Chapter 6 – What A Mess

There was a lot to be done after that, but doing it all did little. Housing services was closed, maintenance was closed, and none of the custodians could be found. The sheets needed to be washed to get the clay and plaster out, and not just by a machine, so Mirian set those aside.

The curses of “where the hell is this water even coming from?” ended up being answered by an exploration of the third floor: The empty room directly above was part of the building’s utilities, and the strange hole had sliced through a small copper pipe leading to the water heater. A small stream of water had been hissing out of it the whole time.

Her next rant was along the lines of: “I have repair page, repair cloth, repair pen, but nothing on pipes or ceilings. Why don’t I have a repair spell on pipes or ceilings? What the hell even does that to a building?” It was late, and she was tired; it was not her best rant, but the frustration had her muttering to herself. The bed was hopeless; there was no way she was going to sleep on it, and a second round of trying to find a custodian or someone to help fix it led nowhere. Lily didn’t have any spells that were relevant either, so they put the tin container up on the third floor to block the hole there and wrapped the pipe in cloth, though that only made the water drip onto the floor slower, and it was still managing to get under the tin.

By then, the crisis had attracted five more students in the dorms, but no one seemed to have anything useful for plugging leaks. It was all a bit ridiculous. It wasn’t like they needed specialized tools or silver. Tar, caulk, and a bit of hemp cloth could do the trick, but there was none to be found.

Mirian stormed off to the library. “I’ll be back when I can find a repair,” she said.

The guard at the main door of Bainrose listened to her explanation—more of a yelling session—for about five minutes, then opened the door, probably more to shut her up than anything. The library was one of the few buildings always open to students anyways, though usually it was for studying, rather than maintenance. The librarian was, of course, absent, because why would things be easy? Mirian knew the library’s classification system for spells, so she went off to find it herself.

This was no easy task. All the spells and research texts needed for a given class were brought to the first and second floors so students had easy access. All the other books were in the first and second basement levels. The basements had originally been catacombs, actually built before Bainrose Castle, and though a great deal of digging and refurbishment had been done (as well as moving all the old skeletons, with priests overseeing the transfer), the place was still an absolute maze, even with all the signs.

One would have thought that a simple fire spell could harden the clay she had, but with the surrounding plaster damaged, the author warned the water would just seep around. So it was on to the next book.

Practical Spellology 2 had a simple repair metal spell, but it required a specific kind of ink for the glyph she would need. All glyphs were made using the powdered spell organ of some sort of myrvite, and the school sold these inks in bulk to the students so they could practice making the glyphs they needed for each spell. The problem was, even though she had dozens of specialized inks for glyphs, this specific ink she didn’t have, and the Academy Supply Shop wouldn’t open until Firstday. She wasn’t waiting two more days for that nonsense.

The spell organ she needed was baduka boar tusk (hadn’t she just eaten baduka boar for dinner?), and then she would need a bit of copper. The copper she had, only it was in thin wire. Could she wrap up the broken pipe and then melt it a bit?

She went searching for a melt metal spell.

Paging through Flexible Spellbook Composition for the Practical Mage, she found an interesting section that caught her attention. Most of the time, when you wrote a spell in a spellbook, you put the glyphs in the exact order you wanted to use them in to cast the spell. This prevented a lot of terrible accidents. This author recommended creating an array of commonly used glyphs, and depending on the order used, one page could contain dozens of spells, rather than just a few simple ones or one complex spell.

As she was reading though, the exhaustion of the day hit her. She told herself she’d just close her eyes for a moment.

***

When she awoke, it was dark. The lights in the basement levels were dimmed for night, and the spell-candle she’d been using had gone out, the tiny lantern spell long expired. The book she’d been reading lay in her hands, still open.

First she thought, what time is it? Then she thought, Gods, what year is it? It was one of those kind of naps. Then she thought, what’s that noise?

There was a scuffling sound, nearly inaudible. Was that what had woken her?

A shadow passed in front of one of the lights as something moved between the shelves. Still groggy, Mirian started to move to rub the sleep from her eyes, then froze. She’d expected another student, or maybe the guard out front who was wondering why it had taken her Gods knew how many hours to find a book on repairing pipes.

It was not. The figure was dressed in all black, a deep cowl covering their face. When they walked, their soft boots were silent, but then they would hit a part of the uneven floor and make the slightest sound.

Another damned cloaked figure.

Or the same one?

Fear gripped her first, and she wanted to sink into the chair. Then, she realized that with her spell-candle out, there was little light shining on her. By a trick of the angles, she was wrapped in shadow, and whoever was approaching didn’t see her.

When she was very young, Mirian had been startled by a sparrow. The bird had suddenly been within inches of her, tweeting and flapping as it took off. Her mother had explained that the bird had been there the whole time, she just hadn’t seen it because it was so still.

Mirian was still. She held her breath as the figure approached her and didn’t even blink. A thought occurred to her: What if the person was wearing goggles of night-sight? There were several expensive devices that did that. She thought about bolting.

The stranger passed her. She waited until they were out of sight and had rounded the corner to start breathing again.

Curiosity gripped her second. It was a damned curse, but something was going on, and she needed to get some sort of hint—some understanding—of what.

Silently, she rose, and put the book she was holding back on the shelf. That was basic courtesy. Then she tip-toed after the cloaked figure.

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Before she rounded the shelf, she looked right around the corner. At first, she didn’t see them, then the movement caught her eye again and she watched as their dark cloak ducked between two other shelves. She checked around to make sure there wasn’t anyone else, then checked where the lights were. Instead of going between the shelves they had, she went one shelf over so that her silhouette wouldn’t pass between the figure and the light. This may have been the dumbest thing she’d ever done, but she wasn’t going to be stupid about it.

At the end of the shelf, she had to wait again before the movement caught her eye. The figure was heading toward a door she’d never been down. She wasn’t even sure she’d seen the door before.

A little voice in her head told her, go get the guard, get out, run, it’s too dangerous, you’ll get in trouble, but another part of her was resolute. And what good would getting the guard be anyways? The last one had basically ignored her.

She hesitated at the door. It led down, obviously. But what was in the third basement level of the library? She had no idea.