Ari swore under her breath as she arrived at the new research institute. She just had to go and tell Perry everything at the institute was going smoothly.
Nevermind the fact that it had been going smoothly for a place with more than two-thousand different mages, each with dozens if not hundreds of ideas. It had been going incredibly smoothly.
Of course someone had to release plant-badger stone-eating things. Perry would come up with a better name for them later. At the moment she was too frustrated to care.
Of course Nexxa couldn't contain the outburst because she was dealing with the monsters currently raging against the barrier. Most of the mages were involved with their own projects, not combat mages or worst of all were more interested in studying the outbreak than containing it.
At least they were containing it.
This was very much an administrative issue, not a dangerous outbreak. Ari very purposely did not rub her nose or pull at her braid.
Thankfully, she’d foreseen it coming.
Well, not the snapping vine-plant-badgers. No, the details had been a surprise. But the fact the researchers would create a mess? Of course.
They had, in truth, take longer to be a problem than she'd expected. Not that she'd gotten everything lined up in time, not with everything else on her plate. But she had the shape of a plan. That shape came in the form of a particularly erudite Magus Dominus. If she had her way, he wouldn’t be one, not for much longer.
“There you are,” Ari said to herself, having finally located the Magus Dominus in question.
Books looked up from the collection of his namesake he had laid out in front of him, blinking owlishly at her. “High Lady Arizar, did you need my help?”
“Did you miss the plant-badgers running around eating things?” Ari didn't bother waiting for a response. “Never mind. Have you given more thought to my proposal?”
“I was looking into it even now. Fascinating concept. You think it will truly work?” He gestured towards the books laid out around him. Ari recognized them as ones that very institute had put together for her. “If it does it will create quite the environment for learning.”
“And hopefully cut down on the chaos.” Ari chinned towards the window. “Feel up to taking it?”
“Now? Is it truly so urgent?” Books asked, adjusting the enchanted glasses on his nose.
“No. But I’d like to get a handle on this before things get worse. Or before somebody finds some more imaginative way to make a mess of things.”
“Very well.” He stood, brushing off his robes. His action actually did brush off a great deal of dust, to Ari’s surprise. Then he reached for his books before pausing. He chuckled softly. “I suppose if this works, it will be easier to reshelve my research materials.”
With a wave of his hands and several words of direction, the books rose into the air, stacking themselves neatly.
Ari doubted the man needed an easier way to reshelve his books, but she wasn’t about to call him on it. Not when he’d be helping her out.
“To Keeper then?” Books asked once he'd organized his study area.
“To Keeper,” Ari confirmed, leading the way back to Mount Aeternia.
Soon they were standing in front of the old bone devil, Books reciting the oath of the Magus Librarium. It was a drastic departure from the original Magus Dominus oath.
"Upon the ancient Knowledge of Ro’an, I bind myself in solemn oath,” Books said, pausing to adjust his enchanted glasses. “I pledge my life and my soul to the pursuit of knowledge, and its preservation. This knowledge shall be acquired through trade, noble effort and the destruction of those who would bring permanent harm upon others. I shall keep secret only that which the recipient has not proven worthy of, and share all they deserve. Upon the shelves and within the holds, I shal preserve all I know, so even in my passing, it is not lost. So long as questions remain, and knowledge sits unkept, my vow stands eternal, written into the fabric of Ro’an.”
When he was finished, they stood together for several seconds.
Eventually, Ari asked, “How do you feel?”
“I feel... the same?” Books blinked at her a couple times before his gaze swept around the room, coming to rest on a set of books near the entrance. “Ah. Not quite. It appears to be highly contextual.”
“Does that mean you can sense the books?” Ari pressed. It was hardly the most vital use of his oath, but it was the most immediately testable.
“A bit more than that,” he replied, waving his hands and reorganizing the shelf. “There's a sense of what's inside them as well. I think I can… one moment.” Narrowing his eyes, he twisted his wrist. In response, short scrolls rolled out from underneath each of the books hanging from the shelf, with new labels upon them.
“Promising,” Ari said, smile finally tugging at her lips. “Now let's go see if it works the way we expect it to for your new subordinates.”
Books nodded, following her out, wiggling his fingers the entire time. As they descended the stairs, he pulled several books out, pages fluttering open and closed repeatedly as they walked. It was only as they emerged in Mistvale that he stumbled.
It was so bad Ari had to catch him to keep him from falling flat on his face.
“Oh, that certainly feels different,” Books straightened himself out, eyes narrowing as he looked in the direction of the research institute. The institute they had made into his personal library. The entire grounds, in point of fact. Luckily, they hadn’t needed to include that in the oath. “Yes, yes, I do believe this is going to work as you had intended, Lady Arizar.”
“Good.” It was time to see how these researchers handled it when they had a Magus Librarium keeping them in check.
…Scene break…
If she were being honest, Nexxa would’ve preferred it if Ari’d figured out the new Librarian system a little bit later. It wasn't that it was a bad idea.
It was just that having the perpetual feeling of someone looking down her neck as she tried to wrangle a dozen researchers into helping her with the final preparations for casting her Imp Harvest spell was somewhat distracting.
As they set to work on the spell itself, she realized her initial concern was misplaced. Once they were working the nagging feeling disappeared immediately. It was only when someone was about to do something that could’ve caused a disruption to those outside that the presence returned.
The first time was when one of the mages wanted to test how destructive the lightning component was, targetting the wall.
They’d stopped casting halfway into their action as the presence got so heavy it caused Nexxa to blink. She’d fought dragons with weaker auras.
A rather useful error-checking mechanism, she realized. She wasn't the only one to do so though.
Another of the researchers started testing it. Trying to determine what sorts of activities might trigger the presence.
Which soon led to a visit from their new Magus Librarium.
“Hey, Books,” Nexxa said, giving him a casual wave as she returned her attention to the spell.
“Lady Nexxa.” Books nodded in response before moving his attention to the over curious researcher.
She only half listened as Books explained he would forgive the boundary testing for now, but encouraged the researcher to keep careful notes. He also indicated it was quite disruptive when someone repeatedly pushed at him.
Or something to that effect. Was hard to pay attention when she was hip-deep in spell design. Even moreso when two normally intelligent researchers started arguing about the most efficient way to filter out the residentialus dustenum she didn't want incorporated in her ascension.
At least she assumed they were intelligent because they were using large words she hadn't heard very often. That said they were doing an awful job of making their points clear. Mostly they were just going around in circles.
After a painful five minutes, Nexxa realized neither of them understood the underlying properties and were obfuscating the fact by using big words. At which point she kicked them out. Then she started testing the rest.
Amusingly, by the end, only the researcher who had been pushing Books’s boundaries proved to be useful. Nexxa made sure to pass on a recommendation for the young mage.
Once the two of them returned to work on her spell, it passed fairly quickly, requiring only another few days to get it sorted out properly.
By the time they had it sorted, the next attack came.
Unfortunately, imps were not particularly plentiful. In the lower atmosphere most of them simply burned up during re-entry unless she went especially high, to the point there was little mana for her to draw on to replenish her stores. Apparently that was common. The mana settled around Ro'an and did not linger in the air, except in a couple of specific locations, such as the Everstorm or directly over the Mana Lake. Still for most of the opponents she was seeking, she didn't need much mana.
After obliterating the entire wave of monsters, she checked just how many imp skulls she'd managed to gather during the onslaught.
After doing her first count she blinked, looking it over again. She'd slain over two-thousand so how come she only had a little over three-hundred imp skulls?
When she went back to her fellow researcher and told him the results, they both turned back to the spell and quickly found they’d introduced a size limitation. Any imp with a skull too small had slipped through her net.
“We only put that in there to avoid other types of bones, didn’t we?” Nexxa asked, scratching at her notepad.
“We did. Getting rid of it means we’ll need to build a full detection protocol.” The young researcher’s grin proved he wasn’t upset by the prospect at all.
“Guess that’s what we’re doing then.”
They ended up adding an advanced detection protocol that would detect the shape of the bone as well. This made it so the spell took an additional 1st-level spell slot to cast. Nothing ruinous but it was annoying.
She had a feeling that if Perth was there she would’ve been able to find a better solution. Alas her brother was off exploring the Forgelands.
Much as she enjoyed spell design, she wouldn’t mind joining him.
It had to be interesting, exploring such a different land.