Library of Rain

Extraction

Once the miners were gathered, Ms. Wer, with the help of the man Mr. Mirage had sent, eased their suspicions, which helped the rest of the processes go swiftly. Fortunately, the storeroom where the miners held the ore had a door set into the stone to separate it from the corridor, and the miners could easily haul their personal belongings and tools inside as well.

Rain had been stunned when she first saw their living space. They had dug out a tall corridor with sleeping alcoves all along its walls. Larger community spaces had been carved out on the ground floor with ladders chiseled into the walls to provide access to the higher openings.

The village, because it really was a village, was large enough to house over three hundred people and seemed to currently be housing over half its maximum capacity. Rain also noticed that there were no children despite evidence of couples like shared alcoves. She was curious but had an idea of why that might be, and now wasn’t the time to ask.

“All right, we’ve done as you asked. Now, how are you going to get us out of here?”

The speaker, an older man who appeared to be the leader of this slave village, asked Rain, eyes squinted in distrust.

“Have everyone gather inside the store room,” Rain answered.

The elder gave Rain a hard look before barking an order at the others. Rain was impressed by how fast everyone was to obey his instructions. They must really trust him. Rain took note of that. She would need to get him on her side.

Within an hour of her first contact with the miners, everything was ready. Rain turned to the people crammed into the storeroom with her. Maybe she should have had them enter in groups. Too late now. 

“I am going to turn this door into a gate to a temporary world. You need to load everything and everyone into it. Once that is done I will disconnect the world and reconnect it somewhere safe where you will take your things and live free lives.”

There was some muttering at that, and Rain could see the mistrust and fear in their eyes. Despite everyone else being crammed shoulder to shoulder in this storeroom, Rain still has room to stretch out her arms.

“This temporary world is unsettling, but as long as you stay in the first room, no harm will come to you.”

Rain needed to be honest with them - to an extent, she didn’t plan to tell them what her library really was yet. She also hoped that by warning them of the atmosphere in her library, they would be less likely to panic when they first entered.

Checking to see that they heard her words, Rain used her skill to open a portal. Immediately, she could hear muttering as people saw the dark veil shrouding what lay behind the door.

“Ms. Wer, take two of your people through and secure the staging room.”

“Of course, Lady of Hope.”

Again with the title.

“All right, Elder,” Rain said, looking at the old man, “have your people start loading everything into the temporary world.”

The elder looked at Rain before barking orders of his own.

“Ner, Ger, follow me. Let's check out what's on the other side of this trick. Unt, if we aren’t back in five minutes, then this was a trap. You know what to do.”

And with those trust-filled words, the elder and two other men walked through the door.

Rain made no complaint or fuss. These people deserved to be cautious. If anything, she was glad they had done as she asked so far.

As five minutes were getting closer and the woman, who Rain assumed was Unt, started to fidget, the three men who had entered the library came back through the portal pale in the face. The elder turned to look at Rain.

“You want us to all trap ourselves in that place.”

His flat tone and dead eyes told Rain all she needed to know about how he felt about the idea.

“Unless you want to waste away here until you die, yes.”

The old man and little girl had a staring contest until the old man looked away. As Rain thought, these people were willing to risk Arkit to escape this gods forsaken hole. 

The elder gave a few more orders, and the others formed a line to pass things through the gate. Rain watched for a minute before picking up a piece of star metal ore and turning it over to examine it. 

The silvery metal flakes glimmered out of the black rock, but what really caught Rain's attention was how it seemed to absorb her shimmer. Unlike the stones of her room, which were slowly taking in her pooled shimmer, the rock in her hands was drinking it in and even pulling it towards itself. Rain wanted to keep some of the metal, but she had promised to give it all to Mr. Mirage for his help, and Rain always kept her promises.

Footsteps rang from outside the storeroom when they were only two-thirds finished loading the goods into the room. Rain could see the panic on the faces of those still on this side of the gate.

“Why are they here? Delivery isn't for another three days?” a woman said.

“Calm down, everyone,” Rain said, making a calming gesture with her hands. “They can't come through the door while I hold it as a gate, and it will take them time to tunnel in through the stone walls. We’ll be gone before they can. So hurry and finish loading.”

Rain's words didn't seem to bring a lot of reassurance to the people who threw terrified looks at the gate and guards beyond, but the people did hurry to shuttle everything into the gate.

Soon, the sound of the soldiers' frantic pounding on the walls and shouted orders was mixed with the scraping of crates and shuffling of laden footsteps.

Just as Rain predicted, the last of the people and supplies were loaded long before the guards could break through. Rain gestured for the last of her Library Guard to step in before having her cloak cover her head to toe. Rain took a deep breath and then closed the door.

The moment she felt her power leave it, she warped away. As fast as she was, she still saw the door crash open as she disappeared, armored figures standing on the other side.

When space unfolded, Rain was standing next to Mr. Tist as he ate dinner in a private booth of a fancy restaurant. She had her clothes return to her normal costume.

Mr. Tist jumped at her sudden appearance before trying to play it off and placing his utensils down. 

“Are we ready?” he asked, trying and failing to hide his nerves.

“Yes, part one was a success. It's your turn now.”

Mr. Tist immediately stood and left his half-eaten meal behind. 

“All right, let's go.”

“Get started without me. I’ll follow in a bit.”

“But the plan won't work without you!” Mr. Tist said, motioning with his hands wildly.

“I’ll appear when the time is right. You can gather them without me.”

In truth, Rain just wanted to try some things.

Unable to argue any further, Mr. Tist hesitantly left; his brow creased in worry.

Rain, not one to waste, devoured his untouched dessert before leaving herself.

There was a tall spire attached to a tailor shop nearby, and that's where Rain intended to keep an eye on things.

Taking the coin she had used in the mines out of her cloak, Rain threw it onto a ledge above her - she was getting pretty good at throwing - and warped to it. Repeating that process, Rain scaled the spire's side until she was high above the ground.

Once Rain found a satisfactory perch, she pulled her new toy, err, her telescope, out of her pocket and focused it on the brothel.

She saw all the usual activities she normally would: customers arriving and being greeted at the doors before being shown in. traffic between the different buildings, and, finally, a lone man approaching the front door: Mr. Tist.

Rain saw him speaking with the man at the front door who let him in. From here, all Rain could do was wait and watch the surroundings. The area around the building seemed normal so far. So why did Rain have a bad feeling? Was it because the guards had somehow known that Rain was in the mines?

Not long after, Rain spotted Mr. Tist being led to the housing building, a place customers usually didn’t go. There seemed to be a bit of commotion as all the slave prostitutes, beautiful men, women, and children alike, were sent to the housing building while the free sex workers moved to fill the vacancies left behind in the brothel.

Rain couldn’t believe it was working. By paying a small price to pick a new slave from the brothel’s inventory, Mr. Tist would gather all the slaves into one place where Rain could steal them for a fraction of the cost of buying them all. Mr. Tist would have to leave the island after this to avoid repercussions, but he was willing to move. 

Rain laughed. They would pull this off in the middle of operating hours. 

That, of course, was when Rain saw it: a line of soldiers in Tineak colors marching down the street leading from the Crown Ring straight for the brothel. Somehow, they had found where Rain would strike next.