Demon continent Alsace in the year 237 in the 10-month Asmodum on the 5th day after the shattering of the empire.
The library was a dream, even though she couldn't read anything yet, but it was large and, she hoped, stocked with enough knowledge that she could decipher the runes.
Of course, this was the problem that had to be solved first. She had to learn the written language. A written language was not like runes, whose meaning could be figured out with a little arcane energy. But the Larrua had to have the language from somewhere, she didn't believe that the Priests had learned this forgotten language over the centuries or even millennia and thus preserved it. That would be fortunate for the Larrua, of course, but from what she had heard, this particular clan had been one without a home, and only after the discovery of this city had they settled down.
Which, she found, made it questionable whether these priests could really read this language or if they had been able to learn them here locally and if so, how they had managed to do it, then she would certainly be able to do it as well.
The actual room of the library was a large round room with several floors, which went up and down like a tower inside the room. The walls were made of the same stone as the outer walls and were hidden only by shelves full of books or scrolls. The floors, of which there were four going up and four going down, were made of wood. It seemed to be the same wood that the door seemed to be made of. These floors rested on long beams and were supported by columns, leaving a meter of space between the wall and the floor. Through this gap, a lot of natural sunlight fell into the individual floors. Through the roof, which was made entirely of glass and went like a Bubble ale over the top floor, one could see the city and some of the surrounding landscape, as well as the towering landscape as one approached the center of the continent.
The light that shone in through the glass roof was transmitted through magic mirrors. Which sat like a cone above the same glass, which ran like veins along the wall. One large vein carried the light to the lower floors and many smaller ones distributed it throughout the floor. It was a mesmerizing sight and it was something she had never seen in either of her lives. It was a masterful piece of work, artistically as well as magically, for glass was, as far as she knew, one of the heavier carrier materials one could find to immortalize runes on.
Of course, it could also be that it was due to the runes that kept the city in top condition and that they did the same with the glass branches that illuminated the library. That the energy costs increase when one runic mandala is maintained by another runic mandala. Although she knew this only for the runes of demons and humans, she had assumed that it applied to all runic languages because she had been taught it in both cultures for the runes. However, when she looked at the runic mandalas of the golems and the rings that form the prison for Diva, the ancient demons had a greater runic understanding than the demons of today.
At first, she looked around a bit without really knowing where to look for what, but that's exactly why she looked around first. So that she could perhaps already get a picture. Where she immediately noticed that she could not do much with the written language, it was very different from modern demonic and she could not find any similarity to the runes, which were used by the demons of that time.
The books and scrolls, which she placed on a table on the floor, were cleaned up by the golems when she was no longer on the floor. What she had had to learn when she had looked on a lower floor and then gone back upstairs only to find the table empty and without books or scrolls.
After looking for some time like that and trying out where the books had been placed again to get a feel for each subject and what place they occupied. She made her way along around the entrance, hoping that the beginner-friendly writings were there. As she knew it from her old lives. If not, she would have to look for writings in other languages and hope it was one she knew and could translate the texts from.
But she didn't find anything at the entrance or around the entrance either, so she started going through every book on every floor. Which sent the Golems into a frenzy as a storm of books and scrolls and individual pages hit each floor. She only needed to see the written pages in her domain, which is why she opened them all at once and briefly skimmed each page to see if she could find anything familiar.
It wasn't until she was in the second basement that she found something familiar, it was a travelogue in Modern Demonic or something similar. Immediately stopping her whirlwind of books she set about taking a seat at one of the tables and reading the text.
After a few pages, she realized that it was a diary of a person who came from the coastal city of Vanadium, which was a colony of the Demon Empire just a hundred years old. It was about his journey to the heart of the Demon Realm and was headed to the then capital city of Erythos Asteras. However, it seemed that he or Vanadium had a different dialect than the other regions of the empire. Something that the traveler Neilos Sidirourgos had to experience firsthand. It seemed that the capital was far away and that the farther you were from the capital, you spoke a little differently. She suspected that it also had to do with other conquered kingdoms, as it was with the Empire. Where the new territories or border areas had a different dialect than the core provinces of the empire.
Unfortunately, Neilos had only written down a few words in the other languages and from his entries, it was clear that he had difficulty learning the local dialects. Let alone their written language. But it was a start, which showed her that there were texts in this library that she could read and if she was lucky, maybe she would find a translation of such a text. She suspected that if this text was translated, she would be able to recognize it by its name because the names she found otherwise were written differently from that of the author or Vanadium.
So she searched further and found some other texts which she could read, unfortunately not yet a text in the dialect of the texts in the upper area of the library. None of them had similarities with these or were written in another similar language.
Nevertheless, she found more and more texts that she could read, it seemed that the new cities created a lot of magical texts and sent them inland as well as other scientific texts. So there had to be copies in other dialects and slowly she was able to find some copies, which were still not enough for the books above because they were still in another language, but still, she was able to translate more texts.
This is why she took the trip every day and spent a few hours in the library working on learning the languages. Which was a slow process and she had to dig through tons of books, scrolls, and individual sheets just to make a little progress.
At the same time, she was working on deciphering the runes of Diva's prison when she wasn't training her arcane skills or in the library.
However, she did not miss the change that was happening around her, there seemed to be a fear and strange feeling among the Larrua. Which seemed to divide the Larrua into two camps. On one side Eder and his followers and on the other Grigolin, the leader of the clan.
At first, she didn't know what it was all about, but after a few days, she also knew what it seemed to be about. It seemed to be about betrayal, something she was kindly left out of.
Which is why she was surprised when Eder approached her while she was alone in the library.
