Broken Lands

Chapter 346 – New Hub Discovered!

Spoiler

New Hub Discovered!

Welcome to the Library of Monsters!

The Library of Monsters contains records relevant to monsters found in (corrupted text). It is currently in a state of disrepair, having been abandoned by its last Librarian (corrupted text).

New Tasks Discovered!

Each hub has a number of tasks that can be accomplished to maintain the hub in a usable condition. 

Tasks can be viewed on your Status while in the Hub.

Task Completed!

You have completed the Task: Discover the Flaw.

Task Reward: Reusable Library of Monsters Hub Token. 

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“Did everyone get that message, or is it just me?” A clinking noise pulled Sophia’s attention to the desk in front of her as she spoke. A token similar in size to the ones from the Eidolon clinked on the table as if it had fallen there. 

Sophia was pretty sure it wasn’t there a moment earlier.

Other than general size and shape, the token looked very different from the Eidolon’s. It was made of a simple silvery metal with milled edges. The outer part of the front face was a series of concentric circles in white and black with a middle section of silver lines like the token’s edge, but there was a detailed image in the center of the coin. It looked like an alien Sophia didn’t recognize with long furry-looking pointed ears, a pair of hornlike antennae, and a tail dressed in a concealing high-necked jumper walking out of an open book. The alien’s eyes glowed red, while more glowing red and teal streaks curved behind the book. 

It was far more elaborate than the Eidolon’s token. Even more notably, unlike that token, the back side was different from the front. It was simpler than the front, with only a glowing eye etched into the token’s metal. The eye had actual texture, so despite the seeming simplicity of the design, both sides of the token were more complicated than the Eidolon’s token.

The last similarity to the Eidolon’s token was that it glowed with magic. It had the same hues as aurichalc, so it was likely made of the same material. Also like the Eidolon’s token, however, Sophia expected it to be worth far more intact than its material composition.

“The message about the Hub?” Dav answered her question with another one. “I wonder why it appeared now instead of when we entered. Maybe something to do with the glitches?”

“No … well, yes, but also no,” Sophia held up the token she’d just gotten. “I got that too, but at the end it said I completed a Task and gave me a token. I think it’s the way back here. I think the notification may have waited for the Task completion instead of happening when we entered. I’m not sure why it’s glitching.”

“Sophia, can you get out Registry Master Jessamine’s Maze notes?” Xin’ri tapped on the shelf next to her with a frown. “I’d have sworn there was something in there about Hubs. I think it was in the section where she talked about the different types of zones. Probably near where she talked about the inhabited zones.”

Sophia groaned, but pulled out the collection of papers anyway. She didn’t appreciate the reminder that they found where the Registry Master talked about the Night Market … long after their first expedition. They’d each read through the notes individually before the trip and all remembered reading it, but the former Shield of the Sun’s notes on it were simply terrible. They went into great detail about the monsters she’d had to fight, but she dismissed the zones that didn’t have combat as “a nice break, maybe, but unpredictable and nearly worthless; the only exception is the few zones that permit trading. Those zones may have items that are useful, though it takes a discerning eye to find anything useful to a third upgrade Called who already has a full kit.”

The “zones that permit trading” reference was clearly a reference to the Night Markets. It was also a completely inadequate description of them and left out almost all of the information they’d gotten from Meadow. Even if they’d recognized it from Jessamine’s notes, it wouldn’t have helped.

Sophia didn’t remember anything about hubs, but it was entirely possible it was there anyway.

Xin’ri quickly flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “Ah, it’s in another section, the one with Feats. Here we go. The Maze has another sort of specialized area, called a Hub, that can be discovered upon completing what it calls a Task, which is the same as the goal of a zone except that it does not end the zone. Unfortunately, all Hub Tasks seem to do is improve the local zone; while they do grant Wisps, it is fewer Wisps than would be gained by exploring other new zones in the same time. We encountered three Hubs in our time in the Maze; both the Giant’s Forge and the Secret Garden were nearly useless, though clearing out the plant-monsters in the Secret Garden before we triggered the Hub notification was a decent fight. The only useful Hub was the Glass House, and it was only useful to me because I could recover my Sun powers far faster while inside its concentrated sunlight. It was not useful to the rest of my team.”

Xin’ri checked the next couple of pages, then snorted. “That’s all she wrote about them. Directions wouldn’t be that useful, I guess, but really? That’s it? The entry on the Hunger and its Ice Beasts was at least three times that long, and that’s without her writeup of the different times they encountered them!”

“She was writing about what she thought someone needed to know to get deeper in the Maze,” Dav stated calmly. “Clearly, hubs weren’t part of it. I suspect she was wrong, they feel important, but it’s hard to know. Whether or not that’s true of most hubs, this one seems extremely useful; there should be more here than we’ve been able to find in the Registry. It’s too bad that it’s only about monsters, but it should still be useful.”

Sophia snorted. “I’m sure even the Shield of the Sun would agree with that. So what do you think; should we go after it instead of stealing as many books as possible? We do have a token to come back.”

“Guys? Have you checked out the Tasks yet?” Ci’an interrupted. She sounded oddly anxious.

Sophia hadn’t, so she pulled up her Status and flipped to a new section.

Spoiler

Sophia

Warped Human

(Feather)

Hub Information

Library of Monsters

Bookcases: 12 

Books: 2,767

Scrolls: 1,154

Catalog: Failed

Classification: None

Additional Features:

Monster Identification

External Tasks:

Monster Identification

Use the Monster Identification room to identify a minimum of 1 monsters by name.

Find a Librarian

Escort a librarian to the Library of Monsters. 

Acquisition

Bring a relevant book or scroll to add to the Library.

Internal Tasks:

Catalog

Create a catalog of a minimum of 25 books or scrolls including their title and location.

Classification

Select or create a classification system for the Library of Monsters.

(Locked: Requires Librarian)

(Locked: Requires Catalog tasks)

(Locked: Requires Classification tasks)

(Locked: Requires Acquisition tasks)

(Locked: Requires Monster Identification tasks)

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There was a lot there, but it was still obvious why Ci’an sounded conflicted. “Marcie is a Librarian.”

“Yeah.” Ci’an gripped the bookshelf next to her tight enough that the knuckles on her hand went white. “And this is either a great opportunity or a horrible trap. I can’t tell which.”

Sophia nodded. She wasn’t certain either. It all depended on what the Librarian had to do and what their rewards were. 

“I wonder if this is why the Eidolon ran the Night Market,” Dav muttered. “If the Night Market was originally a hub, or maybe a piece of a larger hub city, it could make sense. She did seem to imply that she came from outside the Broken Lands originally, and even that she was just a copy of the real Eidolon.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Ci’an admitted. “She may be content, but she’s also a copy. I don’t want to have to leave Marcie behind in the Maze and I don’t think I want there to be a copy of her, either.”

“It’s her choice, not yours,” Sophia interrupted. She held the Library token up for everyone to see. “If it’s even a choice at all. Why don’t we ask the Eidolon?”

“Ask the-” Ci’an sounded almost dismissive, but her tone shifted as she realized what Sophia was suggesting. “You have a token to return to her. And a token to return here?”

Sophia nodded. “Both reusable. And there’s a spot for a token on the link-gate we used to get here. We can probably leave, trigger the Night Market, talk to the Eidolon, then return here the same way.”

Ci’an stared at Sophia for a long moment, obviously lost in thought. Eventually, she nodded. “Yeah, let’s do that. The Eidolon should know something.”

Sophia dropped the Library of Monsters token in her pack and dug out the Eidolon’s token, but before she could get any farther than that, Dav interrupted. “Not right now. In the morning. The Night Market and talking to the Eidolon will take hours; I don’t want to spend all night doing that again. I’m too old for all-nighters when I don’t have to. We have time, let’s use it.”

Sophia dropped the Eidolon’s token back into her bag. He had a point; for all that the Night Market was “at night” in the zone, it didn’t have to be at night for the outside world. It lined up that way the previous time they visited because the trip on the floating platform took that long, probably deliberately, but it didn’t have to. Sophia remembered Dav asking about that when they passed the door on the way back to Mazehold; the token would make it the time for the zone inside, even if it wasn’t the right time outside. Meadow was able to answer that from her own experience; while she’d never had a Night Market token before, she’d been with an expedition that used one.

They talked about it for several hours after that, but it didn’t change anything: they were still going to head to the Night Market in the morning and they were still going to return to the Library of Monsters after that. Whether they asked Marcie to come into the Maze afterwards would depend on what they learned from the Eidolon, though Sophia expected they’d at least tell her about it. 

Either way, it wasn’t like they’d be heading back with her immediately; even if they wanted to, they had an appointment with the Blade and some Arena fights to deal with. There were also a lot of practical problems with escorting Marcie through the Maze; she was a Professional, after all, and had always planned to be one. She didn’t really know how to fight. 

The fights might be easy for a fully-equipped team of combatants, but adding someone they had to protect was a huge complication. If they were lucky, they’d be able to deal with it by keeping Jax out of the fight to protect her. Taika might help. If they were unlucky, it might go very poorly. That was something else they’d need to consider before they brought Marcie with them.

Sophia tuned out the conversation at about that point and started making more cards for the catalog. It might not be the final setup, but anything would help and she was pretty sure she could manage 25 books by the end of the evening, even with the addition of whatever monsters were listed in the index to the card. She couldn’t read through them all if they didn’t list the monsters, but it was still a start.

The Library of Monsters apparently agreed with her. When she put the 25th card into the small drawer, another token clinked onto the table and the Task updated for all of them. The next milestone was 100 books instead of 25.