Maglins and the Infinite Quest

38

Anna Benett

May 16th

I woke up today, feeling very confused as to where I was. The room I was in was very plain and looked nothing like a place I would willingly step into. The walls were painfully white and the air was crisp.

I was alone.

Walking around the space I was in further proved I was nowhere I had ever seen before. My mind felt oddly light and so did the rest of my body.

Is this what being dead feels like?

Am I dead?!?

I began searching this empty room for something.

Anything.

As I walked through the seemingly infinite room, I dove into some deep thoughts.

If I am dead, then how did I die? When did I die? The last thing I remember was spending spring break with my parents.

As I continued walking for what seemed like an eternity, the air became colder and my body didn't hurt at all.

I had to be dead.

About fourteen miles or so of running through the massive white box I was kept inside, I found a bit of color. It was only the colored lines on notebook paper and a pen.

Am I here alone?

The notebook was clear and I decided to try and write something in it.

Where are we? Why am I here? Am I dead?

I wrote it as if somebody or something would respond to me.

I set the pen down and stepped away. As I stepped back, I began to regret my decision to write in it as the book began to fold and bend before a small figurine shot out of it. The figurine was no larger than six inches or fifthteen centimetres in height.

It was a figurine of a woman I had learned about in school. Her name was Lilith Lossknot.

She was the first person to create a potion that could make you walk through walls for a period of time.

Why was I given a figurine of her?

I set it down on top of the notebook and inspected it carefully as it began to move. Was this the real Lilith Lossknot?

She picked up the pen that was just about the same height as her and used her wand to shrink it so she could write easier.

Within a few minutes, she began to respond to my questions I had written.

"You're dead," was all she had written on the page before turning around to see me towering over her. She jumped in fright and yelled.

"Lilith?" I spoke softly to her, "Are you Lilith Lossknot?"

"Would you quit yelling in my ear, and yes I am. How do you know who I am?"

"I've learned about you in my potions class at Maglins," I responded, "You're really her?"

"Yeah?" She questioned, "Are you a fan or something?"

"Yeah, I am," I chuckled, "You've been dead for almost one hundred years,"

"Has it really been that long?" She laughed back, "It feels like yesterday I was thrown in here with some other nerds. I was killed along with Benjamin Hiller and Riley Newton. The creator of the spell of clumsiness and the creator of the shrinking spell,"

"Wow," I said, "Was Riley the one who shrunk you?"

"Yeah," She sighed, "You can't unshrink yourself though, somebody else needs to do it. Somebody with a specific wand type,"

"I don't have a wand," I said with a deteriorating smile on my face.

"It's no use then kid," She spoke, just as sad as I was, "You can run off and try and complete the quest or something, knock yourself out,"

Lilith began to walk off with her head down but because she was the size of my hand, I was able to scoop her up quickly.

"What quest?" I demanded.

"You've never heard about the infinite quest?" She laughed, "Did you live under a rock?"

I took my finger and whacked the top of her head before saying, "What's the infinite quest?"

"It's a quest that has never been able to be completed. You aren't allowed to return after starting so nobody really knows how long it is or how difficult it is,"

"What's the prize?" I questioned.

"Life,"

"So you're saying if I tried to complete the quest, I could get a chance to live again?"

"Pretty much," She said, "Doesn't work if you died of natural causes though. It's more like a second chance at life,"

I have nothing I need to endure a quest that is difficult but it was worth a shot.

"What happens if I get part way through and can't do it?"

"Permanent death, no more white infinite box, no more friends, no more anything,"

"And what happens if I die of natural causes after getting a second life?" I questioned.

"I don't know. From what I've read in a book from Maglins while I was in school was that you get put in a better infinite place. A happier one,"

Now that Liloth had told me pretty much everything I needed to know, I began brainstorming a plan.

I have no wand, no magical training with a wand, and I only know a few spells.

"Lilith?" I asked, "Can you explain how the different wands work with each other?"

She went on to explain that depending on the type of wood a wand is made of, it determines what it can do.

"How many different wand types would I need to do all the different spells?"

"Four," She began, "Applewood, Cherrywood, Redwood, and black Ironwood,"

How was I going to pickpocket four different wands?

I need to get a second chance at life, I need to be with Pipher and be able to see him again. He's my soulmate.

"As soon as we get the cherrywood or redwood wands, you're going to bring me back to normal size," She said, "I've been small for far too long,"

"Miss Lossknot," I began, "I think I have a plan of how we can get the wands we need,"

She nodded as I spoke.

"You're small enough to slip inside of somebody's pocket without them noticing so while I distract them, you can shrink their wand and pull it out,"

"If we can even find anybody to steal it from," She laughed.

And she was right. How was I going to find somebody in this infinite void with specific wand types?