Neil 

 

We had spent several hours in the Mana Concentration room with Yallia walking me through several different exercises, some of the exercises were meant to help me better control my Mana, a few were meant to help me improve my elemental control, and still others were meant to help me channel more mana for longer periods of time.  

 

Over the course of three hours I received several more blue boxes letting me know that I had improved my Mana manipulation, my water affinity and my bodily attunement. 

 

When I asked Yallia what bodily attunement was told me that she wasn’t familiar with the term, but guessed that it was probably a person's ability to store and process Mana. Like a muscle the soul could get more efficient at how quickly it purified Mana and how much purified Mana it could store at any time. Most people had to work for months and years in order to expand the amount of Mana they could use, and it was incredibly difficult to quantify exactly how much Mana they could use. While it was nice to know that I was improving, neither Yallia or I had any idea what my new bodily attunement actually meant. 

 

When we finally left the room instead of going down the stairs to what we suspected were mines, we instead decided to take a walk through the city. Standing at the door of the building overlooking the city Yallia had been as amazed at the sight as I was. Apparently Human cities had a lot of variation in lay out, style of architecture, and materials used. So this settlement was unique in both that it was much smaller than most and it had been made entirely underground. 

 

“Incredible, most cities we find are nothing but ruins and rubble. Even if most of the documents here have been destroyed this is easily the greatest find in centuries.” 

 

“Since I discovered it does that mean that I get to name it?” 

 

“You didn’t discover it the Lamia did,” Yallia said testily.  “And besides it probably has a name already, we just have to find it. How much were you able to look around the city last time you were here?” 

 

“Not much, I looked in that building over there, then decided to get a feel for the size of the city. If you go keep going straight you’ll come to some farmland, I think the farmland surrounds the entire city, and that’s where I found the tree. Is there anything you specific you wanted to look for?” 

 

“I’d like to get you a little more combat experience, some of the records we have indicate that using abilities in real situations helped Humans improve faster than just practicing them in a static environment. If we could I’d also like to find something like a library or a government office. Anything that would have the cities records, or maps would be amazing to find.” 

 

“Maps?” 

 

“When cities were abandoned during the fall a great many of them were never found again. It’s estimated that only half of all Human settlements have been located and studied. I expect that there should be several outlying settlements, farms, workshops, in the area to support this city.” 

 

“This place did give me a sort of doomsday bunker vibe. Big enough to allow people to survive for a time but by no means be self-sufficient.” Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Yallia shoot me a questioning glance at the words doomsday bunker but I ignored it and continued. “Well if I were designing a city, I would put something like a library in the middle of it, keep it central so it's easy for more people to use it, same with an administrative center I guess.” 

 

“My thoughts exactly, we’ll make a circuit around the central building and see if we can find any buildings that look like they could be a library.  If not, we work our way out in a spiral.” 

 

Walking through the street around the central building we made it to the other side of the building before we finally found several buildings that stood out from the others.  

 

Most of the buildings in the city looked to be a mixture of residential and commercial. They followed a fairly standard template of being tall and thin, they made for efficient places to live, and were useful as small shops, but they were a little cramped to try and run a bureaucracy in. 

 

The buildings that we found at the back of the central building were just as tall as the surrounding buildings, they were four stories tall, but much wider and longer. Taking up an entire block, they were probably 100 meters by 100 meters and had outsides that were much more elaborately decorated. There were several different statues, columns and windows which made it look almost gothic to me. 

 

Pushing the doors open we found ourselves facing a large open room. Directly in front of us was a small round desk, behind that were several dozen desks with chairs around them, the outside of the room was lined with shelves filled with thousands of books and scrolls. Several of the shelves closest to us had been knocked over spilling their contents onto the ground, but most were still standing. 

 

“Alright I don’t have enough experience with Human libraries to even guess where the maps would be kept, so what we’re looking for could be just about anywhere. We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up. What I would like us to focus on right now would be maps and atlases.” 

 

“This shouldn’t be too hard. There must be some kind of method to their organization, right?” 

 

“Probably, but no one has ever seen a library this intact before, I could spend months here just cataloging everything.” Yallia said walking forwards with a look of wonder on her face. 

 

“Maybe someday you can come back with a proper expedition and actually do that.” Yallia just ignored me as she ran her hands almost reverently over a shelf. 

 

Walking forwards I went straight to the closest books on the ground and opened. It was a large leather-bound volume and the pages fell apart in my hands when I picked it up. Embarrassed I looked to see if Yallia had noticed but she was too busy running her fingers over the spine of several books that were still on a shelf. 

 

Putting it down I walked along the shelves carefully pulling books out at random and carefully looking through them before putting them back. As novel as it was to be searching an old abandoned library, and it really was, I did not want to spend any more time here than I needed to. 

 

By the time I had managed a quick search of half a dozen shelves on the lower level Yallia had barely moved from where she started. “Can we focus please? I know this is the find of a lifetime but our night eye potions will run out eventually.” 

 

Giving me an annoyed look, she put the book back and moved off in the other direction looking at different stacks. I really wanted us to stay closer together, this was how literally every horror movie has ever started but I was too annoyed to bother fighting with her. So long as we stayed relatively close to each other it should be fine. 

 

Moving through the stacks I checked half of the first floor before walking back to check on Yallia. When I found her she had once again become engrossed in a book and was actually sitting on the ground reading it. 

 

“Seriously!?” I yelled my voice carrying into the darkness. 

 

Standing up so quickly it looked like she had jumped Yallia turned towards me "This is the most complete collection of books anyone anywhere has ever found, it is literally priceless.” she said with a thunderous look on her face. 

 

Seeing that she was starting to dig her heels in I decided to try and reason with her.  

 

“I understand that this is literally the chance of a lifetime, but so is everything in this city, and everything outside of this city, and probably large parts of the surrounding countryside. Imagine what else you could find out there if you manage to find the maps, and if we are the only ones with the maps then the Empire won’t be able to find it. Not only that but the sooner we seal away whatever is causing the taint the sooner we can study this without having to worry about being eaten! Ok!?” 

 

Although she looked pretty unhappy Yallia eventually agreed and put the book in her pack. I didn’t want to start carrying every book that looked interesting but so long as they were going into Yallias pack I wouldn’t complain. 

 

The two of us now focusing searched each floor as quickly as possible. Which unfortunately took longer than we would like. The first floor was the only one with a dedicated reading area that took up most of the floor space. Every other floor was made up of row after row of shelves stacked so close to each other that we couldn’t walk down the rows side by side.  

 

Luckily the library wasn’t completely without signs, even if many of the signs were so aged, they could barely be read. The ones that were still legible were a great help and saved us from searching entire sections. Still even with the signs it took us almost an entire hour before we found the first map. 

 

It was hanging on back wall on the fourth floor near a small reading area with desks and chairs, literally the last place we looked. At roughly four feet high and six feet long it was surprisingly large and probably going to be heavy as well. Looking at it the map showed us what looked to be a large island with several small islands surrounding it. 

 

“Finally.” I said. 

 

The largest island on the map had a river bisecting it. Running from the northern tip, it traveled almost all the way south where it ran into a mountain range and then curved off to the east. If I was reading the map correctly the mountain range on the bottom of the map separated the southern tip of the island from the northern end, and it was almost certainly the veil of the gods. That would mean that this was a map of the Alatross islands. Looking at it more closely there were several other marks on the islands and one of them was where I was pretty sure the Summit of the Ancients was. 

 

Between the two of us we managed to get the map off of the wall, rolled up and stowed safely in my pack, being careful to not bend it too much.  

 

“Lets see if we can find any other maps.” Yallia said. 

 

Deciding that it would be faster to just comply and look than complain I started looking through scrolls near the first map we had found. Between the two of us we found several other maps of places that I couldn’t recognize and even several extremely large books that were filled with simple maps of different places that Yallia was extremely excited by. Placing them all in our packs we started towards the stairs when our good luck was ruined. 

 

On the stairs far below us we heard something. It was hard to make out exactly what it was, the gait was incredibly unsteady with a clicking, scrabbling and occasionally stomping coming up the stairs towards us. 

 

The idea of fighting something in such close quarters with no room to dodge did not sound appealing to me, and I could tell just from looking at Yallia that fighting near the books was something that she would probably rather die than do, that left us with not too many options. 

 

The area surrounding the stairs was probably the most open spot on the floor aside from the sitting area near the back of the room. With a roughly ten-foot square around the stairs that was clear of shelves it was the easiest area to fight this thing, otherwise we would have to try and fight it in the stacks where we wouldn’t be able to dodge.  

 

Signaling to Yallia I pointed to one side of the stairs while I moved to the opposite side so we would flank whatever came up. Taking off my pack I placed it behind the stairs and reapplied the poison to my spear throwing Yallia the package of poison.  

 

Crouching down behind the hand rail on the stairs I tried to make myself as ready as possible. The hand rail on the stairs wasn’t solid but instead a series of metal posts holding up a small rail so I was feeling extremely exposed where I was, but it wasn’t like there were any better places to hide. Hopefully whatever was coming up the stairs would lack any extra sensory organs to find me. 

 

Listening to the shambling coming up the stairs I held onto my post tighter and tighter as I tried to calm myself and feel for my Mana. 

 

The stomping, shuffling, and tapping sounds were directly under me, probably passing the 2nd floor now.  

 

After a few minutes of trying to control my mana I started to get frustrated, I couldn’t manage to do anything with it right now. It felt like trying to pick up a tooth picks with chopsticks. Whenever I managed to grasp something it slipped right out of my grasp. 

 

The sounds were even closer now, looking over the edge I saw movement as something passed the third floor landing and was rapidly approaching us. 

 

Taking a deep breath I tried to clear my mind of the pre-battle jitters and concentrate.  Incredibly slowly I managed to pool my Mana into my left hand, holding my spear with just my right hand.  

 

The sounds was no longer muffled by the floor between us, something large began moving up the stairs in front of my face.  

 

I managed to begin adding my water affinity into the mana I had pooled in my hands, and I shaped that into a small dense cone. In all of our experiments when I had tried to shoot water forwards I quickly lost the ability to keep it its shape and a small object this size was what I had the most success with, I should be able to accelerate this fast enough that I could break bones with it, and with the sharp end would hopefully pierce flesh as well. 

 

Just as I finished forming the bullet into its shape an upside-down face moved in front of the stairs and smiled at me. 

 

It was on the side of its head and it was a full misshapen face. The two eyes an off center nose and a crooked mouth in a leer as it looked at me. 

 

The creature stopped as soon as it saw me and I was able to get a good look at it for the first time. It stood at roughly seven feet tall and was once a person. Now it looked like it was was several people mixed together. 

 

It stood on two legs, there were two other legs coming out of its back near its shoulder blades, two arms were normally on its shoulders, but two more arms were on tops of its shoulders pointing up at the ceiling, and still two more arms were coming out of its hips facing backwards. Its head was twice the size of a regular person's head and extremely lumpy, it had one face looking forwards, one facing towards me and unless I was mistaken one facing towards Yallia as well. The face that was looking at me was as I thought upside down in its skull, and it was staring at me with an expression on its face that I could only describe as excitement and hunger. 

 

Of everything I had seen so far this was easily the most disturbing, the combination of familiar facial features and body horror mixed together was enough to paralyze me with fear.  

 

Fortunately, Yallia was more experienced than I am and while she hesitated waiting for my spell, she quickly realized that I had frozen and used her own magic. 

 

Light flared directly in front of the closest face to Yalia and the monster let out a gurgling roar from all three of its mouths that made me think the creature's lungs were full of some kind of liquid. 

 

Getting down on all fours the monster was able to use its appendages to shamble towards Yallia far quicker and I thought possible. The bright flash was enough to snap me out of my stupor and I sprung into action stabbing at the creatures back and piercing its skin. Pulling back my spear I swung at it again and managed to hit one of its legs with a solid thwack. This caused the monsters head to whip in my direction the upside-down face leering at me still. 

 

Changing directions without turning around the monster started towards me, the hands in its lower back grasping at me. 

 

Yallia took this opportunity to move forwards and strike out with her spear at the creature which grabbed her spear and began wresting with her for it. The hands in its lower back began stretching out, reaching towards me. 

 

With the monster moving towards me still and grasping at me with its hands I found that my earlier terror was gone, leaving me feeling surprisingly calm. My mana moved far faster than it had when I was practicing seemingly pooling in my hand of its own accord. Shaping it into a long thin strand I added my water affinity and I found myself with a whip made of water attached to my palm.  

 

My problems in keeping the water shaped in a bullet stemmed from only being able to influence it when it was close to me, by using a whip I was hoping that I could maintain control of it much easier. 

 

Moving my hand back and forth I was able to use a combination of my mana control and my arm to direct it and soon enough the water was whipping back and forth over the monster leaving large gashes in its flesh wherever the water hit it. 

 

My control of the whip was clumsy at best and I missed just as often as I managed to score a hit but soon the monster was sporting a half a dozen gashes on the limbs that were weeping an inky black blood. The arm that was closest to me looked to even have been be broken. 

 

By now it had decided to ignore Yallia  completely and instead lunged towards me. Dodging out of the way I lost my concentration on the water whip and the water spilled over the ground.  

 

Undeterred by the damage it had taken the monster pursued me around the stairs as I kept falling back and tried to strike at it with my spear. It was close enough to me that I was unable to get a good wind up and my constant retreating was leaving me with nowhere to go but in circles around the stairs. 

 

Yallia having abandoned her spear at some point charged forwards with a knife in each hand and slashed at the monster cutting it deeply on the arms that were on either side of its head.  

 

With a screeching sound the monster stood on its two legs like a person would and Yallia was facing a total of four arms and four legs. Backing up rapidly under its onslaught she was able to avoid grappling with it while managing to continue giving it shallow cuts. Taking a moment to breath I focused water affinity mana directly into my palm. Taking careful aim I thrust my hand forwards and I was rewarded with a golf ball sized water bullet traveling forwards and hitting the monster in the head.  

 

The bullet destroyed one of its faces and partially pierced the monsters skull knocking it to the ground.  

 

Landing on its arms and legs it was barely slowed for a second. 

 

A second was all Yallia needed.  

 

Moving forwards without hesitation Yallia stabbed down with both of her knives at the creatures neck. Cutting deeply she must have his something important because a black ooze began spraying out of the creature landing on the ground. 

 

Breathing deeply I found myself winded despite having barely moved. Rushing forwards I pulled back with my spear and swung it like a bat at one of the creatures legs as hard as I could. 

 

It was a solid hit, the leg broke and the creature fell to the ground off balance, unfortunately the creature had several other legs and arms and it was quickly able to get those under it and resume chasing us. 

 

The ground now wet with both water and the monsters blood, it moved to get its arms and legs underneath it. Yallia was still off balance from trying to avoid the its arms and I was about done with my own crappy spear.  

 

Dropping the mostly useless weapon I channeled my mana through both of my hands and made another thin whip of water. Swinging it forwards I wrapped it around the monsters neck and caught the other end of the rope in my left hand. Concentrating on the whip I tried to make it as thin as possible, I wanted a razor blade made of water if I could get it. 

 

Pulling on the mana I squeezed the monsters neck and for a few seconds its flesh held out.  

 

Forcing the water as thin as possible it finally started to cut.  

 

With a wet sound the whip cut directly into its flesh, then through the vertebra of its neck. Its head popped off with an almost comical spray of a black ooze and its limbs began thrashing. Yallia and I both backed up allowing its death throws to finish. 

 

After several minutes in which it actually shambled into a shelf knocking it over it finally lay on the ground dead in a slowly spreading puddle of ooze.  

 

Yallia and I looked at each other, I at her with relief on my face, and her with a smile on hers. That was when my legs gave out and I fell on my ass. Then the dings started. 

 

DING 

 

 

DING 

 

 

 

DING 

 

 

 

DING 

 

 

 

DING