Chapter 7: Door to the Past
Slowly, yet loudly, a door creaked open as a sliver of flickering light quickly began to illuminate the dusty repository it concealed. As soon as the door was finally propped open, two men cautiously took their steps into the aforementioned room, slowly scanning it as they made their way through the arch of the door. Both men halted however when the purple haired tactician's arm shot out to stop the other as his gut wrenched in anticipation.
"Call it a gut feeling, but I think I should go in first", he said with shaky breath as he eyed every nook and cranny of the room for the security measures he was sure to be present.
Valens, nodding assent, slowly stepped back while Robin stepped forward. Step after step was taken, until finally a click was heard; moments later a humming noise started to emanate from a small orb at the center of the ceiling that began to fill with a dim purple light. After humming for a few moments it quickly bathed the room, filling every nook and cranny until finally centering on the tactician that had awoken it from its slumber. As Robin was hit by the light, he felt as if every fiber of his being was being examined, tested, and evaluated by the orb above. Following a few nerve wracking moments, the orb seemed to assent to Robin's presence and just as quickly as it activated, it proceed to return to it's slumber.
"It seems to like me, it should be safe as long as I am in here with you, come on." Robin said as he motioned Valens forward.
As Valens slowly moved up to join Robin, he began to take note of the vast rows of tomes stacked on towering bookcases throughout the vast library they were entering.
"So what are we looking for exactly, I doubt all these books are relevant, unless you were looking for... the 7th edition of potion making, alchemy, and brewing," Valen's commented dryly as he flipped through the book he had pulled from a random shelf, "looks like someone dog-eared some of the pages on brewing... alcohol," Valens said as he chuckled at the thought of drunken mages, drunken Grimleal mages at that.
"I suppose if anyone needs to take some edge off it would be the Grimleal," Robin quipped back as he took stock of the room, "As far as what to look for... anything relevant to me I would suppose, but unfortunately that is a pretty wide subject all things considered." Robin replied as he began examining the titles of books on the shelves around him.
Nodding, Valens began to examine the other books on the shelf he had pulled the previous tome from, "Hmm, it looks like we might have some luck, it seems the Grimleal organize by topic, all the alchemy books seem to be around the one I just found, and look, they even have a sign designating it as such above."
Robin smiled at the implication this carried, "Which means if we find one book on Grima..."
"We find all of them." Valens shot back with a grin.
With a a better understanding of the layout of the repository, the two men quickly searched bookcase after bookcase looking for the section they sought. Robin quickly scanning the various topics as he moved down one of the various aisle, Lets see, general anima magic... no, Plegian history... no, military strategy... no... but maybe I'll stop by here when done, Grima! There we go.
Having found the section the two men sought they looked down expecting a bookcase loaded with books, and instead were met with another door hiding in a gap between the previous and the next bookshelf.
"I guess it must get it's own room," Valens mused as he reached for the handle. However, upon reaching it he was awarded for his haste with a large shock to his hand, "Damn it", Valens quickly wrenched his hand back as he muttered curses under his breath.
Robin, taking note of this, reached out and tentatively touched the handle himself, "As I suspected, only certain people can open it, and I guess it would make sense that I am one of them."
"Fine then, you can open doors in here from now on," Valens muttered as he vigorously shook his hand in an attempt to bring feeling back into it.
Ignoring Valens flailing, Robin pushed the door open to find not the small side room containing the section on Grima, but an entire wing dedicated to storing row after row of tomes, books, and manuscripts, in addition to various artifacts and other objects of study placed throughout the room. His attention settled however on a single box in the center of the room that had a letter sitting atop it, somewhat odd considering they were in a library of all places. As Robin approached it, he noticed that the letter simply bore the name Grima atop it.
"A letter to me, in here of all places" Robin muttered as he took the envelope and opened it.
"Perhaps a message for you," Valens replied as he tentatively breathed in relief as his hand slowly began to regain its sense of touch.
As Robin picked the envelope up and looked it over, he noticed that it was dated as of earlier in the year, "Hmm, pretty recent too."
Removing and unfolding the paper inside the envelope, Robin began to read it's contents:
Lord Grima,
If you are reading this letter inside of your vault at the table, then it is likely that I have perished and that you are attempting to piece together your memories and power on your own or with limited help. Within this vault the Grimleal have spent the last 32 years since your rebirth gathering, analyzing, and catolouging every scrap of information we could find about you.
While with my death the hex blocking your powers should be lifted if I had not done so already, the lifting of the hex should allow you access to some of your latent strength, most of your power is however still contained within your memories, and only by recovering those will you be able to access the full scope of your abilities. The good news is that during your residence in your early years at the table, myself and the other senior mages were able to determine that while the ritual to bring you back into the world wiped all previous memories you possessed, they were only suppressed, and not fully wiped out, and require merely the correct trigger to unlock them. Contained in this box is said trigger, you merely need to touch it and it will handle the rest. Do understand that this is not an instantaneous process; having lived for millennia, trying to dig up every memory you have at the same time would likely have extreme side effects that even I cannot predict; therefore, this trigger will slowly bring forth your memories over time as opposed to unleashing them all at once. This should allow you the ability to process and deal with your memories over time. How long this will take I do not know, but the trigger should focus on the memories with the strongest imprint, hopefully those being the more meaningful and important ones, thus allowing your power to recovered well before the process is fully completed. Any information that you require prior to their recovery should be contained, or at least referenced, in this hall should you need it and your memories of it have yet to resurface.
Finally, if you are reading this letter, it is also likely that the Grimleal have scattered due to a defeat of some nature at the Table; however, we have a contingency to fall back to the capital should this occur. There they will await the sign of your ascension and will make their way to you immediately following.
This letter is unfortunately the last help you will receive from me from 'beyond the grave', as such, I wish to express my gratitude for the purpose you gave me following the crusades and my regret at not being able to be at your side to witness the culmination of your ascension.
Ever your faithful servant,
Validar
Robin sighed as he finished reading the letter, "I suspect my memories will give me nothing but regret, but I already have nothing but, so I suppose its all irrelevant."
"At least it can't get much worse, I mean with Ylisse planning to slaughter a third of the continent and all." Valens replied with a glum look on his face.
"I hope so," as robin stared off distantly.
Shaking off his stupor, Robin slowly began to open the box the letter had rested upon. As the case slid open, it revealed a single glass orb, similar to the one in the previous room, resting in a cloth pouch. While the orb itself seemed to be clear, Robin could make out in the flickering light what looked to be a murky cloud lingering in it.
With one last look around the room, Robin steeled his mind and grasped the orb. The first sensation he felt was that of an arcthunder bolt dancing up his arm and into the rest of his body as he slowly slumped to the floor. The second sensation he felt was akin to the feeling one would have in their chest should a boulder fall on it and his ability to breath reacted accordingly. The third sensation he experienced was that of the room beginning to gyrate rapidly around him, fortunately he was already on the floor so his loss of balance resulted in little other than him feeling sick. At this point, before he could discover any more wondrous side effects, Robin mercifully passed out as he collapsed to the floor.
A/N: Well, two years. A pretty hectic two years but finally school is finished, work is going well, and family issues are resolved. The good news in all of this is that this story never left my mind and while I wasn't able to write much for it, I was able to do a good bit of planning for it and pretty much have this story all mapped out from a macro perspective(which means I can write it much faster).
I have gotten a good ways into the next chapter, but decided this was a good point to seperate the two as opposed to stopping in a spot that doesn't really make sense.
Overall, its good to be able to write again, I hope that whoever still is interested in Awakening and Grima enjoys the reading and feels generous in leaving a review to let me know their thoughts and how I can improve. See you all next Friday