“He loved the old tree, the fountain that stands at the heart of the town, and the cavern the tunnels connected to. His memoirs said they were all magical things, but only the tree and the cavern were what he returned to the area for.”
“He has memoirs?” asked Ico, closing her open book in shock, “The librarian mentioned nothing about that when we asked him.”
“The librarian probably wouldn’t know. They were never marked as such. In fact, if I remember the way that they were described in the game then I don’t think that they were marked at all.”
Winoa sighed, “So we’re looking for untitled books in a library with thousands of books in it? Talk about reducing a haystack to another haystack.”
“This isn’t much to go by, but my gut is telling me that we should be looking at the books in that area that has been roped off.”
“Why do you think it would be in the restricted section,” Ico asked.
“A hunch, nothing more,” Maynard said with a sigh. As he turned round to glance back at the roped off area, “As I said, it’s a gut feeling. It’s just a really strong gut feeling.”
The two girls slumped down on the table and Maynard sagged slightly. He had tried to be helpful, but he felt like he had been more confusing for them rather than less. Just as he was about to begin chewing himself out about his bravado Ico asked, “How do you know so much about the game in the first place?”
“I’m kind of obsessed with it,” he responded, “The world of the game is based on a book series by my dad’s best friend, so I kind of grew up with the series. Plus, the game is fun if you like grinding and solving mysteries… Though I’m honestly better at the former than the latter.”
“Persistence is a good characteristic in lumber, hen,” Winoa said to her sister with a smirk.
“Shut,” Ico snapped back, “What you said could be helpful though, Ram. Most of what we’ve been looking at have been retrospectives on the man’s life or the town itself, but if you’re right and there are journals then we should be able to get a better idea of what he was thinking when he arrived.”
“And if no else, then we can always look at the places you suggested. The fountain, tree and catacombs,” continued her sister, “We just have to find them now.”
“You reckon anyone is going to comment if I just sneak into the roped off section and take a look at what books are in there?” Both girls shrugged in response to Maynards question so he stood up, walked over to the rope and glanced around. Seeing nobody looking at him, he moved the rope out of the way and walked over to the nearest bookshelf, perusing the spines of the books inside. Unfortunately every single spine he looked at was blank, and when he began pulling the books out to look at their front covers, those too were completely blank. He was sure that the journals of Andrew Illham were red bound, but if they were not in the library proper then he would have to just take all the books that they could be and just spend time searching. As such he began grabbing several books from the shelves and moved over to the table that Ico and Winoa were sharing. He sat down and placed the books next to him in a pile not unlike the sisters own. Pulling the first book off the pile, he flipped it open and began to look through it before putting it aside when he realised the book was neither related to his interests nor to Illham’s journals. The next three books were the same, but with the fifth book he had a stroke of luck. He pulled the book open and was greeted with a cursive script and the words ‘The journal of Andrew Illham – VII’. Closing the front cover, he let out a breath of air before saying, “I think I might have found something.” The girls looked up and he continued, “Though I’m not sure if this is gold, I found one of Illham’s journals.”
“You found one already?” asked Ico, her sapphire eyes open wide with shock.
“Yeah, the seventh journal. You want to look through it for anything relating to what you’re looking for while I try and find the other… Christ, the other six books, minimum.”
“Minimum?” asked Winoa.
“I mean there’s no reason to believe that the seventh book is the last one. And I kind of don’t know how many there are.”
“Game didn’t tell you that?”
“Sadly no. Imagine a game with a full bibliography. It would be hellish to generate and populate in any way sensibly. Either way, the devs did their usual shortcut for this kind of thing and put the lore in snippets and excerpts from the books all over the map. I think I remember snippets from the fifth volume of Illham’s journals, so anything after that is news to me.”
“If a game had all the books in the world in it, I don’t know if I would ever stop playing,” said Ico, “It sounds like my kind of game.”
“You should honestly check out Silent City then. It’s insanely lore dense.” Handing the book to Ico, Maynard picked up the sixth book and opened it up, revealing another dud title. Clicking his tongue, he closed the book and said, “Either of you interested in geometric runes, magic inscriptions or fourteen ways to grow your binding tree?”
“The first two, yes actually,” said Winoa, “The last one not so much. You taking the books back?”
“Yeah, gonna grab another six,” Maynard replied as he stood up and picked up the books that none of them had any interest in. In response the older twin nodded and grabbed the two that had caught her interest. He hopped over the barrier once more and restored the three books that he had grabbed back to the place he found them, before grabbing another handful of books and returning to the table. After three more piles of books that held nothing of value to any of them, Maynard lucked out again. In the fifth pile of books he brought over to the table there was another of the journals, journal three. Like before, he handed the book to Ico and returned the pile to the shelves. After placing them back in their respective spot he began grabbing another set of books when he heard a voice from behind him.
“Excuse me, sir, but do you have permission to look at the occult section of the library?” asked a man who was dressed very similarly to the librarian who sat near the front entrance. Maynard stared at him for a moment before saying, “Yeah, I’m on an errand for professor Dickens. Just trying to find a few specific books for him but because they don’t have titles on the cover or the spine, I’m having to look through every single damn book with a red cover to find what he’s talking about.”
“And what book might that be,” asked the librarian with a sneer.
“Erskin’s study into geometric runes and ley lines. I know it’s got a red cover and it’s down here somewhere but I’ve got no idea which book it could be,” he replied with an exaggerated sigh, “At this rate I’ll be here all day, but I expect that it’s some kind of punishment for flunking my last paper.”
“That sounds like professor Dickens,” the librarian replied, shrugging, “Alright, just make sure to put everything you don’t take back. I’ve had enough of fools trying to take occult books out of the library on a dare.”
“Will do,” said Maynard with a nod, watching the librarian walk away. Absentmindedly he took two more books from the shelves and then sat back down with the twins. He glanced at the pile of books that now sat beside him and realised that amongst the red leather bound books there was a single blue book. Shrugging, he grabbed the book and flipped it open, revealing the words ‘Thousand words and million descriptions part 2 of 3’. Instantly his eyes shot wide open and he tucked the book away. He turned to the sisters and with a grin said, “I found a book for me too.”
