"All of you, come. If the city is going to fall, then I won't hold back." The man looked off into an empty part of the room. "Twy, you might as well reveal yourself."

  Leo's priestess materialized, leaning against the large windows, next to the piled-up heavy curtains.

  "What gave me away?" she asked nonchalantly as she stepped into the sitting room.

  "When I suggested he become a Wayfinder, the shadows tightened in that corner." The old man smirked at her. "For a Priestess you should be harder to goad than that. You are a bit unbalanced these days, my dear." His eyes flickered to Leo, as though there was something left unsaid between them.

  Leo’s eyes widened at the appearance of his minder. I wondered how many times she’d appeared out of thin air around him. It’d make me paranoid.

  The Priestess shrugged, "It's hard to be balanced at the end of days, isn't it, old man?" She uncurled from the shadows, her tall, lithe form stepping into the dim light of the sitting room. The tip of her longbow was visible over the back of her head. She wore the same leathers she had in the cavern, and two magically imbued daggers strapped to her waist. She looked like death incarnate.

  "Alright, follow me." The [Archmage] stood, moving towards the statue that I assumed was of his long-lost wife. With broad shoulders and a crooked nose that matched Argin's, she stood proudly with a hammer in hand. He reached forward and tweaked her nose with a grin.

  A low grating responded to his action as the bearded statue shifted, revealing a hidden spiral staircase.

  Meredeath and Ash exchanged a look, Ash muttering about trusting men with hidden staircases.

  I looked at Tandy. She shrugged. What did we have to lose? We followed the [Archmage] into his lair.

  The spiral staircase extended down into what seemed to be bedrock. The iron stairs were bolted right into the stone. Despite the warm promise of light through the grated stairs, I had to suppress the urge to freeze. The air was chilly, dusty like a tomb.

  "This was the family home of the Stone Wardens," Pops explained as his slippered feet descended. "I had to change it to fit my needs as the [Archmage] pretty significantly."

  "This place is full of death," Meredeath hissed. Her steps faltering.

  "Indeed, [Death Knight]. This was their family mausoleum, but I needed a library, an experimentation lab, and a study." I was having doubts about my decision to follow the creepy nine-toed [Archmage] into his lair.

  The staircase wound down, opening up into a rotunda with pillars highlighting different alcoves full of statuary. The middle of the room contained a few lines of bookshelves with a grand desk, and a table surrounded with glowing runes. Ambient light backlit the statues, casting shadows against the ceiling, giving it a sinister appearance.

  "What do you think, Cole?" Pops asked. As I tried to plan a polite reply, he clapped his hands. The light in the room brightened, banishing the shadows, as the ceiling lit up in a glowing rune. "There, now even the Rock Slug's influence can't penetrate these walls."

  "That's what she said," Leo snickered. Tandy elbowed him, and for a moment we were back in Woodsten ready to get dressed down by the principal for our latest prank.

  "It's... uh... cool?" I said, unsure what the [Archmage] was looking for. That apparently wasn't it, as his shoulders sagged.

  The man walked over to his row of bookcases. Each book looked individually bound and kept in pristine condition.

  "While the statuary are the heirlooms of my wife, and Argin, these books are mine." He looked down at Tandy and added, "And yours."

  The man reached out, caressing a cover as if it were an old lover. He was getting creepier by the minute. I shuddered to think what he'd do in the Library of Alta.

  The books were odd in that the spines didn't seem to have the title of the book, but a topic that it covered. Reading a couple of them, I realized that these weren't topics as much as names of spells. Slow. Dancing Lights. Ball of Fire. Levitate. Font of Correction. Purify. Displace Stone. None of the books overlapped in spell or topic.

  "This is..." the [Archmage] said, raising his hands dramatically.

  "A library of spells," I spoiled Pop's grandiose moment.

  "Well, yes, but not just a library of spells. These two bookcases are a library of all the spells that are left, and those over there are just theory." I took a step back and examined the two cases he'd pointed at, trying to make a rough guess. Two, maybe three hundred spells, that was it? That's all the magic that stood between [Corruption] and the rest of us?

  The [Archmage] watched my face as I did the math. He leaned in whispering, "Do you see why your friend is so important now?"

  I didn't know what to say. Richard was oddly silent. I could feel him curled on my shoulders, but the slug hadn't so much as twitched since we'd come downstairs.

  Tandy was examining a book on one table. Meredeath had stepped towards a statue, her eyes flickering green as though she was using one of her [Death Knight] skills to commune with the dead. Leo and Twy were whispering to each other in the shadow of a hero on a pedestal with a tall wall shield held in an arm. Argin had joined us, her skin mirroring that of the surrounding statues. The dull gray stone that coated her body still retained enough flexibility, but I wondered how long she really had until it froze up on her. How long her consciousness would linger after it did.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Pops stepped away to whisper to Tandy. I watched Ash pick up a monocle and start examining a statue with it.

  "Is he right?" I whispered to Richard.

  About spells or Tandy? Richard had stretched his tentacles out to examine the row of books at shoulder level with us.

  "Both?" I touched a book on Destroy Undead, glancing at the [Archmage] to see if he was going to object. When he didn't, I pulled the book down and opened it up.

  He's wrong about both. The Library of Alta contains knowledge of all the spells of the last age. Richard looked over my shoulder, scanning the page I was on. Flip the page, please. The words on the page meant nothing to me, so I obliged. It was all about imagining runes in one's head. I'd never learned the runes, in a world full of skills, they weren't terribly useful. It seems like even the books and knowledge he has are incomplete. I flipped a few more pages, only to find the back of the book was empty. It was full of blank pages, waiting for the next [Archmage] of Cersapil to add their gleaned knowledge on the spell.

  "So Pops, how many of these spells do you actually know?" I had to ask. I wondered if he even had enough knowledge in the Destroy Undead tome to utilize the spell.

  The [Archmage] raised his head from talking to Tandy, he turned to examine me.

  "I'm familiar with all the spells." I noticed immediately the limitation of his words.

  "And how many can you cast?" I asked, closing the Destroy Undead tome and returning it to the shelf.

  An uncomfortable silence settled on the rotunda. A nagging suspicion had wormed its way into my brain, and I couldn't let it go.

  "Betula, here, is telling me she's only seen you cast a dozen spells," Meredeath piped up, gesturing to the statue of a giant woman. The warrior had armor that looked like tiles had been sewn together and a glaive in her hand. The ancient [Stone Warden’s] knees were bent as though she was ready to sweep her weapon at any provocation. She was using her [Speak with the Dead] skill. The [Archmage] winced.

  "I never claimed to be able to cast all three-hundred and sixteen spells. These are just the ones that we know exist. The ones that the family has seen someone cast since the end of the cataclysm. I'm less of an active [Mage] these days, and more of a scholar if I'm really honest." He gave a wan smile to Tandy. "You see, Tandy. That's why it's so important for you to help increase our knowledge. Study what we've collected."

  "The great [Archmage] of Cersapil only knows a dozen spells?" Sihd Twy's slow clap filled the room. Her haughty voice cut through the old man's ego. "What would the council say to that? You're nothing but a fraud, old man. Come on, Leo, we have work to get to." She snapped her fingers at Leo, who gave me an apologetic glance before following the Priestess back up the spiral stairs. Her boots clicked on the stairs in the silence.

  "So, I was wondering if Cersapil is about to be destroyed... Can I keep this monocle?" Ash interrupted Leo's exit, his excited voice holding none of Sihd Twy's judgement. "Cole, you need to look at this, buddy. It helps identify individual components, and it can also reveal damaged components on a crafted item!"

  "Yeah, you can keep it. It's probably the least I owe you, anyway." I almost felt bad for the defeat in his voice. Argin had rumbled over, leaning over the tome that still held Tandy's interest.

  I joined Ash. He handed me the rose-tinted monocle, and I brought it up to my eye. The world shifted. Ash brought a Dynammonite out on the table, of all things. As I looked through the monocle, it outlined different parts of the bomb he'd built. The shell casing, the fuse, the explosive, and the camouflaging tentacles.

  "Looks like that fuse has an issue. This one's going to be a dud if we do nothing with it." I plunked it back on the table, no longer worried about it going off in the library. The fuse had been lit up red, the material had gotten soggy and was no longer incendiary, making it virtually impossible to trigger anything. Ash was less convinced, grabbing the bomb and immediately popping it into his dimensional storage.

  I twisted around, examining the room. The [Monocle of Evaluation] worked like a multiplier on my [Analyze] skill.

  [Bookshelves of Preservation - These bookshelves have been optimized to withstand earthquakes and prevent degradation of materials within the shelves. This grants immunity to mold, dust, and deterioration for materials as long as they are kept on the shelves themselves. Note: these shelves do not prevent insect damage.]

  A diagram was an overlay on the nearest shelf, pointing out several aspects of the design that limited disruption and several preservation runes within the design.

  I turned it onto the statue Meredeath was communing with.

  [Betula Stone Warden - This is the magically petrified being that was Betula Stone Warden, the second Stone Warden of Cersapil in the Sixth Age. She was known for her revolutionary ceramic armor and her skill with a glaive. This warrior was also a prominent member of the city council advocating against the [Systematic] wave of skill and class reform following the fifth age. She petrified during the Battle of Huron, defeating the last outbreak from the desert dungeon [As Above, So Below].]

  "Did you know about the dungeon in the desert?" I asked, turning to Tandy, Argin, and Pops.

  The monocle fell onto Argin.

  [Argin Stone Warden - Argin is the twentieth and last Stone Warden of Cersapil. She has triggered the [Stone Savior] skill and is undergoing the petrification process. If she does not find equilibrium, this process becomes permanent. Argin Stone Warden is not in equilibrium. Argin Stone Warden is at 26% [Petrification].]

  "I knew there was one. I did not know it was active. No idea where it was." Argin looked at her grandfather in shock.

  "You knew?" Meredeath hissed, her hands going for her daggers. I would have reached for my hammer if I still had it. There were only so many unforgivable sins one man could hold.

  "I-I didn't know we were running into it until it was too late." The [Archmage] had shrunk in on himself, looking defeated. I got the impression he'd had some practice with deflecting.

  "Cole, Meredeath, it doesn't matter." Tandy looked up from the text she was reading. "This book explains what I've been doing."

  "Magical Basics Volume 1? I find that doubtful," the [Archmage] temporized, frowning at what he obviously considered a basic text.

  "No, it's the weaving and the music. Pulling from ley lines, lining the flows up is like music. I can hear them dance into place, then I throw the shuttle to freeze them in place or hold the tune if I need it to oscillate. I've been missing the pull of the ley lines." She turned two very serious eyes back at the [Archmage]. "Tell me everything you know about ley lines."

  Stumbling Up will be stubbing book 1 the week of March 1st (Chapter 1-71)

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