Darkness in the One Temple Library – Chapter 11: The Creature Beyond Time
Nash frowned down at the mission briefing Sasarai had handed him. "A haunted library?" He fixed Sasarai with a perplexed look. "You do realize I'm a spy, right? Not a paranormal investigator?" Nash asked, only half serious.
Sasarai shrugged. "As Hikusaak used to say, always use the tools at hand." He leaned back in his chair. "Besides, you handled Heller Manor with no trouble. If anything, Nash, you're developing a reputation for the go-to man for the strange and unknown."
Nash scratched the back of his head. This is so totally all Sierra's fault... "Why exactly is this of concern for a Harmonian bishop?" Nash asked. "I would think that the Crystal Valley civil guard would be a better fit."
At this, Sasarai looked uncomfortable. "I may owe the head librarian a favor or two..."
"Of course..." Nash said, groaning slightly. Why am I always used as payment for favors with these people? "Okay, okay. Do we have any other information on this 'ghost,' or whatever?"
Sasarai nodded. "The head librarian will brief you on more of the particulars when you arrive on sight."
With an exaggerated sigh, Nash stood up from his chair. "Well, then, I guess I'd better get going."
Sasarai offered a cheery smile. "But don't worry, Nash. I've got a proper espionage mission ready and waiting for when you come back."
Nash favored Sasarai with a bemused look. "Some enticement: more work when I get back."
Sasarai spread his hands, gesturing to his cluttered desk. "I've got piles and piles of paperwork if you'd prefer."
Nash waved the thought off as he turned and strode from Sas' office. "I'd hardly want to rob you of that experience, my Lord Bishop. I'll go clean up your little ghost problem."
OOO
"That's rather... imposing," Sierra said, looking up at the giant One Temple Library complex. Its granite façade stared impassively back.
Nash cast a sidelong glance her way. "I find it hard to believe that you've never been here before."
Sierra shrugged. "Why spend my times lingering about libraries when there's so much to experience in the wide world?"
Nash smirked. "More like you didn't want her complexion to get any paler."
Sierra scowled at him, but considering that wasn't too far from the truth she chose to forgo any physical violence. "Besides, it's not like I had a lot of time to browse the fine selection here. Vampire hunting is a full time job."
She shifted, resettling her shawl around her shoulders, shivering. "It's cold..."
Nash unconsciously readjusted his scarf. "Yeah." He smirked. "It almost feels like its coming from the library itself." He made a strange face, suddenly waving his hands. "Oooh, spooky!" Chuckling to himself, he marched up the library's many steps.
Sierra fixed the library complex with another long, considering look.
OOO
The head librarian was waiting for the two of them just inside, in the cavernous main lobby. He was an exceedingly thin man, with a terrible gray complexion and an exceptionally pencil thin mustache. "Ezekl Nightly, head librarian," he said, holding out a hand.
(Years later, Nash would be struck by an odd sense of déjà vu when he first met Eike at Budahec Castle. With the exception of the mustache, they were practically twins.)
"Nash Clovis," Nash answered, taking his hand. "Er... Problem solver." He watched Ezekl's eyes flick over to Sierra. "And this is..." Nash frowned in thought for a second, before he broke into a smile. "Madam Sierra, psychic medium."
Almost instantly, Nash could feel Sierra's glare on him. He fought a smile.
"Madam Sierra, good to meet you," Ezekl offered.
"Charmed, I'm sure," Sierra said, a brittle smile on her lips.
"So, tell me about your 'ghost,'" Nash began, trying to get down to business.
"Ah, heh..." Ezekl began, wringing his hands. "I'm afraid calling it a 'ghost' is something of a misnomer."
Sierra's eyebrow arched. "Misnomer?"
Ezekl nodded. "That was more of a rumor invented by several of our... more creative patrons."
Nash let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness," he began. "I knew this was just all some sort of stupid miscommunication blown out of proportion!"
Ezekl nodded, looking very pleased at Nash's reaction. "Yes, exactly. The library staff prefers to call it The Beast."
As Nash's face fell, Sierra struggled to fight of a fit of the giggles. "Oh yes, Nash, such an improvement."
Nash folded his arms, looking irritated. "So, it's a beast, huh?"
Ezekl nodded. "Growls and howling in the library. All very menacing."
Nash's eyebrow arched as his gaze fell on several long rows of tables filled with library patrons. "But you haven't closed down the library? People can still come in and out?"
Ezekl looked appalled. "Mr. Clovis, our library here is the largest and most influential on the continent. We can't simply shut down." Ezekl smoothed the front of his vest, as if trying to calm down. "Furthermore, the problems have been mostly confined to our 'special collections' wing," he added, and it was hard not to notice that he seemed to be trying to justify the decision to himself.
"'Special' collections?" Nash asked. "Yeah, this sounds promising."
Sierra rolled her eyes at Nash's vocal pessimism. "Well, then, we should probably start in the special collection wing itself."
Ezekl inclined his head. "Of course. Please, follow me."
Ezekl leaded them to a small flight of stairs at the rear of the main hall. Down its seemingly endless depths waited a small waiting room dominated by a large oaken double door with the words 'Special Collections' emblazoned on them. A heavy looking padlock hung from the door handles.
Ezekl inserted a key into the padlock. "When there was a rash of sightings on the same day, and when that howling wouldn't stop, the administration made the decision to close down the wing." An odd look flashed across his face. "After we evacuated everyone, of course."
This made Nash highly uncomfortable, because apparently Ezekl had felt the need to specify what should have just been assumed.
Ezekl slowly (nervously?) opened the twin doors, revealing a small foyer dominated by a pair of long and heavy looking wooden tables. Hallways led off on the far wall into darkened recesses of the deeper parts of the wing. "My point is that everything here has been untouched since the day the Beast appeared," he continued.
He gestured towards the pair of tables, both covered in books and other reference materials.
Sierra and Nash caught his drift almost immediately. But just for confirmation's sake... "So, you think that some of the research somebody was doing in here may have...?"
Ezekl nodded. Nash was less than pleased by this revelation; this was reflected in the less than excited expression with which he favored the pile of books. "Well then," he declared, rotating and flexing his right arm as if he were about to wade into a brutal slugfest. "I guess we have no choice." He glanced slyly over at Sierra. "Who says I never show you a good time?"
Sierra primly sat down at one end of the table. "Save the sweet talk, Nash," she chided coolly, "Because we have a lot of reading to do."
OOO
With an overly dramatic sigh, Nash slammed closed the book he had been reading. "We've been at this for hours!" he complained loudly. "We aren't getting anywhere!"
Sierra looked up from her seat across the massive table and glared at Nash. "Actually, Nash, we have." Her expression darkened. "Or at least, I have," she added. "I'm not sure what you've been doing for the last few hours..."
Nash tossed his hands into the air as he stood up and circled around the table. "Oh, I'm sorry I don't find incredibly arcane texts nearly as interesting as you do." A smirk. "Or, I guess for you they must remind you of your long lost childhood, hmm?"
"At least I managed to grow up and mature, unlike some people I could name," she fired back immediately.
Nash nodded, apparently conceding the point. "Touché."
Sierra rolled her eyes, before tapping an illustration in the book sitting before her. "It appears that our errant researchers were interested in parallel worlds." She leaned back on her stool. "Or rather, they were interested in dragging something in from parallel worlds.
"And how did you come to that determination?" Nash asked.
Sierra favored him with a droll look. "These books didn't pull themselves from the shelves, Nash." She encompassed all of them with a wave of her hand. "The only purpose that someone would have in pulling these books would be for that very purpose."
She leaned forward in her seat, peering over the large table. "And you see that scorch mark on the floor there?"
Nash went around the table, to see a circular burn mark in the floor. "Yeah...?"
"That's characteristic of a portal to another realm being opened."
Nash frowned, staring at the burn marks for a long moment. "I'm really not sure how I missed that," he said softly, mostly to himself.
Louder, he said, "Ripping open a hole open to another dimension..." At this he smirked, punching his fist into his palm. "What, so our monster is just something that crawled out the wrong end of a Pale Gate rune? No problem," Nash announced, hitching his thumbs in his belt, "Let's just go find it and beat on it until it runs home!"
"As much as I'm sure that you would love that to be the answer, there might be a problem with your... clever brand of problem solving."
"Such as?" he asked.
At this, Sierra closed the first book, and pulled another free. This second book looked even more ancient than the first, covered in oddly shaped runes and symbols.
"I don't think that the portal was opened to the Pale World."
"Not to the Pale World?" Nash asked sharply. "But I didn't think that was possible. I mean, Pale Gate runes only go there, right? How else could this be done?"
Sierra looked considering. "That I don't know. The only thing powerful enough to do something like that would be either the True Gate Rune or the Dragon Rune, and we know that neither of those is nearby." She frowned. "At any rate, the best course of action right now would be for you to go track down this beast, while I try to figure out a way to send it where it came from."
"Why do I always get all the glamorous jobs?" Nash asked mockingly.
"Do you know how to read the ancient Yithee dialect of the pre-collapse, proto-Sindarian language?" she countered.
"Point taken," Nash conceded as he strolled towards the stacks beyond the study room.
"And Nash," Sierra said, "I'd suggest you be careful."
"Obviously," he said, although he started to frown shortly thereafter. "Although the fact you felt the need to warm me tells me that this is something beyond the normal bruises and broken bones sort of thing."
For once, Sierra looked apprehensive, which troubled Nash to no end. "We aren't certain where this beast came from..." Sierra began. "And there are a lot of parallel worlds out there."
"The World of Wings and Scales to start with," Nash replied authoritatively.
Sierra nodded, though she still looked concerned. "Yes, but that's not just what I mean: the Pale World and the World of Wings and Scales are just the two most well known," she explained. "And many of these other worlds are not what we'd classify as... entirely rational."
Nash frowned. "What do you...?" Sierra, in lieu of an answer, tapped an illustration from her book. Nash's frown deepened and he leaned forward, taking a closer look. "I don't see the problem. It's just a bunch of people out on a sunny day and—"
A chill suddenly shot down his back. What he had taken for the sun was actually a giant eye, floating in the sky... with two pupils. The forms he had taken for people were vaguely humanoid, but... built... wrong. Where's that one's head..? Nash wondered in horror – imagine a person, but only with more misshapen limbs where their head should have been. Things only got worse from there.
He leaned back, trying to mentally shake himself. "So you're saying..."
"We have no idea what is out there. Or how much of a threat it could be." She glanced back at the wooden doors behind them, which were the only way in or out of the Special Collections wing. "Or how much damage it could do if it managed to escape this wing and got out into the general populace."
Nash stared for a long hard moment at the doors. Though Ezekl had locked the doors when he had left Nash and Sierra down there (they had a spare key for when they were 'finished'), the heavy oaken doors looked suddenly very flimsy to his eyes.
Nash took a deep breath. "Okay. You get started, while I try and go find out what exactly we're up against." Of course, even as he said that, he wasn't exactly relishing the task.
OOO
Nash's enthusiasm had only damped further as he wandered the Special Collections stacks alone, the weak light cast by an oil lamp his only company. No, of course, the Special Collection wing has to be under lock and key in the basement. After all, it simply wouldn't do to have a Special Collection atrium or a Special Collection conservatory or something halfway normal with natural light and everything!
Something skittered down one of the aisle ways to his right. He froze, lifting the lamp higher. When nothing stirred again, he narrowed his eyes, and resumed his solitary march. You're hearing things, Nash. Try and keep it together, hmm?
Nash trekked on alone through the rear of the wing, every so often treading past abandoned study nooks. Each one – with books still haphazardly scattered and notebooks open and even a half-eaten sandwich on one table – only added to the quietly unnerving atmosphere of the library.
Nash came to a standstill. There! There was that same skittering again! Nash peered into the gloom, but nothing seemed to stir within the weak light cast by the oil lamp. Nash narrowed his eyes. Fine, if that's how you want to play it... He shuttered the front of the lamp, quickly bathing him in darkness.
Nothing stirred... But then Nash noticed an odd glow in the distance, about six or seven aisles down from where he stood. That almost looks like another oil lamp... But I thought Ezekl said that they had evacuated everyone before they locked the entire wing up. Nash frowned. Maybe he was just trying to convince himself when he said that, or maybe just assuage a guilty conscious about—
And then something brushed past Nash's leg, and the skittering got even louder, and his heart rate suddenly shot through the roof, and ohgod, why can I get the damn lamp shutter open and this is how it ends, in a stupid library in the dark!? and—
A midsized rat stared up at Nash from the ground, cocking its head at his panicked expression and the lamp shaking in his hand, before dashing off back into the stacks. Nash let out a huge sigh of relief. "A rat... Just a stupid rat..." he said, mad at himself for getting worked into such a lather over nothing.
But that wasn't nothing... he thought as he looked back in the direction where he had seen the weak light. "That was definitely something..." he murmured to himself determinedly, as he hurried in that direction.
A short walk brought him closer to the light, and a new section of the Special Collection wing: placards on the ends of the rows proudly proclaimed the area something called 'crypto-zoology.' As Nash edged into the area, he spotted almost immediately an old man at the center bookcase. He had long and stringy gray hair, and was wrapped in an incredibly battered looking brown robe with purple trim.
He seemed completely nonplussed at the giant, empty, and darkened wing around him. And as if the scene weren't surreal enough, a small lamp—the source of the anomalous light—hovered over the old man's right shoulder. Literally just... hovered.
"The great wizard. Crowley," the robed man said suddenly, unprompted and without turning around.
This caused Nash to jump, as he hadn't even announced himself yet. "Excuse me?" Nash asked, and he stepped closer.
"My name. Crowley. You were about to ask."
"I—" Nash closed his mouth, looking perplexed. "Well, uh, okay..." He frowned. "Crowley, eh?" he asked. Nash folded his arms. "Listen, I don't know how you got in here, but this section of the library is supposed to be closed off to visitors." Nash's brow furrowed. "Actually, what are you even doing down here in the dark?" he pressed.
And then, without his cloak so much as shifting slightly, Crowley turned almost unnaturally fast to face Nash—it was almost as if one moment he had been facing one direction, and then another the next. Crowley cocked his head to one side, his withered features otherwise unchanged. "What are you doing in the middle of my experiment?" he countered.
"Experiment?" Nash asked.
"I'd suggest you be careful," Crowley continued, as if he hadn't heard Nash. Crowley then turned back to the books—again with unnatural speed—apparently having lost interest in Nash. "The experiment makes the reality here thin. Tattered."
Reality is thin? What on earth is this nutter talking about? "What experiment?" Nash demanded instead.
"You could fall right through to another world right now..." Crowley added, musingly. "And then there's It."
"It?" Nash asked rhetorically. "Are you talking about the Beast? Do you know anything about it? If you do, you need to—"
"Of course I don't know anything about it," Crowley answered immediately. "That's why I brought it here: to learn."
By this point, Nash's frustration was boiling over. "Listen, are you going to give me a straight answer, or are you—"
"Ah," Crowley said suddenly, interrupting. He turned, looking down one of the gloomy side corridors. "It comes."
"What comes!?" Nash demanded... only to wish he hadn't.
Down the corridor Crowley had indicated, came a soft scraping noise. Something was coming towards them. "Hello?" Nash called out, lifting his lamp at least higher. What, do we have a whole convention of people down here that I didn't know about? he thought sarcastically.
He peered into the darkness again. In the dim shadows, he could just make out a shape... surprisingly large, maybe the size of a smallish grizzly bear and crawling on all fours. Nash's frown deepened. Make that on all sixes... It emitted a strange, popping growl that echoed throughout the stacks.
"What in heaven's name is...?" But when Nash turned back to demand an explanation from Crowley, he was gone. It was like he had simply vanished.
The creature in the darkness drew closer. It was easier to make out more details. It looked a bit like a lion crossed with a bear, with a lizard: Big like a bear, but a more feral head (it was clearly a predator) complete with a mane, and skin like a sickly green lizard.
Well, that's not so bad, Nash thought to himself... only to watch as it opened four additional eyes on the ridge of its upper back. And then its mane began to writhe, revealing it to be made entirely of short, stubby tentacles.
It was at about that point that Nash's nerve broke. "Why does it have so many eyes!?" Nash cried out, taking several large staggering steps back. The beast didn't apparently like that, lowering on its haunches, baring its very crooked but still very sharp teeth, and letting loose another popping growl.
And then the chase was on. Nash bolted, his lamp casting irregular shadows over the stacks, as behind him the Beast let loose its popping growl and plowed after him.
OOO
On the other side of the Special Collection wing, Sierra looked up from the ponderous texts she labored through. "What on earth is that racket?" she asked the relative calm around her.
Her expression blanched. "Ugh. I guess that means Nash has found our little beastie..." she posited mirthlessly. "Is that man simply incapable of doing things in a quiet and collected manner?" she asked no one in particular. "No," she continued in a mocking voice, "of course that's impossible, because otherwise things would just be too simple and boring for our indestructible super spy, wouldn't it?"
With an aggravated sigh, she went back to picking her way through the text. Someone was going to have to do the unenviable scholarly legwork if they had any hope of ever resolving the library's little problem...
OOO
A good fifteen minutes later, Nash came to a stand still, panting alone in the dark. He stood in front of a row of what looked to be tiny study rooms, the rest of the stacks behind him. "Did... Did I lose it?" Nash asked, panting.
As if to answer, the popping growl wafted to his ears. It wasn't that close, but still too close for comfort. "I'll take that as a no," Nash continued breathlessly, flinging open the nearest of the study room doors and running inside.
Slamming the door behind him, Nash took several steps back. The door probably wouldn't hold the Beast back for long, but it might just give him a couple of minutes to catch his breath... or it would have, if not for...
"What trickery is this!?" someone behind him shouted.
Nash spun around to confront the voice, only to see... himself. But unlike his adventures in Viki's... place, this Nash wasn't simply a younger version of himself. This Nash stared back with cold eyes, filled with equal parts command and disdain. And he was dressed as a bishop of Holy Harmonia. 'He' resembled what Nash always imagined—feared?—he might have ended up as if the Latkje's hadn't met such an ignominious end.
"What isthis!?" Bishop Latkje demanded, both hands dropping to a sword belted at his hip.
The act reflexively caused Nash to draw his own knives. "I could be asking you the same question," Nash said evenly.
"What are you? A demon? Or simply a poor impostor?" Bishop Latkje asked.
"Poor imposter!?" Nash fumed.
"I would never be caught in such... dreary rags," Bishop Latkje declared. "You clearly needed to do more research on me. And the likeness is hardly perfect!"
"Listen, buddy, I'm not the one with the stick up his ass!" Nash retorted immediately. His nose crinkled. "Or wearing the silly hat..." he added.
"You filthy peasant—" Bishop Latkje began, only to be cut of by that same odd popping growl echoing through the library. "Damn... As if I don't have enough problems on my hands right now..." he muttered.
Turning his attention back to Nash, he again canted his head in a highly arrogant matter. "Listen well, impostor, as I have a far more pressing crisis to deal with and shant repeat myself."
Nash's eyes flicked towards Bishop Latkje's door. "Got your own demon from some other plane of space to deal with, eh?" he guessed.
When Bishop Latkje didn't respond, Nash took the opportunity to scan the room around him. "Listen, pal, I don't know what's up with this room, but if you'd concentrate less on being an insufferable ass and more on your environment, I'd think you agree with me."
"What's that supposed to—" Bishop Latkje began, only to stop short, his eyes narrowing. "What is that humming?" he asked, sound rather distracted. "And... is the room shimmering?" he continued.
Nash nodded. Indeed, the room did shimmer, but only just at the edge of one's vision... "Listen, something is definitely wrong in this library and I think this," and here he gestured with a finger back and forth between the two of them, "is some sort of related cosmic screw up."
Bishop Latkje's eyes narrowed. "What exactly are you saying, peasant?" he asked. "That we simply back out of this room and go back our separate ways?"
Nash nodded slowly.
The bishop's expression turned sour. "Fine: I shall make you an offer. Remove yourself from my sight, and I shall consider the matter forgotten."
Nash glanced back to his side of the mirrored room. "Fantastic. Let's just ease on back out of here, shall we?" he asked, taking several steps back.
Bishop Latjke mirrored his steps, but his expression was still arch. "I warn you, though, if I ever see you again, you shant be spared any of my wrath."
As the two slowly backed away from one another, Nash shook his head. "Buddy, if that ever happens, feel free."
The two blindly groped for their door handles, pulling their doors open. Both moved halfway through their doors, stopped and glared at one another distrustfully, before finally slipping all the way through and slamming their doors behind them.
"That was weird..." Nash said, once 'safe' in the hall. "Man, if I never see that room again," Nash began, turning back to the door as if to mark it as dangerous, "I can—"
Nash stopped short. He had turned only to find a solid wall where the door had been. "Okay...." Nash said quietly, immediately casting his eyes down either side of the hall, as if checking to see if anyone else had seen that madness. "I'm completely willing to forget that ever happened if you are." While it wasn't clear who Nash was talking to—the world, fate, the wall, himself, Bishop Latkje—he nodded quickly. "Deal."
He started to tromp off down the corridor before stopping, turning, and marking a giant 'x' where the door had been with some chalk. "No sense in taking chances..." he muttered as he stalked off.
OOO
As Nash continued to wander alone in the dark, he soon stumbled upon almost a classroom of sorts, with a chalkboard pinned up against the wall and even an astrolabe on a side table. And standing at the chalkboard, scratching away, was Crowley again.
"Crowley!" Nash called. "What on earth is going on down here!?" Nash demanded, one hand resting on a knife hilt, the other fingering the edge of a rune scroll. No sense in taking chances with this guy...
Crowley paid him only the briefest of glances. "...all part of my experiment," Crowley 'explained,' still scratching away at the chalk board.
"Experiment?" Nash asked warily.
"Interplexing of a critical mass of Pale Gate runes... See?" Crowley asked, raising one arm and pulling back a sleeve. Nash watched in shocked silence as his arm was literally covered in Pale Gate runes... only to watch as they seemed to vanish, leaving Crowley's arm without a rune on it.
"So you did bring that... thing here. But how is that possible, with just a bunch of Pale Gate runes?"
"A single Pale Gate rune has only the power to piece the dimensional veil to the Pale World. But have enough attached and their power increases exponentially... more than enough power to piece the veil to higher dimensionality."
"O-okay," Nash began, looking a bit out of depth, "I'm just going to assume that makes sense."
"Oh it does," Crowley said quickly, for the first time his voice being filled with something approximating actual emotion. "And that possibility makes for all sorts of research opportunities."
"Like the Beast," Nash said dryly. "Listen, your little research experiment has put a lot of people in danger, not to mention that the fine library administration here would like their special collections wing back at some point."
Of course, Nash might as well have been speaking Sindarian for all the listening Crowley did. "Did you come here alone?" Crowley asked instead. "If you didn't, then you should collect your colleagues and leave now. The experiment is almost over."
"Trust me," Nash began, for the moment disarmed, "my partner is the last person I would worry about right now. If that beast so much as looks at her funny, she'll probably introduce it to the business end of her true rune."
"I thought I detected a true rune..." Crowley mused, actually pausing from his scratching on the chalkboard for a moment. "That would make for an interesting match up... If any runes—true runes or not—would work on It."
This announcement snapped Nash's attention right back to the old wizard. "W-wait, what!?" Nash demanded, rushing over and grabbing a double fist-full of Crowley's cloak and dragging him close.
"The Beast doesn't conform to the same law of physics," Crowley explained, in his distracted tone. "So why would runes have any effect? They might not even recognize the Beast as a target." He calmly brushed Nash's grip off him, as he eerily floated—yes, floated, just as his lamp did—back to the chalkboard. "Really, such an interesting creature..."
Nash froze for a moment, feeling helpless as he watched Crowley obliviously peruse books, looking completely unconcerned with what he just told Nash.
"Sierra!" Nash called, turning and dashing off.
It was only then that Crowley's attention was diverted from the bookshelf. Watching after Nash's shrinking form, he pursed his lips. "Interesting..."
OOO
Back on the other side of the Special Collection wing, Sierra was still hard at work deciphering texts that were several times older than even the impressively old stones making up the One Temple Library. She was distracted in this effort by an odd popping growl...
She looked up to see what had to be the ugliest bear she had ever seen shamble into the light of her lantern. Her eyes narrowed. "I take it you're the infamous 'ghost' of the library?" Sierra asked, as the six-legged Beast edged into the study area. The Beast, obviously, declined to comment.
"That's a mistake," Sierra murmured self-confidently, as the six legged Beast shambled closer. Casually standing, Sierra raised her right hand. "I'd stay back if I were you."
When the Beast did nothing of the sort—cautiously edging forward another several steps—Sierra smiled. "Your funeral, then..." She raised her hand, palm outward, towards the beast. "Blue Moon Rune, help me show this beast the errors of its ways."
When nothing happened, Sierra didn't... quite start to panic. "Blue Moon Rune?" She fought the absurd notion to shake her hand as if it had suddenly become defective.
The Beast advanced, the wriggling tentacle 'mane' suddenly becoming more aggravated in what Sierra hoped wasn't anticipation. Scowling, Sierra tried her left hand, only to find her Darkness rune wasn't working either. "Oh hell," she muttered, as the Beast suddenly growled and pounced.
Sierra managed to duck down and to the left (thankfully, the Beast apparently wasn't canceling out her speed) as the Beast plowed forward. The Beast's momentum and mass sheared the table she had been sitting at in half, sending books and papers flying everywhere.
Her eyes narrowed as the Beast skidded to a halt. "Fine," she said to no one in particular, as she pulled off her shawl and rolled her sleeves up. "Fine, we'll just do this the old fashioned way," she declared ominously, her left hand curled into a fist, and her right quickly drawing free three of her throwing knives. She stood her ground as the Beast regained its feet and turned to face her.
The Beast rushed her, snarling. In one swift movement Sierra flung out her knives, only to watch as they all bounced off the Beast harmlessly–apparently the off-color ridges on the Beast's head were made of something hard, perhaps bone, perhaps some sort of scale. Either way, her knives weren't having much effect.
She ducked out of the way as the Beast came crashing home again, but pivoted on her left foot and sped after the Beast. The Beast noticed this only too late, as, with a defiant expression, Sierra savagely slammed a fist into the Beast's side—only to pull her arm back and cradle her fist. "Ah..." she said, coming to a stop as she was so startled at feeling such... pain for the first time in decades.
The Beast skidded to a halt again, itself pivoting back to face Sierra, its terrible long face watching her with interest. It lunged again, but this time with one of its too close for human arms extended in a grabbing motion. Despite still cradling her arm, Sierra ducked its first grab. Frustrated, the Beast raked out its front claws, again and again. Sierra still easily dodged each, finally dropping to a knee at one point to duck one particularly desperate lunge.
Both claws only narrowly missed her head, ruffling her hair... only to get smashed across the face as the Beast whipped its surprisingly long and surprisingly heavy tail around. She was knocked flying, slamming into (through!) at least two bookshelves before rolling to a stop.
Sierra groaned, slow to sit up. And when she did, she felt an odd wetness on one lip. Her fingers flew to the site, and she was shocked as they came away bloody. She shakily got back to her feet. Not that far away, the Beast eyed her from the other side of the two bookcases she had been knocked through.
This was not going well.
OOO
"Sierra!" Nash shouted, as he came crashing into Special Collection wing's foyer.
He froze for a second as he took in the scene of Sierra and the Beast's first battle, his eyes lingering specifically on the sheared in half table. Fear now joining the adrenaline in his system, his eyes started to scan the area. "Sierra!?" he called again.
Still there was no answer. Not quite in a panic yet, Nash started to follow the trail destruction that led off from the foyer.
Three wrecked bookshelves and two tables later, Nash could clearly make out the sounds of a hard-pressed vampire struggling with an other-dimensional creature. "Sierra!" Nash shouted, doubling his speed.
One second Nash was speeding through the dark, the next he came to a stumbling halt as he was blinded by lit lamps appearing out of nowhere.
"Nash..." Sierra called, more of a tired gasp than a yell. When Nash's eyes had cleared, he discovered two things. One, somehow, he was right back in Crowley's little classroom nook, chalkboard and astrolabe and all. (And this greatly confused him, because hadn't that been on the far side of the library?) Two, Sierra had not been having an easy time with the Beast.
She was crouching now, a throwing knife in each hand, as she and the Beast considered each other from opposite sides of one the tables.
"Are you okay!?" he called.
She nodded, though from the slow way she did so it was obvious she was a bit hazy. A thin trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth, and she had what looked to be the beginning of a black eye–standing out especially against her pale skin. As she took a step closer, she winced as she shifted her weight onto her left leg.
Seeing all that together, it was more than enough to make Nash mad. Knives flicked into his hands almost immediately, and before he had even thought things through all the way he was rushing at the Beast. "Nash! Wait!" Sierra called.
But Nash didn't heed her, instead dodging the Beast's tail whip, inverting the grip on one knife, and striking out for the Beast's hindquarters. The Beast's hide proved fairly resistant; on the other hand, Nash was uniquely motivated. Through sheer dedication, several small scratches appeared in what had here-to-fore been impenetrable scales.
As if to get away from Nash, the Beast jumped onto the table with the astrolabe, knocking the device to the floor and shattering it to pieces. From inside the device rolled out a Pale Gate rune.
Sierra spied it almost immediately. "Nash!" she called, gesturing to the orb rolling across the floor, "I need that Pale Gate rune!" she called.
Nash's gaze flicked back and forth between her and the rune, and then over to the Beast, still perched on the table, its six eyes tracking each of Nash's movements.
He nodded, a sudden cocksure smile stealing onto his face. "Whatever you say, Sierra."
Nash feinted forward and left. The Beast went for it, crashing forward to where it thought Nash would be. Nash, meanwhile, threw himself in a lunge, skidding along on his belly, until his hand closed around the crystal. "Catch!" he called, hurling it towards Sierra.
Sierra caught it... barely. "K-keep it busy, while I attach the rune..." she commanded, her weariness apparent in her voice.
"You can do that?" Nash asked, as he pulled free a rune scroll.
"It's... not something that I particularly like to do," Sierra explained distractedly, "but you live as long as I have, you pick up a thing or two."
Normally, Nash would have followed that with a witty comment on her incredible age, but, in all honesty, his lady was looking so battered that his heart just wasn't in it.
As Nash fired off his rune scroll—unfortunately, the clay spires went wide, savaging the chalk board but little else—Sierra got to work. Taking a deep breath she began to move her hands in overly esoteric fashions, before groaning painfully as the rune embedded itself in her forehead.
Nash, distracted by the sight of the rune crystal vanishing into Sierra's forehead, snapped his attention back to the beast, only to find it charging. It tackled Nash, and the two crashed to the floor. Rearing its head back, the Beast then lunged forward with its teeth. Nash's knives whipped back into his hands just in time to block... but it was obvious Nash's strength was failing, and Beast's snapping jaws drew ever closer...
"Sierra!?" Nash called in desperation.
Sierra took a deep breath, before regaining her feet, and holding one hand out. "Now, Nash! Get clear!"
With a grunt, Nash kicked both feet up and braced them against the Beast's chest. Then, with a might roar, he kicked off with both legs, sending the Beast skidding away from him, even Nash he dug in his heels slid back and away.
"Be... gone!" Sierra screamed, as the symbol of a pale gate rune traced itself on the ground where the Beast was standing. It only had time to look down—confused—before an orb-like gate surrounded it, winds howling and a too bright light everywhere...
And then like that it was all over. The library returned to the too-dark place it had been, and the only sound that could be heard was the harsh breathing of Nash and Sierra.
From his prone position on his back, Nash awkwardly craned his head back to stare at Sierra. "Where...?" he asked breathlessly.
Sierra shook her head, panting. "...just a gate to the Pale World... That's all I could manage with this..."
Nash shook his head. "If anything can hold its own there, that thing can," Nash muttered, staring at the burn marks from where Sierra had opened the portal.
"Gaah!" Sierra suddenly shouted, clutching her forehead. Nash watched wordlessly as the Blue Moon Rune on her hand suddenly started to glow, as did the Pale gate rune on her forehead—they apparently weren't getting along all of a sudden. Before he could even react, the Pale gate rune suddenly re-crystallized before landing on the ground with a soft 'plink.'
And then Sierra dropped to her knees, before slumping over. "Sierra? Sierra!" Nash called, quickly crawling over to where she had collapsed...
OOO
Director Ezekl nervously paced in front of the Special Collection wing's double doors, rapidly working the key to the doors in his hands. There had been a titanic racket coming from inside—they had even heard it in the study rooms on the third floor!
His indecisiveness over whether or not to open the door and investigate for himself, however, came to an abrupt end as the door clicked open from the inside.
"H-Hello...?" Ezekl asked, trying to peer into the darkness.
Nash struggled out from the gloom. He was battered and bleeding, and dragged along a half conscious Sierra, one of her arms slung over his neck. Without breaking their—admittedly slow—progress out of the library, Nash glared at Ezekl. "We've taken care of your little problem," he stated flatly.
But when Ezekl started to offer his thanks, Nash held up a hand. "Save it. I don't want to hear it," he said bitterly.
And as the two started to climb the stairs to the main library... "And the next time you've got a problem down there, find someone else!" he yelled back in irritation.
Speechless, Ezekl just watched the two of them go, before turning to peer into the Special Collection wing... or rather, the ruins of the Special Collections wing, with tables outright sheared in half, several bookcases either toppled over or with many of their shelves collapsed or sagging, not to mention the books and papers that were everywhere.
And then before Ezekl's disbelieving eyes, he watched as someone else wandered out into the light. "M-Master Crowley! I thought you had left some time ago!"
Crowley, as one might expect, totally ignored Ezekl. "Hmm. More research to be done. He threw himself in front of that thing... for love?" He stalked—or perhaps hovered—out of the library. "Irrational. Strange. I'll need more information," he declared, before vanishing abruptly into midair.
OOO
Hours later, back in Circle Palace...
"Nash...?" Sierra asked, her eyes finally fluttering open. She was sprawled out on the bed, a wet cloth over her forehead.
Nash was stationed in a chair right next to the bedside. "Right here," Nash said quickly, both hands clasping Sierra's.
"Where are...?" she started, half sitting up. "Is the Beast—!?" she asked suddenly, quickly snapping all the way up. But she had risen too quickly, and her face was soon awash in pain.
"Shh, shh, shh," Nash said, easing her back down. "Take it easy. We took care of the Beast, remember?" he asked. He punched the air. "A one way ticket to the Pale World. You earned yourself quite a shiner in the process, though."
Sierra's expression turned solemn. "It's been over 800 years since I've felt like this..." she says quietly. "I was nearly helpless against that thing, Nash," she continues. "That's... that's not something I..." She breaks off. "If you hadn't..." She takes a deep breath. "I was scared, Nash..." she admits, her voice thick.
For a long moment, Nash doesn't say anything, just stroking the back of her hand. "Hey, try and look on the bright side," Nash says lightly, after a few minutes. "It's nice to know my lady isn't totally invincible."
This did nothing to improve Sierra's mood... even at the same time as it did. "If I could move right now, I'd hit you," Sierra managed through the pain.
"I know," he said warmly, before bending down and kissing her forehead. "Rest now, dear," he said quietly, brushing back her hair. "I'll keep an eye out." True to his word, Nash sat down and kept watch at her bedside, even when the last candle had burned out.
