K ateri had recently been granted a grand title, one that with it bore the entire weight of her guild. The title, the rank, the burden of an Ace was now with Kateri. As she had been granted such a thing, the mage had decided it to be best to learn all she could about her guild. She'd known of the restricted section of the grand library, passed it many times, longed to sneak her way in and unveil its secrets. Now, she finally had the ability to simply walk in at her leisure. Well... she had the ability to peruse some area of the restricted section. She had always known this section was of some danger, but as she was never in it the young mage didn't know to what extent. She'd anticipated several golems, or other defensive structures to be in the area. As the recent guild has had many unfortunate changes, it was likely the defenses were not recoded to know that she was permitted back there. That and Kateri also anticipated that some of the books very well my try to kill her, so following her instincts which had never lead her astray, Kateri brought with her a few weapons. She'd taken one of her two revolvers, her assault rifle, her shotgun, and one of her sub machine guns. Since this was tight spaces, and Kateri figured anything being locked away here would never give her a chance to aim down the scope of the massive object, it would be smarter to just leave it in her room. She left the other sub machine gun, and revolver in her room as well because the two needed to be cleaned and she hadn't had the time to do so.
Kateri walked slowly through the doors that separated the restricted section from the rest of the library, taking in a breath of the glorious, restricted air. As expected, a pair of automation turned and began charging a type of magic attack as she did so. Cobwebs became broken, and dust fell from the objects letting her know it had been a while since anyone was back here. Kateri reached to her side and grabbed the pistol, getting ready to whip it out and fire but stopped when the guardians ceased their spell, and returned to their idle positions. "Damn they're dusty..." Kateri said in a hushed tone, not speaking to anyone in particular as more dust fell from the automations. "Guess that Ni-na guy didn't have the rank to come in a clean em..." she added to her thought. She continued walking in, looking at all the dust covered desks and tables. "Damn... ain't no one been here in a while..." she said, showing her amazing observational skills. Kateri looked at the titles of the different isles, brushing the dust from the plaques they were engraved on and then slapping her hands together to get it off. The first isle was the history section, so she figured it was the best choice. Kateri mumbled "Note to self... get Ni-na to clean this place... or promote someone to ace and have them clean it..." to herself while moving past bookshelves that were plagued with dust. Following her instincts, Kateri's mind landed at a single book... it was black in color with golden accents all around. Just touching it, Kateri felt that the entirety of that book held more power, than even her and her father combined. She felt a shudder run through her body as her fingers pressed firmly against it, grabbing the item by its spine to pull it from its resting place. She took the book and walked back to the dusty tables, pulling a chair that revealed to be quite free of the small grey particles, or at least all but the back rest was. After dusting off the seat with her cloak, Kateri sat down and looked for the name of the book, noticing any location a name could be found had scratch marks on it... as though the last reader... or possibly all of the last readers didn't want the book to be found. She opened the book and began flipping through pages, noticing nothing but strange symbols that glowed, appearing as though they were levitating from the pages as well. She'd noticed a single page had but one word she could understand... It was a symbol from her tribe that meant 'Power' or 'Great Potential' depending on the context. She began flipping through more pages, not bothering to read them, but rather looking for whatever words she could understand. Suddenly, she came across a series of pages that were missing... they were torn directly from the book, but her instincts told her that the pages were still nearby.
Kateri walked through the first isle carrying the black book with her, noticing that it gave a flicker of energy as she entered. Walking down, the book seemed to pulse more, and more. She stopped and walked back a few steps, feeling the pulse become less frequent and realized that it was telling her how close she was. The faster it pulsed seemed to be how warm, and the slower seemed to mean she was getting colder. Continuing her tracks, Kateri kept going until she felt the book pulsing rapidly. Next to her was three books, and a small piece of paper between two of them. It was folded up, and a bit brittle but she managed to open it without shattering the thing. It was mostly covered in more gibberish, but a small section lasting one sentence read '...Long ages have foretold, of power beyond that of mortal comprehension, a power which can only be described as pure and unfiltered....' before cutting back to nonsense. The book ceased its pulsing for a moment, before returning to a slow pulse that would lead her to find a second page. This one was located in the next isle between a book on volcano spirits and volcano golems, two books Kateri intended on never reading. This one was covered in yet more floating, glowing text that she couldn't understand. But it did however contain yet another, single sentence that she recognized that read '...Settled in the heartland...' and continued with more random stuff, before saying '... the center of the soul...' more unreadable garbage was seen, creating some curiosity in Kateri, especially after reading '...the mind of the world...' as the last bit of readable words on the page. A thrid page was found not too far away, on the other side of the same isle to be exact. This one added to Kateri's unnatural morbid curiosity as it read '...unearth the destiny one must cover their will, and abolish the darkness...' and then cut to even more of the unreadable crap. "Gods fuck this cryptic metaphorical bull shit..." Kateri said out loud upon reading the third message. She opened the book again and slid the page in where the mass of paper was missing, noticing two more. However, the book wasn't pulsing at all...
The book began glowing brightly, the words from inside it being absorbed by the intense light and soon the book flew from Kateri's hands and into the middle of the room. When the young mage ran around to see what was going on with it, she was face to mask with a large man. He wore pure black armour with red accents, smoke being emitted from the objects and flying from the holes in his face guard whenever its chest plate depressed. Kateri slowly reached to the back of her cloak, grabbing at the body of her assault rifle just in case the being made a bad move. Meanwhile, her eyes moved downward to the large, black shield the man had. It was roughly as large as his body and covered in numerous spikes, some of which were broken. In his other hand was a black great sword that he wielded with just that hand along. It was covered in red markings that seemed to pulse just as the black smoke coming from his face shield did. The large man pointed the sword at Kateri, letting out a low growl that put her on edge, making her point her gun at the man.
He began charging at Kateri, knocking the tables aside as he did so. Kateri's first instinct was to pull the trigger, which she did so happily while aiming down the iron sights of her assault rifle. The man was barraged with every last shot of the 30 round magazine, each causing him to back up just a bit. The clip finally emptied, making a single clicking sound as the firing pin hit the empty space inside the firing chamber. Kateri tossed the AR aside and pulled out her sub machine gun and revolver. The knight let out a deep roar and tried charging her once more, but was immediately stopped when the bullet from the revolver slammed into his helmet. Kateri points the sub at his chest plate and pulled the trigger, while doing the same with her magnum. Both guns emptied but the shadow man still stood tall, so she pulled out her shot gun and fired the shot. The knight fell backwards and Kateri walked up while loading another shell in. She used a single hand to hold it while aiming at the chest plate, then pulled the trigger. The knight disappeared, leaving behind two pages that read 'Allow the light to seep through, and follow it...' and broke off to more randomness before saying '...is the ultimate power, a power which all may obtain.' Kateri stuffed them in the book, and slid the book back on the shelf before deciding to get out of the restricted section before something else tried to kill her.
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![Novice [250]](https://i.imgur.com/lrYlde6.png)
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