Meta

The Library

Chapter 6

The Library

After we arrived back from our last class, all students had an hour before dinner to do homework or relax.

Dinner was served in the main hall, however, students could eat in the gardens, or out in the forest halls if they'd like.

Before dinner, I had to do some research on my 'Purple-fire breather Dragon.' Obviously, there was no Google here or Internet for that matter, so, I asked some students to point me in the direction of the library.

The META library was a very homey and expansive place. There were so many wings and halls, different reading rooms, a few were outside in the forest halls. It was literally a growing library.

Now, all I had to find was the dragon section.

Within a half hour I had found quite a few useful books, but nothing mentioned my 'Purple-fire breather' so I continued searching, I even asked a hobbit librarian who sent me to the section I'd already been in; I couldn't find anything!

Before I had realized it, I had wandered so deeply into the library, I couldn't figure out where I had walked off too.

I took a flickering lantern off a nearby table. A glint of violet light caught my attention a ways off down the corridor and I figured it was shinning from the main entry way of the library.

However, as I neared the light I realized the entryway that I thought was the library entrance was actually a set of huge stone doors. They were glowing because they were dwarf doors, unable to be opened unless you knew the password.

I huffed. This was unbelievable! How could I get so lost in a library?

I looked closely at the doors,
they read;

"Love, laughter, pleasure and time, all creatures treasure, but for a dragon, what am I?"

It was a riddle....about a dragon? Maybe something about my assignment was in there!
Perhaps it was a lost vault of old unused books, locked up for safekeeping.

I was determined to solve this riddle.

What does a dragon treasure?
All dragons have treasure... Rubies, diamonds and most of all gold, right?
So, that had to be the answer; gold.

I grinned stepping forward while speaking the word "Malta", the very same word inscribed across my door in the Greenwood hall.

Malta meant gold in high elvish, and it was a noble word. Sure enough, the dwarve doors slowly creaked open.

It didn't take long for my elf eyes to adjust to the dim light. The inside of the room was full of dusty books and random artifacts here and there. In the very center of the room a strange, small, lavender rock sat on a pedestal glowing slightly.

Inscribed on the rock platform was the word 'Malta'. I looked around the pedistal, and there, barely visible through the dust and shadows, was a purple leather bound book.

I had a good feeling about this! I wiped away some grime off the cover, which revealed the title 'The Purple Fire Breather'.

Yes! I'd finally found it! Was that lucky or what?
I gingerly tried to pry the cover of the book. For some odd reason, I couldn't open the book.

There wasn't a key hole anywhere....it was like some magic held its pages glued shut.

This whole assignment was utterly insane.

I flipped the book over, and found a hollowed out egg shape in the leather, the same shape as that glowing rock on the stone platform. Okay that's simple enough.

I carefully plucked the purple stone from it's resting place and slid it into the back cover of the book. It fit perfectly, which in turn clicked the binding open.

I didn't have time to look through it now, dinner was about to start and I was still lost! I looked around the room until I found what I was looking for, a framed map of the library; old, musty and yellowing.

I made my way out of the vault and back into a random reading room.

Thank goodness! I never wanted to get that lost again. I turned around to exit this secluded room accidentally bumped into a hobbit.

"Oh! My apologies." The hobbit exclaimed as he turned to face me

"It's quite alright!" I replied before stoping. I couldn't help but stare, I should've been expecting this, but it really just shocked me for some reason.

The hobbit gazing up at me was none other than Frodo Baggins.