Chapter 15: Positioning in the Library

Seeing Darkmoon University alive with students was invigorating, at first, but Suria soon grew tired of the crowds. Previously she had been able to walk anywhere with little interruption and now she had to deal with lines in every direction. She understood why the administrators wanted to handle business earlier and was grateful that she’d already sorted out her housing and university robes.

The clock was ticking to enroll in classes, but Suria didn’t want to make a potentially final decision just yet. To get into certain classes without prerequisites required professorial approval, according to the course catalogue, including the healing program in general. All she was able to do was make an appointment to speak to the Medicine department tomorrow, so she resolved to make those decisions later.

Which also meant she was free to go straight to the Sequential Library and get new books. Suria was glad she had a good excuse to do that first, otherwise she would have needed to come up with a bad one.

Though the Sequential Library still looked like a cube of black marble, there were people trailing toward the side that faced the rest of campus, where a large set of wooden doors had appeared. They barely had time to close, due to all the students trailing in and out getting books for the coming term. It didn’t seem to be quite as popular as some of the other buildings, but this was a university, so it was inevitable that a lot of business would take place at the main library.

When Suria stepped inside, she slowed down in wonder. The cube had a vast open section in the center, meaning that she could see three stories worth of bookshelves, all crammed to the limit. Students swarmed through the center, many consulting with librarians at desks while others used magic to interact with steles engraved like books. In the corners of the lowest floor she saw numerous nooks behind bookshelves with comfortable-looking chairs.

“Don’t stand in the way!” someone called at her, and Suria was nearly trampled as she stood gawking. She wasn’t the only new student stopping in the entrance, however, so no one seemed too upset about it.

She quickly got out of the entrance and tried to determine the best way to go about her business. There was nothing stopping her from just walking to one of the shelves, but she wasn’t sure how all the books were organized. A part of her wanted to grab any book and run off with it, but she needed to be more selective than that, with only a few days to prepare for classes.

Most likely the best policy was to consult the librarians, even if there were long lines waiting at the desks. She noticed that the library staff wore a variation of the Darkmoon uniform with trousers instead of robes. Some had spiky crystal circlets floating over her head, which looked rather impressive. Others wore hats that sort of mimicked the circlets that she thought looked absurd. There were groups of them situated on several sides of the building, their eyes scanning the room like guards.

“Excuse me,” Suria said as she approached, “could you dire-“

“Go to the librarians for questions,” one of the women told her sharply. “We’re the Sequential Guard.”

“Oh, sorry.” Though she apologized instinctively, Suria frowned as she left. They were just standing around watching things, looking so self-important… did the library really need so many guards? Did they think the students would steal books they could borrow for free anyway?

In that case, there was no choice but to go to the center and wait in line for one of the main librarians. As she waited, Suria observed that they would close their eyes and mana would run through their floating circlets, then they would give answers. Presumably they interfaced with the library in some way, then? Suria wished she could get a circlet and find books on her own, but no doubt that took specialized training.

After only a few minutes, a group of other students approached and shoved their way in front of Suria. She was so surprised at first that they got away with it, and before her ordeal in the time loop she would probably have let it happen. But there were half a dozen students and it looked like they were going to let in even more friends, throwing her much further back in line.

Who did they think they were? The leaders of the group all had unusual skin tones, ranging from red to blue to green. She hadn’t seen very many people from Endelyth and all she knew about it was that it was descended from an ancient glyphic empire, with lots of magical legacies. That meant nothing to her, but she could tell from the ornately brocaded clothes they wore that they must be well off. None of that meant that they could simply cut in front of her in line.

Instead of raising a fuss, Suria simply moved around them, placing herself where she had been in line before the whole group piled in. It almost seemed to work until she felt a hand clench around on her shoulder and jerk her back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” one of the Endelythans demanded.

“Taking my place in line,” Suria answered quietly. “You must not have seen me earlier.”

“We saw you, we just didn’t want to wait for you.” It was a woman with blue skin this time, wearing what looked like an actual crown with a glyph inscribed on the front.

“I will barely take any time compared to all of you.”

The man gripping her shoulder tugged again, nearly pulling her off her feet. “You don’t get it. People like us don’t wait for someone like you. Get to the back.”

Suria tried to pull his hand away, but he was physically stronger than her. Anger simmered at the injustice of it, but no one seemed to be paying much attention and she was outnumbered. What could she do, try to use her sleep spell in the middle of the library? That would be starting a fight, and there was a good chance that it would fail against their defenses anyway.

Instead of humiliating herself, Suria simply backed away. She expected the noble Endelythans to laugh at her, but they turned back to themselves as if they’d already forgotten she existed. This was the arrogance she had expected: she was a meaningless peasant to them and there was nothing she could do to change that.

She channeled her anger into quick steps to another line, but even before she arrived, she saw another group cutting in line. Not Endelythan, instead an extremely wealthy-looking group of Akrashic women. Was basic order not respected anywhere? Still angry, Suria stalked away to reconsider.

Now that she looked around again, she was surprised that the Sequential Library wasn’t larger, considering that it needed to service thousands of students. It contained more books than she’d ever seen before, but not as many as she might have expected. The problem was the large empty space in the center: it looked very picturesque to have the air filled with floating crystals that cast the library in soft warmth, but it was a terrible use of space.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Or maybe she was just bitter about getting so close and then being treated like this. Suria kept her gaze away from the central lines around the desks and instead examined the shelves, vaguely hoping that a book would catch her eye.

Instead she discovered something else: a door in the wall, tucked between the shelves.

That shouldn’t have been strange, except that she was certain that was an exterior wall. She looked back and judged the distances, only confirming that there was no space for the door to open into. Her first instinct was to disbelieve her own memory and assume that it must simply be another door in, but if so there should be people passing through. If it was a potential door, like the main entrance that had recently appeared, why wouldn’t the librarians have opened it on the busiest day of the year?

Then again, she had just seen the raw potential of spatial magic, so perhaps it led to another room that didn’t make sense in normal terms. Suria touched the door and felt defensive wards that resisted her. Not long ago that would have been an impossible barrier, but now she knew she just needed runic glasses and a proper spell to unlock it.

Could she make her way through directly? Would it really help if she could? Suria frowned at the door and considered her options until she heard a throat clear behind her.

“Excuse me, I saw what happened earlier.”

She turned around and, to her shame, first noticed that the man talking to her was Endelythan. Similar to the nobles who had tormented her, he had blue skin, and his eyes were a shimmering gray. But he was smiling instead of scowling, and she noticed that his outfit was very plain… other than the librarian circlet hovering just above his head. Now that she looked at him properly, she judged that he was four or five years older than her.

“It’s not fair, but that’s how life goes.” The young man inclined his head to her, the crystal circlet shimmering as he did so. “My name is Orinyan Gessalsah. Are you a new student here?”