"Hello, anyone in here?" Oto called out as he entered an unfamiliar library. He'd been making his rounds around Resovult while looking for some kind of secret, he couldn't just sit around all day and wait for some kind of battle to happen again after all.
He'd always been the type to get a bit antsy while waiting on anything at all, it was part of the reason he'd taken up free running and parkour in his free time, the more he kept in motion the more he was able to relax and unwind. However now he found himself in some place he'd never have expected to uncover, it looked like a place Demea or Laurence would go crazy for, maybe even Feros if there were some interesting sword tricks in one of the books.
The strange thing though was he couldn't really pinpoint why he came down this way, sure games have hidden areas all the time but this? it felt TOO weird, like his gut was telling him to go this way.
Calmly he reached for a book, pausing only slightly for a moment before grabbing a specific green book and opening it.
Initially the pages were all blank, earning a scoff from Oto. "Figures they'd be blank, this area is too weird-" only to stop dead in his tracks as a few blue sparks of magic jolt from the pages and words begin to appear as if they had always been present on the page.
Oto could only stare dumbfounded at this as he stared at the book in his hands, trying to make out what happened.
"A guide to Creation, Chaos, and Causality?" Oto mummers the title of the book before flipping through a few pages, barely being able to understand a single thing.
The only thing to snap him from the book was the sound of footsteps approaching and Lily's voice calling to him.
"Oto, what're you doing here? How did you find this place?" She asked in a calm but bewildered manner as she approached him.
"That's what I want to ask you, this seems like an out of bounds area but it looks like it has some good loot... or lore, probably just lore." Oto replies casually, glancing around at all the books.
"Lore? There's nothing here it's just blank." Lily replies with a sigh before attempting to walk past him.
"That's what I thought but its not! See?" Oto holds out the book to her, which makes Lily freeze upon seeing it.
She quickly snatches the book from his hands and flips through it, bewildered as to how this book has anything in it. "Where did you find this?!"
"Just right here" Oto points a thumb at the shelf he took the book from rather calmly. "Strangest thing though, the book was empty until I started flipping through it and then the words just magically appeared again."
After pausing for a moment Lily gets a serious look on her face and cautiously asks "Can you try that again?"
With a shrug Oto grabs another book at Random this time and opens it, he flips through a few blank pages until those same blue sparks appear again and the words magically appear once more.
"Oto, how are you doing that?" She asks while checking a few more books only to be unable to replicate the effect.
"I dunno, I'm literally just flipping through the books, I'm putting no effort into this." Oto replies, confusion clear in his voice as he tries to understand the new book in his hands.
"Oto, I think you might have the key to unlocking the books in this place, that or you are the key for some reason." Lily utters with a surprising amount of calmness and clarity as she hands the book she took back to Oto. "I need you to stay here and work through as many books as you can, try to understand them and figure out what is going on."
"Me? You want me to do that? Isn't that more Demea or Laurence's wheelhouse?" Oto replies and rather tiredly looks over ALL the books in the area, he was starting to regret his choice in coming here.
"Yes, you, you're the only other one who knows this place exists and the books reveal their passages to you." Lily replies with a kind smile, make Oto sigh rather deeply in response.
"Fine, what are you going to do then?" Oto asks while sitting down on the ground now.
"Me? I'm going to go investigate something else, I think I've got another lead to follow."
Oto just rolls his eyes at this "whatever you say, just don't leave me here for too long, at least send someone back here with snacks or something."
This earns a small laugh from Lily who nods and begins to walk towards the entrance "I'll be sure to do that, I'll also be back if something big happens."
Oto just waves her off now and as she leaves he leans back against one of the book shelves and looks around. Studying was never something he was good at but for some reason there was this itch in his heart to read all these books, like a gnawing hunger he's only ever felt when he hadn't gotten to run in over a week. "Well, maybe this won't be so bad then... still wish I knew what the hell was going on though." he mumbles before he starts with one book and begins to read through it.
Meanwhile outside the building Six and Lily began their own conversation, discussing what just occurred.
"Six, how did Oto find this place? Do you think-"
"That he found it by accident?" Six interjects humming a little to think about it before continuing. "No, I doubt it. If this place was so easily discoverable by the people trapped in here those books would have more than just Ryder's writing in it. Something must've drawn him here."
"Any ideas?" Lily asks with a sigh as she begins her walk towards the city walls, curious if she could get a general direction of where the Dark Lord's army would even come from. "I'd throw out ideas myself but I think it's clear you know far more than I do."
"I can only think of one thing, he might have some strange connection to me."
"To you, really?" Lily asks, surprise clear in her voice.
"Yes, if he has some kind of connection to me such as bearing some kind of Crynos lineage or marking then its not impossible for him to have the ability to find places like this I've hidden." Six responds calmly "in fact I'd say that's the most likely outcome given the way this place seems to act."
"What do you mean by that? You pick up on something else?"
Six remains quiet for a moment before responding "I think this place is trying to push someone or something into a position of power, think of it as a trial if you will, however because the subject doesn't know this its unable to complete the trial properly."
"Okay... so what then? Is the trial something we can't imagine?" Lily asks while now slowly walking up a staircase, the sounds of her footsteps echoing around her as a strange sinking feeling begins to fill her stomach. With each step closer to the top more and more dread begins to build until she's hesitant to take even a single step.
"Well, I think it's simple really, the trial is the main goal of this "game", in this case becoming the one to take over the throne of creation." Six calmly replies, though is clearly feeling the dread as well as he's not urging Lily forward.
"Then what? Are we supposed to actually reach the end of this game and win?" Lily asks in a bit of a shaky voice as she musters up the courage to take one more step and make it to the top of the wall.
Now that she was up there she saw... no one, not a single soul, which was a bit comforting as she moved closer to the edge to look out at the open fields and towards where the lands fused into different eras.
"Possibly but I also think It's more complicated than that, I think we need someone who is specifically chosen for this. From my experience a war or ritual of this scale never actually existed in Velstan's history so I believe it's likely the game's influence on this place." Six replies as Lily sits down on the edge and takes a deep breath to calm herself.
"Then who should we-" Lily begins only to pause as her eyes catch something far off in the open fields of Resovult. Something no one else seems to have noticed yet.
A figure riding on a white horse, clad in black armor and silver fur cape, was briskly riding towards them. His eyes were like obsidian, hair tied up in a way that resembled Ryder's, and a bit of a stubbly beard on his face.
In his left hand was an ominous sword that seemed so dark it was absorbing the light around it, making it look more like a shadow than an actual blade.
That's when Lily noticed it, there was blood dripping from the blade, as if someone or something had just been killed by this man.
That's when Lily locked eyes with him, those cold dark eyes seemed to stare into her very soul, and then they seemed to light up with some kind of recognition. In the next moment she saw him mouth something, but couldn't quite tell what.
"..found you" Six uttered.
"What?"
Six hesitated before saying it again.
"He said 'I found you'."