Varian's Tangled Trials

The Third Journal

Varian pulled the wires apart as he stepped back through the portal, closing it behind him. As the rippling bronze before him resolidified he saw the reflection change from the trial chamber to something unfamiliar. He turned, ready to set eyes on the Eternal Library.

As soon as he did, his eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. Varian hadn't known what really to expect. Perhaps at most, he visualized something like Corona's or Nesdernia's royal libraries but on a massive scale. It never truly sunk into him what another plane of existence could be. In the simplest ways, it was a library like any other, with long shelves crammed with a variety of books. But that was where the similarities ended. The shelves themselves weren't built with straight lines or right angles. In fact, they didn't seem to be built at all. They were like trees whose dark branches had woven tightly into the semblance of shelving, dripping with moss and vine-like foliage that glowed with neon luminescence.

The half-circle bronze mirror itself stood in the middle of a clearing on a dark mossy hill, giving Varian a breathtaking view. Much like trees, the shelves grew to different heights, towering and twisting around each other and creating a labyrinth of paths that stretched into the shadows. The tallest shelves rose in the distance and stretched high above like impossible mountain ranges that surely hid further depths of an endless world. Instead of reaching any perceivable ceiling, these shelves seemed to fade into a bizarre mist of color and shadow. Directly above him, just beyond the mist, Varian could see a warm amber ball of light that washed the clearing where he stood in a flickering candle-like glow. He could hear a low noise like the growling of a table holding too much weight. But the sound was so distant and sourceless it might not have been there at all. The whole world seemed to warp at the edges of his perception- like something out of a dream.

Varian glanced back behind him and saw his own reflection in the massive bronze mirror. He'd successfully closed the portal. He lifted his hand, gently pressing it to the cool, glass-like barrier.

Then the thought of a shamed, bespeckled face saying 'trust me' flashed through his memory. His fingers curled into a fist, and his eyes turned back onto his surroundings.

"Mom?" he called out. "Mom!"

His shouts rung through the silence. He waited, but there was no reply.

He started to run, his feet carrying him down the hill and forward impulsively as he continued to yell. "Mom! Mom, it's Varian!" After just a few moments, he stopped and looked around. It was hard to know where he was or where he'd come from. The amber glow above gave him some idea of a direction but the shelves obscured his view. Aisles that seemed to go straight would suddenly be curved. Shelves or tables he hadn't noticed before seemed to come out of nowhere. Glowing foliage would grow so thick as to block his path. He swore he thought he saw some of the books rearrange themselves out of the corner of his eye.

He picked a new direction and ran forward, this time, trying to keep an eye on his surroundings, but even so, it was hard to figure out what kind of progress he was making. And this time he definitely caught a whole shelf manifest out of the ground, spouting up, not unlike a tree, though a thousand times faster than one.

"Fascinating," he muttered, reaching out to touch the new shelf. At first, it felt normal, all smooth and solid wood. But then he sensed a pulse, almost like it had a heartbeat. He pulled his hand back in surprise, but then slowly placed it back to feel the pulse again. "It's like this whole place is alive." He passed his hand over the spines of the books. He pulled one out and watched as the other books gently pushed together to close the gap left. Curious, Varian pushed the book back towards where it'd been and was shocked to see the other books pull back to make way for it. "Okay wow, um, so that's going to take some getting used to."