From Bookish To Goddess

I headed straight to the library. My people had things to work out, while I had to contemplate how best to move forward with the situation. It would be easy to stop the chaos if I just played the part of a divine leader as the ‘Goddess’. Even if I didn’t believe it, I was divine for them. So it would be for a good cause. I think I could most likely repair the mine and provide any essential materials. It would take time to develop other resources.

It was just so much to handle in such a small amount of time. I wondered what it was like for those divine beings. Knowledge of them is extremely scarce, written only in small parts in random fairytales and between passing conversations. There was understandably no real ‘how-to’ manual, but it would be nice to have one.

When I entered the library to check on Fienna, I was surprised to see a few bearbrarians and the bearista waiting for me by the entrance. So they are sentient. This is going to be interesting. At least it should come off my to do list tonight. They were dressed in their normal noble attire.

I wasn’t too surprised by it. I had always suspected it, but never wanted to pressure them. Even though this was yet another thing to deal with, I was glad to have the distraction. It would be really nice if they could help. We’d been around each other for thousands of years at this point, though most of that time was me with my face in a book or me teasing them or arguing with my ridiculous fan club or coming out of the dungeon all raggedy.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized they might not have the best opinion of me and that’s why they hadn’t talked to me before. I was actually getting a little anxious as to why now of all times, they had chosen to talk to me. I hoped nothing else would be added to my timetable as it would interfere with my reading time.

The bearista walked over, handing me a delicious-smelling fruity drink before stepping back. When I tasted it, I was in love. It was a mix I had forgotten about. It had raspberry to make it fruity, lemon to make it slightly sour, liquid cane syrup to make it sweet, and black tea to give it a kick without tasting like coffee. I hoped no one would judge me for it being so sweet; it was basically just candy. I can just call it dessert!

They had started this conversation off on the right foot by bringing me something so tasty. It immediately calmed my nerves and put me in a light mood. “That was ‘bearylicious’. Thank you for the drink. So, can you talk, or how are we going to communicate?” I said, feeling rather jovial at the time. My memory was being flooded with all the good times I had teasing them.

The bearista nodded to the bearbrarian in front. “I am Jeneven. I shall be speaking with you today. We, the watchers of the library, have some questions we wish to ask of you before we proceed forward.” The bearbrarian in front said before giving me a bow.

The cadence was very formal, like a noble speaking to their royal leader in reverence of their position. I was almost surprised by it but I guess I never really thought about how they should talk. Maybe they speak so formally due to age? But if that was the case, then shouldn’t I be more formal?

Then again, my council had pointed out that I spoke eloquently, rhythmically, and powerfully all at once. Which at the time made no sense to me because I felt like I was still way too young, especially in my mental capabilities. Due to the library’s anti-aging effects, my brain hasn’t matured so I always feel like I am at a disadvantage.

“Nice to meet you. I also had my suspicions recently about you bear watchers. Feel free to ask me anything. This place is my home as well as yours and we should be more friendly to each other.” I said, attempting to sound as forthcoming of my intentions as possible.

“Let us sit somewhere more comfortable. Is the cafe good enough?” Jeneven asked, holding out her arm for me to proceed.

“Yes, that would be great. Then we can get some more drinks.” I replied, leading the way.

I knew that in olden times the most important person walked in front, but it was safer to have them in the middle. There was a period of time where they wanted to be in the back if they were a guest so that they could just run away without getting trapped or stabbed int he back.

I suspected that they wanted to use the truth checker in the cafe but sadly that thing was super easy to manipulate. It was something only longtime members of the library knew about.

There were times when I abused the truth checker, when my fan club would try to get answers out of me about my life. It didn’t work the same as a truth circle I used, which would make someone say something. It would only tell the person who activated it if what they said was true or not based on their belief in it.

I would mislead my fan club with it. For the longest time, the fan club believed I was an eternal spirit from the afterlife sent to punish them for their faults. It was super funny to see them scatter away from me. That eternal spirit thing may have contributed to my title of goddess.

When we got into the cafe, I used my mana vision to catch them activating the lie detection circle. I really had nothing to hide, so I chose not to manipulate it at this time.

“Head Administrator Astrid, please take a seat wherever you would like,” the bearista said.

I, of course, went to my favorite chair and plopped down. “Just call me Astrid. We may not have talked before, but we have been around each other for a long time.”

The bearista and Jeneven sat at the table. Jeneven was the first to speak. “As you wish. So, as you have suspected, we are sentient. Though we are not golems, we are the souls of long-forgotten races. We took a vow and joined the library’s magical apparatus.”

That was really interesting. I had always wondered what happened to the other races of old. I had thought that they all went away, but it made sense that they could hide out here. Especially if it was a dragonkin that had created this place, since they were the oldest recorded race.

That magical apparatus sounded super interesting. I hadn’t come across specific instructions, but I am sure I could put something together with a mass of spells.

“That is very interesting. We should talk about that at length later, but I think you wanted to ask me questions first.”

“Yes, thank you for not making a big focus out of it. Why did you decide to take care of the otherkin?”

“They are innocent people being oppressed and are unable to leisurely read outside of work. As a bookwyrm and a library member, it is my duty to spread more reading. They also worship me and even if I have qualms with that, I can't bring myself to let them down.”

“That is true they are oppressed and we all are all bookwyrms here. We were glad to hear from Tara and Thon how great you have been to the next race. They ramble on about you all the time.”

I was a little surprised that they had been talking about me, but I supposed it made sense since Tara announced me as her big sister. It was better than being called goddess, but that wouldn’t get me anywhere because not only would I still have to help people, but they were less likely to give me books.

By the next race, I assumed she meant the next one that would take over. That was an interesting idea, but I wasn’t sure if it was true. Something felt different about otherkin, compared to the info I had read about other transitional periods. There had been extinctions of other races in the past due to disease or birth rate or war. That wasn’t exactly the case here, and I didn’t really like the idea of associating otherkin as a disease, even if it came off that way.

“That is great to hear that they like me so much. I never know what people think about me. I could just invade their thoughts, but that seems wrong or, as some books say, ‘unethical’. That being said, do you have any ideas what triggered it or how they came to be?”

“It is always possible for a mage of your caliber to warp most people’s reality. We are surprised some of your natural age has taken such consequences into account. We wondered about your maturity due to lack of brain development while in here. At this time we are unsure of their coming about mechanism but we have some ideas. ”

“It is something I have been worried about for some time now. It feels like I am going fast and slow at the same time while having wild surges in a random direction. I considered aging myself to my early 20’s then putting a block on my age, but I am unsure.” I said, wanting their opinion. It would allow me to process things easier and it might help me grow out of my anxiety faster, if that was possible.

“No, that wouldn’t be best. You need to experience things at a natural rate. You have already had such a radically different life than even any of us. ”

Part of me still wanted to do it, but the bears had long outlived me. Unless I needed to, I would just stick with where I am now. “Let's get back on topic. Thank you for your guidance.” I said, trying to sound as formal as them.

The bear leaned back a bit and pawed at its chin. “What we gathered about the state of the world outside is that most living things outside of the domes are dead. That means all the animal spirits had nowhere to reincarnate. We think that they may be fusing with human souls where they are new or reincarnated. We can’t be too sure till we get someone’s consent to inspect them more deeply. Since we can only talk to you, it is hard for us to do that.”

“That is a good idea. We should investigate more. That would actually make a lot of sense with the massive variety of tails and ears. We are kind of busy at the moment, but I am sure someone will volunteer if I put it out there. They may want to know what is going on or want to please me or want to come to the library. Since it isn’t just to please me, though I will feel less weird about it. I don’t want my people to be my test subjects. Why can you only talk to me?”

The bears looked to each other to confirm something before speaking. I hadn’t a clue what they were contemplating but it was weird. I had never seen them verbally interact with people the whole time I was here. Most of the time, they seemed rather mechanical and golem like. I grabbed a sweet strawberry lemonade while I awaited their reply.

“It is part of our contract that we cannot expose who we are to anyone but the head of the library. We started to get attached to you since you were around a lot. Then when you became head administrator, you could have communicated your wishes us directly and we would have had to try to do them.”

“I didn’t know I could do that. It wasn’t in the manual.”

The bears looked at each other for a moment, then face palmed. “We apologize for not considering that. We didn’t consider if it was in there or not.”

It was nice to see that people even older than me could make such common mistakes. “It’s okay. Why couldn’t you tell me before? Me being the only one sort of made me the de facto head. If it was just contract magic, then those aren’t too ironclad. They are easy enough to monopolize or break. Even archmage level ones aren’t too hard, especially with all the time we had.”

“It was deity level contract magic.”

I gasped, my head started to whirl. The idea of treading on the divine scared me. I was pretty confident in fighting a demigod level threat but nothing more.

“Well, we think you already know this, but this place was created by a deity. The real goddess of knowledge of the world. With your level of control of this planar pocket dimension, you have usurped her authority. ”

My brain muscles and my eyes twitched as I looked up while I tried to process what they had just told me. I am sure that I had looked like a fool, but this was the last confirmation I needed. I was a goddess, like an actual deity level being.

There were stories about deities. The way books talked about them was that they were once regular beings, but there was no one noted in history of someone becoming one. It was as if there was a purposeful gap in history. Maybe I had missed something, but this just wasn’t a thing that had been done in a long time.

Then it hit me. I had just stolen something special from a deity that had far outlived me. Panic started to crawl all over me as my hair stood up on my skin. I had to find a way to communicate with her and apologize. Hopefully, she would forgive me from one bookwyrm to another. I didn’t even know where to begin with that being possible. I looked up at the bears for help.

“We don’t know how it happened either, if that’s what you're thinking. There were books on it in that past, but they migrated away the last time the creator took a chunk to her personal library.”

Their answer shook me out of my thought process. “Wait, she has taken books from here? To where? Did you talk to her?” I asked, hoping there was a way to communicate with her. So I could start begging for forgiveness.

“Yes, she migrates books that are of a certain age every so often. She also takes any mental copies we made. She believes some knowledge should be forgotten and also that some should be just hers. We can’t talk too much about her since she is a secretive person and has put restrictions on us. With her power, we don’t want to make her angry.”

“Neither do I. Darn, I really would have wanted to read those. But wait why does this place still exist then? Wouldn’t she just take everything with her? Why hasn’t she communicated in so long?”

“We all want to read the migrated books again, but Feinna brought us something new and the ones you have been adding are great as well. Well, most gods are too busy for direct contact, but the pious followers were usually able to communicate with their deity. We lost contact at the same time people stopped coming here and still haven’t been able to figure out why. Since you never followed any of them, you probably didn’t notice.”

That made sense, since religion was never really taught in our house. After we lost my father, my mother wasn’t really interested in that. Then when mother died, I never really cared for them since they let her die.  

“What we have guessed is that something cut off magic and the gods at the same time. Which should have cut off power to there, but people's belief in you kept it alive as a conduit. Then when you became administrator, it synced control of the conduit to you matching up with the people’s beliefs of you and gave you your divine energy and status.”

“A conduit? And divine energy and status? Will the creator be angry that I essentially stole it?” I asked, feeling somewhat scared that I had made something mad that was strong enough to create this place.

“We think she won’t be mad since you are a bookwyrm and are adding more books. From what we know, most gods have conduits on a planet that channels energy to them. Divine energy is defined as that because when people pray to you, they give you mana laced with their emotions. As far as what deity status provides, we don’t know. We think you were able to become a standalone deity because you worshiped no one and you were the only person around being worshiped. So your mana then didn’t go to someone else. You kept with you as well as all the incoming divine energy.”

That was a lot of information to parse apart. I was a real goddess with genuine powers that I had no clue how to work and no information around on the topic. There wasn’t enough time right now to be able to sift this out. I needed to start acting like a goddess since I was one and I could use it to help people and gain more books.

I was responsible for my believers and now I had to keep the library afloat myself, so I needed those believers. It wasn’t all bad though I had effortlessly been doing it for a thousand years already. All I needed to do was not mess it up. It would be good if I by helping them directly they would give me an even larger portion of their mana so that I could intern help them more.

It would have been good if I had a deity I had met that I could role model after. But I had never worshiped anyone because I had lived rurally and lost my parents while I was still new to the world. It is a weird feeling gaining ultimate power by losing so much. Before I left here, had I known, I would have given it back to see them, but now knowing so many would have suffered, I couldn’t do it even if I was capable.

Since this wasn’t really something new on my shoulders, it didn’t really pain me, but did reinforce what I had to do. At least Iwas getting something out of it now and I would be sure to use it to get more books.

“Could I ask you to please research as much as you can on the topic and formalize it into a book? That includes anything you can share personally as well.”

The bear nodded. “Yes, we wanted to help you also but weren’t sure what to do. Please keep helping the new race. We appreciate you not ordering us to do it, but it would have been okay either way because this is very important.”

It was good to hear that they understood the importance of this but it still felt wrong not to offer anything up. “Is there anything you want?”

“We want you to help the otherkin. Don’t worry about asking for help ever. You are helping us just as much as we are helping you, but if you insist, you can always get more books for all of us.”

I giggled a little. We really were like-minded people when it came to the value of books and others. There was a small bit of weight lifted off of me. I had to figure out how to utilize them more. They may be able to help deal with policy when it comes to taking over the kingdom if it comes to that. Though I hope they don’t start anything, for both the people's sake and my reading time.

“That sounds like a deal. I have to get back to Astraville but I will be back later to discuss this further. Thank you.” 

The bears got up and left and headed for the books shelves. I was sure Fienna was fine, the bears would have told if something was amiss or would have kicked her out like anyone else. I finished off my fruity drink and headed back to Astraville through the portal.