"Who shit under his pillow?"
"Heh... Probably his wife."
Both Nyx and Cecil kept their arrangement, now making their way to the library. From work. The day started slowly but was getting sunnier by the minute. Early in the morning, Cecil had shown up at the golem's door, ready to get to work and get it done. Needless to say, even with the initiative that both had taken, Parka had not yet started work, leaving the duo to wait nearby. To the wizards pleasure, a few guards were using a brazier to keep warm, so the wizard managed to squeeze in between them.
A little over an hour later, a small carriage and Parka were seen in the distance, accompanied by craftsmen with the new parts for the gate. The parts were made of iron and quite heavy, especially since they had to be installed at the top of the wooden barred gate. The workers explained the mechanism, which required the base piece to be clamped to both sides of the wood with numerous long nails and long metal plates. It wasn't very complicated for Cecil. Tho he had explained one more time to Nyx over 'bout how the left-open lock prevented the gate's lift through the opening built into the wall and could only be closed with something built inside the wall to open it.
And although the piece was made to keep the city safe, the installation method was completely unsafe. Cecil had telekinetically lowered the piece through the opening in the wall when one of the lighter soldiers stripped off his armor and hoisted himself up with a mallet on the gate.
Back in the present, the spellcaster flanked by the golem strolled into the college's rear courtyard, traversing the unkempt grass and entering the building's doorway. "Was this a university for wizardry? Nyx followed Cecil up a staircase, observing the walls and some paintings hung for decoration, a few pots of dried flowers, and dirty windows.
Cecil paused for a moment but could not think of a sufficient response. "Heh... a little. The rest were just mooks, you know? The teleportation tower was built long ago for transportation. I'm not saying that those who can't do magic are peasants, idiots, or dimwits. I'm a medical practitioner, if you will. I wouldn't be one... without understanding the conditions of people's health, money or well-being."
A little less travel through the wood-paneled corridors of the building... Cecil stopped in front of the glass door. "We're here." The door creaked heavily and he moved first, with Nyx following behind him and leaving the door ajar. The two did not find themselves in the middle of the shelves, but on the upper level of the room, looking down over the tall shelves that even from there almost passed over their heads. With a wave of his hand, Cecil lit all the candles in the room and proceeded to descend another staircase to reach the other side. "Come on, come on. Don't sit there pondering.
Nyx took a second to look around. The room held numerous chandeliers, along with tall paintings hanging here and there for style. Not to say you could drown in all the books from here. The golem followed the wizard down the wooden staircase, the planks creaking under his weight. "Looks pretty. You've been here a lot?"
His questioning was rendered moot when Nyx saw the pile of books strewn across a table, accompanied by several candles methodically placed to properly illuminate the space. "From day two."
The golem put his hand on one of the books lying open on the table, a red-covered book with traces of a strange leather-like material, but not quite... "A Doctor's Diary from the Lower Front. Now you're telling me the book is about you." But Nyx flipped through the pages casually. And after a little over 20 pages, he saw several red circles around phrases and words not familiar to his mind but definitely to Cecil. "Ehh... You're checking the information for accuracy."
Cecil sat down with another book at the table that served the two of them. He was carrying something large. "But this is my favorite. Chemistry." He then opened the book to the page where he had previously left a bookmark. Nyx followed the page, but the angle at which he was reading, plus his minor reading skills, didn't really allow him to understand the words. All he could see was a hand drawn on the page.
"What's that about? You said it was chemistry."
Cecil nodded affirmatively to the golem, while taking a cigarette from the right side of his coat. "Yes. But. There's a section that talks about... minerals in bones. That can be added to improve tensile strength. I really like it." Cecil took a first drag and, looking at Nyx, smiled at him. "What're you waiting for-- cookies and milk? Look for something you find cool." But Nyx didn't move, just looking puzzled at the shelves that filled the room.
"Is everything here about science?"
Cecil just sniffed. "If you're looking for magic, I haven't found any. Fantasy is in the spare room... Geography, if you want... there are some maps..." He gave Nyx one last look and got to work.
"Culture across medieval villages of antiquity?"
"I'd rather gnaw on some cooked pig's hooves."
"The theory of stars and gas giants?"
"In short—our planet revolves around the sun. Gas planets suck."
"Planets can be made of gas?"
"Yeah... But it's not that interesting, if you ask me. It's a study about space. And honestly, it's more of a published theory than anything else, even though some things have been proven. You might as well give a presentation to a class of children on it if you scrutinize on that."
"Hm... Ore refining and metallurgy?
Cecil had finished almost three cigarettes since the walking statue got lost among the bookshelves. He shouted out, just to check if he was still around, and got an instant response everytime. "Give it a shot. I'm sure there's something constructive in there." Cecil stared wide-eyed at the statue.
"....."
"What?"
"Was that a joking statue or something?"
"Maybe... anyway—we have to go. Take the book with you if you want. But... return it or you'll get a fine."
"A fine what?"
"What? A fine?"
"Yes. What's a fine?"
"Uh... Penalty. Yeah, like that."
"Oh."
They both left the library after an hour in which Cecil had finished reading and analyzing another chapter just for fun, and Nyx left with something to read later. "What else is around here?" the golem asked as he walked down the hallway, still following the wizard back to the exit. They went out through the same door and back into the campus backyard. Cecil, however, instead of going out the main gate, had just turned right. "Never said we leave yet. Come along." Nyx stayed with Cecil, and they both made their way across the courtyard, slipping through another door and climbing a spiral staircase in the corner of the building. "The door was locked from this side. But nothing a little telekinesis can't fix."
"Meaning... the soldiers know nothing about this place."
The wizard nodded his head in agreement. "Most likely."
At the top of the stairs, Cecil flicked his wrist and lit two more torches across the room. "See this." Cecil posed like a street vendor in a bazaar, arms outstretched as if presenting the next great work of art to come through Oght.
The room began at the top of the tower and continued as a corridor further into the building, extending into its roof. But nothing about it seemed to have been built in secret. The floor was well defined with sophisticated parquet, and the walls, though left bare in concrete, had simple but visually pleasing carvings. One depicted a group of people in armor fighting a minotaur. The opposite wall showed several beasts. Giant snakes, wolves and lions. Even some non native animals and so the hallway was not empty. Along the first wall mentioned were racks filled with various weapons ranging from simple short swords and knives to two spears, with some heavy warhammers and morningstars but all still looked well kept.
"Hem... Have you been collecting weapons or something?"
Cecil just kept walking, but his remarks were more playful than anything else. "I found it all here just as it is. I admit, I was a little interested in certain things... But from what I can tell, it was used for classes."
The living golem had picked up a weapon, a mace slightly sharper than his own weapon, the latter of which he yet to test on anything, but Nyx preferred the black hue of his own weapon waiting back home. "These weapons are real. How can teachers ask students to fight in school?" The arm stayed on the rack, and Nyx moved towards where he thought the wizard had gone.
Right in front of him was a stone threshold decorated with two suits of armor, and beyond it was a large space, about 40 square meters. It gave the impression of a small fighting arena, with armored suits and ornaments on the sidelines, a space separated by a low fence hiding a long bench for onlookers. The space was beautifully furnished, and the skylights in the roof provided perfect lighting for everything inside. "The place was nice at first, but look at this." Cecil was at what the wizard knew to be the main secret of the room. On a small podium, where the professor probably spent his time, he pulled a lever. The air rippled for a few moments until it returned to normal, after which Cecil spun a shiny disc made of some kind of metal with numbers on it. It stopped only at the position marked with the number 1, and—a set of armor stepped from the edge into the ring.
"They built all this! Autonomous armor for training so no one gets to hurt one another! How cool is that!?"
Nyx was just as awed as Cecil, but had not uttered a word to show. One step inside the ring's border, the armor's helmet turned straight back to the golem, whose foot instinctively pulled back, and the armor relaxed and stood idle. "Ohoh! I did that when I tried it my first time. Don't worry. It'll only attack you when you say the command word."
Nyx stepped closer to the set of armor on two legs, now literally face to face with it at a distance of a palm's width. He raised the visor, seeing clearly inside the hollow, tiny inscriptions written on the inside of the armor, numbering in the thousands, in junctions and curves and straight lines. "Wow... kind of like Dörk's runes... But beyond anything possible."
Cecil scoffed more amusedly at the golem. "Eh... young D has his talents. That's how he and I met. He's skilled. But I don't think he would put as much effort into everything here as the one who made all this."
"This place is just too cool, Cecil."
"I know, I know. What do you say? Care to give it a try?" Cecil was still behind the podium, pulling out a cigarette, a habit of the old man in his 60s still showing hard. "Damn... I left my match outside."
Yet Nyx was confused... until now, Cecil just had to—
BONG!!
"HAAHA!! Gotcha! The trigger word is 'match'! The wizard's distraction allowed the armor to club Nyx over the shoulder with a mace.