"Would you like some help?" a middle-aged man appeared from the between two of the shelves.
"I'm looking for something about the development of runes."
"Let me just check the indices, wait right here." The librarian went into an office and returned ten minutes later. "It seems we only hold two papers discussing this area, would you like me to retrieve them for you?" Jarrod nodded his head. The librarian left again, and returned carrying two books. "I've bookmarked the two papers. Hopefully this is helpful."
"Thank you very much." Jarrod began reading the papers as soon as the librarian left. Both of the papers were very vague on the topic of rune acquisition. They discussed how children usually acquired runes in their sleep, and most of them reported dreaming about a particular element on that night, but they weren't convinced that the dreams were the cause of the runes, they were perhaps a precursor. Jarrod couldn't recall ever having a dream about any element in particular. He had had dreams where he was a fully qualified mage, but the dreams described in the paper were more along the lines of being visited by an elemental spirit, or feelings of being in an peaceful place, surrounded by water of a particular colour which related to the rune they gained.
He continued reading, but none of the information was very helpful. Most of the content was dedicated to describing any recollections people had during the process. Nothing was about how to make it happen. He began to get frustrated when he noticed that one name popped up over and over again. He checked the reference list at the end of both the papers, and a large portion of the papers referenced belonged to a person named Dieter Cromwell. The titles of his papers seemed a lot more relevant to what he was interested in.
Jarrod approached the librarian. "Excuse me, is there any chance I'd be able to get my hands on these papers?" He pointed to a list he had made of some of the more promising sounding titles.
"Let me see..." the librarian pondered the list. "We can send a request to some of the other libraries around Tahoe."
"How long would it take them to bring the papers here?"
"Usually they'd get merchants to bring them as they pass through, the next merchants are due in about a week."
"Is there a chance we could get the information any sooner?"
"Are you in a rush?"
"Well, my friend collapsed today, and I didn't know what was going on. When we took him to the infirmary, Lars told us that he was getting his first rune, but I've never heard of something like that happening when someone gets their first rune. I just want to see if there are records of it happening before." Jarrod explained. He felt that if he told the librarian that it was for him rather than for Pietro, he would be less inclined to help him out.
The librarian gave Jarrod a sympathetic look. "I see. Well, this is only meant to be used by research students, but I don't see why you couldn't use it as well, since you might become one soon. It's never too early to learn!" The librarian led Jarrod into another room filled with large boxes. Some of the boxes had students sitting in front of them, looking intently at the tops. "This is the real library. With the biblioteca, you can read anything that is currently located in the Farin Library of Magic."
He pressed a button on the side of the machine, and Jarrod heard a whirring sound begin. After a few seconds, a light appeared on the top panel of the box. The librarian fiddled with some knobs on the side and a panel slid out from the bottom. Then started sliding some panels. "In order to display something on the biblioteca, you need to enter that item's number. Pull this lever and it will display what you're looking for. If you enter 0000000001, it will display the current list of items the library holds." The librarian pulled the lever and the light on top of the box dimmed and words appeared. He gestured to the knobs on the other side of the lever. "Use this to turn the pages. I hope you find what you're looking for." He left.
Jarrod looked through the list. He found it sorted alphabetically author, and the pages would turn at a different speed depending on how fast he turned the knob. It didn't take him long to locate Dieter Cromwell. There were seven pages filled with his writings. Jarrod wrote down the numbers of all the articles he thought would be worth reading, and then went down his list, starting with his most recent publishings.
It appeared as though Cromwell was the leading researcher in the field of rune acquisition. He had many theories as to why some magi developed a second rune, and some did not. He had even found a village that contained magi with three runes. Jarrod had never heard anything about this from any of his classes. Dual-rune mages were fairly common, but three?! While he did find that fascinating, it wasn't helping with his current problem of finding one.
The very last paper on the list was titled "The First Rune". In retrospect, Jarrod wondered why he didn't start with this paper first, since it sounded like it was exactly what he was searching for. He entered the number, pulled the lever, and held his breath. The screen didn't change. He pulled the lever again, and the screen remained static. Not sure if he had broken something, he decided to ask one of the other students for help. He picked one who seemed least likely to get angry at him, and explained his problem.
"Oh yeah, they do that sometimes. When the library is updating their holdings the list gets cleared for a few minutes. It'll be back up soon."
"Ah, thanks." Jarrod decided to get something to drink while waiting. As he passed the librarian's office, he could hear two men arguing. He moved closer so that he could make out the words.
"I told you, the kid is desperate, he's not going to give up his search just because someone he barely knows tells him to. If I tell him to stop looking, he'll ask why, and I can't tell him. He seems intelligent and curious we would have to give him a plausible reason and I can't think of one, can you?" Jarrod regonised the librarian's voice.
"Then he will find what he is looking for, and you know the consequences of that." Jarrod nearly gasped in surprise. The other man was Lars. "I don't understand why you let him in there in the first place."
"I didn't realise that was what he was searching for."
"So that leaves us back where we started. How do we stop him? We have about five more minutes to come up with something, because he's so close. If we don't stop him now, then it will be too late."
"Maybe you don't need to stop him, just stall him. You said he only had three days until he turned 18? It's simple. I'll keep him out of the biblioteca room for that long. Then we don't have to worry about him finding out."
It finally dawned on Jarrod that they were talking about him. He tried to come up with ideas for why they wanted to stop him. Was it because of the magi with three runes? As far as he could tell, they weren't at war with them, so it was not like they could pose a threat to the safety of Istvar. He recalled the librarian's words, stating that he was close. That meant they were watching what he was doing, but it also meant that he hadn't found what they were concerned about. Whatever it was, it was in that last paper. All thoughts of a drink forgotten, he hurried back to the biblioteca.
The student he had asked for help earlier turned around and said, "Hey, the system is back up! Shouldn't be a problem to find what you were looking for now."
Jarrod thanked him and sat down at the biblioteca he had been using before. Entering the number again, he pulled the lever and started reading eagerly. Cromwell did appear to be researching rune acquisition. He had proposed a number of theories. Jarrod began to make some notes.
-Runes are inherited: a child of a fire mage is likely to attain a fire rune. A child of mixed parentage had a lower chance of acquiring a rune, however should the acquire one, they had a chance to acquire either rune with a high likelihood of acquiring a second rune of their other parent's element.
-Runes are more likely to appear in children with parents who were magic-sensitive (did not have to be a mage)
-Runes are affected by the environment: a child exposed to water for a majority of their childhood is likely to gain a water rune
(However, there have been cases of a child attaining a rune that belonged to neither of his parents, as well as cases of children of parents with no runes (but some magic sensitivity) attaining a rune. Theories are still unproven)
Jarrod had only finished half of the paper when he was interrupted by the librarian. "I'm sorry, but the higher ups found out that I let you in here, and since you're not a research student, they would like you to leave."
"But I'm almost done! Let me just finish reading this last paper? Please?" Jarrod begged.
"I'm afraid that I've already gotten into trouble for letting you in here, if my boss comes in and sees you in here, I might lose my job. I'm sorry."
"OK. Thank you very much for your help today." Jarrod realised there was no way he was going to get access to that paper through this librarian. He had to find someone who wasn't connected to Lars and convince them to help him. Once he returned to his room, he reviewed what he had learned from the paper so far.
Cromwell had proposed the idea that runes were genetic. Jarrod had pretty much guessed the same himself, that's why people expected Jasmine to end up in water school, because water runes had run in her family for generations. With two fire magi as his parents, he was likely to become a fire mage. Again, something he had pretty much guessed. Since he wasn't of mixed heritage, he saw no reason why he was less likely to get a rune. Though they were still just probabilities, just because he had two fire parents didn't mean he would become a fire mage.
His environment had been fairly fire-based. Family trips were to various volcanoes around Istvar. As far as he knew, the fireplace at his house was always kept going, and when he was little, dinners were always eaten at the fire. Most of his childhood memories involved doing various things around fires. All of the evidence was pointing towards him being a fire mage, but he still lacked the facial markings that all fire magi bore. Everything was in his favour, yet he still lacked any runes, was he destined to be simply another magic sensitive citizen?
There was a knock at Jarrod's door. "Who is it?"
"It's me!" Hearing Pietro's voice, Jarrod immediately ran to the door.
"What happened to you?"
"Oh nothing much... Just this!" Pietro held up his hands and Jarrod saw the light blue markings that covered them. Air runes. "And that's not all. Guess who passed their test and is going to air school?"
"Wow, Pietro, congratulations." He was happy for Pietro, he truly was, but at the same time, he felt like the world was spinning out of control.
"It's so strange. Just before he left, Professor Avir said to me, 'Sometimes you don't need to fly to fly.' I couldn't work out what it meant. I thought he was giving me some kind of code, telling me why he had to leave all of a sudden. Then I remembered our last air lesson, where he wanted us to fly, and then I solved it. Professor Avir is a huge fan of bobbleball. Bobbleball is famous for players getting injured due to flying tackles. He didn't want us to fly to get his bag. He wanted us to tackle him.
Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy tackling a professor," Pietro continued, "but you have to admit, it would have worked. He would never have been able to maintain his concentration on our bags, as well as sharing his magic with us, if we had tackled him. All we needed was some sort of net to catch our bags in at the bottom of the spire. The next thing I knew, I was in the infirmary and Lars was asking if I felt ready to take my air test."
"Are either of your parents air magi?" Jarrod asked.
"Nope. They're not even magi at all, though I think they were tested as being magic sensitive - never went to the academy though, as their reading was lower than the cut-off that year. They run a cleaning business now, which is pretty hard work, so they were both pretty excited when I was tested and told I was magic-sensitive. I wouldn't have minded doing that though."
"Have you told them your news yet?"
"Nope. About to do that now, but I thought I'd check in on you first. Lars told me you were pretty worried about me. You even went to the library to do some research on my condition! You didn't need to do that. You know me, Jarrod. Whatever problem comes along, I'll find a way to solve it. Anyway, I'd better head over to the air mail room before they close. Seeya!"
"Bye, Pietro."
Jarrod was left alone with his own thoughts again. Pietro had solved some strange riddle from the air professor and woken up with an air rune, were the two events related? Was there some sort of magic password to gaining a rune? All he had really learned was that Pietro really had gone to do his test, that wasn't a lie fabricated by Lars. Which still left him with the burning question of what was Lars afraid of him finding out? All he had was a long list of questions, and there was only one solution. He had to break into the biblioteca room.
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