myself open to this insane but sane individual and her limitless well of ideas.

  She smiled, an actual smile, not the -I’m teetering on the brink of insanity- grin. “Thanks, Erec, you won’t regret this.”

  “I would also like to bring to your attention a weapon from an enemy craft.” I proposed, thinking she would be interested.

  Her goggled eyes seemed to bore into mine. “Explain.” She demanded, taking out a notebook and quill from her garb.

  “While I was being transported here in a dart-wasp craft, an enemy craft capable of wormhole travel attacked us with lead.” My brain moving through the recent nightmare of a story.

  The cog engineer in training was frantically writing everything I said down into her notebook.

  “This weapon that they used rapidly threw lead with a controlled explosion that I was incapable of properly countering.” My eyes looked past Mary as I saw the dying frame of Sampson.

  “This weapon shot these lead projectiles that were the size of my fist, they couldn't pierce the hull of the dart-wasp, but could penetrate the windshield.” I stated, finishing my explanation of the interesting weapon.

  Mary practically invaded my personal space as she demanded more information, “is the craft intact? Are there prisoners? Do you have a proper unlaunched projectile?”

  I shook my head, “I had to turn the enemy craft into a mass of melting slag, nothing survived.”

  A disappointed look formed on her face for a moment, which dissipated quickly.

  Mery then went right back to her earlier mental setting as she said “Now shoo, I have work to do, you would only get in the way, GET!” She practically chased me out of the building.

  ‘What did I get myself into?’ I wondered, exhausted.

  I then made my way back to the training building I used last to find my own power.

  ‘I need more power,’ I reminded myself, probably for the thousandth time.