Sayuri stared ahead of her, mouth slightly agape. It wasn't often that she was left speechless, but this was one of those few times. She just couldn't believe it! The building in front of her was... Awe inspiring. Steps of white marble led up to a veranda, the floor of matching material as the steps, veined with pale pink, the lofty roof supported by a colonnade. The bases of the columns were delicate and elegant, but the top was decorated with elaborate friezes. The rest of the building's facade matched the beautiful entrance. She counted five floors, and she'd heard there were basement levels as well.
So what was this gorgeous building, one might ask? The mansion of one of Fiore's most wealthy families? Or perhaps that of a well-established and powerful guild? Both good guesses, but neither was right. No, this was... A library. That's right, this was the famed Oak Town Library. It was said to be the largest library in Fiore, something that Sayuri did not doubt in the slightest now that she'd seen it in person. It was also said to hold many ancient and powerful manuscripts, although she held no delusions of actually being allowed to see one. More importantly for her, it was said to contain a wide variety of magical knowledge.
Sayuri loved her magic. She'd had many chances to change the path that she'd set out on, but she never had, and she had no intention of doing that now. But, she had to admit that now that she was a full-time member of a guild, and doing her best to ascend the ranks, things had gotten a bit... Rough. See, her magic had one major downfall- it did no damage. In the past she'd had no trouble getting by on her swordsmanship, but her enemies just kept getting tougher, and she had no doubt she would soon run into one that was a bit too strong for her.
So, she had decided it was time to augment her arsenal, in a way. She'd heard of magic that could strengthen weapons, and she had thought that would be just the thing to sway matters in her favor. The trouble was, she didn't know anyone who used any similar magic. So what did you do when you had no trainer? Well, you found some written instructions, of course. And where better to look than the biggest library in all of Fiore?
Then she sighed. She hadn't realized just how huge this library was. She had no doubt that the information she needed was here. Whether or not she would be able to find it remained to be seen. Steeling herself, she walked determinedly to the door, and stepped into her version of a grown-up candy store.
The inside was... Even more stunning than the outside. Right in front of her was a wide circular desk, large enough that more than a dozen librarians sat behind it, messing with lacrima-powered gadgets, digging through files, or simply engaging in their own reading. The remainder of the floor was filled with row after row of shelves. None of them seemed to be labeled in any way. The ceiling above the desk was open all the way to the domed roof high above. Around the gap you could see on to the higher floors, the edges surrounded by ornate metal railings, presumably to prevent accidents. She could also see the tops of many wooden shelves, seemingly identical to the ones here on the ground floor. Right behind the desk a wide wrought iron spiral staircase rose, its ornate railings matching the ones around each of the floors as it connected them all. And she couldn't even see to any of the walls, barring of course the front wall in front of her.
This just served to reinforce the futility of searching through all of this herself. She could spend her whole life here and still never look through every book. She would need all the help she could get, and there was only one place to get it. She marched forward to the desk, singling out a librarian who didn't seem to be busy.
"Hello?"
The librarian, and elderly woman wearing the largest pair of glasses Sayuri had ever seen, didn't look up from her book. She hesitated for a moment, then tried again.
"Hello? Ma'am? I was hoping you might be able to help me..."
The woman snatched a bookmark from the counter and shoved it in the book, then slammed it shut before peering up at Sayuri with a less than friendly gaze.
"Yes yes, missy, I heard you the first time. What do you want?"
She sighed. Something about the woman reminded her of a vulture, with her big beady eyes peering out through the rims of her glasses and her graying hair pulled back into a severe bun. Still, Sayuri could endure her cranky behavior, considering it could save her a ton of time.
"Well, you see, I'm a mage, and I was hoping to find some manuscripts about magic. I was hoping to learn..."
"Yes, yes, everyone here comes a-looking for help on magic. I have a hundred mages a day trooping through these doors, so just be quick about it. What kind of magic do you want? Fire, wind, water, lightning, summoning, requip..."
"Uh... Actually, I'm looking for a weapon-enhancing magic. I've heard about it, but..."
"Please, spare me the comments girly. Now weapon enhancement, that's an unusual one. Let me look..."
Sayuri held her tongue while the librarian began searching through one of the filing cabinets. Presumably it held the information on where different topics were located in the library.
"Ah, here weapons magic. Close enough. If we have anything it should be there. Fourth floor, east wing, rows seven to fourteen. Stairs can be found right there."
Close enough? Ugh. But at least it was a starting point. The stairs comment was totally unnecessary as well, but Sayuri was determined not to let the woman get to her too much.
"Alright. Thank you."
She headed away from the desk now, crossing to the staircase and slowly ascending. She finally hit the fourth floor, and took a moment to get her bearings. The east wing, the woman had said. But which way was east?
Then she spotted a small sign directly across from the stairs, with arrows pointing left and right. The one to the right had 'East Wing' written under it, and the left said 'West Wing.' Whew, there was someone working here who was more helpful than the librarian she'd been speaking with. The long shelves all ran parallel to each other, and none of them were marked in any way, so she had to just count them, assuming the numbering would start from the front of the building. She slowly made her way to what she thought was the seventh shelf, and began the arduous task of scanning all the books.
Hours later, Sayuri's eyes were beginning to blur. She'd hit shelf nine a few minutes ago, and had nothing to show for her efforts. Then she spotted a thin book, so small that you could barely see it pressed between two much larger tomes. It was bound in bettered red leather, with a spine so thin the title couldn't even be written on it. It didn't necessarily strike her at first, but she wanted to leave no stone un-turned, so to speak, so she pulled it out, just to see what it might be. The title was embossed into the leather, highlighted with faded and flaking gold paint. "To Strike With Nature's Power." Well, that sounded like something that might be helpful.
She'd found all sort of books so far. There were a fair amount about using psychic weaponry, but her main magic already took too much concentration for her to feel comfortable adding to that burden. There were a multitude about permanently enchanting weaponry, but it had all gone over her head. And besides, a weapon could only hold so many enchantments before it would self-destruct under the pressure. Unless she planned to buy a pack horse to carry enough weapons to arm every rune knight in Fiore, she should probably pick something a bit more... Versatile.
She had also discovered that there were a fair amount of texts about forging weaponry as well. Why those were in the magic section, she had no idea, but it was fairly frustrating. But the majority of the books she'd found so far were about requip magic. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised. It was one of the most famous types of weapon-based magics, after all. Matter of fact, Sayuri's older sister even used requip magic. But Mayumi had tried to teach it to Sayuri when they were younger, and it hadn't gone so well, and Sayuri had given up on it a while back. So that wasn't really an option for her.
And then, of course, there were the books that were just plain weird. For example, the one about turning your weapons into magically enhanced cheese. Or an entire treatise on why spoons made the ultimate weapon. Especially rusty ones. She'd flipped through it out of sheer morbid curiosity, and the author actually seemed knowledgeable, and as far as she could tell he was of sound mind. However, his arguments didn't really sway her so she'd moved on.
So this book seemed like the best bet she'd come across so far, and she began to flip through it, her excitement grew. It was all about harnessing the power of the elements to enhance your attacks. Air, water, fire- even light and darkness. It sounded like exactly the sort of thing she was looking for.
She'd spotted earlier that they had some chairs scattered along the wall just past the shelves, so she crossed over to them and settled down to study the book in more detail. Hmm... It was actually an interesting read. Not the sort of dry instruction manuals she'd come across so far. The author was witty, with helpful details and personal stories, including a few hilarious mistakes that told her what not to do. It was so engaging that she hit the end before she even realized it.
This magic definitely sounded like something she could pull off. It wasn't very complicated, at least not that she could tell. Nor did it take too much focus. It would take a lot of practice, sure, but then again, anything worth doing usually did. She'd made her decision- this was the book for her.
Manuscript in hand, she headed back to the stairs, weaving her way back through the veritable maze of book shelves. Good grief, you could lose an army in here. Then again, perhaps that was one of its defensive features. She pondered the thought as she wound her way down the stairs, then marched her way back to the desk.
It seemed that most of the librarians were... Occupied. Several were speaking to other library visitors, and a couple were filling out mountains of paperwork. That left only one available- the cranky old lady from earlier. Great, just her luck. Then again, it probably had more to do with no one else wanting to deal with her. She sighed. Well, she might as well get it over with. She walked up to her suppressing a groan.
"Hello?"
Ignored. Again. The librarian didn't even blink. This time, though, Sayuri was expecting it.
"Ma'am, please. I need some help."
Again, the librarian gave a long-suffering sigh, clearly frustrated by having to, well, do her job and actually help people.
"You again. What is it this time?"
Sayuri wasn't going to waste words trying to be polite this time around. She held the book out toward the woman meaningfully.
"I'd like to check this book out, please."
"Yes, yes, I can see that. Fine, here. Let me just mark it here in our records..." She scribbled in a ledger of sorts before shoving the book back at Sayuri. "...And return it within two weeks. Now, off with you."
It seemed a bit informal and all, considering the woman hadn't even asked for her name, but Sayuri wasn't going to argue the point. She took the book and headed for the library doors. She had a lot of work to do...
Two days later, Sayuri was sitting in a field just outside Oak Town. She'd decided she would stay in an inn in the town while she studied this new magic. It would save her having to travel back whenever she had to return the book. And after all, she was living on board the airship of Crystalli now, and as of yet, she hadn't really discovered many safe training areas on board. It was a bustling city, after all, and she had no desire to accidentally burn down a building or two, or hurt anyone in the process. Not to mention the fact that she didn't exactly have the money to pay for any damages caused- although of course that would never be her main concern.
For that same reason, she wasn't exactly going to practice in the city proper, so for the past couple of days she'd been coming out here to this empty field to practice. So far she hadn't made any real breakthroughs, but she felt that she ought to be getting close. It was half-way through the day already, and it was hot. Still, it was a small price to pay for what she was learning.
She focused again, concentrating on her sword blade in front of her, trying to focus on water and channeling its energy into the blade. After several long minutes of concentration, she finally felt a spark of magic. Opening her eyes, she was elated to see a faint shimmering surrounding her blade, making the weapon look almost fluid, like it was becoming a liquid. She'd done it! Of course, in her excitement her concentration slipped and she lost the spell. But still, it was her first success, and it definitely re-energized her. A little more pushing and she may actually get there.
Day nine of her training, and Sayuri had begun to master the basic spells. Focusing the energy of the water into her blade was easy now. Made sense, since they were always surrounded by it. And light? That one seemed to flow for her. Then again, her main magic was an illusion mage, namely focused on the manipulation of light, so it made perfect sense that she would be good with the light magic. But some of them were still tough for her. For example, fire and lightning.
So today, she'd decided to try and focus on those trickier elements. Using the methods she'd been practicing over the past several days, she tried to call upon those more chaotic elements. Unfortunately, it was still eluding her. It seemed that she had to be so controlled with her magic that it was hard for her to call on the wilder side. Oh well, she could always work on that, and perhaps she would get it over time.
Day fourteen. Sayuri's time with the book was up. It was late afternoon, drifting dangerously close to evening, and she was heading back to the library to return it. She still hadn't managed to call on those more difficult elements yet, but she had managed to harness the power of darkness two days prior, which for she was very excited about. It gave her hope that she would learn the others, given enough time. But she felt that she had a good enough grip of the magic for the moment that she would be able to use it. And besides, the book would always be here if she needed to look through it again. All in all, this had been a very successful trip.
Word Count: 2,656
So what was this gorgeous building, one might ask? The mansion of one of Fiore's most wealthy families? Or perhaps that of a well-established and powerful guild? Both good guesses, but neither was right. No, this was... A library. That's right, this was the famed Oak Town Library. It was said to be the largest library in Fiore, something that Sayuri did not doubt in the slightest now that she'd seen it in person. It was also said to hold many ancient and powerful manuscripts, although she held no delusions of actually being allowed to see one. More importantly for her, it was said to contain a wide variety of magical knowledge.
Sayuri loved her magic. She'd had many chances to change the path that she'd set out on, but she never had, and she had no intention of doing that now. But, she had to admit that now that she was a full-time member of a guild, and doing her best to ascend the ranks, things had gotten a bit... Rough. See, her magic had one major downfall- it did no damage. In the past she'd had no trouble getting by on her swordsmanship, but her enemies just kept getting tougher, and she had no doubt she would soon run into one that was a bit too strong for her.
So, she had decided it was time to augment her arsenal, in a way. She'd heard of magic that could strengthen weapons, and she had thought that would be just the thing to sway matters in her favor. The trouble was, she didn't know anyone who used any similar magic. So what did you do when you had no trainer? Well, you found some written instructions, of course. And where better to look than the biggest library in all of Fiore?
Then she sighed. She hadn't realized just how huge this library was. She had no doubt that the information she needed was here. Whether or not she would be able to find it remained to be seen. Steeling herself, she walked determinedly to the door, and stepped into her version of a grown-up candy store.
The inside was... Even more stunning than the outside. Right in front of her was a wide circular desk, large enough that more than a dozen librarians sat behind it, messing with lacrima-powered gadgets, digging through files, or simply engaging in their own reading. The remainder of the floor was filled with row after row of shelves. None of them seemed to be labeled in any way. The ceiling above the desk was open all the way to the domed roof high above. Around the gap you could see on to the higher floors, the edges surrounded by ornate metal railings, presumably to prevent accidents. She could also see the tops of many wooden shelves, seemingly identical to the ones here on the ground floor. Right behind the desk a wide wrought iron spiral staircase rose, its ornate railings matching the ones around each of the floors as it connected them all. And she couldn't even see to any of the walls, barring of course the front wall in front of her.
This just served to reinforce the futility of searching through all of this herself. She could spend her whole life here and still never look through every book. She would need all the help she could get, and there was only one place to get it. She marched forward to the desk, singling out a librarian who didn't seem to be busy.
"Hello?"
The librarian, and elderly woman wearing the largest pair of glasses Sayuri had ever seen, didn't look up from her book. She hesitated for a moment, then tried again.
"Hello? Ma'am? I was hoping you might be able to help me..."
The woman snatched a bookmark from the counter and shoved it in the book, then slammed it shut before peering up at Sayuri with a less than friendly gaze.
"Yes yes, missy, I heard you the first time. What do you want?"
She sighed. Something about the woman reminded her of a vulture, with her big beady eyes peering out through the rims of her glasses and her graying hair pulled back into a severe bun. Still, Sayuri could endure her cranky behavior, considering it could save her a ton of time.
"Well, you see, I'm a mage, and I was hoping to find some manuscripts about magic. I was hoping to learn..."
"Yes, yes, everyone here comes a-looking for help on magic. I have a hundred mages a day trooping through these doors, so just be quick about it. What kind of magic do you want? Fire, wind, water, lightning, summoning, requip..."
"Uh... Actually, I'm looking for a weapon-enhancing magic. I've heard about it, but..."
"Please, spare me the comments girly. Now weapon enhancement, that's an unusual one. Let me look..."
Sayuri held her tongue while the librarian began searching through one of the filing cabinets. Presumably it held the information on where different topics were located in the library.
"Ah, here weapons magic. Close enough. If we have anything it should be there. Fourth floor, east wing, rows seven to fourteen. Stairs can be found right there."
Close enough? Ugh. But at least it was a starting point. The stairs comment was totally unnecessary as well, but Sayuri was determined not to let the woman get to her too much.
"Alright. Thank you."
She headed away from the desk now, crossing to the staircase and slowly ascending. She finally hit the fourth floor, and took a moment to get her bearings. The east wing, the woman had said. But which way was east?
Then she spotted a small sign directly across from the stairs, with arrows pointing left and right. The one to the right had 'East Wing' written under it, and the left said 'West Wing.' Whew, there was someone working here who was more helpful than the librarian she'd been speaking with. The long shelves all ran parallel to each other, and none of them were marked in any way, so she had to just count them, assuming the numbering would start from the front of the building. She slowly made her way to what she thought was the seventh shelf, and began the arduous task of scanning all the books.
_______________________________________________________________
Hours later, Sayuri's eyes were beginning to blur. She'd hit shelf nine a few minutes ago, and had nothing to show for her efforts. Then she spotted a thin book, so small that you could barely see it pressed between two much larger tomes. It was bound in bettered red leather, with a spine so thin the title couldn't even be written on it. It didn't necessarily strike her at first, but she wanted to leave no stone un-turned, so to speak, so she pulled it out, just to see what it might be. The title was embossed into the leather, highlighted with faded and flaking gold paint. "To Strike With Nature's Power." Well, that sounded like something that might be helpful.
She'd found all sort of books so far. There were a fair amount about using psychic weaponry, but her main magic already took too much concentration for her to feel comfortable adding to that burden. There were a multitude about permanently enchanting weaponry, but it had all gone over her head. And besides, a weapon could only hold so many enchantments before it would self-destruct under the pressure. Unless she planned to buy a pack horse to carry enough weapons to arm every rune knight in Fiore, she should probably pick something a bit more... Versatile.
She had also discovered that there were a fair amount of texts about forging weaponry as well. Why those were in the magic section, she had no idea, but it was fairly frustrating. But the majority of the books she'd found so far were about requip magic. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised. It was one of the most famous types of weapon-based magics, after all. Matter of fact, Sayuri's older sister even used requip magic. But Mayumi had tried to teach it to Sayuri when they were younger, and it hadn't gone so well, and Sayuri had given up on it a while back. So that wasn't really an option for her.
And then, of course, there were the books that were just plain weird. For example, the one about turning your weapons into magically enhanced cheese. Or an entire treatise on why spoons made the ultimate weapon. Especially rusty ones. She'd flipped through it out of sheer morbid curiosity, and the author actually seemed knowledgeable, and as far as she could tell he was of sound mind. However, his arguments didn't really sway her so she'd moved on.
So this book seemed like the best bet she'd come across so far, and she began to flip through it, her excitement grew. It was all about harnessing the power of the elements to enhance your attacks. Air, water, fire- even light and darkness. It sounded like exactly the sort of thing she was looking for.
She'd spotted earlier that they had some chairs scattered along the wall just past the shelves, so she crossed over to them and settled down to study the book in more detail. Hmm... It was actually an interesting read. Not the sort of dry instruction manuals she'd come across so far. The author was witty, with helpful details and personal stories, including a few hilarious mistakes that told her what not to do. It was so engaging that she hit the end before she even realized it.
This magic definitely sounded like something she could pull off. It wasn't very complicated, at least not that she could tell. Nor did it take too much focus. It would take a lot of practice, sure, but then again, anything worth doing usually did. She'd made her decision- this was the book for her.
Manuscript in hand, she headed back to the stairs, weaving her way back through the veritable maze of book shelves. Good grief, you could lose an army in here. Then again, perhaps that was one of its defensive features. She pondered the thought as she wound her way down the stairs, then marched her way back to the desk.
It seemed that most of the librarians were... Occupied. Several were speaking to other library visitors, and a couple were filling out mountains of paperwork. That left only one available- the cranky old lady from earlier. Great, just her luck. Then again, it probably had more to do with no one else wanting to deal with her. She sighed. Well, she might as well get it over with. She walked up to her suppressing a groan.
"Hello?"
Ignored. Again. The librarian didn't even blink. This time, though, Sayuri was expecting it.
"Ma'am, please. I need some help."
Again, the librarian gave a long-suffering sigh, clearly frustrated by having to, well, do her job and actually help people.
"You again. What is it this time?"
Sayuri wasn't going to waste words trying to be polite this time around. She held the book out toward the woman meaningfully.
"I'd like to check this book out, please."
"Yes, yes, I can see that. Fine, here. Let me just mark it here in our records..." She scribbled in a ledger of sorts before shoving the book back at Sayuri. "...And return it within two weeks. Now, off with you."
It seemed a bit informal and all, considering the woman hadn't even asked for her name, but Sayuri wasn't going to argue the point. She took the book and headed for the library doors. She had a lot of work to do...
_______________________________________________________________
Two days later, Sayuri was sitting in a field just outside Oak Town. She'd decided she would stay in an inn in the town while she studied this new magic. It would save her having to travel back whenever she had to return the book. And after all, she was living on board the airship of Crystalli now, and as of yet, she hadn't really discovered many safe training areas on board. It was a bustling city, after all, and she had no desire to accidentally burn down a building or two, or hurt anyone in the process. Not to mention the fact that she didn't exactly have the money to pay for any damages caused- although of course that would never be her main concern.
For that same reason, she wasn't exactly going to practice in the city proper, so for the past couple of days she'd been coming out here to this empty field to practice. So far she hadn't made any real breakthroughs, but she felt that she ought to be getting close. It was half-way through the day already, and it was hot. Still, it was a small price to pay for what she was learning.
She focused again, concentrating on her sword blade in front of her, trying to focus on water and channeling its energy into the blade. After several long minutes of concentration, she finally felt a spark of magic. Opening her eyes, she was elated to see a faint shimmering surrounding her blade, making the weapon look almost fluid, like it was becoming a liquid. She'd done it! Of course, in her excitement her concentration slipped and she lost the spell. But still, it was her first success, and it definitely re-energized her. A little more pushing and she may actually get there.
_______________________________________________________________
Day nine of her training, and Sayuri had begun to master the basic spells. Focusing the energy of the water into her blade was easy now. Made sense, since they were always surrounded by it. And light? That one seemed to flow for her. Then again, her main magic was an illusion mage, namely focused on the manipulation of light, so it made perfect sense that she would be good with the light magic. But some of them were still tough for her. For example, fire and lightning.
So today, she'd decided to try and focus on those trickier elements. Using the methods she'd been practicing over the past several days, she tried to call upon those more chaotic elements. Unfortunately, it was still eluding her. It seemed that she had to be so controlled with her magic that it was hard for her to call on the wilder side. Oh well, she could always work on that, and perhaps she would get it over time.
_______________________________________________________________
Day fourteen. Sayuri's time with the book was up. It was late afternoon, drifting dangerously close to evening, and she was heading back to the library to return it. She still hadn't managed to call on those more difficult elements yet, but she had managed to harness the power of darkness two days prior, which for she was very excited about. It gave her hope that she would learn the others, given enough time. But she felt that she had a good enough grip of the magic for the moment that she would be able to use it. And besides, the book would always be here if she needed to look through it again. All in all, this had been a very successful trip.
Word Count: 2,656
