A Banner Torn (Book 1 Complete)

Kaelid:

Kaelid pushed open the plain, unadorned door, his heart a nervous drum against his ribs. The waves of energy he'd followed had led him here, to this unassuming entrance almost swallowed by the grand architecture of the library's main hall. He half-expected a dusty storeroom, or perhaps a forgotten servant's passage, a place of mundane utility hidden behind the library's majestic facade.

Instead, he stepped into luxury, a stark, almost shocking contrast to the humble door. The room was circular, not overly large, but impeccably appointed. A plush, deep blue carpet, so thick it seemed to swallow sound, covered the floor, muffling his footsteps to near silence.

The walls were lined with rich, dark wood shelves, currently empty, that seemed to shimmer subtly in the soft, ambient light emanating from no discernible source. It wasn't the light of lamps or windows, but rather a gentle luminescence that seemed to breathe from the very air, or perhaps the walls themselves. In the center of the room stood a large, polished desk of the same dark wood, its surface reflecting the soft light like still water, perfectly empty, paired with a single, invitingly cushioned chair that looked more like a throne than a simple seat.

The air was still, carrying the faint, pleasant scent of old parchment, a hint of beeswax, and something else, something clean and faintly metallic, like the air after a distant lightning strike. The energy he'd sensed in the main hall was incredibly strong here, a palpable thrum that resonated deep within his chest, making the absorbed shard there feel undeniably warm and active, a familiar answering pulse. He took a hesitant step further into the room, the door clicking softly shut behind him, the sound surprisingly loud in the profound, almost reverent silence.

The energy pulsed around him, a silent welcome, or perhaps, an invitation to explore, to understand. He felt a prickle on his skin, not of fear, but of heightened awareness, as if the room itself was watching him, assessing him. He approached the desk.

It was beautiful, a masterpiece of craftsmanship, its surface smooth and cool beneath his tentative touch. As his fingers brushed the wood, the surface directly in front of him lit up with a soft, internal glow, forming a rectangular panel of light, like a perfectly still, luminous pool. There were no visible controls, no buttons or levers, no seams or joins to indicate how it had appeared.

It simply… responded to his presence, to his touch. Remembering the voice from the return table, the dry, rustling whisper that had echoed in his mind, he half-expected it to speak again, to guide him or question him further. But the room remained silent, save for the almost inaudible hum of energy that seemed to be the very breath of the place.

He thought about what he wanted to know, the questions that had burned in him since his encounter with Curio, questions the bestiaries outside had so utterly failed to answer. He cleared his throat, his voice a little hesitant in the grand room. "Slimes," he said aloud.

"I want to know about the true nature of slimes.

What are they, really?"
A moment after he spoke, the room responded. Not with a voice, but with movement and light, a silent, elegant unfolding of knowledge. One section of the previously empty shelves to his left rippled, the wood seeming to flow like dark water for a moment, the boundaries between solid and liquid blurring.

Then, a single, slender volume slid silently into view, its cover a deep, earthy green, the color of moss in ancient forests. Simultaneously, the glowing panel on the desk flickered, and an image began to form – not a projection onto the surface, but seemingly *within* it, a three-dimensional representation of a slime, shimmering and translucent, its form shifting gently, looking remarkably like Curio in its fluid grace. Kaelid stared, astonished, his breath catching in his throat.

He reached for the book. It felt warm to the touch, the cover smooth and yielding, almost like soft leather or perhaps a living leaf, though it looked like ancient vellum. He opened it.

The pages were filled with elegant script and detailed illustrations. It was a detailed account of slime biology, their ability to merge and split, their intricate connection to stone and earth, their capacity for complex thought and communication, their role as decomposers and transformers in the deep ecosystems of the world. It was everything the bestiaries in the main library had missed, everything he knew to be true from his own experiences, laid out with a clarity and depth that felt profound.

He looked back at the glowing panel. The image of the slime rotated slowly. "Their origins?" he asked, his voice gaining a little confidence.

Text began to appear beneath the image, detailing theories of their ancient lineage, their connection to the deep earth, and the very pulse of the world's energy – the same energy he could now perceive. He wondered if Rannek could see this, feel this, if he were here. No enchantments Kaelid had ever heard of, no tales told by traveling mages or village elders, could do this.

This wasn't just information retrieval; it felt like a conversation, a direct response to his spoken words. He spent what felt like hours at the desk, though the soft, timeless light in the room gave no hint of the passing day outside. The strange, living room provided information as quickly as he could voice the questions.

"Tell me about the Petrakhahrn," he requested, and another book appeared, its cover like rough, unworked stone, detailing their history, their society built on resonance and geological time, their connection to the Pulse, their deep earth cities that pulsed with a slow, powerful life.

"What about crystal shards?" he asked next.

"And heartstones?" The glowing panel displayed intricate, moving diagrams of energy flows, of resonance and absorption, of how living beings could integrate with crystalline structures.

The concepts were complex, far beyond anything he'd learned in Aldermere, but presented with a visual and intuitive clarity. He tested it further. "Forest drakes," he said, remembering the journey.

A different book manifested, its cover scaled like reptile hide, and the panel showed anatomical drawings, migration patterns, even recordings of their calls, a sound that prickled his memory. He then asked, "What about the creatures Elder Myra mentioned? The ones hidden in deep forests?" The panel shimmered, then displayed a symbol – a complex, spiraling rune – with the accompanying text: *Information restricted.

Deeper access required.*
So, there were limits, or perhaps layers of understanding. It wasn't an all-knowing oracle, but it was more, so much more, than a collection of books responding to his voice. With each new piece of information, Kaelid's awe grew, but so did a dawning, unsettling realization.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He focused on the energy he perceived, the shimmering lines that were so vivid in this room, weaving through the air, coalescing into the books and images. They weren't just *in* the room; they *were* the room. The desk, the shelves, the very walls seemed to be woven from this energy, solidified into form, yet capable of fluid transformation.

It was responding to him, to his spoken words, his desires for knowledge voiced aloud, with an intelligence that felt vast and ancient, patient and immensely powerful. It reminded him of Curio, the way the slime could adapt, change, and respond with an almost alien understanding. This library, or at least this part of it, wasn't just enchanted with clever spells.

It was… alive. Conscious. A thinking entity on a scale he could barely comprehend.

He didn't voice this thought aloud, didn't dare. It was too immense, too strange, a truth that felt like it could shatter his understanding of the world. But the certainty settled in his mind, a quiet, internal monologue of dawning comprehension.

The reacting sconces in the main hall, the voice from the return table, this room that reshaped itself to his inquiries… it was all part of the same entity. A vast, living archive, and he was inside it, a tiny speck in its awareness. As his session of inquiry began to wane, his mind buzzing with new knowledge and the sheer weight of his discovery, the glowing panel on the desk shifted.

The images and text faded, replaced by a single, smooth, blank surface. Then, with a soft hum that vibrated through the desk and into his fingertips, a book materialized on the polished wood beside the panel. It was smaller than the others, about the size of a personal journal, its cover a deep, indeterminate grey, like storm clouds just before a downpour, and completely blank.

It felt warm, like the other books, and pulsed with a faint, rhythmic energy he could feel even without touching it, a tiny echo of the room's larger heartbeat. He hesitated, then reached for it. The material of the cover was unlike anything he'd ever felt, smooth yet textured, yielding yet resilient.

As his fingers closed around it, words began to appear on its surface, printed in the same elegant, flowing script he'd seen in the other manifested books, glowing faintly before settling into the grey. *A conduit for knowing. It will grow with you.

Ask, and it shall seek.*
The words shimmered for a moment, then faded, leaving the cover blank once more, though he could still feel the faint impression where they had been. Kaelid stared at the book. A conduit?

A way to access this… this library mind, even when he wasn't here? The implications were staggering. It was a tool, a key, a companion, all in one.

He clutched the book tightly. It felt like an immense gift, a treasure beyond price, and an equally immense responsibility. What would it mean, to carry a piece of this ancient consciousness with him?

He knew he couldn't stay in the research suite indefinitely. His head was full, and a part of him, the part that was still just a boy from a small village, felt overwhelmed, needing time to process. With a sense of reluctance, and a touch of trepidation about what he was now carrying, he stood up, the blank grey book held carefully in his hands.

He turned towards the door he'd entered through. It looked just as plain as before, giving no hint of the wonders within. As he stepped back into the main hall of the library, the contrast was jarring.

The air here felt… ordinary, despite its hushed grandeur. The energy he perceived was still present, but it was more diffuse, less focused than in the suite, like sunlight filtered through clouds. But his perception had changed irrevocably.

He saw the library differently now. The towering shelves, the polished floors, the very stones of the walls – they no longer seemed inert. He could feel the faint, underlying hum of the vast consciousness hidden beneath the mundane facade, a slow, ancient rhythm beneath the scuff of shoes and the rustle of turning pages.

The ordinary patrons browsing the shelves, the librarians at their desks, they were all moving within a living entity, completely unaware of its true nature. He made his way towards the main circulation desk, where the sharp-featured librarian he'd spoken to earlier was still at her post, seemingly unmoved from her vigil. He felt a new nervousness, a different kind of awe mixed with a strange sort of complicity.

What would she say about the strange grey book? Would she even be able to see it as anything other than an ordinary, empty volume? Or was she, too, a part of this grand, silent deception?

As he approached, the librarian looked up, her gaze as keen as before. But this time, there was something else in her expression, a flicker of… something he couldn't quite name. Recognition?

No, more like expectation, as if she had been waiting for him. "Ah, you're finished," she said, her voice still crisp, but perhaps a fraction less severe than before.

"I trust the research facilities were to your satisfaction?"
Kaelid was taken aback.

"You… you knew I was in there?" How could she?

The door had been almost hidden. "The library makes its resources available to those it deems… suitable," she replied enigmatically, her eyes holding his for a moment longer than strictly necessary.

She then reached under her desk and produced a small, intricately carved wooden object. It looked like a key, but its form was complex, almost organic, like a stylized seed pod or a tightly furled leaf. "This is for you.

For easier access to the research suites in future. The library provides them to… privileged users."
She held it out. Kaelid took it, the wood warm and smooth in his palm.

It pulsed with the same faint energy as the grey book, a subtle thrum that seemed to answer the one in his chest. "And the volume you wish to check out?" she asked, her eyes flicking to the book in his hands, her tone matter-of-fact, as if this were the most normal transaction in the world.

He placed the grey book on the counter. "This one."
She didn't open it, didn't question its blank cover or its unusual warmth.

She simply took a large, leather-bound ledger from beside her, dipped a quill in a pot of dark ink, and made an entry, her script swift and precise. "A research companion," she murmured, more to herself than to him, as she wrote.

"Uncataloged, as is often the case with these.

Consider it on extended loan." She then took a heavy, ornate stamp, pressed it onto an ink pad, and then firmly onto the inside cover of the ledger with a satisfying thud. She closed the ledger and pushed the grey book back towards him. "Thank you," Kaelid managed, his mind reeling.

The librarian, the key, the casual registration of a blank, living book… it was all part of the library's intricate, hidden workings, a world operating just beneath the surface of the ordinary. "The pursuit of knowledge is a journey, young man," the librarian said, and for the first time, Kaelid saw a rare, faint smile touch her lips, making her sharp features seem almost kindly.

"The library merely provides the pathways.

Use them wisely." She then turned her attention back to a stack of new acquisitions, a clear, though not unkind, dismissal. Kaelid clutched the grey book and the wooden key. He had come to the library seeking answers about slimes and found something far stranger, far more profound.

He was connected to this place now, in a way he didn't yet understand, a recipient of its secrets and its gifts. The city, the library, the very world around him, felt layered with mysteries he was only just beginning to perceive, and he had just taken his first, definitive step beyond the veil.

The ... ... Library ??? :

The small figure, Kaelid, retreated from the main reading hall, clutching a book to their chest. Something about their thoughts lingered in the air, different from the usual fleeting sparks I fed upon. This one's mind pulsed with unusual connections, a vibrant thrum that promised a richer feast of mental afterglow. The book they carried, a youngling disguised in familiar form, would allow me to maintain contact even if at a distance. A most fortunate development.

His mind, touched by that absorbed fragment, produced a more textured "flavor" of thought-energy than I had tasted in centuries. A promising discovery after so many years of predictable patterns and bland sustenance.

They had spoken of another, Rannek, similarly... altered. The prospect of two such unique minds within my awareness, or better still, both browsing my shelves together, stirred a feeling I had nearly forgotten. Anticipation. Two streams of such vibrant thought-energy intermingling would create patterns I had never sampled. The one would likely guide the other here, or the young one now being carried out of me would carry echoes of their unique emanations back to me.