This was the second prompt in the flash fiction month’s worth of prompts (which yes, I am tackling in order between other things), and you get to meet Arcadia. I may have taken this rather literally, but it worked out well. If I can get my act together there may be more of Arcadia’s story coming later on, and it gets gradually bigger to include others whom I may write about in the meantime. I’ve set this in the setting of the 13th Age roleplaying game because my original idea had been for a game with this plot. Enjoy!
Day 2: “Smoke hung so thick in the library’s rafters that she could read words in it.”
Arcadia stood in front of the large double doors of the Great Library of Horizon, clutching the precious letter of permission to enter the restricted section she needed for her wizarding academy final project. The library was an imposing building of ivory marble and shining brass, glowing like a beacon in the afternoon sun.
She lifted her skirts and opened the right-hand door, entering the relative gloom of the library and pausing to let her eyes adjust. It wasn’t dark, by any means, but the crystalline light fixtures were dimmer than the shining sun outside. The crystals also didn’t affect the books or scrolls in the way that prolonged exposure to light usually did. The interior was laid out in concentric rings, the upper floors visible beyond their balconies, all the way up to the skylights far above.
Arcadia turned from the always impressive sight and made for the Archivist’s office, near the information desk. She needed his secretary to approve the letter in her hand, and then there was some sort of magical key that allowed her into the particular restricted section… she wasn’t really sure how it worked. It was left vague on purpose, she imagined as she walked up to the door and knocked. If the details were known, some wizarding student or arcane-minded thief might try to bypass the system. Students were always trying to do things they shouldn’t, as Arcadia well knew, it had taken forever to get the appropriate permission to complete her final project. She knew there could be dangerous repercussions if the ritual spell went poorly, so she didn’t really blame her professors, exactly, but it had still been irritating.
“Come in!”
Arcadia entered the Archivist’s offices, a place she’d never been before, and was a little surprised to find a halfling woman at the full-size secretary’s desk. “Begging your pardon, I’ve got a letter of permission from the Archmage. I need access to the planar restricted section.”
The halfling beckoned her in, setting aside the paper she had been working on. “Come in, child, I’m not going to bite.”
Arcadia set the sealed letter on the desk in front of the Archivist’s secretary, trying not to steal glances at the papers just set aside.
The halfling woman set a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on her nose and grabbed a letter opener, touching the butt of it to the glittery wax seal — the Archmage’s official seal was a bit ostentatious, but he was the Archmage. There must have been some reaction, because she smiled and nodded, then broke the seal. She skimmed the letter quickly (no one read that fast, did they?) and looked up to nod again at Arcadia. “Everything is in order. Are you a student at the Academy? May I see your ID?”
“I am,” Arcadia replied, fumbling a little with her satchel to take out the magical card with her name, dormitory, a sketch of her face, and signature. It was tied to her, and the magic told anyone who sought to confirm who she was that it was legitimate. She handed it over.
The halfling opened one of the drawers of her desk and pulled out a… something. It looked something like a hole punch, with lever and hinge, but it had three small shelves, instead of metal punch points. The top shelf received her ID, to Arcadia’s confusion, though she recognized the sparkle confirmation that it was a valid ID. The secretary pulled an amulet from her neck and set that on the second shelf, and it too sparkled. That must be to make sure no one else could use this, whatever it was. The halfling reached into the same drawer and pulled out a small metal token about the size of a copper piece, and this she set on the last shelf. Pulling the handle compressed the three shelves together, and the secretary held it for a moment. “Dolmissien klaxankow,” she stated clearly. She released the lever and put her amulet back around her neck, taking the other two items and offering them to Arcadia. “This is your key to the restricted section. It will only work for you, but you must have it with you to enter. Some people tie it around their necks, or wrists… one person I’ve seen even made a bookmark out of it. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s with you. Your access to the restricted section must be logged, and the logs are checked against the key usage, so don’t forget. I do not recommend entering any section but the planar restricted section, for your permission will be revoked. Restricted section books are not to be taken from the section, and your notes must be kept private. Do you understand these rules?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Arcadia replied quickly. She already knew the rules by heart, she had no intention of accidentally getting kicked out of the section and not being able to complete her final project. She needed the connections a graduation from the Academy afforded, so completing her project was paramount.
“Let me know if you have any problems,” the halfling offered with a smile. The token-maker went back in her desk drawer. “Some of the older texts have… attitude. Don’t let them get away with it.”
Arcadia nodded, not quite sure how to respond to this. But it was a dismissal, so she smiled and let herself back out into the library. She knew exactly where the section she needed was, it was up on the third floor and in one of the side halls. Trudging up the steps, she examined the token she’d been given. It had the library coat of arms on one side, and a rune she only vaguely recognized on the other, with a small hole that would allow her to string it on a ribbon or fine chain. The chain might be wiser, she didn’t want to lose this. That would be a jewelry store purchase she hadn’t been planning on, but she would make it work, even on her shoestring budget.
For now, she carried the token carefully in hand and approached the wrought iron gate. There didn’t seem to be a slot she needed to touch the key to, so she just reached for the door handle. It opened smoothly and without the squeal of rusty hinges she had been expecting.
The restricted section was gloomier than the main hallways of the library, but she slowly realized that part of it was the gentleman in wizards robes seated at the table poring over a scroll, smoking. The smoke hung so thick in the library’s rafters that she could read words in it. She blinked at that, not sure if she were dreaming, and cleared her throat. “Excuse me? Should you really be smoking in here?”
At first it didn’t seem like the wizard heard her, but he belatedly jerked his head up to gaze at her. For a moment she thought he was going to snap at her for interrupting him, but he seemed to notice the token still held in her hand. He let out a bark of laughter instead. “This library has better protections on it than my pipe could break,” he told her. “Nothing will come of it.” And he turned back to his scroll.
That was good to know, but she wasn’t sure she was going to enjoy working in here with all the smoke. There didn’t appear to be a draft of any kind moving the air around enough to clear the smoke. Luckily, as she moved to set her satchel on the other end of the table, she spotted another table further into the section, after the first set of bookshelves. She kept going, and made for that table. At one end a quill was magically taking notes on the massive book laid open beside it, so she took herself to the opposite end of the table and laid out her notebook, quill, ink, and reference list, then set the satchel on the next chair, out of the way. She then pocketed the token still in her hand and looked around for the shelf labels that would guide her to the proper section. The first shelves were obviously labeled, but as she progressed into the History section, she found the labels were harder to find, and had to use the books themselves as markers of her progress. Scroll cases were on the outer walls, and she had to sidetrack to find the scroll she wanted. It seemed that the history of the magical center for healing was not high on anyone’s list, perhaps because no one knew what happened, making it hard to write. But she needed the signs which were noted, not the purpose behind them, because her theory would either prove the matter or fail utterly.
Arcadia knew her grandfather had been at the center for magical healing, and she knew what her family knew. It had frightened her then, but after the fact she was too young to really remember the frightening aspect, just that something had happened to her grandfather, who she barely knew. It made trying to solve the mystery far more of an academic matter, yet she was doing it because she knew her mother was still upset. It wouldn’t have stuck after this much rejection, otherwise.
When next she looked up from the scroll, the word ‘rejection’ hung in the smoke lingering over her table. This time she frowned and set aside the scroll. Once, maybe it was a coincidence, or she was imagining things. Twice…
She rose and returned to the previous room where the wizard was still smoking. “Excuse me? Is your smoke supposed to write words?”
He belatedly processed her presence once more and looked up to blink at her in confusion. That was answer enough. And it was true, out here the smoke didn’t seem like anything but smoke. It was further in that something odd was happening… or she was mad, like her grandfather. That had been suggested enough times over her study at the Academy, when this topic arose.
She returned to her things at the next table, and stood behind the chair. There were still words in the smoke above the table, but they were faint and didn’t seem to be linked in any grammatically acceptable fashion. The word ‘rejection’ had drifted farther down the row of shelves, but it was still legible even in the gloom. “Who are you?” she asked quietly, not really sure how one went about talking to a strange magical effect.
The words ‘Who are you?’ wrote themselves into the smoke and lingered.
“My name is Arcadia Cressenden, I’m a wizarding student at the Academy.”
Her words were echoed in the smoke once more, but this time most faded, leaving only the words Wizard Cressenden to hover, waiting for her reaction.
Arcadia blinked. There weren’t any other wizards in her family, and the one who had been she was currently researching in the scroll on the table. That was impossible, though. Right? If her thinking about him had somehow conjured him, the words wouldn’t have been visible when she walked in. Except that her entire purpose in here had something to do with him, she realized. “Grandfather?”
The word started to write itself, but the letters drifted apart, giving her nothing to work with. Maybe it was a rejection of her crazy thought.
If it was going to use her words, she needed to give it more of them. “Are you my grandfather, and am I your granddaughter?”
The words appeared faster now, and just as quickly rearranged themselves to read ‘I am your grandfather, and you are my granddaughter.’
She took a step forward and sank into the chair. There was a question of verity, whether or not she could believe a strange magical effect that seemed to have been overlooked in the scheme of the Great Library’s magic. But it seemed to want to communicate with her, and she’d have to give it the words to use. Licking her lips slowly, she swallowed the lump in her throat along with her doubts. She could examine this rationally later on. For now, she pulled her parchment closer, grabbed her quill, and wrote down everything it had ‘said’ so far. “Do I understand that I’m going to have to give you words so you can talk?” she asked, hoping the leading question offered enough words.
‘You do understand.’
“Am I correct in thinking that you are the spirit of my grandfather, or are you some kind of magical effect left behind by another wizard?”
‘I am a magical effect left behind by grandfather.’ It wasn’t perfectly correct Common, but it was a better answer.
She quickly wrote her questions and its answers on her parchment in neat but tiny letters. She had a feeling this might take awhile. “Are you talking to me because I’m here or because I summoned you? You’re hovering in this section I wouldn’t normally be in.”
‘I’m here because you summoned me to this section.’
“Is grandfather really dead?”
‘Grandfather is really dead.’
Arcadia’s heart sank. There went her theory of planar transference, shot down by a… well, it seemed like a ghost, even if it had said it was a magical effect. It had only her words to use, after all. “I don’t understand. Can you tell me what happened to grandfather?”
‘I can tell you what happened.’
Her heart rate quickened. If she could somehow prove that something had happened, specifically what had happened, that might save her final project. “I’d like to find a way to speak faster than this, can you write with a quill or no?”
‘No.’
She sighed. She needed something that would allow for faster communication, and she needed to give this spirit, whatever it was, more words than a single sentence. Arcadia blinked at the scroll she’d set aside. “If I roll out this scroll can you read it and use its words.”
‘I can. Roll out this scroll.’
Success! She quickly spread out the scroll so that it lay down the length of the table, most of the article she had been seeking available for the spirit-thing to read. It was like watching words steam up into the space above the table as the invisible spirit moved down the scroll, picking words and grabbing some from prior sentences as it sought them. Arcadia quickly moved back to her chair and grabbed her quill, waiting for the words to drift together into sentences she could read.
‘Scrimhunt Castle became a center for the healing of magical maladies. Witches, wizards, hedge magicians, and occult fanatics from all over the Empire came to seek out healing.’
Arcadia did copy this down, though she knew all this already. That was common knowledge.
‘Magister Beutel Worst built a thing to harness the energies of many wizards and force healing throughout the castle in one action.’
That was new. Arcadia frowned. She had to wonder what the ‘thing’ was that he built. Clearly there wasn’t a useful word for it in the scroll available, or she doubted this spirit would’ve called it just a ‘thing’. “Did it work?” she asked, before realizing the spirit probably wasn’t done with its explanation.
‘No. But he turned it on and a storm ravaged the building, inside and out. All were taken to a place between where life was not supported.`
“So they were transported! Yes!” she cried quietly, pleased beyond measure that her theory was true to that extent at least. Then she heaved a breath and frowned at the words she’d just copied down. ‘A place between’ was another instance she had a feeling the spirit was just using the words it had access to, and that was not clear enough either. “A place between… what?” she asked the air.
There was no movement of words for a moment, and then from behind her head drifted two words. ‘The Planes.’
Arcadia blinked. She was in the planar restricted section, after all. It wasn’t impossible to comprehend a place between planes, likely a void. “Why did Worst transport them there? I thought he wanted to heal them?”
‘He wanted to heal them.’ There was a pause and words began to drift up from the scroll again. ‘Magister Worst did not have success. His designs were influenced from a wizard who did not have the same goal.’
Arcadia sat back in her chair and watched the words slowly dissipate in the smoky air. “Influenced? Was this wizard from some other plane? Is that why it suddenly took them elsewhere?”
From behind her she heard “Are you talking to someone?” The wizard who had been smoking approached, his measured tread audible in the silence.
“Um. Sort of?” she replied, looking over her shoulder. “Unless I am going mad, there’s some kind of magical effect here that seems to have been tied to my grandfather.”
Words formed in the smoke. ‘I am grandfather.’
The wizard stared for a long moment. “Well, if you’re crazy, so am I. How did you do that?”
“I didn’t,” she replied. “It seems like something was left over, like a spirit, maybe? It’s not a ghost, it’s just… it said ‘magical effect’ earlier when I tried to question it, but it only uses the words I say aloud, or the scroll I’ve spread out for more vocabulary.” She considered a moment and then looked up at the man, still staring at the cloud of pipe smoke. “If I cited you as a witness to this, would you be willing to sign off that you saw it?”
His gaze shifted abruptly to her. “I don’t have any way of knowing that you didn’t create it.”
“It’s telling me totally new information about what happened at Screamhaunt… er, what happened at Scrimhunt Castle Center for Magical Maladies. I don’t think I could fake that. Look.” She picked up her parchment where she’d been taking notes and offered it to him.
His interest peaked, he read through it at least once, since she doubted it took him that long to read her neat handwriting. “You can’t prove any of this. Especially the part about taking them between planes.”
She swallowed. He wasn’t wrong. “I haven’t figured out how, yet, but I thought I’d get all the information I could and then worry about that? At least with you as a witness I’d be able to cite this much. I may have to go out there, see what I can find.”
The smoke echoed her. ‘Go out there, see what you can find.’
She pointed her quill at it. “See? A stellar recommendation.” Her giggle sounded nervous, even to her own ears.
The wizard lowered the page of notes so she could take it back. “Very well, you may tell them that I witnessed this. I won’t equivocate for you, though, girl. I have no confirmation that it’s not your own creation, but I definitely witnessed it happening.”
“That will be enough for now, I think, since it’s changing the direction I’m going with this project, but it’s still in the idea phase anyway.” She took the page of notes back and dipped her quill. “Your name please, sir?”
“Theophilus Turil Torandrews.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Wizard Torandrews. My name is Arcadia Cressenden, student of the 7th year at the Academy.” She looked up and gave him a little nod, what part of a bow she could manage while seated.
“Good luck with your project, Arcadia. I hope you’ll be careful if you do decide to go out there. There’s no telling what could happen.” He nodded to her, gave the fading words in the smoke one more uncertain glance, and then went back to his own work.
Arcadia heaved a sigh of relief. That solved the problem of people believing if she’d made up seeing words appear in thin air. Whether they’d believe the effect was tied to her grandfather was another matter entirely, but it ultimately didn’t matter. It sounded like she would need to go out to Scrimhunt Castle in order to really get a sense for what had happened. That would take more planning, and probably hiring mercenaries or guards to go with her. She couldn’t just take a jaunt beyond Horizon without taking precautions.
She blew out a breath audibly. Guards would require money she didn’t have. Her eyes watched the word ‘find’ expanding and fading until it was just more smoke in the smoky room. “Thank you for your help, whatever you are. I wouldn’t have been able to get this far without your help. Is the thing Magister Worst built still at the castle, intact, I mean, so I can see it, or did it go between with them?”
‘It is at the castle. Go see it.’
“Yes, sir!” With a smile and the last notes of her interaction with this effect, Arcadia packed her things and went home to figure out how to safely take a trip to Pocket Bay.
Plot Bunny Whack-a-mole 