With a thunk, and a groan of mild to medium displeasure, my forehead hit the table.
“Ouch.” There had been silence for almost ten seconds before I had actually spoken, not out of any actual pain.
“This. Fucking. Sucks.”
I grumbled some more, gaze lost in the wood a mere centimeter or two away from my eyeballs.
Eventually, though, I raised my head yet again, sighing dramatically.
Four. Fucking. Days.
Four days spent going through the library before I had found even the first mention of any conflict Thelvadore was involved with. It had gotten to the point I had actually been wondering if someone was playing a massive prank on me, and this wasn’t Thelvadore, or Satien, to begin with.
But nope, it was just that this library did not hold any significant information in that regard it seemed.
It was to the point where I was honestly worried that there might be something more afoot. Surely the Royal Library in the capital of the kingdom would have at least some information in regards to the country it was a part of, no? Even if the text would be light on details, I just couldn’t fathom that there would be absolutely no mention of anything important.
Okay, first things first.
When I first started going through the library, I spent a long time finding absolutely nothing. Out of frustration I had given my shadow clones the directive to read through every single book, just in case I was missing something. A decision I had soon regretted because, as I had already said, these shadow clones do not have any consciousness of their own. So everything they read, I had to parse. Which quickly gave me a headache.
Giving them the order to find books with a specific word in the title was one thing. Actively reading through said book to find any signs of anything to do with Thelvadore was another. Especially if I wanted to limit it to conflicts the nation had been involved with. Sure, I could just send them out to bring me any book that mentioned Thelvadore at all, but that had just ended with a truly mind boggling collection of books that had absolutely nothing to do with the query I was working on. Some of them had listed Thelvadore only once, in a throw away sentence halfway through a paragraph that had absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.
It had gotten bad enough that a few hours in, I had started pulling just about everything I could find out of Vuthe’s shadow storage–as much as I could anyway, her collection was truly gargantuan after all–in an attempt to find anything that could help me. Something I had to leave the palace for, in fact. I had known, intellectually, that Vuthe’s storage was effectively infinite–even if it wasn’t completely in use–but knowing that it was filled with three millennia worth of items and actually seeing it were two very different things.
I had some very vague idea of what was all in storage if I focused on it, but it was like trying to discern the contents of a shelf through matted glass. You could make out vague shapes and splotches of colours, but it was borderline impossible to make out any actual details. It didn’t help that the knowledge of what was in there felt very distant. So I had to take probably a couple of hours to rummage through at least some part of it. By far not everything, but enough for me to realise that it wasn’t going to help me whatsoever.
Apart from the timepiece I found.
The thing was little more than a small magical apparatus, enchanted to keep time. And it was the only reason I knew that I had spent four days in the library.
Of course, I had no clue how long I had spent prior to finding it. Or how long it had taken me to unearth it from Vuthe’s eclectic collection of items. So it might have been five days, maybe even six, total. Plus the time I had spent training previously.
For the moment I was working under the estimation that it had been six days total since I had first woken up. It felt about right, with some added leeway in case my sense of time was off. Which was a long time with very little to show for it.
I had taken some time to visit Tizanta’s study, and even Vuthe’s office and the war room for more information, which had at least not been a complete waste, but while I had found a few items, none could actually help me figure out who they had been fighting with.
Only troop numbers, estimated borders, expected conflict zones, the works. And, as someone with absolutely no knowledge in the realms of warfare, that meant absolutely nothing to me.
While I hadn’t been able to discern much of use from that, it at least served to at least clarify a few things in regards to my ability to glean details from Vuthe’s previous knowledge. It appeared that most of that was limited to her actual skill and abilities, including information directly connected to them, but not necessarily general knowledge she had of the world.
To some degree, that should have been obvious. Otherwise logic dedicated that I would’ve known that Thelvadore had fallen before Abyss confirmed it for me, and I would’ve known who was responsible. Sure, I could hazard a guess or two of who it might have been, since there were certain constants among the various revisions of this world I had written, but all of that came directly from my memories, not hers.
And just because those guesses were more likely than not, that didn’t mean I should take them for granted since there had been versions of events where the people I assumed were involved hadn’t even been part of the story. Not to mention that even if I had a guess who might be responsible, the how was an entirely different story.
Anyways. Despite my findings in regards to my rather frustratingly lackluster memory, even that wasn’t a perfect divider. There had been a few things I had been able to remember–things that had to have come from Vuthe’s recollection–when I had read over a few random details on my quest to learn more about Thelvadore and its history. Those weren’t any items of any importance, but it did mean that there were still some things in regards to the knowledge of this world that I could get from Vuthe. I just hadn’t figured out what the rules were, or even if there were any.
For all I knew, it could be entirely at random. Maybe Abyss was just messing with me, giggling herself silly while she watched me try to wrap my head around something that had no rhyme nor reason. Wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest.
I sighed again, finishing the chapter of the book I had been skimming through, then pushed it aside when I couldn’t find any useful or relevant information. Another dud. One of far, far, faaaar too many.
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling, my fingers idly drumming on the heavy wooden table that I had found to sit at.
When I had first found it I had marvelled at the craftsmanship, something at the edge of my awareness appreciating the professional skill in evidence, although I wasn’t quite sure why or how. One of the many mysteries of my recollection, and something that had become relevant quite a few times during the last few days.
I knew some things, but didn’t know others. And I hadn’t found any sort of pattern between them yet. At first I thought it might be that I had lost all my personal memories, but that wasn’t entirely true either. I could recall writing a lot, as evidenced by the fact that I was fully aware that I had been the creator of this world, but I couldn’t recall my previous name, for example. Or anything else.
Then there were certain things I had an inkling on, such as the feeling of appreciation for whomever had crafted this table. It felt like I should know more about the process, perhaps even having had some personal experience crafting things, but I couldn’t recall anything like that. Hells, I couldn’t even recall the words used to describe the involved processes, or any other such details. Not above and beyond general knowledge. Like knowing that there were things such as wood glue to glue parts of the table together.
Of course, those weren’t the only things that stood out. There were a number of inconsistencies when it came to my memories, and my general knowledge. Some places where I knew that something was missing, despite me having absolutely no clue what that something might be. But as disconcerting as all of that was, what really bothered me was how unbothered I was about the implications of that.
Intellectually I knew that I should likely be more concerned with my memories being full of holes, but emotionally I just couldn’t bring myself to care enough. Sure, it was bad, but what did it matter? I was here now, and the knowledge I was missing was unlikely for me to help me in my dilemma.
Interestingly enough, and this one had really startled me something fierce, was that I could recall that Rin’s world, the one that she had lived on before reincarnating on Satien as Vuthe de Thal, had been based off of my own homeworld, and the details for that I could recall just fine. Up to and including everything about Rin’s prior life, which, again, was at least in part based off of my own history. Although I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what parts were based off of me, and which parts were made up.
Okay, it wasn’t like I had absolutely no clue about my previous life. I knew I had lived on a planet called Earth, that it was part of a solar system with seven other planets, eight if you count Pluto, and that technology was a thing and magick wasn’t. But I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what my personal life had looked like. Cars, combustion engines, computers, planes, buildings–I could perfectly recall how any of those worked, well, at least in broad strokes, but I couldn’t tell if I ever owned a car or not. Hells, I could even recall cities and places, but not if I ever visited them or if I’d only seen them on TV or online!
At this point, though, I had kind of just accepted that I wouldn’t be getting any explanations for the inconsistencies I had experienced so far. Even if I saw Abyss again, I found it highly unlikely that she would bother giving me the details. So I kind of just shrugged it off and decided to worry about it later, when it perhaps became more relevant. If it ever became relevant.
Regardless of all that, between each research session I had taken some time to train my various skills, but by far not as much as I had wanted. Mainly, because it was hard to concentrate both on training, and reading through what half a dozen shadow clones were sending me. There had to be some trick there that I just hadn’t found yet. No way was the skill that useless.
But if there was, I didn’t know what. Apparently, that also fell under the umbrella of things that Vuthe wasn’t able to posthumously share with me. Probably because it had nothing to do with the ability of actually conjuring them, more a quirk of proper use.
Oh well. Brooding over it any longer wasn’t going to help me.
With yet another sigh, I dismissed the shadow clones, not finding it in me to care when one of the books that had been held fell to the ground. Getting up, I swept out of the library, and towards the front gate of the palace. Time to clear my head and do some more training.
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