Chương 332: (325) 5.21. Plans in Motion

Thanks to Lumel and her ability to peel away the barriers in the Underside preventing people from traveling to fragments they had yet to visit on Edregon proper, the team was able to quickly make their way straight to the Necromancers' compound despite the fact that Kym hadn't been anywhere near the fragment before. Forcing her way through four barriers in quick succession made her a little winded, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle.

When asked if she needed a breather, she simply did her strange hand waving motion that was the pulmon equivalent of a thumbs up. Lumel still wasn't able to warp Alka, even while her body was inactive, so they had to temporarily split up. She used Mass Dimensional Shift to bring Kym straight to the end of the dungeon, while the rest of the team ran through it normally, doing their best to avoid the monsters as best they could.

Once they met back up on the grassy hillside outside of the dungeon entrance, Vin turned to address everyone.

"Alright. I know only Lumel and I have actually met Groth at this point, so let us try and do the talking. Remember, if we can't convince him to play intermediary and help us make nice with the librarian, things are going to get real complicated, real fast."

"He's a Necromancer, right?" Scule scoffed.

"Can't you just dangle a bone over his head or something and get him to do whatever you want?"

"Okay, follow up to my previous statement," Vin said, staring pointedly at the shrugging petian.

"Everyone other than Scule, let us try and do that talking. Scule, don't say anything at all." Scule looked like he wanted to argue, but a gentle tail smack to the head from Reginald quieted him down. Once everyone understood the plan, Vin and Lumel led the way over to the Necromancer compound, keeping their eyes peeled for any monsters.

The Necromancers actually patrolled their fragment fairly regularly with their undead warriors and did an excellent job of keeping it clear of any threats, but with Kym by their side, they didn't want to take any risks. Despite the fact that he was level 39, Vin doubted he'd bothered to put any points into his physical attributes, and he certainly didn't act like he had any combat training.

Thankfully, the short trek from the dungeon to the entrance to the compound was uneventful, and Vin soon found himself knocking on the compound door.

"Hello again! It's me, the guy who dropped off someone a few weeks back who wanted to learn death magic! Is Groth in?" The group waited patiently for a couple of minutes until two heavily armed undead warriors opened the gate, allowing Groth to step out with two more undead flanking him on either side. Despite the man's nonchalance, Vin had no doubt those four undead warriors were capable of attacking at the drop of a hat if the need arose.

"Hello again indeed," Groth smiled, nodding toward the rest of the team.

"Might I ask the reasoning behind bringing so many new faces to our humble compound? I've yet to summon you via the skull I provided. Landon is doing excellent and progressing quite quickly, though he is practicing rather deeply within the compound at the moment. If you'd like for me to fetch him, I'd be more than happy to, but it will take a few minutes."

"No, I'll come check up on him some other time," Vin said, choosing his next words carefully.

"Groth… the first time we spoke, you mentioned being friends with the librarian up in the floating library, correct?"

"I do believe I said that, yes," Groth nodded.

"She is not much of a talker, but she enjoys listening. After all my frequent visits, I would in fact go so far as to call her a friend by now. Why do you ask?"

"We may or may not have done something to anger her a while back," Vin admitted, motioning for Shia to step aside and reveal Alka's body she'd been hiding behind her. The moment Groth saw the inert golem his eyes widened a hair, and he pursed his lips.

"I see… Before I make any rash judgements, at the very least, I will hear you out. Why do you have one of the librarian's worker golems with you?"

"We needed it to save our friend's life," Vin began, not wanting to get into the whole thing.

"Basically, she was a ghost that had lost the item anchoring her to this world. She was able to temporarily cling to me because I have the Human Vessel title, but we needed a new anchor for her. Something she could move around and fight with."

"So you took one of the librarian's golems," Groth said, his face unchanging.

"I wanted to trade with her for it, but she wasn't interested in anything I had on me at the time," Vin hurried to explain.

"I know stealing from her was wrong, but Alka is literally my oldest friend in the whole world. I couldn't just let her fade away. The only problem now is that something seems to have gone wrong with the golem, and none of us have any idea how to fix it. We need to ask the librarian for help, except…"

"Asking the person you stole from for assistance is not likely to go very well for you," Groth finished.

"And you knew I'd mentioned being her friend. So that's it, is it? You wish for me to try to apologize and mediate on your behalf?" If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Not just apologize, but offer an actual trade as well," Vin said, gesturing toward Kym.

"Kym here was born with a perfect memory, unrelated to the System entirely, so it wasn't affected by the Great Reset. He grew up in a noble household and basically lived in their library. He has to have thousands if not tens of thousands of books stored in his brain, all from at least two different worlds. We were hoping the librarian would be willing to accept our apology and help us fix our friend in exchange for what he knows."

"That's some offer," Groth said, peering at Kym.

"And you are okay with this?"

"If this library is as grand as they claim it is, I would like nothing more than to go and spend the rest of my days there," Kym said softly, getting a mild look of surprise from the Necromancer.

"Well then. Fortunately for you, I understand more than most the desire to keep the soul of a friend around past their time," Groth said, his eyes flicking over to Alka's lifeless body.

"I'm not yet skilled enough to make anything of that nature permanent, but if I was, I'll admit I would have been tempted to do the same thing you did."

"So you'll help us?" Lumel asked, clutching her hands together.

"Indeed. I will come with you to the library and do what I can to assist you," Groth nodded.

"It is my belief that the librarian would find your companion and his knowledge an invaluable treasure, and as her friend, I would not want her to mess this up due to past events. Give me a few minutes to get what I need, and we shall head out." With that, Groth vanished back within the compound, leaving his four undead warriors standing there, unmoving. Vin couldn't help but stare at them, noting once again how well-maintained the corpses were.

The Necromancers of this fragment used their own people in their necromancy, and they took extreme care to ensure that there was not so much as a hint of rotting flesh or damaged skin on their warriors.

"I'd say that went well," Shia said.

"Though I do have one quick thing I want to ask you about, Vin." Motioning for him to follow, Shia led him a short distance away and cast Still Wind, ensuring they wouldn't be overheard.

"What's wrong?" he asked, watching her eyes flick back over to Kym, who had pulled out a book and was reading as they waited.

"We might not have fully thought this whole thing through," she said, frowning as she watched the Advisor from afar.

"What happens if we all get up there, we run the deal past the librarian, and she says no? Kym has made it quite clear that he wants to join her either way, regardless of if she helps us or not. If she says no, are we planning on grabbing Kym and running? Basically, we don't have any actual leverage here."

"That's… a pretty good point," Vin admitted, scratching his head as he thought.

"I was so focused on getting us there with Kym, I guess I didn't think that far ahead."

"You're the one who mentioned how Kym was his own person and how it wasn't up to Spur to decide what he did with his life," Shia pointed out.

"That said, call me selfish, but I'd be willing to do just about anything to ensure Alka gets back on her feet. I just wanted to run this past you because if worst comes to worst and we have to flee the library again, we can't have any moments of indecision. If this all falls through, we all need to be on the same page before the librarian turns on us."

"No, you're absolutely right," Vin sighed, watching Kym as the man turned a page and kept reading.

"I also want to get Alka up and running again no matter what. Only… I don't think I could bring myself to kidnap someone in order to do that. Stealing from someone was one thing, especially when it was only one golem out of a few hundred, but kidnapping? I think that's a line I'm not willing to cross. Especially when we might be able to find a solution somewhere else down the line."

"So just to be clear, if she says no, we just let Kym go willingly?" Shia asked, looking hard at him.

"You're sure about this?"

"Yeah, I think so," he decided.

"Alka definitely won't like it, but I can check in on her frequently and give her updates about our progress if we need to find an alternative solution."

"Alright," Shia said, giving him a toothy grin.

"In that case, if this whole thing falls through, I want you to know I'm going to use my divine boon to find a way to fix her unrelated to the librarian."

"What?" he asked, staring at her in shock. Shia's boon allowed her to ask the Gods to give her the location of something she needed, but she could only use it once a week, and once she received the location, the downside was that she had to travel to it.

"Shia, isn't that too risky? What if the solution is a hundred fragments away, or a thousand? You'd have to make the journey or lose your boon!"

"I need my friends, Vin, it's as simple as that," she shrugged.

"It's definitely not ideal, but with Lumel's help, I figure we can at least make the journey easier by using the Underside a bit. Though I have a feeling the boon might not like that idea very much for some reason."

"Alright… If you're sure, then that makes the decision to give up Kym all the easier," Vin said, giving her an appreciative smile.

"I'll run the plan past everyone so nobody does anything stupid. And hey, it might not even come to that! Best-case scenario, the librarian accepts our apology and fixes Alka up with a wave of her hand."

"That's some mighty wishful thinking," Shia snorted, letting Still Wind drop.

"It would be nice, though. I'd love to get a chance to actually sift through the library myself this time around. That book you talked about sounds like something I'd love to spend a few hours with. The one filled with information on runic formations."

"I'd highly recommend it for just about any mage," he agreed, walking back to the group with her.

"There were a few other interesting titles I saw during our time there that I'd love to go through myself. Who knows, if we're lucky for once, maybe we'll get the chance this time around!"