Part one
Part two
The word massive doesn’t even start to do Astrolabe Abbey’s library justice. “That’s a lot of books,” B.S.Roberts said as he gawked at the rows of books spread across a countless number of shelves (okay, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, to be exact there were 9,876 shelves, but the ghostwriter doesn’t know that).
“Yeah,” Balatar grumbled. “No wonder there’s a shortage in the Dagger Shores.”
“How are we supposed to find the right book? There’s got to be a million books in here!” (There wasn’t even half that at 493,800 tomes, give or take a thousand.) “The agent will be here long before we can find it, let alone perform the ritual!”
Balatar lifted his staff (did we forget to mention he had a staff? Well, it’s too late to go back and add it into the narrative now. Not that it matters much; you should just assume that a wizard has a staff or wand always on hand) and the top—carved into an icosahedron—began to glow red. “Good thing I have magic, eh kid?”
An undisclosed amount of time after the previous scene.
“It looks like they came this way,” Archwizard Cholmondeley said between gasps and pointed down the hallway leading to the abbey’s humble (compared to his own, anyway) library. “Go on without me, I’ll catch up after I catch my wind.”
“Why would they go to the library?”
The chubby mage shrugged. “Probably because they have books regarding the multiverse, an extensive list of realms, and potential pathways to those realities.”
The agent swore under his breath and sprinted down the hall, leaving the wizard behind.
An undisclosed amount of time after the previous scene but less than the prior break.
B.S.Roberts stood in the center of a chalk circle hastily drawn on the floor of the small antechamber’s floor. “Well, this is horribly familiar.”
Balatar shrugged. “Common practice for summonings.”
“But you’re sending me back.”
The wizard shrugged. “Antisummonings then.”
“That’s a banishment.”
“Banishments are to send creatures back to their own Sphere of Existence. Earth and Faewalk are both in the Material Sphere.”
“Antisummoning just sounds so… amateur, though,” the ghostwriter complained.
Balatar glared at the earthling. “Planar travel, then. Better?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Good, now shut up. If I make any mistakes, even just a hesitation, you could end up anywhere in the Sphere.”
Absolutely not wanting that to happen, B.S.Roberts zipped his mouth. He even managed to refrain from pointing out that the spell words that Balatar began to chant could have been pulled directly from a lorem ipsum generator (they were).
Uisque feugiat dictum malesuada.
Nulla ac elit et urna aliquam lacinia.
Pellentesque non sapien id orci vehicula euismod.
Vestibulum massa velit, tristique ultrices scelerisque eget, elementum id justo.
Nunc at erat ac felis ultricies pretium quis sed arcu.
Nam non neque sagittis, tincidunt enim at, feugiat nibh.
Pellentesque eros—
Just then, there was a frantic slamming on the door leading back to the library, followed by, “That ghostwriter is under a summoning contract!”
—phasellus turpis erat, suscipit at pellentesque vitae, feugiat vel tortor.
Ut ac neque tristique, ullamcorper nibh sed, finibus tellus.
Nunc sagittis, neque sed viverra tempor—
SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! “If you send him back, it will interfere with my rights, and you’ll be expelled from both the Wizards and Adventurers Guilds!”
That got Balatar’s attention—his eyes darted to the door, and he bit his tongue:
—Tuoseit!
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the correct word. He tried to correct himself and say, “Earth,” but it was too late. B.S.Roberts had already vanished in a flash of violent red and orange light.
Balatrar scowled at the empty summoning circle and eventually gave a shrug. “Should be close enough.”
The circle didn’t stay empty for long, though: flashes of light ignited in the center of the space, and from those sparks, a black-and-white spiral formed and grew until it encompassed the entire chalk outline on the floor. “Hmm, this isn’t supposed to happen.”
Part three
The code word for this week is the average number of books on a shelf in the Astrolabe Abbey before no more can be added without fear of the warping wood snapping.
Note: Use all CAPS for the code!