56 – Osmian’s Door

“Osmian? The archmage?”

“Yes, the archmage! The founder of the Institute!”

“This is his door?” Vivi raised an eyebrow at the cracked-open entrance. “How so? And what’s the big deal? Why are you so flustered?”

“I’m not flustered,” Saffra said defensively. “But I thought we were just grabbing some books. You—you went and opened Osmian’s Door?” She hurriedly looked around, checking to confirm that nobody was nearby. A lumbering golem didn’t spare them a glance. “Don’t you know what that means?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“I—well—neither do I, really.”

The two of them stared at each other.

Saffra flushed. “But it is a big deal. It’s supposed to hold Osmian’s legacy. His inheritance. Or some kind of treasure? I don’t know, really, I don’t think anyone does. It’s basically a folk tale. How did you open it? Only Archmage Lysander ever has.”

That caught Vivi by surprise. “Lysander? What about Aeris?”

“Er…no?” Saffra seemed confused by the question. Vivi had only asked because she’d thought Aeris would be the more talented between the two…but even Aeris had told her that Lysander was phenomenally skilled for his age. “Just the Headmaster, I think? I’m not sure if the door has ever presented itself to Archmage Aeris, though.”

“What does that mean?”

“It shows up everywhere. Randomly. Usually only to full magi, but sometimes the upper-year students, or the archmages. I think the library is one of the most common places?”

Interesting. “But what is it, exactly?”

“I…don’t know. It’s Osmian’s Door. There are trials inside, I think. And some kind of reward. That’s what the rumors say.”

“Did Lysander fail, if it’s still showing up?”

“He never said.” Saffra’s bafflement at the situation morphed into a smirk. “But if he did pass, he totally would’ve bragged about it. So he must not have.” She wrinkled her nose. “Then again, he’s the only person to ever get the door open in the first place.” Her gaze drifted back to the ajar slab of wood. “I guess there’s two of you, now.”

“It was just a moderately difficult puzzle.” But even Vivi knew moderately difficult must mean outrageously challenging for most magic users. If not impossible. “Most people aren’t familiar with gravity spells, I suppose.”

“Is that what that is?” Saffra’s brow furrowed as she peered at the design etched on the door. She lost herself for a moment, then jolted. “Never mind that! We have to go. Someone will see us.” She half-turned to scurry away, then froze. Slowly, she faced back to Vivi. “But…you can’t not go in. You opened Osmian’s Door!”

“What’s inside?”

“As if I would know!” Saffra protested.

Vivi mulled over the situation. “Alright, let’s go find out.” Though this event was a diversion, and she was busy, she was too intrigued to ignore the development.

Saffra blinked. She pointed at herself. “What? I’m not allowed inside.”

“Why not?”

“I’m—I’m just not, obviously.”

“Where does it say that?” Vivi made a point of searching the door and surrounding area. “Come.”

Vivi beckoned for her to follow, walking up to the threshold and pushing the slab of wood further open with her foot. A dark void met her. She stuck a hand in, felt no adverse effects, and nodded to herself.

Seeing how she was entering a strange archmage’s personal ‘room of trials’, or whatever was going on here, she double-checked that the appropriate defenses were on Saffra, then grabbed her by the elbow to be safe. Physical contact would make splitting them up more difficult.

“This ought to be interesting,” she murmured to herself.

Vivi leading, they plunged into the inky blackness. Immediately on entering, teleportation magic tried to grab them. She allowed it. She could only assume that the spell intended to ferry them from the library to wherever the trials took place. This was Osmian’s Door, allegedly, and Osmian was a heroic archmage of ancient history. He wouldn’t teleport them into the middle of a volcano. Probably. Even if he did, she could deal with it.

In a single footstep, they passed through the boundary and appeared—

—in an astoundingly mundane office.

The room wasn’t spacious, but not cramped either, and was lit by a single floating white orb that bobbed near the ceiling. Bookshelves lined three walls, packed with faded brown leather tomes. A large mahogany desk dominated the center, behind which sat a high-backed chair with worn cushions. The desk held three items: an inkwell and quill, a brass astrolabe, and a leather journal bound with a silver clasp. The fourth wall, the one behind them, from which there was no door they could have emerged, held a large window where stars wheeled across the night sky. Where was this office, anyway? Were they even in Meridian anymore?

Vivi released her grip on Saffra and looked curiously around. The journal magnetically drew her attention—not by some magical ensnarement, but because she, personally, felt the urge to read through it. Archmage Osmian’s personal journal. Who knew what she might find inside? The bookshelves would be her next targets; millennia-old tomes were equally exciting.

Just as her fingertips brushed the journal, though, a papery voice grouched from behind her, “No respect for a man’s privacy, I see. Why did you bring the brat?”

Saffra spun and faced the voice. Vivi turned slower, withdrawing her hand from the journal. She wasn’t quite as caught by surprise, since she had felt a presence manifest a moment earlier through a short-range teleportation spell.

There, on the other end of the room, his gaze on an open book and not them, stood a silvery ghost. He thumbed through the tome, flipping pages idly, and not sparing them so much as a glance. The man bore a clear resemblance to one of the towering portraits Vivi had seen on the first floor of the Institute—those of the scant few prior Headmasters.

“Archmage Osmian,” Saffra breathed.

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Vivi stood there, stunned. But not because of the sudden presence of a legendary archmage’s ghost. Honestly, what else would she expect from this sort of situation? No, her surprise came from something else. An ethereal, crystallized shard hovered inside the silvery essence of the ghost, and, recognizing what it was, she was nothing less than astonished.

“How did you do that?” Vivi asked in fascination, gaze locked not on the man’s eyes, but just beneath his collarbone, where that fragment lay.

Osmian’s lip pulled up in distaste, still not dignifying her with his full attention. “If even that impresses you,” he said, “you’ll be even more of a disappointment than that last boy.”

“Not the teleportation,” Vivi said. “You ripped out a piece of your soul. That vessel isn’t a projection; it’s alive. It’s you, in some sense. How?”