The mercenaries took a defensive formation around my family and me as we moved towards the first door towards the back of the fortress. These side doors looked as if they were carved from a single giant piece of grey stone. No blue pulses ran through this type of stone. Instead, the door had an intricate picture carved on the front depicting an open book sitting atop a round sphere that looked like a planet.
I reached out to touch the door but before my hand could get close, the door automatically swung open. My mom drew her weapon instinctually at the sudden movement, as did many of the mercenaries. However, just like how the front door of the fortress closed on its own, there was nobody nearby that could be responsible for this door suddenly swinging open.
My mom blushed in embarrassment as she sheathed her weapon and followed me into the room beyond the door. Inside, we were met with the sight of hundreds and hundreds of empty shelves. The shelves might have once been carved from the same stone as the door, but it was hard to tell. Both the shelves and the ceiling were coated black by a thick layer of soot. Someone had burned whatever had been here once upon a time.
Only one small corner of the giant library looked like it had been cleaned since the fire. There, a few dozen books and scrolls sat. pulsing blue light from the wall gently coated each of them, protecting the books from the wear of time.
Before I could say anything, Charly ran ahead of the group. He practically sprinted up to the books with a giant smile on his face. He was barely able to stop himself before touching the blue glow around the books. “Do you think these were left by the ancient people you mentioned?”
I wanted to remind Charly not to run off on his own, but since he seemed safe, I decided to ignore it for now and just sighed. “No. Those books were likely left behind by the Guardian that owned this place before. Look around, the Preateritum burned everything here before they abandoned this place… Just like every other ruin ever found of them.”
“Burned!” Charly blanched in revulsion, “Why would they do that?”
“Nobody knows,” I said as I shook my head, “With no records, we can only guess. The prevailing theory is just a guess but experts say the Preateritum stumbled upon another great empire while exploring the different realms and started a war they could not win. When defeated, they burned and destroyed almost all their creations and writings so that they would not fall into enemy hands.”
“That… is such a waste,” Charly replied as he looked at the hundreds of empty shelves all around us, “How much knowledge was lost in just this room alone?”
“We will probably never know,”
“Can I read the books here?” Charly asked, motioning towards the few dozen tucked in the corner.
I hesitated as I examined the blue glow that covered each of the books. “We can try after we finish exploring the rest of the building.”
Charly nodded, looking back at the books reluctantly as he trudged back to the group. We examine the rest library carefully. It took us several minutes of walking just to reach the back of the room. however, no matter where we looked it was all the same. Not a single piece of paper remained besides the small corner at the entrance to the library. It seemed that the Guardian had not cared much for this room when she had controlled the building. Despite Charly’s disappointment, this actually gave me hope for the few books she did bother to gather. If they were important enough for her to collect, despite obviously not caring about the library, then they might hold some important secrets. Of course, they might also just be fictions she enjoyed and be completely useless to us. There was no way to tell without getting them off the shelf and I did not want to risk that until we knew more about this place.
Exiting the library, we re-entered the main room. I eyed one door in the very back of the room but decided to try a different door first. Based on placement, my dad guessed this one would probably lead to one of the towers, and guessed right. However, despite our initial excitement at finding stairs followed by a new door at every level, we were quickly disappointed. Every single room in the tower was only a bedroom. A few pieces of furniture were still intact, but most had rotted away. It seemed the building did not consider this place important enough to protect the furniture with the pulsing blue light as it did in the library.
The more we explored, the more our caution faded. Everything we found was incredibly mundane for such a magnificent building. Behind one door was a massive kitchen and canteen. Another door was just a massive empty storage room with only a few rotted and rusted trinkets left behind. From what I could see, none of them were anything of value anymore.
There was another empty room, but this one did not look like it was made for storage. Hundreds of thousands of pulsing veins filled this room and formed into a strange pattern on the floor. This room interested me greatly as it reminded me of something I had seen in the Fifth Division. I spent a long time examining this room, trying to learn how it worked. In the end, I could not figure anything out, so we left the room alone for now.
It was only when we entered the second tower that we finally realized what this giant building really was. Lines of stone desks all faced a single wall where a raised platform stood.
“Is this entire place… just a school,” my mom whispered in disbelief.
“Reminds me more of the repository of knowledge created by the guardian down in Aegyt,” I mused thoughtfully, “I wonder if he based it on this place.”
“What difference does it make?” Donte said as he kicked one of the nearby tables, “How is any of this supposed to help us fight Envy?”
“Donte has a point,” my mom said as she looked around, “As far as legacies go, I was expecting something more… like a weapon.”
I bit my lip as I walked out of the classroom. My mom and Donte were right, a school would not help us. If this was a normal school that is. I knew very little about the Preateritum people, but I knew more than the others. Throughout my previous life, I learned of exactly two intact Preateritum ruins. One was a giant tower that became the shield of the City of Tressa and a significant part of the First Division's overwhelming power. The second had been a building that looked like a church and was the foundation of the entire Fifth Division. From those two examples, I learned something important about the Preateritum. Even the most common of their buildings could be considered more powerful than any weapon if used correctly.
I moved back towards the main hall, eyeing a door I had been avoiding until I knew more about what this place had been. It was the only door against the back wall behind the crescent desk that faced the front door. My family and the mercenaries followed me curiously as the door opened before I could touch it.
Past this door was a room unlike any other. It was completely empty save for millions of pulsing veins of energy all emanating from a single pedestal in the middle of the room and a few elaborately carved depictions on the wall. Floating above the pedestal was a single fragmented stone, smaller than my fingernail. The stone glowed brighter than any other point in the building, beating like a heart as it sent energy into the veins that ran through the entire school.
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On the ground were thousands of other broken fragments of the same stone. All of them had lost their light as they lied dull and shattered.
“They tried to destroy this too,” I heard Donte whisper as he stepped into the room. His eyes were transfixed on the glowing stone. I was about to say something to him when Charly distracted me.
“What are these carving on the wall? Is this the history of the school?” Charly asked as he ran his hands across the carvings.
The carving showed eight people standing in front of a picture of a now-familiar building. Each of the eight held a single item in their hand, a book, a vial, a plant, a map, a complicated diagram, a brush, and a sword. Their likeness had been carved in intricate detail. You could almost believe they were standing right in front of us. All except one of them. A single figure was completely blacked out as if someone had come later and completely removed the figure from the carving.
I was curious about the blacked-out figure, but there was little I could glean from the first image except that they might have been shorter than the others, so I moved on to the second carving. This carving showed the same eight people standing in front of many small figures I guessed were children. once again, a single figure was completely blacked out.
There were more images carved into the wall depicting the accomplishments of seven of the eight figures in more detail, but for the eighth, the stone was completely shattered. It looked as if someone had slashed the final carving dozens of times with a sword or axe.
The final image on the wall was carved with much less care than the others. It depicted only seven people standing in this very room as one of them struck an orb on the pedestal with a sword.
“Do you think they were betrayed?” Charly asked as he ran his hand across the blacked-out figure.
“That is what it looks like,” I replied with a sigh, “Whoever this person was, they---"
I was cut off by an ear-piercing scream behind me. I spun to see Donte screaming in panic as he pulled on his arm desperately. The glowing blue stone was shining even brighter now as a light blue crystal was quickly spreading to Donte’s outstretched fingertips.
“I told you not to touch anything!” I shouted furiously as I sprinted up to Donte.
We were only separated by a few steps, but by the time I reached Donte the crystal had already spread up to Donte’s wrist. I cursed loudly as Donte desperately pulled at his arm. He was practically crying now as panic started to overtake him. No matter what he did, Donte could not separate himself from the stone.
I pulled out my dagger and activated the purple gem. Careful not to cut Donte, I moved my blade across the encroaching crystal. I paused in disbelief. For the first time since I had gotten the blade, I found something it could not cut. My blade did not even leave a scratch on the crystal.
I continued trying to cut or burn the stone or the crystal, but nothing I did had any effect. Within seconds the crystal had crept all the way to Donte’s elbow where it finally stopped growing.
Donte was hyperventilating as he looked down at his arm completely encased in crystal. “Wren, you can get me out of this, right? Right?”
“I… I don’t know,” I stuttered as I desperately tried to think of some way to free Donte.
Before I could think of anything, Donte started screaming again. The crystal was no longer spreading, but instead forming sharp needles that stabbed Donte’s arm. Blood flowed freely as Donte pulled on his arm frantically. The crystal turned red as blood flowed from his arm into the crystal and then into the stone at his fingertip.
“Stop panicking and focus on your talent!” I shouted as I slapped the boy to get him to focus.
Donte grit his teeth as he stared down at his arm and nodded. His eyes began to glow, but just a quick, that glow disappeared. At the same time, I saw something similar to smoke flow from Donte’s arm and into the crystal before flowing into the stone and disappearing.
The small stone on the pedestal began to glow so bright I could no longer look directly at it. A sound like a heartbeat began to fill the room as the veins that filled the room began to pulse faster and faster.
Then, the entire building began to shake.