Once they got their setup taken care of, it was mostly a matter of waiting for the mushrooms to grow. Logan helped that along with a little aid from Rapid Growth, but he used his power sparingly since he wanted to save as much Apothos as possible for the battle itself. Rationing supplies was one of the pillars of success in tactical warfare.
It was late afternoon, they still had nearly half an hour to spare, and Logan was amped up and ready to rock and roll.
Inga, though, kept sighing. Well, as much as she could sigh as a shared entity inside their respective gem cores, which floated over the pedestal. Their guardian bodies waited patiently in the antechamber’s alcoves, hidden by huge Opal Truffle mushrooms. Logan’s fungaloid form still wasn’t all that impressive, but he did what he could with what he had. He was wearing a pair of rough-spun pants, thin leather boots, and a leather bandoleer that offered virtually no protection at all but secured his ruby shield. The shield on his back, combined with his fat fingers, made him look comically like a mutated turtle of the teenage variety.
He also had his rusty dagger sheathed at his side, but that wouldn’t do much against a real dungeoneer. Eventually he’d need to get some actual armor and a weapon that wouldn’t induce laughing fits when raiders saw it. But that was a worry for another day.
<Are you ready?> Logan asked.
Instead of answering that question, Inga lost it. <Very well, Logan, you don’t need to pressure me! I’ll tell you about the Stringentia Strigiformes Exam!>
This was one of her most violent non sequiturs to date.
He kept calm. <Not sure I was pressuring you. I was just growing some Proto-Spores, kicking it, relaxing a little before we take the most important test of our lives.>
<Kicking what?> Inga sent that thought with a great deal of annoyance. <Never mind. It is probably one of your backward world’s idioms. No matter. You know when Tet said she’d trained her entire life to prepare herself for the Reaping?>
<Yep. Like a pianist with a tiger mom. Another culturally specific reference from my backward world. Go on, Inga.> He tried to make a joke, to lighten the mood, but it didn’t help.
Still more sighs. <Well, this was never a part of my plan. The only reason I’m here at all was because I failed the single most important test of my life. Once upon a time, I was the Grand Archivist of the Eastern Aerie Archive. As you can rightfully imagine, such a position made me incredibly wealthy, famous even. But I wanted to be so much more. I had my sights on the coveted position of Imperial Bibliognost. A Libro Generalissimo of the Sacred Tombs of Books. Perhaps the single most coveted position on Toriopa.
<It takes decades to accumulate the knowledge to pass the Stringentia Strigiformes Exam, which is the only way to become an Imperial Bibliognost.> She snorted virtually. <It is a grueling exercise in alphabetizing, synthesizing, indexing, and collating information across the world, across history, across reality itself. It is a working knowledge of the Brusalka Concordance.> This she followed up with an even bigger snort. <I don’t have to tell you how many people have been driven insane by trying to remember even the first volume of the Brusalka.>
Logan wasn’t going to argue... but talk about culturally specific. He simply agreed, and then let his consciousness float through the halls, stairs, and rooms of their dungeon. It was almost time. While he drifted, he listened.
<When we first bonded symbiotically, you saw me enter into the Sacred Tomb of Books, yes?> Inga asked.
Logan remembered the cave entrance at the top of the mountains, with the other owl people perched regally on hanging platforms. <Yeah, I did, and it looked as intimidating as hell.>
<Worse than you can imagine, Logan. I didn’t emerge for three days. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. Instead I worked. Worked my fingers bloody alphabetizing and cataloging. I believe I did more in less time than any exam candidate before me. It was a triumph...> She seemed to preen at the words, despite not having feathers anymore. <Right up until the very end,> she finished, deflating.
<You see, in the end I had to select a specialized field of study, and because I’d excelled beyond all imagining, I had forty-six different areas to choose from. And I couldn’t. The idea of picking only one area of study forever crippled me, Logan! It crippled me. I spent the rest of the exam reading through all the possibilities. I ran out of time and failed the test because I couldn’t make a choice. Which technically meant I had failed. The most important test on my world, of my life, and I failed.>
<What happened next?> Logan asked. He’d figured something like that had happened. Inga could be so scattered at times.
If Inga had been in her body, she would’ve been crying. <My superiors were shocked. All the Archivists on Toriopa were shocked. It shouldn’t have happened. I should’ve been better. And yet there I was, a failure.>
<Could you have gone back to your old job?> he asked.
<No.>
Inga didn’t send any more to him for a long time. He waited; he wanted to make sure he was listening and that he cared. He moved his fungal form out of the Opal Truffles in the alcove and went to Inga’s astral moth body. He took her hands in his.
Inga gripped his thick-fingered hands. <An Acolyte of the Word may only take the Stringentia Strigiformes Exams once. Many do not survive the attempt, but those who survive and fail are cast out from the ranks of the Archive. Knowledge is a powerful tool, the most powerful, and only the humble should wield it. Overestimating one’s own abilities is the height of hubris and proof that such an individual is not worthy of the knowledge of the Archive. I could go back to my home, to my family. But I would never be allowed to set foot in any Archive again.
<The thought of failure was more painful than you can imagine. So many of the elite on Toriopa were counting on me. I’d disappointed them. Then there were all these people who were so jealous of me. Remember, not only was I rich and successful, I was also a beauty queen, with my fine beak, my elegant plumage, and my well-shaped talons. My enemies took this opportunity to ridicule me. But worse even than that was the thought of never having access to my books again. That was unbearable. Shadowcroft has the finest library of all the dungeon academies. So I decided I would rather live in a monstrous form with the light of knowledge than live as a queen in the darkness of its absence. Using my vast stores of information, I found the nearest reaping dungeon, and the rest is history, as our people say.>
<How did you finally decide on your guardian form?> Logan asked.
She answered morosely. <I spent a year analyzing the various dungeon cores available to me. I still feel like I rushed the decision.>
She went silent, obviously upset.
Honestly, Logan was impressed by her story more than anything. She’d crushed her test, and even after failing to make a choice, she was dedicated enough to learning and growing that she was willing to die for it. That was dedication.
Still, his thoughts didn’t matter right then, because clearly she thought of herself as a failure. Logan wanted to comfort her, but he wasn’t sure how. So he told her a story. <Listen, my Uncle Bud failed at more things than anyone in the history of failure. He wanted to be a doctor, but he failed Organic Chemistry. Twice. He wanted to be a lawyer, but he couldn’t pass the bar. He took it three times. He wanted to be an Air Force pilot, but he was color blind, and between you and me, a bit too girthy.