Elrich Saga Yellow Springs Book Two

Chapter 40 I Become an Accidental Voyeur

Chapter 40 I Become an Accidental Voyeur

I woke up. The air was cooler and there was frost on the ground. There was a woman sitting on my bench.

While the tree and the bench weren't actually mine to claim I felt like it was my spot. However, it wasn't as though I could chase the woman off. She was obviously in a lot of distress.

From my spot in the doorway she was three-quarters turned away from me. Her shoulders were shaking and the sounds of sobbing echoed in the small orchard. She wore a dark brown shawl wrapped around her head and a second shawl around her shoulders. It was cold enough to need both.

I must have made a movement or a noise because I startled her. She whipped around and spotted me. She gave a gasp then stood up. Then she took a few steps back as if she wanted to run.

"Sorry," I said and backed into the temple. I turned and hustled down the hall. The woman with her red hair had been familiar. Where had I seen her before? Nothing came immediately to mind.

Now the question was, what was I going to do today? I couldn't sit under my tree and read the books in my inventory. Perhaps it was time to read an actual physical book. Finding the temple library was better than wandering around. I didn't want to run into anyone else today.

The library was small, well lit, and oddly enough, dry. Perhaps arid was a better term since the air in the library was definitely dehumidified in someway. It had just rained the day before so the rest of the temple still had a bit of moisture in the air. Nothing you would normally notice until you stepped foot into the library where there was very little moisture. My sinuses were yelling at me as soon as I breathed in.

The temple had three basic sections of books. Books they didn't care if the books wandered off, books that were physically chained to the bookshelves, and books that were behind locked cages. The books that were chained to the shelves drew my attention since that was something entirely new to me.

There were small chains attached to the spines of the books. At the ends of those chains were rings that looped through a metal rod. The metal rod was locked into place onto the shelf. Yes, the books could be removed but you'd have to unlock the rod, pull the rod through from the other side, pick up the book you wanted, loop all the other books back onto the rod, then re-lock it. Too much work even if you did have permission to take them.

I could see why comfy looking stools were placed along the wall. If you pulled one of the stools up to the bookshelf you could read the book while it was still attached to the shelf. There was enough length of chain for that.

The books behind the cages were interesting too. None of them had any sort of title written on the spine so you didn't really know what sort of books they were. I looked around for some sort of list, but didn't see anything. There were only about twenty of them total but because of the cage their shelf took up the most room in the library.

The shelving system seemed to be made up and the rules didn't matter, if there were any. It was all about normal books, the chained books, the caged books any other filing system was lost to me. Magic was placed beside languages, which for some odd reason, was neighbors with a monster cookbook. I popped that one in my inventory to look at later.

I once again made my way to the chained books. Upon discovering a book that seemed interesting, a historical book about peasant riots in another kingdom, I tried to put it in my inventory. Only, I couldn't. The chain prevented me from placing the book in my inventory. If I could unhook the book perhaps I could put it in, but as it was with it attached I couldn't. Well, balls.

I marked where the riot book was and skimmed the rest of the books to see if there was anything else I'd like. Many of the books were medical texts. How to use magic to heal. Those could be useful. There was also a book about mental magics and their use on mentally corrupt patients.