The walk to the library was quick, but something felt... off.
The door was open.
Wide open.
That alone was enough to make Audree slow his steps. Haldo was obsessive about the door—always locking it even if he stepped out for two minutes, even if it was just to yell at the neighbor's cat.
An open door meant something was wrong.
Audree tightened his grip on his satchel and stepped inside, ears immediately picking up the quiet chaos.
Books lay scattered across the floor, some with pages torn loose, others thrown open like someone had been rifling through them in a panic. Shelves leaned dangerously, papers littered the ground, and the floating candles bobbed nervously near the ceiling, flickering more wildly than usual.
The place looked ransacked.
Audree's heart pounded. His mind raced—Burglars? Mercenaries? Something worse?
He needed a weapon. Fast.
He spotted an old iron lampstand leaning against the wall—one of the decorative ones Haldo insisted gave the library "a noble atmosphere."
It would have to do.
Gripping it like a sword (a very heavy, very poorly balanced sword), Audree crept toward the source of the noise—shuffling, muttering, the sound of something being thrown.
Okay, Audree, he thought, you've fought worse. No, wait—you haven't. But how hard can it be? Big swing, fast feet. You got this.
He hyped himself up, raised the lampstand high over his shoulder, rounded the corner—
—and swung with all the might of a terrified seventeen-year-old.
CRACK.
The lampstand split cleanly in two, snapping at the base like a twig against a boulder. Audree stumbled back, blinking in shock.
What he hit hadn't even moved.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the chaos, completely unbothered, was Haldo. The old man was frantically flipping through books, tossing some aside with barely a glance, muttering under his breath.
Haldo didn't even look up.
"What are you even doing here so early, boy?" he barked without missing a beat. "And why in the Gods' good grace are you trying to kill me with a lampstand?"
Audree stared, mouth open, still holding the broken halves of his "weapon." His mind scrambled to make sense of what just happened.
"I—uh—I thought someone had broken in!" he sputtered. "I saw the door open and the mess and—and I thought you were in trouble! So I grabbed the lampstand to try and help!"
Haldo finally looked up then—peering over the top of his spectacles, one eyebrow raised so high it nearly vanished into his messy white hair.
"You look really silly, boy."
He waved a hand vaguely at the broken lampstand.
"And, if you're wondering what you hit—it was one of the mana-hands I conjured to help me dig through this disaster. Try not to go swinging random household appliances at magical constructs, would you?"
Audree's face burned.
"Right. Uh. Sorry about that."
Haldo huffed, then his face softened just a touch—only visible if you knew him well.
"But... I do appreciate the sentiment." He gave a grunt, tossing another book over his shoulder. "If the day ever comes where I'm bleeding out on the floor, Gods only know if anyone else in this sad little town would bother to help."
Audree rubbed the back of his neck, setting the broken lamp down with as much dignity as he could muster.
"Well... of course, sir. You—and this library—are like a second home to me."
Haldo's mouth twitched, almost a smile.
"Good," he said, turning back to the pile. "Because you're going to be helping me clean this mess up, too."
Audree groaned.
Of course.
Audree hoisted the slimed books onto the desk Haldo pointed at, trying not to wince at the faint squelch as he set them down.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the Vaponea slime wobbling excitedly inside his satchel, its body pulsing faintly brighter. The library was practically soaked in ambient mana—the perfect environment. Compared to the dry, struggling air of Embershade outside, this must feel like a fish finally thrown back into water for the little guy.
Audree smiled faintly, but his mind drifted—thoughts pulling toward Haldo's conjured hands, the ones still flickering through the air, lifting and tossing books with precise, almost lazy flicks.
Curiosity won out.
"So," Audree said as he wandered back toward the mess, "how do those mana hands even work?"
Haldo paused, one eyebrow raising above his glasses. He pushed another pile aside and looked up at him briefly.
"Well," he grunted, "if you must know all my business, boy... they work by me pushing out my own mana—externalizing it—into a physical conjuration. In this case, a hand."
He flexed his fingers demonstratively before returning to his chaotic digging.
"The technique requires an immense amount of mana control," he continued. "Shape, density, function... all of it managed at once. But, lucky for me, that happens to be my specialty."
He tossed a half-shredded book over his shoulder without even glancing at it.
"But going into more detail," he added, voice sharpening slightly, "for someone who has no mana, would be a bit of a waste of time. Anyways, boy—get down here and help me find this blasted book!"
Audree's face remained neutral.
But inside, the old, gnawing frustration rose.
There it was again.
The invisible wall.
The hard limit that no amount of study or cleverness could push past.
No mana, no conjurations.
No mana, no real spells.
No mana, no proper magic.
He swallowed it back, pushing down the bitterness like a stone caught in his throat. It wasn't Haldo's fault. It wasn't anyone's, really. It just... was.
Still, the thought flickered in his mind: If I had been born different... maybe he'd have taught me everything by now.
But that wasn't this life. And daydreaming didn't change a damn thing.
Audree crouched beside the old man, brushing dust off a fallen pile of books.
"What are we even looking for, old man?" he asked, masking his frustration with dry humor.
Haldo huffed, shoving aside a stack of alchemy scrolls. "A book, obviously."
Audree rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but which one?"
"The old one," Haldo said cryptically, as if that explained anything.
Audree muttered under his breath but began helping anyway, pulling books down one by one.
Somewhere deep in the stacks, the slime wobbled happily inside the satchel, utterly unaware of the frustration weighing down the boy it had chosen to follow.
Eventually, after what felt like hours of digging through toppled shelves and loose stacks, Audree's hand brushed something different.
A pulse.
He froze, fingers tightening instinctively.
Buried beneath a crumbling pile of ancient alchemy treatises was a book—if you could even call it that. The cover was stitched together from some kind of coarse, furry hide. Old, yellowed runes crawled across the surface, shifting slightly under the light like living scars. The script was completely alien, written in a language he couldn't even begin to place.
And it was gross.
Audree grimaced, trying not to imagine what kind of animal—or worse, creature—had been used to bind it. Every instinct screamed at him to put it down. Now.
But before he could even summon the will to drop the nasty thing, a faint shimmer darted past his vision.
Yoink.
The book flew out of his hands, plucked neatly away by a nearly invisible mana hand that zipped back toward Haldo like a trained hound.
The old man grinned triumphantly, tucking the foul-looking tome under his arm with a satisfied grunt.
"Ah, good work, Audree," Haldo said cheerily. "Exactly what I was looking for."
Audree stared, wiping his hand on his pants as if trying to scrub away the weirdness. "Uh. You're welcome... I guess."
He wouldn't have been surprised if, just by touching it, he'd accidentally cursed his entire bloodline for the next thousand years.
Trying to shake off the lingering unease, Audree asked, "Um... what's that even used for?"
Haldo waved a hand dismissively. "Not important right now. At least not for you."
That wasn't reassuring.
The old man tucked the book into a thick satchel at his side, slinging it over his shoulder with a grunt of effort.
"But," he added with a smirk, "if I feel like telling you later, maybe I will. Right now, though, duty calls. I have a meeting with some very important people."
Audree frowned. He didn't like the way Haldo said that—too casual, too slippery.
Before he could ask more, movement caught his eye.
Across the room, in the flickering shadows cast by the drifting candles, a familiar little blob lurked.
His Vaponea slime.
It hovered suspiciously close to a rune-covered weapon—an ancient-looking polearm mounted on a shelf that had been there since the first day Audree had stepped into the library. The weapon thrummed faintly with dormant power, and judging by how the slime was wiggling, it was just about to knock it loose.
Audree opened his mouth to shout a warning.
But Haldo didn't even look.
One of the mana hands snapped out faster than Audree could blink, scooping the slime out of the air like a parent plucking a wayward kitten off a counter.
The slime squirmed guiltily in the invisible grip.
"Well, well, well," Haldo said, raising an eyebrow as he finally turned to examine it. "What do we have here?"
He turned the slime gently in the air, squinting.
"Aren't you a mischievous little thing," he muttered. "And how, pray tell, did you get past my wards?"
Haldo frowned slightly, a glint of genuine interest flashing behind his spectacles.
"You're very far from home, aren't you?"
Audree tensed, stepping forward instinctively. "Hey—that's mine!"
Haldo chuckled, letting the slime bob gently in the air before floating it back into Audree's hands.
"I'm not stealing your pet, boy," he said. "Just... curious."
He turned back toward the door, adjusting his heavy satchel.
"Take care of that one," Haldo said over his shoulder. "Creatures like that don't end up in places like this by accident."
And with that cryptic warning, the old man shuffled out into the morning haze, leaving Audree standing in the ruined library, slime in arms, and about a thousand new questions buzzing in his head.
Well.
"That was super weird," Audree muttered, glancing down at the little slime still wobbling happily in his arms, as if expecting a grand adventure.
The slime simply stared up at him with its blank, blinking "eyes," then gave a cheerful bounce like it agreed wholeheartedly—or had no idea what he was saying.
Honestly, it was a little cute.
Audree sighed, shifting the slime into the crook of one arm as he surveyed the wreckage left behind.
Books scattered everywhere. Shelves tipped sideways. Loose parchment littered the floor like it had snowed in the library overnight.
The mess?
Not cute.
"Yeah... no way," he muttered. "I'm not cleaning this up. Haldo must think he pays me or something."
With one last look at the chaotic disaster, Audree shrugged and headed for the door. He made sure the latch clicked firmly into place behind him.
If Haldo trusted him enough to fight off burglars with a lampstand, he could trust him to lock the place up properly.
Outside, the morning sun fought through the haze of Embershade, casting the narrow street in a muted gold.
The slime nestled against his side, pulsing softly.
Audree exhaled, a tired grin flickering across his face.