Impurities of the Heart: Part 5
Quote:Vale grunts as he pulls his make-shift bandage tight with his teeth. Blood trickles down the side of his arm and drips onto the marbeled floor beneath him. He leans against his sword and gazes at the shelves full of books spread throughout the room. The corpse of a large ghoulish creature lies on the ground behind Vale, its wings hacked to pieces and a pool of black blood soaking into a pile of ruined books.Â
The journey through the library taxed his body and weariness coursed through him. Most of the security had been disabled already, of which he thanked Hydaelyn for, but some remnants were left behind. These he fought with all he had, swinging his sword again and again until he'd lost feeling in both of his arms. Now, the simple act of keeping his eyes opened was a monumental task. Each time they threatened to close he forced them open again, the knowledge that he was close to his goal keeping sleep at bay.Â
He lumbers forward, the tip of his blade making a loud thunk on the stone floor with each step, and passes through a large archway. A skylight at the top of the room illuminates hundreds of bookshelves containing thousands and thousands of books. A wave of despair runs through Vale and he drops onto the ground as his strength gives out. His vision swims and he laughs, low and harsh, as he rubs a hand across his face. "There's so many... how am I going to find anything in all of this?" Tears stream down his cheeks and he pounds his fist on the ground in frustration. "Gods!" He screams. "What do I have to do?" His voice echoes across the empty room, the question repeating itself again and again, until at last silence hangs over him once more.Â
Some time later, Vale wakes with a start. His side throbs from laying on the hard floor and pins and needles poke at his arm. He shakes his arm to get feeling back into it and squints upwards. The moon glimmers in the sky above him, its pale light casting an eerie shadow across the library. Carefully, he pushes himself onto his feet and stretches his sore muscles. A jolt of pain runs down his injured arm, but the bleeding had long since stopped. He peals back the make-shift bandage and grimaces. "Need to wash it... and change this out. Maybe there's something around here I can use..." Vale glances at his sword and shakes his head. "No need to lug that around for the time being." He limps through the library, dipping his head into each room as he passes by, until he comes to a small office-like space with a number of desks pushed haphazardly against the walls. After rummaging through the various drawers, Vale drops an armful of items onto a desk and eases himself into a creaky old chair. He lets out a slow sigh as he inspects the items in front of him: a half-full flask of alcohol, several pieces of cloth, a handful of gil, and a solid gold pen. Vale shakes his head at the last one before pulling the old bandage off his arm and dousing the wound in the alcohol. He hisses through his teeth at the stinging sensation before re-wrapping the wound.
As Vale reclines in the chair, his gaze set upon the scraped and pealing wood of the desk, an old dusty book hanging off the corner catches his eye. He picks it up and brushes the thick coat of dust off it before flipping it open. "The Effects of Arcanima on Eorzean Society," Vale reads to himself. "Sounds... dreadful." He makes to toss the book back onto the desk when something sticking out of the book catches his eye. Vale flips the book open only to find a card with neat handwriting scrawled across it functioning as a bookmark of sorts. He lifts the card up into the light and reads it slowly to himself. His eyebrows raise as high as they can go as he realizes what he's holding in his hand. "It's... an index card. Of course! A library this size must have a way to keep track of where books are. Otherwise they'd never have found anything." He sets the book on the desk and leaps to his feet, the card gripped tightly between his fingers. "Now I just have to find the index..."
Vale back tracks through the library, his eyes scanning the shelves as he passes by. He notices numbers and letters at the top of each, their golen luster long since faded. Some letters hang upside down, others missing completely, but as he continues his way towards the entrance an picture of how things are sorted begins to form in his mind. Upon reaching the first room, he walks over to a desk and glances at the cabinents behind it. Several cards matching the one in his hand lie scattered on the ground below and a feeling of relief spreads through him. He pulls open the first drawer, labeled A-1, and begins to read through the cards.Â
Several days later, Vale walks back into the small office-like room with a stack of books in his arms. He balances them with his chin as he meanders over to the old dusty desk and sets them down with a loud thump. With a sigh of relief, he plops down into the chair and wipes the sweat from his brow. Vale pulls his leather-backed notebook and his pencil from his pocket and flips the notebook open to a blank page. He glances at the golden pen on the desk and grins to himself. Setting his pencil down, he takes the pen in hand and opens the first book at the top of the pile: "Channeling Aether: A Study on Magic".Â
Days and weeks pass, the pile of books growing larger and the pages in Vale's notebook filling up as he reads. A pile of books soon surrounds his desk, but only the needs of his body break him out of his trance. As his supplies run out, he begins gathering and hunting outside of the Gubal Library to supplement his food and water supply. It's on one cloudy morning, his eyes bloodshot and his hand cramped from writing that a sudden realization dawns on him. He reads the line again in his book as it talks about gold and other precious metals in relation to channeling aether.
Vale sets the book down and holds the pen in front of him. He closes his eyes and pictures the flame in his mind as he's done so many times before. Carefully, he douses the flame and feeds upon the pain and anger lying deep in his heart. A sudden feeling of power blooms within him and he pictures, not the flame, but the pen instead. Directing the flow, guiding it with his mind, he sends it into the pen instead of allowing it to run rampant through his heart.Â
His fingers spasm and heat shoots through his arm. Vale's eyes pop open and there, in his hand, is a golden pen encased in aether. His own aether. It glows red, a small flicker of light barely perceptable if one wasn't looking for it, but there all the same. A slow smile spreads across Vale's face and he pushes himself onto his feet. "Conduction... that's the key. I... need more swords." He shoves the pen in his pocket and begins gathering his supplies for the return trip. The goblin creatures in the ruined city had many trinkets, but one thing he saw plenty of from the merchants was weapons. Certainly, amongst the weapons brought in there had to be one that would fit his needs.Â
One last time, Vale straps his two-handed sword to his back and makes his way to the library exit. He shoulders the door open and blinks several times as his eyes adjust to the light. "I'm almost there, Eleni. Just wait for me a little longer."Â