Shiani's journal

Day 2

I got lucky today!

I woke up and began my morning stretches. I'm female today. When I was done, I went outside to the kitchen. Sandera was already there and preparing her meal, "Where's Will?" I asked as I went over to cook. Sandera smiled and said, "Local time is 10 AM and will prefers to wake up at 13 AM at the minimum, he'll be awake at 16 AM.

"When you're done cooking and eating go to your room to look through your backpack, there's going to be a lot of useful items in there that you will probably use for the rest of your life." she continued.

After I was done eating and Sandera left to check the library's shelves to, in her words, "check for any new books and updates" I then went to my room to unpack my backpack. In order of discovery I found,

A water bottle with a note that said 8 oz (about 226.8 g), refills every hour. I assume that it doesn't refill constantly so that you don't drink too much.

A notebook with two hundred standard size pages with a mechanical pencil. The pencil was wedged into the spirals.

A sketchbook with 150 standard size pages. By standard size I mean about the size of printer paper.

A book titled, the history of the world, which seemed to be a shrinking book* because it was only 2 inches thick

7 Meal packets for traveling

A bottle of soap which said 4 oz (about 118.29 ml) 30-minute refills

A packet of about one hundred notecards

A mechanical pencil

About five vials with the pencils' lead

3 erasers

A lighter

A torch** that kind of looked like a baton

A small bottle of kerosene that said 4 oz (about 113.4 g) weekly refills

A shifting sided die which was set for and number from 1- 100

Plant seeds

A blending stump

And, disturbingly, a hidden pocket that had a bowie knife that seemed, unless if I'm much mistaken, to be edged in a thin layer of diamonds. I picked it up and sliced at a rock. It sliced right through and nearly stabbed me. With a yelp I stopped it then carefully placed it on the ground. After about an hour of inspection and careful use I saw that there was an Evandar symbol on it and after Fenris suggested it, I went outside to throw it at something.

I threw it at a tree, and not only did it slice right through it also sliced through everything in its way until it hit the ground where it sunk into the earth until only it's hilt was visible. I opened my hand to it and thought, "back inside, where it's safe." The knife promptly flew into my outstretched hand and as I watched the trees that had been in its way collapsed.

What kind of command word is that?! Fenris asked and I responded saying, I'm not sure but itt seems hilarious for whatever reason.

"Well, that was impressive." William said as he walked toward me. "For that and your hard work on your den I would be willing to add something to your den. I turned towards him and after a moments consideration I said, "make my den stable, add supports, and if you can add a few paintings, I also want a place to put things that I don't immediately need." William considered this before he said, "I can use the roots of the tree above to support the earth and the wood to make a trunk for you, we have a few extra paintings in the temple that Sandera painted so you can have those."

I nodded and went off to get the paintings as William did his plant magic stuff. After that I came back, and William was sitting there on a sump with a table before him in my den eating lunch. Upon seeing me he waved his hand at the other side of the table and another stump appeared. Once we finished eating, I thanked him for his efforts, and he accepted the tanks and walked away.

Since I had some time to kill, and I wanted to ask Sandera about the "event books" note I entered the library and found that soaring above me were bookshelves that went about twenty feet into the air. Written on the ground was, you will find whatever it is you look for in short time ringed in symbols and letters.

The shelves went too far for me to see the end and the road split the area in a ten foot wide space. Seeing that and considering the structure that was inside I realised that someone had built this.

I decided to explore the shelves, there was a sliding ladder at each side of the shelf for obvious reasons. There on the shelves closest to the entry there were sheets of paper pressed into books. The sheets were maps, music sheets, and notes. There were history books, fiction, science journals, there was so much, it was incredible.

I finally found one in only thirty minutes or so. A treatise to the most major underground structures written by a person called Akran. Upon opening the book and seeing the description I realised that this was the ancient leader of the Archain, he was famous for bending the labyrinth to his will and creating an empire with his nations technological advances.

I climbed down the ladder and went to one of the tables that were scattered throughout the room. One of the first references was to the main compounds used by the Divergent and Amaren during the first civil war. It matched the description of the chamber quite well, but it had been moved aboveground and expanded so the area that we were in had to be the courthouse where they held decisions and judgements discussed around a table with food.

So that meant that the revolution's compound was nearby, and no doubt habituated which meant that we were in danger.

At dinner I told Will and Sandera and they said that they knew, and the war games were going to begin soon. The games were hosted after every alignment and weren't games more than they were real wars fought over land and territory that lasted a week by planetary consensus.

With that cheerful thought in mind, I went to my den to sleep and prepare.

*Shrinking book means that the book has a small portal large enough only for the book to change what pages you can see to save space. These were invented by Andrin and were always rather expensive.

**Flashlight