It spoke? Not that he should really be surprised anymore since Nympha could talk too, but this bird barely had a corporeal form to it as though its body could pass through solids. As he suspected, the bird named, Pisces sank through the thin metal bars, and flew through the open door. Wispy white wings settled on top of the spire and as its neck shook, vapors like white smoke dusted off its body. Pisces crooned, “Wel’ come on over, I’ve had en’of hide an’ seek. We’ve got things to sort ot’ and books to peck.”

The bird’s head rotated far around its neck, very owl-like, and its eyes changed back into those crescent shapes as it laughed at them. “Hurry now.” Its beak pecked the rim of the spire. Tic-tic-tic.

Several thoughts ran through Lark’s head: one, Pisces seemed very casual in nature, but the strange, little bird had been watching them since they arrived like a predator, and two, why did Sphinx do another casual bomb drop? This Librarian guy stored both Sphinx and his spirit familiar inside of SIM for what could’ve been all of eternity if they weren’t awakened by him and the Trinity Watch—and if Pisces was the Librarian’s spirit familiar, what did that make Sphinx? Another familiar?

Sighing helplessly, Lark had no choice but to go ahead by himself as Nympha seemed to be staring daggers into Sphinx’s back. She kept her distance away from Pisces and watched over them from the tops of a nearby plant stalk. Lark couldn’t help, but feel that she looked cozy in her natural habitat.

“So, you’re the one who in’herited SIM and now the library. Your name, please?”

“You don’t know it?” Lark blurted.

Pisces sheepishly waved his wing over his snowball-sized body. “Un’like that unique crea’ture over there, I don’t say I boast appraisal powers.”

“Oh I see…” Before they could encroach the next subject, Pisces became overwhelming flustered. His eyes went big, and tips of his wings shook. “And-and while I do say, we were play’ing hide an’ seek, I-I was seeing if I could catch your name like the others, but they never said it,” he swung a wing over at Sphinx and the other at Nympha. “I did he’ar this fellow’s — Gushi. You said it. I heard it then.”

Lark didn’t find an opening to interrupt, so he let the strange snowball carry on with naming the mouse over yonder, Nympha, and the Librarian’s subject’s new name, Sphinx.

“What was Sphinx like before?”

“Same as he is now, I sup’pose, with a bit less pieces,” Pisces answered and strange chuckle with his lisp cackled in the quiet library. The two of them looked over to where Sphinx was, hunched over the same desk he cleaned prior.

“You said he had an appraisal ability, isn’t that SIM’s thing?”

“The Professor once said, ‘inspiration comes in many forms,’ the one you call Sphinx was merely a stim’ulus that one could paint over and SIM, the brainchild of master’s lifelong work, the final art piece.” He flapped open his wings, eagle-spread, proud of his grand proclamation.

When Lark smiled back at him like a parent to a child’s wild imagination, Pisces hopped around the rim and avoided eye contact. “Let’s move on, shall we?”

His wispy body dipped a tiny claw into the pool of water. “C-cold!” The layers of silver vapors splashed water against the floor before he completely dived in. Several concentric rings rippled out, then stilled. Pisces never surfaced.

Lark tipped over the rim, looking for a single trace of the strange bird, but the bottom of the water was spotless. To his right, Nympha didn’t say anything, and to his left, Sphinx was still preoccupied at the desk. So, he looked at the slime on his arm. “Gushi, you saw him jump in too, right?”

The slime’s antenna swung up and down to answer ‘yes.’ It landed down onto the rim, taking a closer look to prove its point. Their reflections painted over the water. Then Gushi drew his antenna into an arc as if fishing for the drowned bird.

A sheepish giggle treated their ears as a column of water spouted into the air. Gushi pulled back, flinging beads of water like a sprinkler before Lark scooped it up by its tiny appendages. The fearful slime snuggled into his chest and the two retreated a few feet away from the geyser.

As the rush of water abated, bubbling into what looked like sea foam, Pisces reappeared in a form of a floating fish. Then the spire shook again, widening the base and another platform raised from underwater, protruding four green columns capped by a dome-shaped slab. Flowing water cascaded out the sides until it stopped growing.

From a distance, it would appear that the spire transformed into a freestanding mountain with a mini temple at the top. Dashing, curving lines of gold overlaid the smooth green columns, etching waves, scales of fishes, constellations and harp strings. The vaulted structure housed Pisces, who swam within the perimeter of the four structures, tapping each one with a fin and at every passing stroke, they would ribbon out, showing their long, paper-thin textures. After a tap, another part of his body glowed into a golden orange, granting him a stronger shape and mass.

Thinking it was okay to proceed(now that everything stopped shaking), Lark carried Gushi on his shoulder as the two made way up a short staircase to the round platform under the conical building. He could catch a portion of the dome’s top, which halted a bit over his head. Next, he waved to Pisces, who was now at face level with them.

Instead of the yellow, piercing eyes of a ghost, Pisces’ gaze mellowed out into roundish beads with the color of pond water. In place of the feathers were sunset-rich scales and his beak replaced by fish lips. A bubble flushed out of those puckered lips and it popped open in songs unfamiliar to them.

Lark closed his eyes, relaxing to the unusual sequence of sounds; it wasn’t exactly opera with stretched out trills but rather string-like as if someone were plucking their voices and then letting them vibrate with the crescendo of epic waves. Below the chorus was the melody of humming beach noise.

Nympha reappeared beside them. “Mer bubbles.”

While still wary, it seemed she couldn’t contain her curiosity. “It’s said that the Mer have the blood of ocean dragons and an Immortal. Their ichor, fluid said to be in the veins of the gods, allows them to breathe underwater.” Her eyes traced the golden lines covering the green. “All things pretty, however, tend to die quickly.”

A second bubble emerged and popped. “How was the present?”

“Very beautiful,” Lark answered to the fish, while Gushi mimicked the bubbles floating.

Pisces rounded out eyes fluttered into a satisfied smile as he dove deep back down into the pool, disappearing once more. One by one, the pillars fell in order into a small square and the dome came undone, crushing them down till the water could no longer be seen and the dome covered the spire.

“Whoa!” Lark reached out, shocked. “Hey, is he going to be okay?” he asked Nympha. Her earlier words had terrible timing, after all they had just met and he was finally learning the purpose behind SIM. His familiar merely shrugged. She didn’t know how other spirit familiars were suppose to act. Though she added, “I heard the merfolks were sundered by discord, the purity of their bloodline diminishing with each generation. They were already a dying breed long before my time in Celestia. He must be a remnant of a generation, now long gone.”

Like an egg cracking on the edge of a frying pan, the dome suddenly split open, revealing a dark-colored pearl. It sat on a bed of seaweed, with a perfect, unblemished countenance. A deep-space kind of black, which gave off a polar opposite vibe from the void crystal despite their similarity in size and shape. If this were to be sold on Earth, Lark was sure its opulence would attract the greed of any collector.

“Truly this unique goddess is know’ledgable.” Nympha’s cheeks darkened. Pisces spooked them from behind in his non-corporal form. “This is my one and only keeper of my soul. As the goddess has spo’ken, my kind has been absent from the world for a while now. Our flesh separated, but our sou’ls intact due to the ichor. Many of us have hidden away in such fine gems, waiting until the right person comes alo’ng to reclaim us. For me, I cho’se the Professor.”

Lost in thought Pisces rattled on, while resting on atop the pearl. “He co’llected my container at an ol’d witch’s stall—she sol’d me at a lower price seeing as my pearl did not work as intended. After that I was left at his research table for many long nights. He didn’t keep me hidden away, and I sat in an open jewelry box. While he was out, I was free to roam the library. Reading was always a pleasure of mine, you see, but I can’t touch things with this ghostly form. However, he’d have these magnificently large books open to pages full of color and script and there was one book always turning the page.”

Pisces squinted beyond the purple line and soft, blue tears welled up in his eyes.

“A bond developed between us, I would like to be’lieve, but he was mostly a strange person talking to himself into the inky night. And he would often say to me, as the pearl, that I reminded him of the unknown. The Pro’fessor would go on and on about exploring truths and to understand those truths we must take the light into our hands. Vague, yes?”

To this Lark nodded and with encouraged bravado Pisces rapped his wing against the pearl. “I thought to myself that night: Yes! He’s the one! To take the light, meant he would take it from others who’d dare hide it. He could reclaim my kinds’ truth, the truth that we were betrayed, outnumbered, and rallied to our deaths!”

Beside himself with grief, Pisces’ small body trembled. “What the goddess said was true, our communities were divided by not just coastal territories but pride. Oh, we were so foo’lish then to believe we were an almighty race that our powerful ancestry allowed us to be above others. So many of us then were tricked. Humans, Beastmen, the Vodanoi—ugh! Especially the Voidanoi! They banded together flushed us o’ut of our territories under the guise of trade, parties, treaties, any reason you could think of…and hunted us for our flesh and scales…our beautiful scales.” Pisces wept into his wing.

Flesh? Scales? Hearing all of the above made Lark’s stomach feel queasy. The first pang of guilt as a fellow human, and truly humans had a history of having no moral standards when it came to territories. The second pang of guilt, that he too, liked eating fish. Sky’s and Mishka’s favorite foods consisted of raw fish and rice. Thirdly, he almost forgot how these new worlds’ inhabitants tended to eat each other. Orcs, giant octopi, and now merpeople. His mouth souring, Lark dry heaved to the side.

“It was as if the Professor understood my plight, so I dared revealed myself to him in my bodiless form, whilst he was stargazing. And to my o’wn surprise, he was already aware of who I was. As a scholar, he knew of the tragic history of the Mer and proclaimed to me, he would his utmost best to right the wrongs and as a starting point he offered his reputation as the Librarian and presented the shrine of Koi.”

Koi? Like the Koi fish found in those Asian ponds? More confused than bemused, Lark looked around for Sphinx. Apparently, his guide hadn’t moved from the same spot, yet he intently listened from afar and winked at Lark.

Shuddering, Lark turned his head and continued to listen, while connecting that the collapsed green temple must’ve been the shrine of Koi.

“To other he had a re’known title as the Librarian. He was a master scholar, a teacher, and to me he’ll always be the Professor because while he could teach many areas of worldly subjects, he humbly spo’ke that he was a learner, a student, and the greatest respect of all would be to be given the o’pportunity to learn from other experts.”

Doesn’t that mean, he wanted to take advantage of you, Pisces? Lark lifted a brow, quiet. The bird gave off a chuckle.

“Although his intentions to seek out the Mer wasn’t for the sole purpose of retribution but for his own enlightenment…” as Pisces explained, a map of the Celestial stars covered the windows, “…I still felt he was the right person for this lifelong quest of mine. In exchange for his promise to me, I gave him my gem of Mer.”

Nympha whispered under her breath, “The black pearl!”

Pisces flew to it and said, “Co’me here, inheritor. I will be doing your reading.”

Lark extended a hand over the dusky gem and curled his fingers around it, only to find it slowly deform from where his fingers sank in. Bewildered, he pulled back. “That-that’s suppose to happen, right?”

“Exactly.” After Pisces assured Lark he didn’t do anything wrong, the pearl crumbled into several misshapen stones. They rotated on their own while Pisces studied them with complete focus.

Lark caught a few words the bird mumbled with each passing turn. Steady hands. Handicraft. Skill passover rate…75%.

When the stones stopped moving into different formations, they assembled back together into a sphere. Not a single piece out of place. Finished with the reading Pisces announced to Lark, “I will be recommending three books to your current level with a 90% chance or higher of obtaining attunement.”

“Attunement? Is that a skill?”

Pisces let out a long ‘ah’ and Nympha shook her head. “I can see why you think your guide is useless.”

While Pisces let his ‘goddess’ explain to Lark what attunement was, he went over to where Sphinx was, flapping in his face till they went off together in search of the texts.

“Little one, attunement is basically understanding and mastering the principle behind a skill. From what I gather, Pisces says these books have a high chance of teaching you the basics and obtaining attunement. But ultimately, it’s up to how far your talents will go.”

Lark rubbed his chin. “I sorta get it. Attunement is just being on the same wavelength with a concept. Being like one with all. Something like that.” Then he wore a smug face with his eyes closed.

“Based on your earlier performance, he could be choosing a book about sharpshooting, or particular crafting skill.”

Lark finger-gunned random objects, while pursing his lips. Nympha’s gaze drooped, clearly worried.

He turned to where he thought Pisces and Sphinx might be looking. To be honest, what he wanted the most instead of learning another skill would be an encyclopedic explanation of the world if that was feasible. There was too many things he didn’t know about the world of magic.

The slime patted his nose. Only Gushi seemed to understand him. He peeled the slime off his shoulder and nuzzled his face against the slime’s plasma coat. “Such a good pet, caring for me.”

This time Nympha let out a sigh and by the time Pisces returned, Gushi looked squished out. They walked over to the desk Sphinx had cleaned. The three books of varied lengths laid out. Coincidentally, their covers synchronized with starter elements: red, blue, and green. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a yellow-covered book in hiding. The only yellow thing in plain sight was the gleam in Pisces’ gaze. He stared down Lark with the utmost serious expression a ghostly bird could muster.

“I will n’ow explain them. Starting from the left, we have: A Study of Volcanic Ruins Part One, Volume One of an Ice Practitioner’s Guide to the Frost Mountain, and Volume Two of Study of Hands.”

A part of Lark’s face fell. Sphinx laughed.

Pisces partly perturbed, leered at Sphinx to shut up.

Obviously, he had something else in mind when Pisces said these books were going to help him learn attunement with his skills or more specifically, he thought they’d be more like skill books acquired in games. Clearly, he had some real reading to do.

Recalling that he could only take one back with him, Lark leaned in closer to examine each book. Gushi followed his actions, jumping onto the desk to take a closer look as well.

“Do you have an immediate preference?” Pisces asked.

“Not particularly, but I am wondering why there’s a volume two here.” He pointed at the green book. It had the thinnest spine of the bunch and Lark had a inkling it mostly contained pictures judging from the square pictograph on the cover, which was of a hand with two fingers pointed up.

“The Professor never got around to collecting volume one, so it remains missing to our collection. But since you asked about this book first, I shall explain why I’ve brought this one.”

Pisces flipped to a random page. Outlined on graph paper was a shaded-in drawing of a pair of hands crossed in front of each other. “Tell me what do you notice from this page?”

Oh no, a pop quiz. Knowing he shouldn’t answer with the first thought that crossed his mind, Lark took a few more seconds for himself to assess the picture. There were no scripts to be found in the margins to describe in concrete details what they were looking at, but the hands were drawn and shaded in with such detail, they looked very realistic.

“The artist used a female model to draw. You can tell because of how slender the fingers are. Their nails are also manicured to show that there’s no dirt under them. Plus, guy arms tend to be hairier or bulkier, but up to the elbow here, there’s no trace of hair and the muscle looks rather soft and the lines become delicate, or less shaded in. I cannot say why the hands would be drawn crossed over like that, but it could be an imitation of someone carrying something over their chest.” Lark stopped himself there as Pisces hopped over to him.

“My, if you weren’t the inheritor, you probably would’ve made a fine art historian from using so many words.” Chuckling, Pisces closed the book and moved onto the next one.

Too embarrassed to ask if he said something wrong, Pisces already began to go through the middle book. This time the book had no cover picture, but the sides were pattered with seams of dotted blue triangles.

“Consolidating, pacing, melting…there’s a lot of properties of ice you can learn from this book.”

And he hopped to the last book. “Likewise, this book will suggest different properties of fire, both magical and non’.”

“Uh-huh.” Lark cupped his chin. One of his eyebrows raised higher than the other. To be honest, he wanted to learn fire magic as soon as possible after watching Mishka’s Blaze. His belief that it was powerful power was reaffirmed after Silvina’s Firesword style. So, his eyes lingered over the red book longer than the rest and his left hand reached over until Gushi tapped on the hand modeling book. An extension of its slime appendage repeatedly poked the side of the book as if enraptured. A wave of its bubble antenna in front of Lark’s face couldn’t make it more obvious that the precious slime wanted its owner to choose this book.

“Is it really that interesting to you, Gushi? You don’t even have hands.” Sphinx muttered hiding a smirk.

“Do you sense something special about this one, bud?” Lark leaned in and Gushi tapped his nose. Smiling, Lark turned to the odd bird and made his decision. “I’m going to take this one.”

“You sure then?” Pisces presented the loosely bound book. “Although, you can always come back to exchange it for another, at your current spiritual level, your access to this library is about once per month.”

“I’m not really sure I get it, but it has something to do with SIM’s powers, right?” He turned to Sphinx, who gave a half-hearted shrug.

“As long as you understand,” Pisces continued and proceed to kick away the other two books once the green book was placed in Lark’s hands. “For the remaining am’ount of time we have left is there anything else you’d like to know?”

A wave of shock came over Lark as he realized Pisces was actually quite a reasonable fellow compared to the guide he’s been stuck with. In this moment of hesitation, his once in a lifetime opportunity was swooped by the purple furball.

“Where are we?”

“We are in a section of the Memory Palace before the Librarian’s research center was destroyed. Relatively, we’re… if my memory serves me co’rrectly, in the southern region kno’wn for its warm waters and clear skies.”

“You don’t have a name? Or any other information about this place?”

“No, I’ve never been ou’tside.”

“What do you know about the Centifire plague or the whereabouts of Goddess Celestia?”

“Unfortunately, the inheritor is not strong enough to receive this privileged information.” He gestured to the purple glowing partitions. Nympha’s ears gave a small twitch and she turned to Lark, who immediately shrank back under her stare.

“Simply put, it’s too early for him know,” Nympha said in resignation. “I understand.”

“I’d say at his current gro’wth rate…in about ten years, he can unlo’ck the seco’n part o’ the library.”

Lark’s entire body stiffened. Sphinx laughed in his ear. “You have to think long-term, inheritor. It’s a long game.”

In that one statement, Lark felt he had aged, looking for a path beyond what he could see.

“Better ask what’s on your mind fast, your body is beginning to fade.”

Lark flipped over his hand. Both his clothes and shape of his arm were see-through. It was like that time when Sphinx sent him back with the knowledge of how to make Wangshi’s healing potion.

“Already?”

“The library swallo’s up more energy than SIM to maintain, but we’ll always be in this point o’ time and place.” Pisces looked ready to take a snooze with his beady eyes drooping halfway closed.

“W-wait, how do I come back here? And ten years…I don’t even know where I’ll be then.”

“Every thirty days, you can access the library through SIM. It’ll show up in the menu bar. As for where you’ll be in ten years…” Pisces folded his wing over half his face. “I don’t kno’ because I’m not all-kno’wing .”

Lark shook his head; eyes to the floor. “That not what I meant.”

“I know.” The bird puffed up his feathery chest, taking in a deep breath. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Your short term go’als may end up further than you can imagine.”

With that final response, the wonderful bell struck in Lark’s mind, and he vanished alongside the slime and mouse.

The bird released a chirpy yawn and hopped off the table, making a beeline towards his cage only to collide into Sphinx’s chest.

“Don’t go to sleep yet, Pisces—what’s the deal with the ball?”

“S’o not even your prideful appraisal abilities can see through this one?” Pisces flew around him to sit on a twisted tree branch.

“I’m not totally omniscient either,” Sphinx lips contorted into a nasty grin. “Oh wise Pisces, please do tell how the Void Crystal broke.”

Pisces faced forty-five degrees away while ruffling his feathery coat. “The slime’s abilities are unnatural. SIM’s data collection said it’s from ZZZ, but it doesn’t show its affinity baseline. You’ve spent more time with the inheritor, don’t you have an inkling why?”

Sphinx crossed his arms, thinking momentarily before another smile sprouted and he said, “Oh-hoh. You mean to say, this could be a unique slime.”

“I’m not saying exactly that, but as for the Void Crystal, it’ll be repaired slo’wly as long as it absorbs the sand for a while so no need to be so emotional.”

“Is that all? I’m going back to sleep.”

“Wait,” Sphinx said smiling. “I wanted you to know that the gift for the inheritor was the closest to a cosmic symphony I’ve heard.”

“Liar.” Pisces turned his face forty-five degrees again. “Be sure you can protect the master this time.” As soon as he said that he hurriedly hopped away into his cage, closing his eyes peacefully.

Sphinx scoffed. No one trusted him. What a surprise.

Lark should be close to waking up, he thought to himself, yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave. For the longest time, he didn’t turn away from the wooden desk. It might as well have been covered in dust again. How much time had passed since he studied here? Hundreds? Thousands of years? Less than a decade perhaps, since Pisces still acted energetically.

A small part of him felt he owed an explanation to the familiar, but if he or Pisces said anymore—about the Centifire plague, surely their wills would crumble just like this wonderful place. Ten years from now, he will witness the inheritor overturn fate.

And someday, he’d return here.

Light from the magic lanterns gleamed green tones over his lone figure. He saw the books on the floor and placed them back onto the table. He too, then hopped onto the desk before the thick black walls and pallid blue floors weaved together and the hidden instruments in the room, which the Librarian spent so much time and money collecting, dimmed in his view; the face of his previous master replaced by the inheritor.

Truly, Lark’s actions managed to stun him once again. Yet, no matter how many times he had to reset, each simulation only further affirmed his belief that Lark would only grow stronger with each experience and sacrifice. He had to trust his ward.

“Rest well Pisces,” he said while closing his eyes. This was enough - for now.