Lotus wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, but Dawn suddenly collapsed backwards into her arms. It happened not long after Dawn, Dima and Oak tried to get closer to the empty golden throne, within the white stone temple.
As they walked into the dusty room, filled with long decayed furniture too dust-laden to have its quality be recognisable, and got closer to the shiny seat, seemingly the only thing in the room that had ever been cleaned, the rest of the group stopped to stare intently at it. Sure, it was a very pretty and a valuable thing, but how were they planning to get it moving? It was a solid block of metal and rock, it wasn’t going anywhere. The might have been able to made a sled out of some of the least rotten table wood, but that would only get it to the bottom of the ice, it wouldn't help them once they got it into the woods. After a few moments spent staring at the unmovable golden seat, the three of them started to question it, asking what it was doing there, how long it had been there, and other strange questions. To no surprise, the seat didn't answer them, and Lotus was starting to think that they might be seeing something she wasn't. She looked about the room try and find any sign of what she was missing, and noticed that the room was brightly lit, despite having no lighting, like fire or lightbulbs, and also lacked any windows. It was as if the white stones of the wall absorbed the outside light and filled the room with a perfectly even level of lighting, like the walls were transparent to sunlight. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it may have even been the most comfortable level of lighting she had seen in the game so far, but it was discomforting in the sense that it felt entirely unnatural, or at least out of place. It felt like a very old computer game, one that had no shadows or shading to save on system memory and that also fed her impression that something was off.
When the three started to walk up the stairs, their faces seemed strained by the first step, and tired by the second. Oak managed to touch one foot to the third, but soon after, her shoulders slumped and she drooped low like a wilting flower while her head light seemed to quiver like a dying candle. Lotus wanted to know if the light thing had a specific noun, like ‘eye’ or ‘nose’, but was worried that might be rude, and it was common sense to know what it was called. She hoped Dawn was equality curious, and would blunder in and ask her. When they came back down, they seemed weak and tired, and started to fall asleep on the spot. She managed to catch Dawn, and Dima and Oak caught each other, laying against each other and braced against a table. Lying Dawn down on one of their fur beddings, Lotus started to look for clues to the cause.
She knew the cause couldn’t be gas, base since Oak was infected and didn’t seem to breathe. She hadn’t seen any cuts, darts or needles, so that also didn’t seem to be a likely cause. Lotus's apothecary skill poison resistance would protect her from an attack like that, so she couldn't rule out poisons entirely. She also didn’t think Oak could bleed, or have any idea what poisons worked on her, if any. Dawn and Dima both wore shoes with sturdy souls, so direct skin contact with the steps was also unlikely. Given the rapid onset and uniform effect, it was probably a magical effect of some kind. That diagnosis was bad. As an apothecary, her treatment options towards the arcane were very limited, and treating purely magical effects required very specific plants, of which she didn't have a ready supply.
Her options as a druid weren’t much better. From what she could tell, her magic seemed to amplify existing effects rather than create new ones, and they targeted plants and animals more readily than they did people. When she grew plants, the plants had their growth rate amplified and supplemented nutrients with magic energy. The same thing happened when she used magic to heal; the cell regeneration rate of a body was amplified. Wounds that were impossible to ever heal, and diseases like cancer which also used the same process, couldn’t be treated. Things like a magical effect, where there was no physical reason or response from the body, weren’t treatable either, at least not with the spells she had unlocked at her current level.
Looking into the room to the right of the entrance, she found that the simple wooden door opened smoothly, without sound or effort, as if it were well maintained. Clearly in contrast to the dilapidated main hall. The room inside was filled with stacks of leather bound books of various sizes and colours. In the centre of the room, sitting on a stone day-bed, was an incredibly old man, with skin like the books he surrounded himself with and a blank look in his eyes, like the world itself had betrayed him and he had nothing at all to live for. He wore a moth-eaten grey-brown robe, with a simple sting belt. With his outfit and age, he had the look of a medieval monk, locked away to write copies of the bible for the whole of his life.
As he turned to look at her, a small glint of hope seemed to appear in his eyes. He seemed to take a few moments to discern if she were real, then took a few more to remember how to speak. Above his head the two lines of text that floated there read, ‘???, level 3 Scholar of the 4th World’ and ‘Tortured by the 4th World’. Lotus was surprised by almost everything about the man’s texts. His level was really low, but she couldn’t Inspect his name. His title also indicated that he was a being tortured by a world; she had no idea that worlds could even torture, her own experience with the 13th world had certainly only been pleasant. Furthermore, he was the first other person she had met with ‘world’ in their class name, and it was a class she hadn’t heard of. Was a scholar similar to an author or loremaster? Was it somehow completely different? As she thought that, a pair of system messages displayed in her mind.
‘Player Lotus Crane has encountered the lost class scholar; the class in now available for all players.’
‘For unlocking a new class, you have been granted that class’s starting skills, research and lesser book affinity.’
From what she could tell from the memories the skills imparted her, research seemed to be a skill similar to herbal lore, except it told her the general contents and key information of books rather than plants, like a summary of a book finding its way into her mind whenever she touched a book. For the whole text, she would still need to read it, but it allowed her to skim the most important parts instantly. It also seemed to translate the in game texts and written languages. When she walked into the room, the titles of books seemed to be written in languages she hadn’t seen before, but, after getting the skill, they now appeared to be in English, though at the same time not, almost like an optical illusion where to images were visible at once. It was a very useful skill in that particular situation, but she hadn’t seen a single book that hadn't been written by a player since starting the game. Since texts written by players, and words spoken, seemed to translate automatically by the game's system, the skill seemed like it was only useful for NPC texts.
Games that translated weren’t uncommon, but the level of detail that that game went into was extraordinary; it somehow replicated the voice of the speaker without having any kind of incongruent or lagging visuals. They wouldn’t have noticed that they were each speaking a different language, if not for Oak asking Dima about his hometown. It turned out that he lived in a remote town in Russia. From his perspective they were all speaking his language, as he had never learnt more than a handful of phrases in English. Apparently the translation also seemed natural enough that it went unnoticed, and they’re lips seemed to synchronise with the sounds they made; he had thought they also lived there.
With that skill being of questionable worth, Lotus looked through her memories at the other one. Lesser book affinity was the downgraded version of the author and loremaster ability that let them use ability books to use other class skills. If an author could use an ability for three quarters of its max capacity, than she could use it for half; that was the kind of skill she was granted. Those numbers were also variable; the exact amount depended on the skill level of both the reader and the writer. Thankfully, she knew a reasonably competent author, who once spent a lot of time on raising that skill's level, so the obscene cost of books could be reduced slightly. That was if she could get Dawn to wake up.
As she looked through the skill, the old man seemed to have worked up the effort to speak.
“Plea… Please… kill… me…” though the words were spoken no louder than a whisper, with a voice that was like the personification of dust, in the silent book filled room there was no way that it couldn’t be heard.
