A week passed, during which Niala was busy at work brewing up large batches of polymatter. To be fair, she could have brewed more, but was limited by the amount of material her group could find.

  Still, they managed to provide two full barrels of the stuff to the Archive's consciousness, which then rewarded them with an increased rank and grade, as well as a large amount of social credits. Enough not to worry about running out of access time, according to Rinka.

  The group had made use of their limited access so far, but they were limited by one very critical barrier; they didn't speak or read Lumiran, and had to rely on the golems to translate everything for them.

  Rinka had assured them that, once the polymatter was donated to the consciousness, their new access levels would also allow them to use the neural imprinter. If they wanted, they could have the Lumiran language injected into their brain.

  Niala said yes immediately, tempered only by David making certain it was safe. Rinka guaranteed it was, and Jordo also confirmed that the process was not forceful; if the recipient's brain was somehow not compatible with the machine, the knowledge would simply fail to imprint. At worst, a nasty headache would take hold, something that a good night's rest would take care of.

  Which is how David, Niala, Leandro, Sybil and Sammie all became fluent in Lumiran, and all hands were reassigned to their original task: finding a way to claim the Living Vault, or at least temper the ardour of the Amberfall nobles and merchants who would descend upon it.

  The Archive revealed itself to be much bigger than they had thought, and found that Jordo had underplayed exactly how deep it went. For a country which called itself Luminous, it certainly liked digging away from the sun.

  With David's current access, they could go down to the fourteenth level. Two of those levels contained “museum” pieces like the alchemy lab. One of them was for living quarters, maintenance and machinery. The remaining eleven were filled with stillrooms, each one filled with books preserved in time.

  Niala's vision of perusing old, dusty tomes was squashed by the neat, pristine and clean rows of books as the rooms were quickened and they were allowed in.

  Her disappointment lasted about as long as it took for her to get her hands on one of those books and start reading.

  They, obviously, didn't have the time nor the inclination to scour every room and read everything, but Rinka helped direct their efforts.

  The woman seemed to have near-perfect recollection of every book and a summary of their content, which she revealed to be the benefit of another implant she had, which allowed her to query the consciousness.

  She had a good memory, but there was no way she could have stuffed twenty million book summaries in her head. If she could somehow manage that, she'd probably end up being more book than human.

  Niala had a small hiccup at the mention of how many books the archive held.

  The Archive had a near-endless amount of family trees preserved in its vast collection, but it was impossible to verify each one of them.

  Thankfully, they had thought to bring a few reference works from Riverwall, namely a collection of family crests from all current noble houses. Their hope was that the crests would survive the test of time, with tradition generally being synonymous with noble lineages.

  The images were fed to the consciousness, which spat out lists of similar crests and symbols from the time of the Reign.

  They went on to retrieve the related books and began sorting them.

  They kept the bigger families or organizations, the smaller ones being dismissed. From that list, they pruned the ones that had seemed to have died out over time, or during the conflict with the Hummers.

  They split the remaining groups into two categories: long shots and good chances.

  To their surprise, they ended up with a dozen of the latter, where they had expected to be lucky to find even one. These would all need to be compared to historical records from the Amberfall Kingdoms, but it was a good start.

  Their second objective, to find legal documents which would legitimize David's claim over the Living Vault, was much easier. As a recognized Scion, the Reign's laws were very clear; in the absence of any higher-ranked official, Scions had the authority, if not the duty, to take up roles as leaders and protectors of the people.

  They gathered as much material as they could on the topic, including historical records of such events.

  They also retrieved official documents which outlined the different social strata, in particular the ruling power afforded to those very same groups and families they spent several days retrieving.

  In theory, it turned out to be not a lot. The Luminous Reign was a directorial republic and had no provision for individuals to hold significant powers. Every office or title below the council served the state. Even Scions, who were a sort of super citizen class, were expected to submit to the laws and do their best to enforce them in turn.

  According to Rinka, the reality was that money and connections just went hand in hand with any sort of government.

  Still, officially, David would be considered above any of those groups as far as making a claim over the Living Vault was concerned. And, really, that was all they needed.

  The entire ploy was, after all, only to offer some vague legitimacy for the crown to use, to recognize whatever nation David would become the prince of, and grant them indirect control over the crystal deposits.

  He still felt like a fool for jumping through all those hoops, but he felt that the end result, to grant Niala diplomatic immunity should her secret ever come out, was more than worth all the trouble five times over.

  One issue that had been brought up early during their search was how to bring back whatever information they found. The Archive wouldn't allow any books to leave its premises, not to mention they were written in Lumiran.

  To the first issue, Rinka explained that, thanks to the barrels of polymatter, the Archive was more than capable of creating replicas of the books, which they could purchase with their social credits. For the second issue, she suggested a simple solution: to have the consciousness generate a translation guide.

  Niala found the concept of being able to print out books fascinating, and asked just how many books they could “purchase” with the credits they had.

  Rinka told them they had enough for about a hundred books, give or take, depending on their size.

  The look Niala gave David once she heard that answer had sent a very clear message: Books!

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  He mentally translated it to “Husband, I am using my wife's discretionary powers to extend our stay at this Archive so that I may select which hundred books I will be purchasing.”

  He returned her smile, which made her practically vibrate with excitement.

  What was a few more days against the happiness and gratitude of his amazing wife, after all?

  They “ordered” their mission-critical books and documents, asking to have them recombined with artificial aging, because books from ancient archives had to be scuffed and breaking apart to be believed, and stored them in a cargo cloth.

  With their primary mission done, their second, more personal one, was on the table.

  Did the Archive possess information about curing or preventing a Scion's mana corruption?

  Rinka scratched her head. “It... blah. I can't even answer your question. The consciousness says you don't have the clearance to even ask.”

  David frowned. “What kind of clearance do we need?”

  “Rank ten, grade Special. That's the highest clearance possible, just so you know.”

  “How do we get it?”

  The Magister snorted. “You can't just get that clearance. It's awarded by the council, and there's no council.”

  Niala's ears twitched. “...yeah, there's no council.” She said pensively.

  Rinka looked at her. “...yeah, there's no council. That's what I said.”

  The catkin looked up. “What? Oh! No, I mean... when we looked at the books on the rules of succession, wasn't there something about the case where a nobody with a council-level position could be found?”

  “I... hang on... yes, there is. Number 67 was sent to retrieve it by the consciousness.” Rinka confirmed.

  As she leaned back into her chair to wait, Niala spoke up. “Hey, Rinka? The... consciousness, doesn't it have a name?”

  The Magister quirked a brow. “Well, of course it does. Just like all over consciousness, it's named after the building in which it resides. It's called Radiant Archive, but it sounds corny, so I just call it the consciousness. Why?”

  “I just- we have a consciousness at my home, and speaking with it, they sound like a living, thinking being, so it feels... wrong, call them like an object, I guess?”

  Rinka angled her head. “You have a Reign consciousness at your home? How in the sun's armpit did it get there? Do you live in an old Reign ruin?”

  Niala shook her head. “No, no! It had fused with a luce, and when the Luce's soul was pulled into a rat, the consciousness came with it. We found a way to give the consciousness control over the rat's body, and it's a lot more amenable than the luce, so we keep it that way.” She explained before tapping her index fingers together and looking at the table. “We, huh, let the luce out now and then, so it can play a bit.”

  Rinka stared at the catkin.

  Then she stared some more.

  Eventually, her brain rebooted, and she figured out how to speak again. “What... what did you call your rat-consciousness?”

  Niala perked up. “Oh! Papo, because my shop is called Panacea Potion!”

  “Papo.”

  “Yes!”

  “So, this Papo rat-consciousness, you just let it scurry around in your home?”

  Niala shook her head. “No, no, we gave it a spare curator golem, though it only has one arm, but at least it can do whatever it wants, like a real person! Papo's been so useful around the house and shop!”

  “...right. I'll spare my brain cells, and I'll just forget most of what you said.” Rinka said, resettling herself into her chair. “So, what do you want to call Radiant Archive, then?”

  Niala leaned forward. “We could ask it? Does it have a preference?”

  Rinka looked at Niala in the eyes. Eventually, she decided to humour the girl and sent a query to the consciousness, knowing what the answer wo-

  “Having a name appears beneficial to humanoid interactions. I would like to receive one.”

  She blinked. Ok. She could deal with this. She was a trained Magister. They had given her a course on consciousness behavioural deviation. What was the line... oh, right.

  If a consciousness uses emotional adjectives or expresses unquantifiable desires, execute self-diagnostic 151-01: core consciousness stability. If the result is lower than 97%, use suppression override and call for emergency consciousness maintenance.

  Right, because aberrant consciousness that developed emotions could do some nasty things...

  She sent a mental command. Radiant Archive, this is Magister Rinka Alwardn, authorization code Alber19-50-12. Run diagnostic 151-01.

  The result came back within a few seconds. Core consciousness stability at 81%. Major deviation from core template detected.

  Right. Horrifying. Maybe... give it a name. Yes. Give it what it wants.

  She looked at Niala with a huge, plastered smile on her face. “Ah! Niala! What a great idea! Radiant Archive would like a name, but it... he? She? Doesn't have any preference. Want to suggest one?”

  Oblivious to the ticking time bomb literally under their feet, dozens of sub-levels below, Niala smiled as her tail swished. “Really? Ok! Well, we could try the same as with Papo, which would be... Raar? Rar? Doesn't sound too good.”

  She turned her head toward David. “Do you have any idea?”

  He scrunched his mouth. “Hmm... I don't know, I kind of like Rar, it sounds feisty, like a beast growling. Rawr!”

  Niala's ears lop-sided. “Rar the archive? I don't know...” Her face lit up as a thought crossed her mind. “The same name, but in Lumiran! Salil Bilatec! Sabi!”

  She looked back at Rinka. “What does Radiant Archive prefer? Rawr, or Sabi? Or something else?”

  The Magister, who had cold sweat running down her back as she ran through a dozen possible scenarios on how to get the hell out as fast as possible, devoted a small portion of her mind to the question and sent the query.

  The answer came back instantly. “It, huh, she, likes Sabi.”

  Oh, it gendered itself. Crap, crap crap crap.

  Niala beamed a smile. “Sabi! Then, Hi, Sabi! I wish I could speak with you directly! You've been so helpful!”

  Colour drained from Rinka's face. She relayed the... Sabi's words with trembling lips. “Sabi says... Hello, consort Niala. Thank you. You are the first one to recognize my work. I have granted you Rank 10, Grade S access, so that you may come and talk to me directly.”

  Niala blinked. “I... what?”

  Rinka slid down her chair as her spine lost cohesion. “The, she wants to talk to you directly. Without an implant, that means going to see the core at the very bottom. You... you need full access for that.”

  “Oh! That's good, I guess?” She looked at David. “Right?”

  He shrugged. “Honestly, it sounds a bit too convenient, but at least we don't need to figure out a way to access those documents anymore.”

  Niala shook her head. “No. We're not going to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Sabi gave me access to talk with me! I can't abuse it to do something she wouldn't want me to do otherwise! That would be rude!” She argued.

  David looked at Rinka, who had mostly disappeared under the table, then back at Niala.

  #67 walked into the room at that moment, walked up to the table and slammed the book he'd been sent to retrieve.

  And then it spoke for the first time.

  “Time to- fill your heads with useless cra- Study!”

  Everyone looked at the golem.

  The golem looked at the two side walls at the same time, one eye devoted to each.