“Haha, that was my fault, well, at least we are down here now…” Agi said rubbing his head, starting to untangled himself, since Roland had also been swept by Agi down the slope it was only natural they would end up colliding at the bottom.
Roland pushed a heavy sigh forgiving Agi, though he was still a little mad at Agi, but brushing that aside Roland spoke;
“Yeah, yeah, what’s that saying again? ‘A blessing in disguise’? It’s fine if you slipped and took me down with you, just watch your step next time, Agi.” Roland stood up, also untangling himself from Agi, brushing himself off the dust from the slope, he looked forwards adding; “Well, where do we go now?”
Roland’s tone shifted, though he had been down here twice, neither times had he really ‘met’ or held a ‘meeting’ with the Elders.
And in front of them was a large wall, filled to the very brim with books lose pages, lettering, it was very distant from being pristine, let alone clean.
Right above the shelf was a roof, it was very low hanging, much different from the massive roof in the lobby of the tree, scattered around on the roof where many bright white lights.
Roland hadn’t noticed it before, but he didn’t have a shadow here, the excessive amount of lights where causing not a slither of shadow.
This was almost blinding as they had just come from a dim lit slope with a few candles, into a library of mass light, a very stark contrast.
Roland looked to his right, there was the same shelf running all the way across the horizon, a few chairs and tables had laid unsorted documents and lose papers, Agi walked up to the shelf.
Agi knew very well that he shouldn’t read anything here, but on the shelf had a small opening a slither of the next row.
Looking through the gap,
Agi saw nothing but more rows and rows, all lined up in long straight lines, hundreds or thousands of documents, scatted notes, and lose papers.
Roland looked down the right-side path, as there was only the left and the right, with the exception of the slope they had just slid down.
Roland standing there, Agi walked towards Roland and spoke; “So what way do you want to go? Left, or right?”
Roland didn’t respond though, Agi got closer and closer to the frozen Roland,
“Roland?” Agi questioned tapping Roland shoulder, but Roland’s face was in pure disbelief, no, pure jealously, Roland’s mouth twitch, his fists clenched, his eyes tried to scan what was going on.
‘Is this a mirage?’ Roland had thought, he wanted to yell out, he wanted to scream at the world, but he just couldn’t, his legs and entire body didn’t allow him to move.
Agi seeing such a weird mixed feelings face on Roland, did the most logical thing and traced his vision, far into the distance but not to far, sitting on a table.
Was a boy, a young one at that, his head was slouched over the table, his hands where balanced on a few open pages of books, his hair was light blue, a tint Roland have only ever seen one other with.
Cleo.
Roland had knew Cleo was semi apart of the great tree library, after all he would come over almost everyday find a book and read.
Roland also knew the Elders had saw potential in him, so much so that whenever Cleo had come to the lobby of the tree the Elders would sometimes come out of the underground and talk with him.
But never, never had Roland knew Cleo would be able to access the underground, so why was he here?
Why would he be here?
Cleo Roland and Agi had never really talked, Cleo was shy, and normally sought out magic books, which being in a mainly historical archive of a library, was hard to find.
That being said, sometimes Cleo would talk with Gwen the librarian, though this was mainly to find books, but this still doesn’t answer why Cleo was in such a place.
“Is that a child? Wait no, mm, oh, isn’t that Cleo!?” Agi said, towards the end of his own though he also came to understand how strange it was for Cleo to be here, Agi took a step forwards past
Roland, Agi then looked back saying; “You see Cleo, right? I am not hallucinating, Roland?”
Roland was truly a loss for words, but he still had to speak with the Elders, he didn’t have a second to waste, so Roland spoke; “Yeah I see him.. We should go talk with him maybe he knows where the Elders are..”
Though something ticked Roland off, it was the fact Cleo had books open and surrounding him, this wasn’t exactly a reading area, and if those books information.
After all Roland and Agi where not allowed to lay an eye on any text, let alone titles, once when Roland had found a book that belonged in the underground, the Elders when as far as removing the memory of it in Roland’s mind.
So Roland knew he saw something he shouldn’t have, but if he tried to remember it the books pages would just be blank, so if Cleo had been reading forbidden books then that would be major violation against the Elders.
Agi started to run towards the sleeping Cleo, much alike Roland followed, they where less running and more power walking.
They both wanted to know what Cleo was doing here, and they both wanted to find the Elders, from these two tasks they where so distracted that they failed to notice a small thin wire on the ground, witch made both of them trip over onto the ground.
“Aoww!” Agi said as his hands caught his fall onto the ground, Roland also fell, his hands just barely manged to get to the ground before his head.
Both Agi and Roland had tripped on a wire, and had just barely manged to catch there fall with there hands, they both looked up to Cleo who was still asleep.
Then a figure who was lent against the shelf emerged,
Roland and Agi hadn’t seen him before when they where looking at Cleo, the man sighed pushing is glasses up he spoke;
“Honesty, if you can remember how to catch yourself when you fall, then how can you not remember the rules? Come on I want to hear them again, What’s the first rule of the underground?” The man lent down on his knees, he was in a smooth blue silk robe, his small framed glasses happened to catch the light making his glasses appear almost holy white.
He looked down at Agi, pulling his blue hair up this man forced Agi to look into his blinding glasses, Agi quickly recoiled jolting back, but it was already to late, the man by now had a foot on Agi’s back pinning him down to the ground while his hand held Agi by the hair.
Agi trying to squirm under, Agi eventually gave up and recited the first rule;
“No.1 Under no circumstances should anyone without permission be reading a book from the underground part in the great tree library…” Agi said, then the man stood up letting go of Agi’s hair, the man then walked over to the table where Cleo was sleeping, he did so as he spoke;
“Ah, so you do remember the first rule, then tell me why you where in such a rush to get to this table? Mmm? If I recall you have yet to be given permission to view the archive, Agi, And Roland.”
This was none other then Vincent, despite his actions he had worked with Agi and Roland for the longest, until he was moved to the underground section, so Vincent was really friends with Agi and Roland.