Rodadnuf
Lineage : Anathema to Divinity
Position : None
Faction : The Ironheart Pact
Posts : 248
Guild : Silver Wolf
Cosmic Coins : 100
Dungeon Tokens : 0
Experience : 2,561,089
Character Sheet
First Skill: Rollins & Schwartz-Brand
Second Skill: Heaven God Slayer
Third Skill:
by Rodadnuf 7th February 2022, 5:07 am
There were advantages and disadvantages with it being nighttime. Considerably fewer people were around to see Tim working; that was an advantage. The part of the library he was working at, which would always put him between two isles, was also an advantage. But the fact his skin had a distinctly black-colored chunks freely swimming around the surface? Tim had been careful when every so often patrons would glance his way when he needed to move to another isle.
“Next, the ‘Y’ section…” Tim muttered absentmindedly, two wooden book-trucks moving behind him.
The wooden book-trucks were inching along slowly behind him. The Grav-à-tête spell was doing its job, it was a gravity spell which helped propel the book-trucks to follow him like a dog on its nightly walk. Though thinking about it now, that might have helped garner attention to him more than his skin. Tim never liked the way people looked at him when his nightlike skin surfaced. It took a few months for his co-workers at his old job to get used to his condition.
Tim, not wanting to think about it anymore than he already had, turned back to his work. Slowly muttering each book he took from one of the book-trucks and arrange them how the library staff instructed him.
“Yurlungur: The Rainbow Serpent, right. Yurlungur… yur…” Tim repeated, put the book in the right place and moved onto the next one.
Tim had just been accepted into this new job, but it never occurred to him how light the actual workload was compared to his previous work in the harbor. So far, the duties given to him were all about organizing things. This library was the first of many facilities in the guild house he needed taking care of.
The library isles themselves were bigger than any of the ones in Hargeon. It stood a couple of meters tall and there was a rolling-ladder for anyone trying to get books on the upper shelves. Or, in this case, an honorary library staff member trying to sort back books from newly returned ones to recently bought books added to the already immense collection. Thankfully, it took the young man only not any more than two hours of menial work for him to be finally be left with a single book in the ‘Z’ section.
The book was titled ‘Zawsze’. Tim continued walking around the ‘Z’ section of the library to return it when found a patron slowly pacing himself around each book in the section. Muttering “Where could it have been?” as he clasped himself tighter around his rather thick coat.
The patron weirded Tim out, but it wasn’t enough for him to actually say it at the man as he approached. The coat looked like a red flag already. Inside the guildhouse was toasty warm, the library especially. But he was wearing the coat like he had been thrown out of a blizzard. Another thing he noticed was the man darted his head around the isles as if he was a chicken.
A thought suddenly popped up in the young man’s mind: was this man a thief? The staff of the library’ ‘did’ warn him about the library catalogue. They told him, “Throwing the books around to the shelves like some hotshot might feel tempting, newbie. Hell, even just using magic to do the job for you is a common thing to do here. But just keep this drilled on your head, some of the books here are they only ones left in print. You lose ‘em? It’s our heads.”
‘…why put the out for it to be used then?’ Tim wanted to rebuke, but questioning the status quo wasn’t his job. It was to arrange the books.
So he made the decision to talk to the guy instead. It wouldn’t leave a good taste in his mouth if it turned out he was just some old man who couldn’t find a book he needed. “Uh, ‘scuse me… I was listening in and you sounded like you need some help?”
“Who goes there?” He craned his head towards Tim.
“Are you one of the staff? I will be needing your help, dear boy.” The young man eyes with the old man and saw a pair of foggy white pupils. Tim’s tongue clicked. He was being paranoid then. He answered the old man with a ‘’Course, I’ll do what I can’ and listened to his little problem. Apparently, the old man was looking for a book titled Zafche.
“That sounded a little weird— err, foreign.” Tim was standing a few meters in the air on top of the rolling ladder as he talked. There weren’t any other patrons by the time they completed the lower sections of the ‘Z’ isle, so Tim didn’t bother lowering his voice. “You come from a long way then— huh, now that I think about it, I haven’t caught your name.”
“My name is Timόtheos, dear boy.” The old man was standing beside the ladder, not looking particularly anywhere. “That would not be false, saying I am from a long way. My name is from old Davni.”
“No kidding? Mine’s Tim. My grandfather mentioned our lineage dating back to ancient Sin.” The young man looked around a row of books muttering ‘Zafche… Zafche… Zafche…’ between his answers to his companion.
“Oh? It is a crazy coincident, yes.” Timόtheos’s voice sounded a little strained, but Tim could hear it. “This must be fate’s cruel humor in action—”
Tim could hear the rest of the old man’s ramblings. He was getting annoyed, there were other jobs he needed doing. Sure, the night was still young but if Tim could to it all in one fell swoop the better. Where the heck was this book?
“I think I’ll have to ask one of the older staff, Timόtheos.” Time slid down the ladder. “Having a single word as a title is bad enough, but I couldn’t even make heads or tails how that word’s…spelt…”
Tim had been reading the titles of each book carefully, making sure he hadn’t made a mistake. But if the book had been written in a different language entirely?
“I know this might sound stupid,” Tim scratched his cheek. “But how’s that word spelt again?”
“Zafche?” Timόtheos pondered. “If it had been transliterated from pergranti to ishgar, let me think… It should be spelt as z-a-w-s-z-e.”
Knew it! It had to be that damn book he last put back in his place! This was a good waste of half an hour’s work because Tim didn’t ask any further about the damn name. With a sigh, he led the old man to the book.
Though, it had been a small win seeing the old man’s face brightening as he touched the book’s hard cover as if caressing a lover’s cheek. Tim scratched his cheek again and told the old man he’ll be going now.
“Are you not going to ask about the book?” Tim heard the old man ask from behind him.
Tim looked back; brow raised. “Not particularly, no.”
“Oh,” The old man cleared his throat. “I will tell you regardless. Its title is east-pergrandian for ‘always’.”
Tim muttered ‘that’s good to know’ to the old man as he walked away. It was an odd way of parting ways with him, but the job was finally done and the night was still young. That was the important part. It was off to another job which still concerned the library itself.
Words:
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