Chapter 45

**Merianna**

Thinking that I had been impressed by the Council’s previous Archive setup at the Cathedral, almost seemed like a joke now. These guys sure knew how to move along with modern society while still staying true to magic. Seals, preservation spells, barriers and all kinds of other security measures practically littered the basement section we were led to. And that was only the top level. All the documents we were looking for were still one more floor below the basement section.

What greeted us at the bottom of the cold steps was a huge metal door that looked like it was made out of titanium. The walls, floor and ceiling around it were also littered with runes that were able to rip your limbs from your body if tampering were detected. I was impressed by the level of rune structuring that was displayed, but I could still make out a small loophole here and there. It made me wonder if a previous Order student was responsible for creating it. It was certainly something Jasnine would have approved of, and then nagged about afterwards.

“Do you guys have any idea of how long you’ll need to be down here?” Ferina asked as Jernok unlocked and swung the doors wide open. Once the doors were flung open and the inside of the underground warehouse of the sealed archives were revealed, I felt a sense of lethargy come over me.

“I hope like hell that you guys have organized all these. At least to some degree…” I muttered as I frowned. They clearly acquired more materials since the last time I checked. Some massively hefty looking tombs were displayed behind glass while many other glassed off sections looked like they were all mainly organized by what kind of materials they were. Scrolls were in one section, leather tombs were in another, paper or parchment books were in yet another, loose parchments and paper scraps were gently filed in another, then at the back it looked like there were waist high display cabinets with books that are chained shut. That was without even mentioning the massive section that was reserved for sealed and banned magical items. And this basement section looked big enough to be the equivalent of 3 warehouses in one. And there wasn’t one spot in this place that looked unoccupied.

“Well, the extent of Organizing is just about what you can see in front of you.” Jernok said while scratching the back of his neck.

“Which means, it’s all just aesthetically organized.” Thyrion groaned.

“In other words… this is going to take a long ass time.” Noch looked like his soul had already escaped his body.

Just looking at the sheer amount of work that was laid out in front of us, I could confidently say that I felt the same. I tilted my head towards Noch. “Know of any magical spell that would give us exactly what we are looking for?”

He grunted at my sarcasm. “Programming a spell like that will probably take longer than it would take us to just manually skim through everything here.”

His answer caught me a little off guard. “Wait… seriously?”

Noch nonchalantly gave me a shrug as an answer before he started meandering his way towards the first set of musty looking scrolls. His ‘non-answer’ made me start wondering about the possibilities of the type of spell, incantation, rune or script that could be created for something like this. He might not have realized it himself when he said it, but a spell like that could be absolutely revolutionary for the magical world in situations like these. Heck, it could even be useful in our own library, no matter how organized it is.

Thyrion interrupted my train of thought by tugging lightly on a lock of my hair. “While you and Noch are piledriving your way through all of these,” he said sympathetically while eyeing the rows upon rows of shelves, “I’ll go back to the Order and check in with everyone again. I especially want to see if Fog has come up with some information for us yet.”

I grunted in acknowledgement. “Might as well. It doesn’t look like we are going to be done here anytime soon. If you manage to gather info and come to check up on us again, please bring some snacks. I have a feeling that I’ll soon need the sugar boost.”

Thyrion smiled and cupped the back of my head to draw me into a kiss. I swear I could have melted at the contact. Lacing my own fingers into his hair I was about to deepen the kiss before we were interrupted.

“Following your own advice Demon Spawn, the faster we get started the faster we can get done with this tedious errand. Save your reborn body virginity for after we are done with all this crap.” Noch yelled from where he had started looking through some scrolls.

“Can I kill him already?” I asked Thyrion with a groan.

“I’ll help you with that actually. Although he isn’t wrong.” He pointed out with a chuckle. “There is something else that piqued my interest though.” I raised my eyebrow at him in question.

“Reborn body virgin … Did I hear that right?” He asked with a seductive raise of his own eyebrow.

I sputtered and blushed. “That’s not something you need to worry about right now.” I said as I nimbly slipped out of his grip.

“Hmm… maybe not right now but, I will be sure to make it worth both our wiles once we can be alone again.” He whispered teasingly in my ear.

Shivers raced all the way up to my scalp at his closeness. My blush didn’t have a prayer of calming down after that either. “You! Shoo! G-go do your thing!” I stuttered as I turned to wave him off.

He chuckled as he finally decided to stop teasing me. Even though, after that kind of teasing, I was conflicted on whether I actually wanted him to leave or not. If only we weren’t sitting with the kind of trouble that we were sitting with at that moment. I couldn’t help but curse Orbus and Dermon in my mind with every step I took to the mountain of documents in front of me.

“Reluctant to let your man go?” I turned to see Noch wiggling his eyebrows at me over the top of an opened scroll.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes.” I groaned.

He chuckled heartily. “I understand completely. Even though we witches live through so many lifetimes, there are just some things that never grow old.”

With another groan I vigorously rubbed my face, noting that my cheeks were still burning hot. “I can’t believe that things just had to turn out so complicated. We missed so many lifetimes!!!” I yelled in frustration.

“That’s right. So many wasted opportunities after the lifetime that you guys got married in. So? You planning on doing anything specific to Orbus and Dermon once we catch them?” He asked with a smirk. He knew full well what I was capable of when I was angry, he had always gotten the brunt of it after all…

“If you are meaning to ask if I’m angry enough to split them slowly and painfully in half on a wooden horse, then yes. Am I frustrated enough to invent a new pear of anguish that isn’t meant for the mouth? Yes. Am I tempted to boil them in either oil or tar until their skin peels off? Yes. Do I want to have them rot in an Iron maiden if they’re still alive after I’ve finished with all of the above? Most definitely. After that you can do with them what you will.” I said matter of fact.

“That’s the Demon Spawn I know and love.” Noch grinned with delight.

I gave him an evaluating glare. “You didn’t have anyone to tease or chat about these kinds of things with after I was gone, did you?”

“Nope! It was dreadfully boring.” He said dramatically.

“What about Raska? Didn’t you two always have fun in the torture category in more ways than one?”

“Urgh, don’t even get me started. When witches have flings they stay as flings, plus after you kicked the bucket Raska started hanging out more with Jasnine and seemed to simmer down. Especially when there weren’t any more students to torture with her lessons anymore.”

“I didn’t think that me dying would affect you all so much.” I muttered softly.

“We all had a hand in raising you and Nelia in the Order since you two were young. Most of the people in the Order opt to stay childless because danger is never far behind, but you two were different. You guys brought a new kind of energy into the Order. Everyone thought of you and Nelia as their children, taking the saying of ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ quite literally. After you died, everyone probably felt guilty that they couldn’t protect you.” Noch explained with a shrug.

I didn’t think that he would actually give me an honest answer, but it made perfect sense. If I were in their shoes, I probably would have felt the same. Guilt would have wracked my soul if something like that were to happen to a child I was responsible for. The thought of children made something tickle in the deep recesses of the memory vault that I wasn’t ready to visit anytime soon.

I turned my attention back to the mountains of documents that needed to be skimmed through. With a sigh I wandered over to the stack of scrolls next to the one Noch was busy browsing. Being surrounded by all the documents of the time before the cataclysm also made me wonder about what kind of lives he would have lived back then. Everything was so vastly different back then than what they were like in this cycle.

Peeking over, I saw him expertly unroll the scrolls and give them a cursory once-over before popping them back where he pulled them out from.

“Hey Noch, what did you do before the cataclysm hit?” I asked curiously.

He looked over my way with a raised eyebrow. I just gave a shrug in answer to his raised eyebrow. “I’m not allowed to be curious since we both have memories of back then?” I asked.

“Hmm… it’s not that. I’m just wondering since you’ve never been curious about it before. Well, at least nothing will happen to you now if I were to share some things.” He said while glancing over the scrolls in front of him.

“Now… just what was I doing before the cataclysm hit?” He rubbed his chin as he thought hard. “Aha!” He gave a devious giggle as he turned back to me. “I was thieving a stall of crystal wares and tools while the first thief of that same stall was getting his ass handed to him by the seller. Man she was an absolute beast as soon as she got her hands on him. My best opportunity was to snag a few items while she was distracted.”

I squinted at him. “Was your occupation thievery back then?”

He gave a snort. “No, but I definitely didn’t have the right amount of funds on me to get what I wanted from that stall back then.”

“Wait a minute…” Him describing the incident made a memory from the vault inch its way to the front of my mind. “Did you have black hair back then, about this long?” I asked while holding my hands just below my chest.

Noch looked at me curiously. “Yes…~”

“Dark skin, about this tall, lean?” I asked while holding my hand well above my own head.

He started to frown more now. “Yeees…?”

“You fricken asshole. So you’re the reason why I suddenly had stock missing from my booth!” I exclaimed as the memory came to the forefront.

“Nooo…~” He said skeptically while a mischievous smile was starting to form on his face. “You’re the vendor from back then?! No wonder you kick ass so well!”

I wouldn’t doubt him for not believing it, I was obviously a completely different person back then. Only snippets of the memory were peeking out at me as well. I snorted a laugh at his last comment. It was true that I nearly murdered the thief I caught trying to steal from me first before I spied him wandering past my perriferry in a hurry. 

“You should be glad that I didn’t notice you were the one that took my stuff until after the fact.” I laughed while punching him lightly in the arm.

His guffaw was so infectious that I couldn’t help but snort again while laughing. “Oh believe you me, I was glad! I didn’t want to end up anywhere near those bloody fists of yours! Not to mention the guards that arrived afterwards didn’t have any sense of humor at all.”

“Where was that place back then though? I remember you and the thief and that I was running a crystal or mineral shop of sorts back then, but before and after that it’s pretty fuzzy.” I asked curiously.

“Oh well that’s no surprise, it was so long ago after all. Not to mention the day after that was when the cataclysm hit and all civilizations from back then basically got knocked back to the stone age. The city we were living in back then got hit especially badly, it got completely whipped out by a massive tsunami in a matter of minutes.” He reminisced thoughtfully.

“Oh… now that you mention that…” I could make out the fuzzy memory of setting my stall up for the day when chaos had suddenly erupted to the east side and a huge rumble, then a wave suddenly came inland that positively dwarfed all the structures around. “Wait a minute, were we then living in…” My statement wandered off, I didn’t know if what my head was telling me was in fact true or just making things up with modern knowledge.

“Hm? Atlantis?” He asked with a raised eyebrow as if he read my mind. “Well sure, it obviously had a different name back then but modern society of this age knows it as Atlantis.”