Library of Rain

Behind the Door

Rain sat with her back against the door. The sounds hadn’t changed after her… she didn’t know what to call it. All she knew was that she was back in control of herself, and that she was tired. Maybe if she went to sleep now, she wouldn't be haunted by her dreams. It was a tempting thought luring her to close her eyes. Despite that, Rain couldn’t get the image of Lon out of her head. She knew the truth; she was too scared to sleep. 

Rain wouldn’t dwell on her problems; they were unimportant. She should focus on helping people like her past self had asked. Now was a perfect time to answer a question that had bothered Rain since she first saw the Mid Ring Library. Why was it so much bigger than hers?

She pushed all thoughts about what just happened out of her mind.

Rain walked the perimeter of her library, looking for any door or secret passages that might lead somewhere else. She found some arches set into the wall that looked like they should house doors, but no matter how much she poked and prodded, she could not find any. The whole area was more or less how she remembered it from her first visit. What was she missing? She asked Mr. Purple to show her the ‘Door to the Library’ skill again.

[Door to the Library: To access the Library of Oru, push your will into any door, and it will transform into a portal. Once the door closes, the portal will also close. When you're ready to leave, you can exit through any door, and it will take you back to the same one you entered from.]

She realized that it never actually mentioned what was in the Library of Oru. Had her past self been scammed? Then Rain noticed something in the description she hadn’t before. It said she could leave through any door, not just the exit door. In fact, she had no proof that there even was an exit door. If that were true, then had she just assumed the door in the entry hall was an exit because that was where she entered?

Rain sprinted back to the intricately carved door. Pulling it open, she willed her power not to enter the door. As it opened, Rain didn’t see the usual darkness indicating a portal; instead, she saw a well-lit balcony with handrails made of petrified hands clinging and clawing to each other in a frozen depiction of struggle.

Rain thought she understood her library but had only ever seen a part of it. Stepping out onto the balcony, she was stunned by the vastness around her. Balconies, walkways, and catwalks everywhere, all of them covered in bookshelves or piles of books. Books and loose papers flew around, merging into other piles or shelves. Rain saw a bunch of papers come together to form a book; not long after, an entire pile of books burned away in green fire.

Yet despite the flapping, flying, skidding, and burning, not a sound was to be heard.

The entire place seemed to be built around a cylindrical shaft. Gripping the stone rail and peering down, Rain saw the bottom of the shaft was taken up by a single massive dark eye. Its edges were indistinct, as though it had no permanent shape. As she stared at it, the eye swiveled to look back at her. In that moment, Rain felt very small.

Rain stepped out of the eye's line of site and looked up to see: the library falling apart? Only nothing was moving. The building blocks of the library were all separated, floating in an endless nothing; the library seemed to go on for eternity, but the farther up it went, the farther its pieces were spread.

What is that empty void?

Rain had so many questions she wanted answered about this place. Were all the books here skill books, or were there other kinds? Were the books that caught fire no longer forbidden and so removed? If Rain could make it to the top floors, would she be able to float like the chunks of stone? And, of course, what was that eye?

Looking back down at the eye, Rain saw its amorphous pupil change sizes as it stared at different parts of the room. Leaning over to get a better view, Rain caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of her eye. There, on a balcony down and across from her, was a girl with black hair and a green dress. The same dress Rain was wearing.

The girl was staring at something below her intently. Following her gaze, Rain saw the same girl in the same dress looking over yet another balcony. Rain raised her hand above her head and saw the others do the same thing. 

If Rain was looking down on herself, then was she also above herself? Looking up, Rain found herself. The her above was also staring up. Was this some kind of reflection trick? Rain took a coin and threw it down at one of the hers. 

She heard something clinking on the ground next to her as she saw her coin land on the balcony below her. Turning to the sound, Rain saw a dented ver lying beside her. She picked it up. It looked just like the coin she had thrown, and as she reached out with her mind to the coin she threw, it was clearly the coin in her hand. 

Interesting.

Rain took the coin and threw it again to the same balcony. This time, though, instead of picking the coin up when she heard it land, she warped to it. She enjoyed the familiar folding sensation as the world collapsed around her. 

When the world unfolded, Rain found herself standing on a familiar balcony. Looking around, Rain confirmed that while it looked similar to the one she had just been standing on, it was, in fact, a different place. The door leading out onto the balcony was the giveaway. Though similar, its carvings were different. 

Rain had done the same thing twice and gotten different results. The first time, when she picked up the coin, her throw landed on the balcony she was standing on. The second time, when she had immediately warped to the coin, she had ended in a different place. It was almost like her present actions changed the past. 

Deciding to test this theory, Rain repeated her actions a few times. It was exactly as she thought, with the coin being where she threw it unless she tried to pick it up, in which case it would have landed next to her instead.

That was the pattern until Rain was convinced, at which point the library, seemingly annoyed that Rain was trying to apply rules to it, decided to stop following them, and Rain gave up.

Looking over the railing to see how close she was to the eye, Rain found herself no closer. But how? She must have gone down close to thirty stories. How many more hers were between her and the eye? Rain found herself and followed her gaze to where another her stood. She kept doing that only to find that there was always another her. They were always farther down than the last, yet they never felt farther away.  

As Rain was trying to wrap her head around all this, Mr. Purple bloomed into existence with a message for her.

[Warning: due to prolonged exposure to unreality, your mental corruption has increased by 1%, current mental corruption 4%.]

Wait, my mental corruption is only 4%?

This confused her until she remembered that her corruption had dropped 10% after… It had probably gone down another 6% when she had raised that bandit guy’s corruption by 60%. That would account for everything. She needed to get out of this part of the library before her corruption worsened. With it this low, she might be able to risk another book.

Rain was glad she could leave through any door. She had no idea how to navigate in a place where direction and distance held no meaning. Turning to the door, Rain let herself out. She had a meeting with Mr. Markson.

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