<~> Chapter 225Man ractically skipping with excitement as we headed to the Great Library of Sorsette together. It was the st day before the raid and we didn't have anything pressing to work on, san really wao get her own membership to the Libraries of Sorsette finalized. Since we were going there anyway, we decided t the others who hadn't been with us st time to get their memberships as well. We headed there in a group made up of the twins, Lorriene, Raya, Sibyl, Mimi, Silva, and Cecilia. Bel was tinuing to meditate and practiature magic with Neali so she deed to e with us this time. Despite being so effective at learning from the nature magic book, she preferred hands-on training and Neali seemed happy, maybe even eager, to help her learn. So, sihat was what Bel wanted, I left her to it.

  When roached the library we could see that there were still a lot of guards patrolling the borders of the rge tower that cut into the skylihey weren't standing guard in front of the entrance like they were during the st riot, but there lenty there to make a statement. I have a suspi they didn't alatrol the library the way they are now, but with the increased tension iy, it's probably a wise precaution.

  "You seem just a little excited Man," I teased.

  She turo me with a bright smile. "I've always dreamed of having a membership to the Great Library, but I hought I'd be able to get one! I'm even more excited tha time I was here!"

  "What's the difference? We were here with Lilith not that long ago," Torien asked as we walked up the steps.

  "But this time it'll be my membership!" she said enthusiastically.

  Torien ughed but left it at that.

  The library was much more busy than it was the st time we were here. There were a lot of people sitting on benches and at tables carefully making their way through the books they were reading. Most of the people were showing the books great reverence, which felt quite different from how casually I remember people treating books where I came from. It wasn't too surprising sidering their value here.

  As roached the desk Sophia waved us over to ay line. "Wele back Lilith and friends. I take it that you're here tister everyone who wasn't able to visit st time?" She asked while looking over roup with a smile.

  Man froze as she looked at Sophia. "Are you...?"

  Sophia smiled and put a finger up to her lips. "Shh, it's a secret," she said winking at her.

  "Right..." Maantly nodded in reply.

  "Great! Pce your hand here!" Sophia gestured to the round stoablet on the desk. I could tell a few people in the normal line were looking over at roup, ied in the head librarian personally registering my friends.

  Man pced her hand oablet and a moment ter Sophia pulled out a silver card and pced it on the desk in front of her. She picked it up and rahumb over the embossed letters. "It has my name on it..."

  "Of course, dear, it is your membership card. I wele you to the Great Library of Sorsette," she said gently tan.

  Torien took her pce at the ter when I pulled the enthralled Man away from the desk. "I made sure to e early enough for you to spend most of the day reading. Why don't you get started on that while the rest of us register?"

  She flicked her eyes up at me, she had a beaming smile and tears in the er of her eyes. "Alright! I'll go look for some of the books I didn't get to read st time."

  "If you want to have something copied bring it to me and we see what we do. I'm not pnning on having any copies made before we leave the city so if there's something you would like, ool es."

  She hugged me. "Thank you, Lilith."

  I patted her on the shoulder. "No problem. Go have fun, I'm going to do some reading of my own once we're done here."

  "If you would like, I arrao have a private meeting room set aside for yroup today. I have some avaible ohird flht now," Sophia said, cutting into our versation.

  I looked at Man and she nodded bae.

  "That would be great, thank you very much Head Librarian," I said with a respectful nod.

  "Of course, Miss Baphomet. Happy to help." Sophia went back tistering the others so I sent Man off to go find some of the books she was ied in while we wait.

  Sophia paused when she reached Sibyl. "Ah, Miss Sibyl. I wao ask if you are still using your surname."

  Sibyl frowned. "I think it would be better if I didn't. It would lead to some questions that I'm not really equipped to answer..."

  "Of course, my apologies. Please pce your hand here."

  Sibyl's eyebrows rose and she looked up at Sophia who had a small smile on her fabsp;"It's gone..." Sibyl whispered.

  Sophia nodded. "Sometimes things like titles and surnames cause issues in the system. They are something that is quickly rectified once discovered, however." Sophia then lowered her voibsp;"I made sure to update the Adventurer's guild as well, don't worry about a mismatch."

  Sibyl slowly nodded her head as Sophia finished up with the rest of the group.

  Once she was doh that, Sophia took the round stone away and brought out a key with a wooden tag that had 308 burned into it. "This is the key to the meeting room. I've registered it under your name Miss Baphomet. Please return the key before you leave the library."

  I smiled at her. "Thank you again for all your help, Head Librarian."

  She returned my smile and gave a short bow. "Always happy to help, Lilith."

  "Oh, and I wao thank you again for that book. It's been very useful to me," I added.

  "Of course, it was something that I thought would prove to be quite useful for your research. I've heard that you have already developed new ritual magi the fields of stru and cartography. I'm pleased it has already been helpful to you in the short time you've had it."

  "It has been. I'm excited to see what else I create with it."

  She smiled. "I look forward to seeing what else you e up with. Unfortunately, I don't have any more time I spare you and your friends today. I'm very busy and I have some other work to take care of. If you need anything else, please ask one of my librarians. I would have asked Theo to e visit with you, but he's already bee out to handle aask outside the capital."

  "He's not in the capital anymore?" I asked.

  She shook her head and chuckled. "No, I'm afraid not. He was hoping to get some time to rex but it wasn't meant to be." Sophia walked out from behind the desk. "I hope to see you again soon, but I know that may not be possible. So I'll wish you well instead. Have a safe trip."

  I smiled. "I'll do my best."

  She nodded and walked away as roup headed for the bookshelves.

  "I guess everyone should grab a book or two a me up in room 308 ohird floor. Will someone go tell Man what room we're in?" I asked.

  "I'll tell her. I have a good idea of what se she's in," Torien offered.

  "Thank you, sounds good."

  I decided to do a little researy own while I was here. I o do some resear the gods. I only know of the ohat have e up so far but I've never gotten a prehensive list of who the major and minods are and what domains they have. Even if it's not as immediately relevant to what we're doing tomorrow, it's critical that I know more about them, and a library is the best pe to look something like this up.

  As I was searg for the theology se, I happened across a se of books written in Elvish. It then occurred to me that one of the requirements for [Sightspeak], the passive skill that allows me to read any nguage I speak, required me to identify the nguage before I could uand it. While I'm here I should also look at as many written nguages as I find so that I trahem iure. The library is a pce where I take doles of different nguages so that I identify them when I e across them ter.

  Sihere's a sign saying the nguage of the books in this se is written in Elvish, I already know what nguage these are in without having to identify them, but if I came across these iure I wouldn't necessarily be able to figure them out at a gnce. My eyes trailed across the spines and found one of the books was about the gods. wo birds with oone. I picked up the book and flipped through it. The book was handwritten, or looked to be, and it had a good amount of information on each god and goddess, especially the ohe Elven people dealt with the most. I also grabbed a book on grammar just to see if I could get a full alphabet or sylbary from it. It was still uo me what writing system the different nguages used but this was a good way to find out.

  A thought occurred to me though. What would be even more useful to me would be something like a rosetta stone. Maybe a book already existed that had samples of many different nguages already collected together. I walked around for a little while looking for something like that before running into a librarian. The older man wearing purple robes was carefully rearranging books on the shelf to make room for some on the small cart he was dragging around.

  "Excuse me, sir, do you know where I might find a book that has samples of many different nguages and properly identifies whiguage each sample is written in?"

  His brow furrowed and he looked away in thought. "Hm. I'm not personally aware of any book like that. Let me ask a few of my collogues and I return to tell you if a book like that is avaible. Will you be here for a while?"

  I nodded. "I should be here most of the day, I'll probably be in room 308 ohird floor with my friends."

  "Excellent. Yes, let me ask a few of my co-workers and I'll see if I find something for you. Out of curiosity, is this for a skill?" I was caught off guard to hear him ask that so directly. In respoo my rea he quickly added, "Oh, if you do not wish to share, that's no bother. I was just curious because a few of my colleagues have an ability called [Sightspeak] and that is usually earned by transting a rare or dead nguage. I was hoping that if you needed such a book for that reason, you might be able to share a sample of the nguage you transted with us."

  I was surprised but it made sehat I wouldn't be the only oh a skill like that... "Yes, I stumbled on that skill for transting a nguage called English, but I don't have any written samples of it on me. I could probably reprodue of it if I had some time but I'm leaving the capital tomorrow m."

  "Hm... that's a shame. Would you perhaps be ied in transcribing a book into English for us? I would be able to gift you a copy of a book and the Library remue you when you finish the final copy. Dropping it off at any Library of Sorsette would do."

  I kind of liked the idea of having this as a side project. "I'm not sure which book I would want to transcribe but I think I would be happy to do something like that. What kind of payment are we talking about?" I asked.

  His face lit up. "That would be great! You have a copy of any book that's not in the restricted se and this won't t against your scribe pages if you have any. The payment would be somewhere between one and five gold depending on the particur work you would be copying. The more on, verbose, and popur the title the better, because that would make it easier to create further transtions iure."

  "I'll sider it then. I'll have to talk with my friends and see if there's anything they would be ied in for a project like this."

  "Of course, take your time. I'll talk with some of my fellows and see if I have a book that would be useful for someoh [Sightspeak] or a simir skill."

  I slid the Elven grammar book ba the shelf where I found it and tinued perusing the shelves.

  Saine

  Hello! Library time! The characters are still tying up a few loose ends before they get ready for the infiltration. And Man finally gets her library card! The couple chapters are going to have some iing stuff. Thanks for reading!

  EDIT: I'm going to be busy in December so I'm going to reduce the amount of chapters I post to once a week for each story instead of twice a week. I was thinking about just taking the entire month off but I figured people would prefer to get fewer chapters instead of pausing for the month. I really need a bit more time to recalibrate and deal with the holiday season. I've been burning my dle at both ends to keep up with the upload schedule with everything else going on. It will be nie to take a bit of a breather and be more energized into the new year.

  I'll be posting each story once a week from Ded until Dec 29th when I will resume my normal upload schedule. That means four less chapters of each story than usual this month. Umbral Feast will be posted on Mondays and Lilith will be posted on Wednesdays. That means the chapter of Umbral Feast will be posted Ded and the chapter of Lilith will be posted Dec 4th at the normal times.

  I hope this news isn't too disappointing but I need a bit of time in December to get everything under trol. Thanks as always for reading!

  Chey other story here: Umbral Feast

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