At a glance, the inside of the restricted section of Spellford’s library was mostly the same as the outside.

The biggest difference was the ceiling, which looked like the most incredible screen savers of the Milky Way I’d ever seen. Except my improved memory assured me that a lot had changed from what I remembered. It was still the same place, but a few arms of the galaxy were distorted, and several sections were just… dark.

Turning my attention away from the unnerving ceiling and its implications, I followed Arizar as she guided me towards the Worlds and Celestial sections.

“Father has a limit of one per day when drawing upon the spells of Spellford…” She paused for a moment, as if hesitant to add her next words. “Though he has advised me you may copy two, if you wish. While the enchantments make copying a spell effortless, father normally prefers his guests to choose wisely. He’s decided to make an exception for you. Do not misplace his trust,” Arizar said, pulling a book off the end of the first shelf and thrusting it towards me. “This should help you narrow down your choices.”

“And I’ll be allowed to choose two more tomorrow?”

“That is what father said, yes,” Arizar replied, pulling out a book of her own and settling down at a nearby desk. “Do not disturb me unless you have questions related to the index, please. Or unless you’ve made your choice.”

I nodded, somewhat taken aback by her sudden hostility. Deciding it best to do as she said, I inspected the book in my hands. Thin and black, I opened it to find neatly printed lists of the shelves and their contents, by Affinity and Order level.

According to the book, there were hundreds of grimoires for most schools, yet the Celestial Affinity only held two dozen, and Worlds was even scarcer with a mere six grimoires.

Six entire grimoires, more like.

I couldn’t help but rub my hands together as I approached the Worlds shelf. Each of the shelves had their own reference books to further narrow down where to find individual spells, the Worlds’ shelf holding a Blue book with flecks of black on its cover. Instead of using it, I paged through each of the Worlds grimoires manually, preserving as much as I could for Memory Palace.

The thought caused me to pause for a second. I quickly continued paging through the grimoire as I glanced over at the Celestial spell section. There might be spells there that, if not being a direct upgrade, would allow me to improve Memory Palace. More likely, I’d have to see if I could find anything in the Arcane section. Unfortunately, it was one of the largest parts of this room.

Which would be amazing if I could spend all the time in the world here.

However, even just paging through the six Worlds grimoires took me half an hour, and I barely got to inspect the spells as I did so. More tedious than enjoyable.

The next few hours were spent going through even more grimoires, with Arizar sitting at a desk nearby, working on a spell of her own.

When I noticed, I couldn’t help but stop to inspect it, my brow furrowing.

“Why do you have these mana-capacitor runes so close together? Doesn’t that create feedback?”

“Those are there because there isn’t a better place to put them. If I shift them along the out rune circle, then they interfere with the intake. It’ll only increase the mana-cost by ten percent.”

“Well, yeah. But couldn’t you just, you know, create a minor bypass, giving you more space? That’d be less than a single percent increase in cost, wouldn’t it?”

“If it was that easy, don’t you think I’d…” Arizar paused, squinting down at the page. “Drown it all, it is that easy, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” I said, squinting as I attempted to decipher the spell. Unfortunately, it was a third Order Water spell, and I wasn’t particularly familiar with the runes that lay in the core. It seemed to be a sort of summoning spell though, based on some of the motive runes used. Complicated stuff.

“Anyway, did you find your spells? I’ll admit, you gave it more thought than I’d expected.”

“Think so,” I said, holding up one Celestial and one Worlds grimoire. “So, how do I make use of this fancy copying method?”

“Come with me,” Arizar said, packing up her notes and whisking them away into whatever she was using for storage. Not a ring, since she wasn’t wearing any.

Maybe one of the earrings? The size wouldn’t really matter if the enchantments were properly on the inside. And they were enchanted well enough I couldn’t really tell what affinity they had.

Arizar led me to a sort of podium, except it had two slanted surfaces. “Lay the first grimoire down here, open to the spell you want to copy,” she explained, tapping at one side of the podium which had an image of a book with words the pages engraved into the surface. “And the one you want to copy into, here.” The other side had an image of a book with blank pages. “So easy an idiot can do it.”

“I’d say it was idiot proof, but I was a mechanic. Nothing’s idiot proof except vodka,” I said, repeating something I’d often said back in the days when I’d been drinking myself into oblivion.

The words made me grimace at myself and earned an eyebrow raise from Arizar. “Interesting saying, though I do not know the word ‘Vodka’.”

That was because Vodka had been in English. Or Russian, maybe?

Instead of clarifying, I placed the grimoires as instructed then stepped back.

Apparently accepting my desire to move on, she gestured towards an open shelf underneath the second side of the podium. “With the grimoires in place, you simply provide the materials needed for the spell transcription here. Idiot proof.”

Pulling out some of the Worlds materials that Thozgar had just provided me, I placed them alongside a healthy amount of Silver dust in the podium.

With that done, Arizar gestured to a simple blank plate on the side of the podium. “Now that everything is in place, simply channel your mana here.”

Doing so, I got to watch as the podium copied the spell into my grimoire for me, the words slowly appearing, description and all.

The first spell I’d chosen was a third Order spell I suspected I’d have a lot of use for in the coming days.

Recall Operative

This spell is meant solely for Operatives of the Altean Empire. Possessing this spell without the proper Operator license is sufficient cause for instant soul binding or execution.

If you are reading these words and are not an Operative of the Altean Empire, cease now. This is your only warning.

The words had a thin line crossed through them, along with a note in the margins that was longer than the crossed out section. The podium copied it all.

They really did enforce this, the sick bastards. The man who first provided the spell to our archives had stolen it from a secret library, and oh did they want it back.

One of their Operatives attempted to sneak him out of the capital under soul bond only to discover he could resist the effect. Turns out it doesn’t take much for an ensouled to resist soul magic, with a little practice. The same practice it took to cast Recall. Advise checking Arcane reference materials for Soul Exercises to strengthen the soul. Not only will they keep you safe from Soul Bindings and other such magic, they reduce the strain from using this spell.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

I’d checked the recommended exercises, and none of them were actual spells, so I’d added them to my repertoire, fulling intending to not only practice them later, but to get Bevel, Tamrie and everyone else I cared about to do so too.

After the warnings came the actual description of the spell.

Recall. Set a mark. The caster can recall themselves to the marked location. Range: Highly variable. Depends on the weight of the anchor’s origin point, the caster’s soul resilience (tied to their ensouled tier, though there is recorded variance), and the dimensional interference of local phenomena.

Note, it is recommended to choose a marked location with little traffic. While the caster is protected upon exiting, the same isn’t true for those standing in their vicinity when they exit the seventh dimension.

If I was reading the formula correctly, Recall Operative should allow me to teleport all the way from the City on the Water back to Mount Aeternia if I wanted. Maybe.

I’d noticed that when using Secrets of Telthen, it cost less mana for the final stretch to get into the mountain. I was hoping that had something to do with the weight mentioned in this and several of the other Worlds spells I’d paged through. If it was at least equal to a weight of 1.0 Slides, as the books measured weight, then it should be possible.

Would probably leave me feeling wrung out like a rag, if the warnings about the soul fatigue were to be believed.

“Feels kinda wrong,” I said as we watched the core components of the actual spell transfer over. “If I didn’t have to get back, I think I’d prefer copying it myself.”

“You don’t trust our enchantments?” Arizar asked, crossing her arms with a frown.

“It’s not that,” I denied. “It’s just… when you copy it, you’re building an understanding of the spell. You can’t help but know how the spell works, when you put every piece of it together yourself. Like building a…” I wanted to say car, but for all the magical inventions Elinder had in their lexicon, they didn’t have the word for it. Or more likely, they did, but I was blanking on it in the moment. They did have one that I used all the time that was close enough. “Like building a bike.”

“You build bikes?” Arizar asked, squinting at me. “You?”

“Sometimes. Not as often as I used to. We’re mostly working on airships and trains and… honestly, I don’t get to spend as much time working in the shops as I used to,” I said, shaking my head. “Too much to do.”

“Interesting,” Arizar said, a strange gleam in her eyes. Then she shook her head, gesturing towards the now dark podium. “Shall we continue?”

I nodded, placing the Celestial grimoire on the table, opening it to the spell I’d chosen.

Vox’s Ever Expanding Imperium of the Mind.

Despite its overly verbose title, it was exactly what I’d been looking for. The third Order spell was an almost direct upgrade for Memory Palace, though it was different in several ways. The one that wasn’t in the description but could be worked out from the notes was that I’d only need to cast it from my spell slot the first time. Or whenever I gained more spell slots. After that first cast, I could activate it with a simple first Order spellcode using the same spell as I did for my storage items.

I put the components inside then placed my hand on the plate, re-reading the description as the spell was copied over.

Vox’s Ever Expanding Imperium of the Mind.

The borders of nations are never solid, shifting with the needs and wants of the times. Why then, should the borders of our mind be any more rigid?

Vox’s eternal guidance lights the way.

Right, with the necessary pandering for my oh so generous patrons out of the way, we can get to the good stuff.

This spell is built upon the once famous Memory Palace, though it has been adjusted for use with a more proper affinity, Celestial. This has successfully addressed the unusual dissociation effect many casters felt after exiting their Memory Palaces.

Not an effect I’d ever felt, though maybe the author was referring to the headaches from absorbing too much at once?

Shaking my head, I continued.

If one has cast Memory Palace before, they will be transported into their familiar home. They will also have a better understanding of how they can change said home. It varies by the caster, though needing to use physical hand tools is surprisingly common. I’ve had more than one of my compatriots complain about not being able to simple wave improvements into place.

They forget that this spell is interfacing directly with their minds. Such a simple method of remodeling would only apply to those with equally fluid minds, of which, I’ve only ever met one man. And given his general inability to tell reality from fiction, I suspect hand tools are the better way to go.

If one hasn’t cast Memory Palace, well, then they will be subject to a more customized experience, allowing them to slowly grow out what they want their mind home to become. Note that this does take a significant amount of time, usually in the realm of several hours, so it’s best to cast it when you have the time to spare.

Either way, once inside, you will find yourself with the ability to cast spells of the first Order. Critically, this is actual cast, and includes spells you design within the construct. If you’ve cast this spell with a fourth Order spell slot, then you’ll find yourself able to do the same with second Order spells. The same occurs with a fifth spell slot, confirmed by High Shaper Thozgar himself. In theory, this spell should follow this pattern with sixth Order slots. Yet, as I’ve never even met a Dragon-souled, nevermind had one of them learn my spell, this remains supposition.

This is possible because Vox’s Imperium is capable of copying small areas of the local space around you when cast. There’s a lot of theory involved in how this works, and isn’t appropriate for such a brief spell description. You can find my full dissertation on seven dimensional objects and their interactions with intelligence in my published work, The Mind, The Mystery, The Manifold Multiplanes.

The mentioned book hadn’t been amongst the grimoires, though I fully intended to seek it out in the actual library.

“An excellent choice,” Arizar said as the spell completed. “It’s been deliberately excluded from the grimoire, but if you cast the initial spell in close to proximity to another with the spell active, you can link your mind homes. I’ll miss having access to Father’s.”

“Seems like that might not always be a good thing,” I said, imagining someone using it as a way to come in and make a mess of my mind.

“Part of why it isn’t written of,” Arizar admitted. “But that is only a concern for those who are already so proficient with soul magic they could invade your mind even without the spell. Most ensouled need to possess an appropriate invitation to enter your mind home.”

“Guess I chose a good pair then, since training for Recall is going to help me shore up those soul defenses.”

“It is…” Arizar said, seeming to agree despite her frown.

“Problem?”

“No, nothing. If you’re done, I shall escort you out,” Arizar said, giving a slight nod towards the exit.

I followed her out, and we quickly found Tamrie and Tresla at a nearby table. Tresla had several of the red books from earlier stacked next to her, and she was reading through another as we approached. Tamrie looked to be taking notes for her, both of them talking quietly.

“Arizar!” Tamrie called out upon seeing us, getting up to give the woman a hug.

“Ah, Tamrie,” Arizar said, seeming surprised by the enthusiastic greeting.

“I hope Perry did bore you overmuch with his talking of spells and such,” Tamrie said, her voice teasing as she elbowed me gently.

“No. He… it was fine, as you said, he focused on the spells while I attended to my own work,” Arizar replied. “Now, I must go, there is much I must do before we depart. It has been a pleasure meeting you and I look forward to working with all of you in the days to come.”

Despite the stiff feeling of her words, Tamrie was still beaming as Arizar begged off, leaving us to our own devices. Putting her out of mind, I scanned all of the books Tresla had on the table with Review scroll, before picking one up.

“Visitors from Beyond the Sky, Volume 3?” I asked, reading the title.

“They’re a collection of beings that have come from outside the solar system,” Tresla said, waving upwards, closing her book. “They claim most of the monsters actually came from somewhere else. Not that they’re clear on where that somewhere is. It’s just… I’ll need to check other histories, but it seems to imply there was a time when Ro’an didn’t even have dragons.”

“Huh,” I said, taking another look at the book in my hand. They looked so new I’d thought they were a more recent publication. And the title made me think more conspiracy theorist than actual history.

“Anyway, let’s go find Inertia. I get the sense she has something important to tell me,” Tresla said, handing me her book. “You can copy that, right? So I don’t have to store them?”

“Yeah,” I said with a chuckle, scanning it like I’d done with the rest. “Hopefully, she and Bevel haven’t gotten into too much trouble.”

“So long as nothing explodes, I’m sure it’ll be right as rain,” Tamrie said.

I traded an uneasy glance with Tresla.

Suddenly feeling pressed for time, Tresla rather loudly informed the attendant we were done with the books. Despite hustling out of the library, I caught the attendant mulching them right in front of us, dumping the material into a bin at the end of the shelves.

With a sense of foreboding, we set out. Calbern was waiting at the bottom of the steps, stepping forward with his hands held behind his back. “Evening master Percival, Lady Tamrie, Tresla.”

“Any luck with the Vox Knights?” I asked even as we continued towards the waterlifts.

“I was able to arrange a meeting with their captain for tomorrow morning,” Calbern replied, inclining his head slightly as he fell in beside us.

“Good, good. Thanks,” I said as we all fell in line behind Tresla, who, I noted was not heading for the lift that would take us back to where we’d left Inertia and Bevel.

Instead, after a quick trip, it took us down to one of the middle holds, where a huge crowd of people had gathered. There were a lot of Surgers present, standing out from the crowd due to both the still transparent clothes and the boards they carried with them.

Tap, tap.

Before we could investigate, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around to find a near mirror image of Tamrie staring back at me, with just a couple more frown lines at her mouth.

“And where do you think you’re going with my daughter?” the woman demanded, her eyes locked on where Tamrie and I had our arms woven together.

Seemed Tamrie’s mum had found us.

Before I could respond, an explosion rocked the street from the opposite side of the crowd.

Above, a cloud of smoke expanded, blocking the evening sky.