The party walked up the stairs of the martial alliance, trying to get to the library that could be found on the upper floors.

“Alright, so how exactly are we going to get our hands on it, then?” Foster asked, and Lynol continued walking ahead of the rest of the group, speaking in his regular emotionless tone, “I have an idea.” He said, and Foster turned his head toward the others, who were curiously following after him. It didn’t take long until they reached the entrance of the library. Compared to the other floors, this place was practically deserted. Most people seemed to prefer active practice over the kind of research that was supposed to happen in here. But even so, it was clear that this place held numerous books on different martial styles and combat theories. Of course, considering that they were this openly available, it was clear that none of these books were going to contain any incredibly special techniques or martial styles. Rather, they were the kind that would be the most spread througout this area. The martial alliance’s library did have some restricted areas, so it would only be logical if you could only find the more unique or special tomes in there.

Wondering what exactly his plan was, Foster looked at Lynol’s back, as he soon placed his hands onto his hip. “We will search this whole library, even if it takes hours. They must have placed the book in a locked location, so it should be easy to narrow it down for now..” He suggested. Foster was somehow a bit underwhelmed and disappointed. Anyone could have come up with a plan like that. However, it did seem logical. It wasn’t like they could just go and ask where to find the tome at the front desk.

“Yes, hello, erm… we’re looking for the martial tome from one of the calamities? We heard about it, so we wanted to see if it was actually real or not.” Octer said with a calm and kind voice, having done exactly what Foster had considered to be the worst possible idea. To his surprise, the woman sitting there quickly nodded her head, placing down the book she was reading, “Right, of course. For that, simply walk to the other side of the room, and there will be an open door leading to the section reserved. Of course, you can’t hold it, but it is laying on display there. You aren’t the first ones that wanted to see it, but a lot of people already lost interest.” The employee explained. With a smile, Octer turned around, “Thank you for your help!” He said, quickly meeting back up with the group.

“Alright, let’s go.” Octer told the others, who looked at him perplexed, “Why did you-” Kyla started, but Octer simply let out a deep sigh.

“Listen, we don’t even know if this is really… you know, his tome. We just know that it is ‘a’ calamity’s tome, and it’s not like he was the only martial fighter amongst the calamities. And obviously it makes sense that people are interested in the calamities, if they didn’t want anyone to look at it, the martial alliance never would have advertised that they have it.” Octer pointed out, quickly walking ahead of the group to the other side of the room.

“Eh… that… is a fair point.” Foster replied, and quickly followed, while Lynol just stared into empty space, practically frozen up. Kyla scoffed slightly, happily patting his shoulder, “Don’t worry, everyone has their weak points.”

Like that, the group of four made their way to the room described to them, although Lynol just stayed silent for a while. However, since it didn’t take long until they reached the room, he couldn’t keep sulking forever. The four of them were inside the dimly lit space. It was clear basically immediately that the room was secured with magic. It made sense, after all, that was the easiest way to semi-permanently secure a place. But beyond that, there was only one exit to this space, and it was in full sight of at least a handful of employees at all times. And considering what this building was, only a madman would try to invade here and steal something like a combat tome. Even Foster understood that now that he managed to get a proper look at things, not that it made him want to do it any less. No, the thing that did that was the book itself.

“It’s not… it’s not something made by Thiodrus.” Foster said immediately, the moment that the sketches and writing on the pages that had been pulled out of the book came into view. And the book itself, which had plenty of its pages simply ripped out of its body, was nothing like what Thiodrus would make. The Thiodrus that Foster had met was someone more simple than this. The book was overly decorated and tasteless, nearly as if it was specifically make someone think it was made by someone powerful like a calamity. And even ignoring that, while the sketches seemed to belong to some sort of martial arts, it was nothing like the Argomna style.

“A dead end, huh?” Foster sighed, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. In the process, he glanced at his bracelet, “Listen, you’re alive, right? Can you at least confirm whether or not we’re on the right track?”

However, as expected, it didn’t respond in the slightest. There wasn’t even a twitch. Clicking his tongue, Foster turned around, stepping out of the room annoyed. Quickly following behind him was Kyla, who was the first to notice his current state of mind.

“Is everything alright?” She asked with a concerned expression, but Foster simply clicked his tongue annoyed, “What do you care? You’re just here to make sure I don’t cause havoc anyway. The fact that you’re here to help find a book ‘he’ wrote is a miracle.” He said bluntly, looking down at the cleric standing next to him, “Or what, did you have a change of mind or something?”

Kyla stared up at Foster, her worry quickly replaced with anger, “What are you even on about? You and I both know that this situation is far, far more complicated than that.”

“Is it really? All I know is that you were basically looking at me like I’m Hitler just because I took a chance I was given to survive in a place I didn’t even fucking know.”

“Who is goddamn Hitler? I don’t get what you’re talking about at all! What’s going on, Foster? You’re in complete… disarray, and just because that book wasn’t what you thought it was going to be? You didn’t seem that hopeful about it anyway!” Kyla replied, slightly raising her voice, even though she was trying not to let this whole situation escalate.

Foster let out a loud groan, “I- Urgh, I don’t even know what’s going on… man, I’ve been remembering shit I didn’t want to remember ever since I got here, and there’s so much stuff I just don’t understand, and the one thing that could help me, is just fucking sitting there not doing anything.” He said, pulling the snake bracelet off his wrist. It let go of its tail, and started slithering back onto his wrist, attaching itself to him again.

“See? It can move around all it wants, but does it when I need it to? No, of fucking course not.” Foster let out together with a deep sigh, “This is just… frustrating.”

“…Do that again.” Kyla muttered, confused. Foster looked at her with a frown, “What? Sigh?”

“No, just- Take it off again to make it move.”

Confused, but thinking that there was a reason, Foster did as she told him. The moment that the snake let go of its own tail, Kyla’s eyes opened wide, “There! That! It has- it’s got a flame!” She exclaimed, watching as the flame disappeared the moment it returned back to the state of being a simple bracelet.