Drip, drop
The rain is pouring outside.
Drip, drop
It's creating puddles of murk and scum on the floor of my room. I'm not quite certain how to to stop the leaking from the roof. I tried plugging it up but then I heard the upstairs resident angrily stopping around in the puddles before jabbing a spear through the floor in several spots and all my work was quickly drained back onto my own floor.
Drip, drop
I've been granted an excellent chance at practicing my long term spell-casting. So far my bed consists of me holding a telekinesis spell as long as I can, sleeping on the comfort of my own floatation. The issue I've been facing hasn't been one of my spell failing and me falling into the floor, which is more like a body of water rather than solid stone. But rather one of myself slowing drifting across the room and bumping into the walls with my head or my shin or aligning perfectly to catch one of the falling grime water droplets directly up the nose. I was sneezing for like 20 minutes and I still feel like my nostril is lined in soot.
Drip, drop
The place above me must be a kitchen, about half of my ceiling seems to drip, while the other half absolutely boils with radiating heat. I need to get out of this. But I can't, I'm stuck, trapped inside the best reputation I've ever had, with the living conditions of a dirty bathtub. But this is all for them and for Ruby and even myself. We deserve to live, to be treated with respect and dignity. This is my starting place, the first time I've ever be truly alone. No horses, no knights, no fellow wizards, nothing but the constant droppings of dirty water.
Drip, drop
I finally drop out of the telekinetic stance I was holding myself in and let the water submerge me up to my ankles. The floor is so uneven that the water has a fucking deep end.
Oh wow, my room comes with a built in pool, how luxurious.
My memories flash to the sudden speech I gave. The cheering. What would they think about their prized wizard being given a room like this? Why did Prince Rythel do this? He's such a fucking asshole. His Highn-ass. I smirk. Well at least I cheered myself up a bit.
I trudge out of my room and weave through the flow of common people that erupts right after the first corner. After staying for a day I know now, I'm the only person living in my corridor. There's a room clearly for storage, but it's things long forgotten and uncared for. The other rooms are barren, mismanaged, and unused. Nobody has turned that corner besides Captain Salem and myself. It was almost entertaining to see, like a forbidden entrance, the way that everyone passed right by.
I'm already up and into the kitchen, the same one I'm now certain lies right above my room. I quickly grab a meal that's clearly meant for servants, which know that I think about it, I guess the first wizard to the prince meets those qualifications.
It's a few days old piece of bread and some absolutely piping hot soup. I carry my goodies over to an open window a few hallways over, setting my bowl of soup on the windowsill. I begin crumbling my bread into it, seeing the stale flakes gain life as their filled with the mighty semi-nutrient mostly-water liquid. I slurp down the soup greedily, only stopping to wipe my mouth and take a breath. Having a cleared head, I know where I can find a solution. The library.
I'm not sure how to handle my new social status but I definitely know I'm not doing it right. I approach a maid who's folding some freshly washed laundry, "Um, excuse me, Ma'am?"
She turns around with a slightly annoyed look on her face before looking up at me. She snaps into a deep curtsy and a look of revered respect. How very practiced of her. Immediately she pushed past my failings of respecting the social hierarchy and simply replies with her physical motions.
I continue, "Wherever could I find the library?"
She glances from side to side before responding hastily, "There are two libraries in the manor, but I expect you'll be wanting to royal library. It can be found next to the Queen's room."
"Thank you."
"It's my upmost pleasure", and she deeply curtsies again, sending me off.
I wander through the castle, not entirely sure where the Queen's room is. But I follow the lingering trails of her residual magic and eventually find myself standing in a hallway where 8 guards stand posted outside of two beautifully adorned finely carved wooden doors. There's an elegance to each and every detail, cohesively making a statement towards the purity and and sanctity required of the Queen yet the requirement to bear children and remain untouchably elegant. But maybe they're just some cool goats and tigers and it's all in my head. You can never really know, but I think the world would just be so boring and drab if anything and everything doesn't have the most articulate meaning.
I can tell I'm trying to get into the headspace of going into a library. Also not a great time to remember I can't read. Oh well, if it's the royal library surely I can have someone teach me there. I've always thought writing seemed fun and MM told me that some wizards are able to prepare spells ahead of time that way. But I mostly just want to send Ruby a letter begging her to come and be the prince's second wizard. That might be endangering her, so I'll hold off on it until things are less dire straights over here.
I point to the double doors about 100 feet away from the Queen's room—how in the hells are the rooms so damned large, like there's like 4 rooms in this massive hallway, the entire hallways I live in isn't even as big as 1 of these rooms, maybe being a royal is about having the cardio to make the vast journeys between all your possessions—and yell as quietly but as effectively as possible towards the guards, "This the library?"
They look bewildered to have been spoked to but the youngest of the bunch just quickly nods his head in affirmation. Good enough for me. I signal him with a thumbs up which in turn causes a slight smile and for the rest to chuckle and for whatever reason to begin pushing him around. Men are so strange with their behaviors.
I open the doors and immediately I'm greeted with an unbelievable scent, the wondrous amalgamation of glues, old paper, leather spines and covers, ink, and the collection of dust. It's like nothing I've ever experienced.
There's row and rows and... is that a second floor. Is that a fucking THIRD floor? The space is laid out with an utmost caution to utilize as much space as possible for books, the aisles between the rows of shelves are tight and small, requiring a grown adult to turn their body sideways to fit.
A woman in a long black gown with light grey hair sits at a cluttered desk, nearly the only thing in the entire room that isn't entirely dedicated to the storage and display of books. There is also ladder with wheels on it on each floor right next to a small nook with a cushioned royal red chair. She's deeply engrossed in taking notes, glancing between 5 different books, hastily scribbling down sentences and charts between her rapid flipping of pages. There is no semblance of her reading these books; no, she has read each many times by the clear certainty of how she skims the sections finding the nuggets of information exactly where she had suspected. Doing this many times a minute. I wonder what she could be researching.
As the heavy doors close, they creak before emitting a dull thud, which rips the woman from her work. She immediately stands but the suddenness of her movement causes her left arm to smack against the desk, sending her notes and several books, as well as forgotten empty cups spiraling off the desk.
Oh good, time to make an impression.
I quickly focus and cast 9 different telekinesis spells, holding each fallen item in midair before I quickly calibrate the origin of each, sending the items back to their rightful places—I know an organized mess when I see one.
She stands in stunned disbelief for what feels like ages, but must've been only a second or 2, before deeply bowing while saying in a shrill voice, "Oh my, thank you master wizard. Your spell work is truly magnificent. I'm so sorry to have immediately troubled you!"
I wave off her compliments, "I'm honestly not used to the high status treatment, so please, it will make me much more comfortable to be treated as a peer." I can see in her eyes that my words are being carefully ingested before she simply cautiously nodes. I understand now that the introduction by the prince was meant to isolate me from others, I feel such a fool for only recognizing that now.
I continue, gesturing towards the mass of shelves containing an unfathomable number of books, "I need to quickly catch myself up on modern spell theory, current political... uh, stuff, and really just anything you'd assume someone like me would need. Admittedly, I have no clue where to start. And I can't exactly read."
Her eyebrow raises at my final sentence, a wave of embarrassment washes over me but I swallow it down, remembering what's at stake. With great reserve and measured patience she smiles warmly towards me, "Well my name is Annie-Sue Winchester the Royal Librarian." She extends a hand towards me, I'm met with a firm handshake.
"I'm Jessica. Jessica Spellweaver."
"So I've heard. Well, I expect we will find ourselves to be spending quite an amount of time with each other now, won't we? I'll have to ask the Queen if my current assigned work can be extended, given the asking party, I'm sure she won't mind." She immediately begins pacing into the sections of the library sticking to the first floor, she finds the grouping she was looking for and begins to thumb through various volumes before finally selecting an extremely thin and tattered book. It looks as if it's been rebound a countless number of times and the pages are nearly grey and mostly yellow.
"But I can't-"
"Shush, I know. Just look at it. For someone like you, I know it'll work. This is how they did magic in the old, old days." She looks from side to side, then pulls in closer to me putting a hand to her mouth and whispering, "It's said that this was written by the first wizard to directly serve the king. But I don't believe that. The magical techniques and understanding are simply too evolved for the time, yet I believe it was actually written earlier. How so? I believe this was written by Ruby the Red Mage."
"Is that legal to have? To give to... someone like me?"
"Well of course it is, silly. The kingdom's official position is that Algustues III wrote this on his deathbed. What does the biased opinion of someone like the a lowborn librarian matter compared to the Royal Archives Unit who've been tracking and recording things like this for centuries."
"I mean you are the Queen's direct librarian or at the very least the head librarian of the royal library within the Queen's palace. Does a position like that not come with certain responsibilities and respect?"
"And you're Prince Rythel's head wizard. What have you been granted with a position like that?"
"I-. Fair enough. I'll take the book and tomorrow I'll be back in hopes that you're able to teach me. Have a fair day, Annie-Sue." I curtsy.
Drip, drop
I float gently above the rising water level within my personal room. I must assume that this is why the door was broken. It somehow is the worst, creakiest door I've ever seen, yet watertight. I must say, I'm impressed.
Drip, drop
I'm starting to really get the hang of multi-spell casting as well as spell longevity. The book I can't read worth a damn floats delicately above me, the pages fluttering showing me page after page of hand drawn runes. There's very little writing in the book, I can see why the librarian thought it might serve of use to me. And yet, I don't understand any of it.
Drip, drop
I try infusing the power of my river into the book, into each individual page. Nothing works. I'm left simply feeling dumb and alone. But I don't give up. I'll never give up. Whether in vain or stupidity, I'm only in my current place because I never stop fighting.
Drip, drop
I've kept the book cautiously dry but the frustration bubbling in my gut tells me a bath might help it get to work. I can't torture a book into telling me it's secrets.
Suddenly an idea floats to the top of my mind. It's a stupid, vain one. Perfect. I skim through the book again, waiting for a particular sensation to grasp me. Suddenly it's there. A little twinge at the tip of my finger, so subtle if I wasn't hounding for it, it would've slipped into the ether. It's a page of runes, just like all the others, meaningless to me.
Drip, drop
I spin around the room, buzzing with a newfound purpose. Every fiber of my being attempting to gleam some type of meaning from it.
Minutes turn to hours, the sun has long since set, my famished stomach growling at me unhappily. The water in my rooms has found a happy place where a crack in the wall let's out the excess, sitting right around my hip height. I'm truly amazed with this door. Going to need to report this to the Queen, artifacts like this can't go unnoticed.
I've been staring at this damned page for far too long. It's getting to me.
Drip, drop
I fail to notice that I've slowly pulled under the incessant water drip. The lazy drop of water has smacked directly onto the page I've had open and slowly rolls deeper in the page before the cracked and dry paper eats it whole.
It's in this moment that I see what no other has seen before me. None other than the author of this book. Ruby the Red Mage. Yes, it must be her. No other would hide something so easily in plain sight. No other's writing would end up in my hands this many centuries later. Slowly, surely, I coat the rest of the page in droplets. It's careful work, the page cracks and the book groans with the added moisture, one misstep and I'll lose everything.
Drip, drop
But finally, I see it.