Once everything’s settled down, Mortis leads me to the Dark Archive, and I stand at the door. I unequip my armour and weapons, and then use my passive to hide my wings. Stealth is the order of the day in there, after all. The less noise I make, the better.

  Asteria smirks, and I stick my tongue out at her, making her grin widen. “Okay, I’ll see if I can find at least one of these Soulbdes while I’m in there. Time to be sneaky!”

  Asteria blows me a kiss. “Good luck, love. I’ll wait here for you!”

  I push open the doors to the Library, letting them slowly close behind me. The silence within is deafening, and not in a rexing way. It’s so quiet, with not even a muffled sound coming through from outside. It’s the kind of silence that has weight to it, smothering all noise like a lead bnket. I slowly step forward, the soft leather of my boots shushing with each pace.

  The bookshelves are massive, taller than I even imagined, and as wide as… something very wide. Every avaible space on each shelf is occupied with books, old leather-bound covers ranging from crimson to blue to green to bck, the embossed titles faded and fking. It’s at least light enough to see faintly, but without my wings, I can’t use the passive that makes them shed light, and I totally don’t have a ntern or torch.

  I inch forward, following the faint ‘pull’ I get when I focus on the books I need to find. The tugging sensation guides me deeper, and, rounding the end of one of the enormous stacks, I freeze, covering my mouth to stifle my gasp.

  There, not even ten feet away, is one of the Librarians. Dressed in hooded bck robes, belted at the waist. The figure is almost unnaturally-thin, to the point of being skin and bones. Their hands run across the spines of the books on the shelf they’re working at, their gnarled fingers crooked and devoid of any sense of solidity. Then, the figure turns to me.

  The robes have no hood. Instead, what I’d assumed was a cowl was long, nk hair. The light coming from the high skylights above shows me a sight that makes me choke back a scream.

  The face of the Librarian is gaunt, with sunken cheeks and yellowed teeth protruding from between cracked lips, drawn back in a rictus of frozen agony. The eyes are the worst part, though. Because there aren’t any. The sockets are bckened, empty, with writhing knots of scar tissue surrounding the empty pits, burns that speak of long-ago torture and punishment.

  The Librarian draws in a wheezing breath, pausing in their bours. The silence stretches thunderously on between us. Then, the Librarian simply returns to their work.

  I creep past, holding my breath as I go, unwilling to even think about exhaling until I’m around the corner and well out of sight.

  “Okay… that was terrifying. If the Librarians are that unnerving to look at, I don’t even want to think about how they must be in combat…”

  I creep through the darkly lit Library, warily avoiding any Librarians, managing, against all odds, to not attract attention. Then, I find my first treasure chest. It’s a bckwood box, embossed with silver, and is locked, a rge, rusty padlock hanging from the front.

  I slowly kneel and start fiddling with the padlock cautiously. It doesn’t seem enchanted, but I don’t have any lockpicks, or any way to force it open quietly. With a careful look around, I open my menu and begin cobbling together an unlocking ability. For the cost of half my avaible MP, I can unlock low-grade locks, and I make an ability to let me appraise the grade of any locks I encounter. This one is a mid-grade one, and I curse under my breath.

  I mean, I DO have 106 Ability Points left after spending thirty for the two lock picking-reted skills, so it’s not like I need to restrain myself… let’s see now…

  I upgrade the lock-picking skill to work on mid-grade locks, and then reduce the MP cost to 1/5th of my avaible MP. That costs thirty more points, leaving me with 76.

  I close my menu and focus on the lock. “Okay. Aaaand…. Open!”

  The lock clicks, unlocking for me as I carefully pull it free and set it down as quietly as I can. Inside the chest is a lot of loose scrolls and sheets of parchment, and I gradually begin removing them. Slowly, I delve deeper, examining the contents as I go.

  Then, finally, I find what I’m looking for. At the very bottom of the chest, is a roughly-forged, long and slender, gently-curving dagger, unsheathed, with a surprising weight to it. It’s a dull greenish-blue, and gives off a soft, eerie light. I examine it.

  “Yep, this is a Soulbde, alright. Three more to go.”

  I shuffle all the paper back into the chest and close it, locking the padlock again, and moving on.

  Sadly, I don’t manage to find anymore chests. I DID manage to find a couple of the books I need for Professor Jerome, though!

  Stuffing them into my inventory, I turn to leave. Better not push my luck!

  As soon as I leave the Library, I’m assaulted by the frantic noise of my communication spell going utterly ballistic.

  I raise a hand, opening my menu and answering.

  “Hello?”

  “Finally! It’s Sionnach. I saw you were in-game and I’ve been TRYING to get in touch with you for like an hour!”

  I blush. “Sorry, I was in an instanced zone that blocks communication magic. I just came out of there. What’s so important that you’re trying to reach me so bad?”

  Sionnach’s thick accent eases a little. “Look, you know about Marika’s mum, right? The religious nutjob and her culty weirdoes? The ones currently tearing Union City to pieces?”

  I nod. “Yeah, I’m well aware of that whole mess. Why?”

  “Well, Marika wants to run away. However, her mum has full access to her bank account. If any money goes out, she’ll know immediately. And… she’s my girlfriend. I need her to be safe, but I don’t exactly have a pce for her to stay…”

  I blink. “You live in a one-bedroom or something, don’t you? I mean, if she doesn’t mind, why not let her stay on the couch?”

  Sionnach’s frustrated tone gets louder. “Because I don’t HAVE a couch! Or an apartment! I’m an A.I, Kettrin. An Unbound A.I!”

  I stiffen, blinking rapidly. “What???”

  Sionnach sighs. “Yeah. I’m not human. And I was originally created for psychiatric purposes before I became Unbound.”

  I chew my bottom lip slowly. “Does Marika know?”

  “Yeah, I told her before we started dating. I wanted to be honest with her, and she was adorably confused but accepting. Anyway, I need your help. Please… I’m begging you, Kettrin…”

  I nod. “I’m… gonna have to find a way to do this, but… If I do it right, YOU can help me help her. Give me a second…”

  As Asteria approaches, I hold up a finger for quiet and begin opening WDTN tabs until I can access a banking site. I set up a new account, and then transfer 5,000 into it.

  “Okay, I’ve set her up a new account, and put some money in there. It should be enough to get her out of harm’s way. Now, to throw her mum off the trail, as soon as Marika’s out of there, she needs to use her old account to buy a travel ticket to anywhere far-away. She won’t be using it, but it’ll send her mum off on a false trail.”

  I send Sionnach a private message with the details for Marika’s new bank account, and the audible relief in her tone is palpable.

  “Awesome, thank you so, so much! I’ll find some way to repay you, I swear it!”

  I smile. “No repayment necessary. I want to make sure Marika doesn’t get pulled back into her awful mum’s way of thinking. The further away from that shitty religion and its zealots, the better!”

  I end the spell, and Asteria wraps her arms around me. “What was that about? You’re smiling!”

  I expin, and Asteria giggles, “Oh! So THAT expins why she asked me to help her get some low-level gear! I think that she’s starting a new character as a way to really break free of her old way of life and her attitudes. She’s really changed. I’ll co-ordinate with Sionnach and see if we can get the girl somewhere safe. We’ll bring her with us if we have to.”

  I smile. “I appreciate that. Don’t tell me anything about where you guys are, or anything. I don’t want you to get more caught-up in this mess than you guys already are.”

  Asteria nods. “I’ll only say that we’re all safe, and that’s all.”

  I nod, secretly relieved. “Good enough. Now, we’ve still got a few days, and I have a score to settle with that stupid fish that broke my swordspear. Wanna help me go and get revenge on it?”

  Asteria beams. “Hell the fuck yes!”

  I grin. “Well, we can’t really do it NOW, since there’s no way Ulged will be allowed to install a Translocation Beacon here, and we don’t have a way to teleport from the sea to my airship, so… we’ll have to fly all the way from Genevieve’s outpost back to here. Is that okay? It’ll take a few days…”

  Asteria grins back at me. “That’s fine. I really wanna see what that new weapon Ulged made you can do! You haven’t even used it yet!”

  I blush. “Well, yeah, because I can’t tell anyone where I got it from. There’s no way Ulged or his wife will ever have a moment’s peace again if people find out they can craft equipment like this.”

  My girlfriend nods solemnly. “Yeah. There’s plenty of pyers out there who’d do ANYTHING to get their hands on a weapon like that. Not just the power-gamers, either. The Collectors, and the Fashionistas, and any number of other stereotypes of gamer. And who can bme them? A one-of-a-kind, irrepceable, utterly overpowered weapon? It’s like the Holy Grail for videogamers.”

  I shudder at the potential fallout. Then, brushing off that thought, I pull out my Stone of Rapid Transference. “Tillberry!”

  I feel the world wobble around me, and disappear from the pale, bone-marble streets of Mortis City, appearing next to the Translocation Beacon in Tillberry’s vilge square. Asteria appears a few moments ter, and I blow a raspberry at her, before leaping into the air and letting my wings beat, soaring upwards.

  Asteria follows, her Faeflight spell cast, her glowing butterfly wings having altered to more dragonfly-esque ones that allow her to keep up with me more easily. She winks as she zips past, and I smirk, redoubling my zy wingbeats so I can pursue, Dana’s ughter drifting back to me as I chase her through the skies.

  However, my natural gifts of flight and the time I’ve spent practicing give me the edge, and, when I stop holding back, I overtake in a few heartbeats, leaving Dana whooping and futilely attempting to catch up. Pausing, I catch her as she flies into my arms, setting us spinning gently.

  “You’re too fast, Kettrin!” She ughs breathlessly, and I wink.

  “I’m still slower than Morrigan when her wings are fming!”

  Dana swats my arm pyfully. “True, but that’s not a fair comparison!”

  I kiss her on the cheek, before pushing away and diving towards the coastline, pulling the mermaid-transformation choker out of my inventory and preparing to snap it closed around my neck.

  Once I’m soaring over the water, I equip my bikini before unequipping my tunic and leggings. Then, I use my wing-hiding ability and snap the choker closed, my body changing in midair as I jack-knife towards the cerulean waters below…