Curiosity Before Sleep

Damian lay comfortably in his bed, carefully inspecting his arms. After a considerable amount of time and reluctance, he felt it may be time he slowly began reading into his runes once again.

Regardless of the pain he may feel, using his ability will only serve to benefit him in the long run. Damian understood that there had to be something more to rune magic. Otherwise, what's the point of having a power like this?

Although it may literally take a painfully long time to absorb all of the information written on his arms.

Previously, he had read a line of rune text that said something about gifting him Rune Interpretation which definitely had some implication about his ability to read runes. The question now was, what does the rest of the writing on his arms mean?

With a heavy heart, Damian peered into the complex writing and recited aloud:

``In silence...the Architect built a grave for the One Above...awaiting those who wish to seek his corpse. At the order, his doll slaughtered the foolish travelers...Child of Fire, Worshippers of Sun and Moon, and a Prisoner Of Atlas.``

Damian held his eyes shut the second he finished the passage. After every word, the pain in his aching eyes and head would sharpen—pressuring him severely. Fortunately, he had fought through the pain long enough for him to read the rune text.

'...I thought…I was gonna get another gift. What the hell is this ridiculous short story? What do I even make of this?'

As the pain began to subside, Damian headed to his small desk situated across from his bed. Searching through one of its drawers, he found a notebook and a pencil, choosing to write down the rune passage on the paper so as not to forget.

The tapping of a dull pencil echoed periodically as Damian dissected his rune's meaning.

— —

Slouching in his chair, Damian checked the time once again; reading 10:52 p.m.

After contemplating the strange rune passage, Damian couldn't really find any connection, but there were a few key parts of the writing that felt a little...familiar to what he had experienced in the forest: Specifically the names.

First, Damian was able to infer that the Worshippers of the Sun and Moon were the knight and the huntress from the forest due to the clear emblems they had on their person. Second, the Child of Fire had to be the magician. Throughout his struggle in the forest, that guy had always used strange flame magic.

'That leaves only the Architect, the prisoner, the doll, and whoever the One Above is in the rune text. This is where things get confusing because the only person I had run into was the man in grey who I had killed…were there other people out in the forest that I hadn't met? I guess that could make sense, but what if this story isn't even connected to the church incident at all? Gosh, I can already feel my headache returning.'

'It's not that late, maybe I have time to stop by the outpost library.'

Before he parted ways with the demented old man back in the city, Damian heard stories from Klaus about these grand buildings known as libraries; a supposed paradise that held a plethora of books and information.

Since the facility was actually pretty close to his room and also built within the walls, Damian decided to make one last stop before he finally went to sleep.

Cracking his door open, he left in search of knowledge.

— —

"I guess this is it."

After a fair distance of walking through the hallways built into the outpost walls, he spotted a shut room labeled at the top; library.

Opening the door, Damian curiously peered into the room only to be left slightly confused.

'Wasn't it supposed to be a luxurious building or an incredible hall of thousands of books organized in isles like Klaus said? This feels a little more underwhelming if I'm gonna be honest.'

The room that greeted him felt ever-so-slightly larger than his own room but was far more cramped due to the thick shelves lining the walls. Sat in the middle of the room was a table with chairs situated on either side. Everything was made from wood except for its concrete walls. What put off Damian the most, however, was just the sheer lack of books in the first place. Nearly every shelf was completely empty with him being able to count on one hand the total amount of books housed in the entire room.

'Was I lied to?'

Sitting down in the warn-down and cramped room, Damian grabbed every book present and stacked them on the table. There were only four books in this room. Holding a certain amount of skepticism, he decided to pick one of them up and began reading. The title of the first book he picked up was called 'History of the Marin Outpost'.

'This could be useful...Huh?'

However, It was all a disaster. The first book he grabbed actually had half its pages torn out and the rest worn down to an almost blank scratched-up canvas.

'No…that can't be right.'

Moving on to the second book, Damian once again scrunched his brow in confusion.

Although this book wasn't as ruined as the first, quite a few pages still seemed to be missing, but what threw him off was the title; 'The Budding Love of James and Mary'.

'What the hell are some of these books? Is any of this stuff useful in the slightest?'

Stupefied, he moved on to the third book only to be left disappointed once again as this was completely destroyed. It was in the last book that things finally took a turn.

The fourth and final book didn't have any cover or title, it was just plain worn-down leather covering. Opening the book, Damian widened his eyes as the words were all hand-written. On the inside he even found the title; The Forest.

'This one…seems different. Should I take this with me? I don't think anyone has been in here for a long time, so maybe I should just bring it to my room.'

Coming to a final decision, Damian got up from the wooden chair and chose to leave the outpost library and read elsewhere.

On his way out, however, the sound of a faint dull scratching fell onto his ears. At the quiet yet distinct sound, Damian halted his exit.

'What the hell is that sound?'

Slowly returning to where he sat, Damian carefully listened for its direction.

Making his way around the cramped room, he eventually stopped near the back corner of a wall across from the entrance. He could tell it was behind the bookshelf. Driven by a strong curiosity, Damian strained to slide the entire shelf out of where it was sitting. Now met with a concrete wall, he pressed his face against its cold surface.

From there, a far more clear scratching echoed into his ear.

'...?'

Unsure of what to do, Damian backed away and moved the shelf back to its previous position. With everything in place, he immediately left with a complicated expression.