The library was a large black keystone in the town—an effigy to the power of the written word in more ways than one. Long having ceased to be a place where stories could be picked up and browsed through, or one could research a garden plant—a practice now reserved for the book-lending stores and the houses of the writers' guild—the library was an imposing fortress, designed to keep things in almost as much as it was to keep things out.

It was made out of heavy quarried stone, which was ribbed with iron. Small, lead-glass windows allowed little light transport from the inside to the outside. The library itself was guarded by an expanse of wrought-iron fence, and a vast, flat yard, planted with trees. The library itself was not even especially big—it was not an especially large town that it occupied—but it nevertheless ate up a tremendous quantity of space. The acres of tree-covered lawn separated it from the outside world, and the trees themselves—young trees, planted at even distances with the ground between them kept clear of any overgrowth—allowed the guards protecting the library ample time to see and apprehend anyone approaching the building proper.

The books in the library were either important, or dangerous, or both. City plans, secrets, records, lineages, rare tomes deemed too important for private ownership by the writers' guild, and, most importantly, magic. The huge iron ribs that buttressed the library and wrapped, unseen, around its foundations, were there for a reason.

Anyone who understood magic understood how dangerous some of the tomes inside could be. Some of the spells and theories in the pages of a book could unwind the universe, defocus time and shred the gap Between Spaces that gave the world its form.

Very few of those books would be stored in a library as small as this, but still—there was a tremendous value in magical books that most people felt justified the investment of such an oppressive fortress for them.

It was abandoned now, however. The guards and clerks guarding it had obviously fled ages ago. The library, however, remained unbothered. Whether it was through ignorance, or fear, or a simple lack of technical advantage, the library's doors remained unbreached. Two of its windows had been shattered, but the library itself was now abandoned and silent in the restless town.

Winn gazed open-mouthed up at the structure as he drew nearer. Rather than awe, it was reverence that compelled him to approach the grave and solemn structure in such silence. It was not enormous; it was not an architectural marvel. It was monolithic and scary, and the afternoon light filtering through a sky-consuming blanket of cloudy gloom hung as a starkly white backdrop to its dark and foreboding silhouette.

Through the agape gates he sauntered, distracted and slowing ever the more the closer he got to the doors, where he saw a pair of monstrous-looking, serpentine heads glaring, clutching metal-ring doorhandles in their fanged jaws. The library was closed; they dared anyone to say otherwise with their dank eyes, crusted in green oxidation and general outdoor grit.

Winn grasped a handle and pulled fruitlessly. He soon tapped on the heavy wood and wondered if he could have opened one of the huge oak doors even had they been unbarred.

"It's quite imposing, isn't it?" understated Rhiannon airily, as she coasted to a meandering stop some four or five yards behind Winn. She stood at the foot of the steps introducing the great, heavy doors; her head oscillated inurgently about the premises.

Her satchel hung loosely in front of her, supported by both hands, as she edged forward, surveying the gloomy grounds with mild interest. A crisp, cold breeze blew in suddenly, bringing with it a flurry of dead, crackling leaves, almost seeming to howl moodily as it wound around the old stone construction; to the superstitious or the highly imaginative, it might have seemed a warning.

"I suspect this is why so many are averse to literacy."

The boy pilot was not too far behind from the other two's arrival. In fact, he strode right up along with them, not appearing to want to lag behind. On their approach to the library, however, Adrian — a name he'd promptly announced upon the realization he'd not given anyone the pleasure of its knowledge — paused, head craning back as he beheld the new structure before him. Any sort of optimistic grin ceased to exist on his lips then, the pilot seeming actually a bit unsettled.

"I'm in full agreement there," he responded distractedly to Rhiannon's initial question.

"Haaauuuuhhh," Winn sighed thoughtfully as he stepped back, sizing up the door. He ran his hand across his short, messy hair and left it laying atop his head for a moment. Seconds of thought passed, then he approached again and laid his artificer-wearing hand on the door.

Luminous yellow lines highlighted the door's every line, crevice, and feature. He withdrew his hand and held it palm up; the lines shrank back from the door and formed a miniature that hovered over the device, rotating, and revealing the opposite side of the door, including a rather elaborate-looking eight-bar rotating lock mechanism.

Winn appeared to focus a moment, eyes squinting just so. The glowing model of the door faded, leaving only the lock, which then erupted into an exploded view, showing its many rune-etched disc tumblers with protective casing removed. The boy whisked the model away with a flippant twist of his hand, pressed his palm flat against the door once again, peered upward observantly, and...

*Cl-chunk clak-clak-clak.*

The doors came unbarred from the other side and swung open in well-oiled silence.

It was dark inside.

"Well," said a voice from the 'bove.

"That was pretty useful I guess."

The imp admitted this fact with cranky diffidence, as if it cost her an incredible amount to say as much. She stared down from her position on the giant's head—which she had taken to sitting on, half-way through the ride. Her legs were splayed out directly in front of her with a child-like simplicity, and her hands were planted behind her, palms down, keeping her squarely in the middle of the flat, white expanse of his skull.

She wriggled forward until her legs dangled off his brow and bumped against the bridge of his nose. The giant squinted reflexively and moved to rub said nose.

The imp dropped. Halfway through her descent, she caught onto one of the heavy metal chain that—spanning his shoulders and the girth of his torso—kept the massive array of packing-boxes securely on the giant boy's back. She swung back and forth as she made her descend, changing directions like a ball-bearing in a pachinko machine as she dropped from handhold to hand-hold, and finally arrived at the ground.

She winced at the impact and hopped a couple steps, favouring the foot that was wrapped in the bloody bandage.

"I didn't know you could do magic too," she said, flatly, to the boy.

"Can all of you do it?"





Inside the door to the library was an antechamber. The sole sound within was generated by an immense grandfather clock. It stood behind a large oak desk, and hacked out the seconds with grinding ticks, as if someone had long ago dropped a spoonful of sand in the top of the machine and—instead of being cleaned properly, the clock had merely been dredged in oil as a preventative, and left to its own devices.

It metered out units of time with a sepulchral, mechanical chewing noise.

Gritch, crch, gritch, crch, gritch, crch

On either side of the desk, whence the clock stood, was a set of double doors.

The left-most door of the left-most set was open. Anyone approaching the open door would feel a heavy draft, which smelled strongly of outdoors—of leaves and cold grass and the very faint—acrid hint of the burning coal smell which perpetually hung over towns of that size.

The witch beamed enthusiastically at the fabricator, eyes as wide and wonderous as they ever got as though she'd never seen magic in her life. At the very least, it could be said that she recalled scant little about Winn's profession and those who practiced it, almost as though a social taboo, or something...

Regardless, she mounted the stairs with impeccable grace, appearing more to float up them than scale them properly, but as she approached the young boy armed with congratulations and awe, their very conspicuous pursuers at last made their presence unignorable.

"Standard book of spells, chapter seven," answered Rhiannon dryly over her shoulder. "And no. Only us hags, and... technical... boy hags." The girl winced, throwing a desperately apologetic glance to Winn.

The girl squinted suspiciously.

"You said they were called whiches."

"Wiches," she said, chewing over the pronunciation. "Witches."

"It's actually— it's fabricator-assembler, in my case," Winn interjected, embarrassedly.

"Don't those words mean the same t—"

Boom.

The sound was muffled and almost inaudible, it was tangible though. The shock of the impact inside the library was a momentary heart-beat pulse in the air.

The girl breathed in sharply, and her hand flew to her the heavy band wrapped around her stomach.

Though also jarred by the sudden noise, Winn, half-crouching, half-sneaking for cover at the side of the door, perhaps inappropriately, perhaps compulsively, corrected the imp (though in a hushed whisper). "More at the 'creation' connotation of fabrication than, than the putting together definition, as in making the parts that are to be assembled, so it's— it's a finer distinction, linguistically speaking, but nonetheless, the point being I'm not a boy hag or a witch, I'm—"

It'd really probably be better to address what was going on inside.

"Shh!"

Rhiannon never even got the chance to be appropriately sheepish about her momentary ebb of eloquence. She stepped past the threshold, and walked guardedly into antechamber, towards the half-open double doors, boldly tracking the source of the clamor.

Suddenly, the atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife, and it wasn't just from what could be heard or felt physically... Something was unsettling in that library, and it was a something that stood completely apart from the architecture, or the ambiance, or desolation of the place.

The air became still, in that tense sort of not-silence wherein sound indeed continues; the ticking of a clock, the skittering of bugs, the settling of old boards, the draft of the breeze, et cetera, but at the I'same time, it felt like everything, all of that was being filtered. The witch stood rigidly, peering fervently into the inky darkness, and listening for... something...

She wasn't yet sure of what, but from the reprising chorus of booms, it was something big.

Adrian's next movement was so quick, it would seem like a natural reaction. His hand flicked downward to the belt at his waist, retrieving the pistol that rested there with a flowing motion, snapping it ahead and prepared as he faced what he'd believed to be the direction of the noise. The sword that had hung beside it remained stationary, however.

For the first time since the initial encounter with the boy, he actually seemed a bit tense as he listened to the echoing booms bounce through the chamber. He was prepared, from the looks of it, to tackle whatever danger dwelled in the depths of the library, his eyes darting around as if searching for a target. It was as if some buried, physical response had been unearthed from deep inside him, having waited for this particular situation.

This didn't seem to last long though, the steely gaze he held melting away as he came to realize his new behavior. Tight lips morphed into a grin as he turned right back to his former self that the others would be more familiar with. In the end, it appeared he was actually impressed as he glanced to his weapon, perhaps praising himself for his own cautionary and quick action.

He strode purposefully forward then, albeit silently, his voice low as he addressed Rhiannon.

"Want to take a guess on what's waiting for us here, miss?" he asked, almost sounding eager over the prospect of facing some sort of foe.

Shaking her head in brisk silence, Rhiannon hesitated on a single forward step, and then retreated two back. Her lips were taut, and her eyes intense, boring into the black intently, as though maintaining eye contact with something that couldn't be seen... Her the brass feet of her bag hit the floor, resonating with a clatter as the enchantress plucked her parasol off of her arm, not yet raising or opening it, but readying herself.

Again, the witch shook her head.

"I--"

CAW, CAW, CAW

Without warning, and with incredibly poor timing, the witch's estranged come-and-go crow swooped in through the open door, emerging noisily from the darkness beyond the antechamber and perching atop the grandfather clock, his initial crowing still resonating eerily around the room. If it were at all possible, he'd have probably been guffawing helplessly.