What did he do last night? Drink the the entire wine storage here?
He ate his food slower than he did at dinner time, which I was grateful for. I drank up my coffee and took care of my dishes by the time he finished and did the same.
"Thank you for breakfast." I quietly say as he motions for me to follow him. This man irked my ire, but I still had manners. I just wish his scent did not remind me of my father after a drinking binge.
He only grunted in response, lumbering through the halls as if his body was a heavy mass he had to maneuver. His personality made him seem larger than what he was. I stood at five feet, seven inches, he was over six feet but not by much. Bav was able to stand at his eye level easily, even though he was just a touch shorter, and he was just six feet tall. His clothes hid his body structure, but I am sure there's some muscle along that helped fill out his body.
It was obvious he was feeling rather poorly as he moved, his shoulders sagging forward as if a weight was hung around his neck. I wasn't even paying attention to where we were going until he stopped and grabbed a book cart.
The library? I looked around and sure enough it was the library here. The walls went up three stories, each with its own metal and wood landing, with bridges strong across next to the stone pillars holding up the roof. Those pillars were not just supports but also doubled as book shelves. Six massive pillars had a total of aisles of book shelves on each side of them, with large desks and smaller ones scattered about for research purposes. Large rolling stairs and ladders dotted the aisles as we walked.
The scent of parchment and ink permeated the air with a light note of dust and fire from the fireplaces that burned along the walls to keep mold and mildew from growing. I saw one of the large tables, piled high with books, where Bav would be soon to continue translating the books written in Eenglis to Jakeschian.
Soot's stops in front of a an array of parchment rolls, stone tablets and old wood and leather bound mounds of papers. He pulls a couple, muttering unintelligible things as he pulled a few books out and placed them on the cart.
"Read, follow the first born of each generation only. Pay attention to death's and their causes. Make notes, if you feel the need too." Soot's leads me to a table, pulling out paper and pen with ink, motioning for me to sit. "You can start with the first born of Lavis Ignis, only follow the line of his first born descendant's and only their first born. You'll find him in this book, which goes back eight hundred years. I want you to write a paper about their deaths and any findings you discover till present day. You have three days to turn it in." He sits and props his feet up in another chair, leaning back and closes his eyes.
I sit there slack-jawed as he gets comfortable, snoring a mere minute later.
'THE NERVE OF THIS MAN! I GOT UP BEFORE DAWN TO READ AND DO A CAUSE OF DEATH GENEOLOGY MAP?!'
"Hmph..!" I open the book and begin finding Lavis Ignis. Writing down dates and causes of death for each name I come across, following the path of the first born heirs.
'Three days... I should go back to sleep myself....' I glare at Soot's, wishing I could shove a handkerchief in his mouth to quiet his snores. I stand to do so, when Bav, Amara and Synthea walk in to the library to start working.
Placing my handkerchief back in my pocket, I flash them a smile as they approach.
"How is your training going?" Amara looks for Soot's and upon spotting him purses her lips in disapproval. "Or not going? What happened to him?" She asks quietly.
With a stiff smile I inform her, "Apparently he felt the need to drink last night. So I am following the genealogy of the first born offspring of Lavis Ignis and their causes of death. I advise you not get too close, he reeks of alcohol." I mention as Bav steps closer to the table that my studies are laid out on.
"Noted, dear." He takes a peek at the ancestry books that are open and shakes his head.
"You know where to find us later. Try not to smother him with your handkerchief, as tempting as it may be." Bav gives me a light smirk, before patting my cheek as they walked to their table to begin.
The chair is stiff in the back, but cushioned in the seat as I resume my studies. Quietly reading, following and finding the offspring, flipping through until I'm stretching to ease the stiffness in my back. Pushing the chair back from the table, I stand and leave to find Bav for lunch. I leave Soot's there to continue snoring away his hangover.
I take lunch back with me, Carthure suggesting I take something back for Soot's lunch, while he packed it for him. Bav, Amara and Synthea are taking theirs to the library as well, so we decide to sit together at a different table. No sooner had we sat down, when we saw a grumpy looking Soot's stomp by.
"Soot's! We have your lunch here!" Amara shouts, bringing his attention to where we are.
He comes back to where we are, takes a disgruntled look at me and takes a seat.
I scoff, "What was that look for? We were letting you sleep your hangover off."
Soot's takes a seat pulling his food towards him, grunting, "How far have you gotten in your studies?"
I set my fork down, taking a sip of water to wash the bite down, I had just had. "I am currently on Magnus Ignis the third, from the Lucros era."
He doesn't say anything, just eats. I bite my own lips to keep from saying something I might later regret. His smell was filling my nostrils again, triggering my mind to recall mornings or evenings when my father had drank too much. I quickly lost my appetite, pushing the remainder of my food away.
"I'll be getting back to my work. I don't think I can finish this right now. Could you take care of it for me Bav, dear?" He nods with a closed smile, mouth full of food.
I'm working hard on my assignment and finding that most of these names I've come across, seem to die from as stated, 'Violent Fury'. As I continue to look at the other deaths, I notice that not one is labeled as a natural cause. Drowning, freak accident, robbery/homicide, airship crash, animal attack, and the label that is now popping up more frequently is the 'unknown'. In fact, I don't realize until there's no one left for me to look up with the books provided, and that I was looking at twenty generations all labeled unknown.
'When did the unknowns start? When was the last Violent Fury death to happen?'
The year.... it's the year that hundreds of thousands traveled to what many speculate is the prison. One almost completely stopped the year another label started.
Soot's is sleeping again, snoring and making me want to vomit, he reeks of alcoholic sweats and body odor.
I close the book with a loud *BANG* making Soot's jump up in the air.
"What the hell?!" He gives me a hideous glare as I shout my findings for him.
"Not a single one died from natural causes, they all died a violent or painful death, except for the unknowns. Those can only be speculated. What is this 'Violent Fury' as a cause of death though?" I inquire.
Soot's still glaring at me, grits out, "It's the reason why the governments are truly afraid of catalysts. From the fact that Lavis Ignis and all of his first born descendants are known to have the Elements of Fury in them. That when we are enraged, truly filled with nothing but fury, over injustice, betrayal, whatever, we burn everything down."
"They go light everything on fire? That doesn't explain why their deaths are labeled as such." I remark.
Soot's laugh cuts through the air, piercing me inside as he leans forward to emphasize, "No, no, no, dear. They don't set everything on fire like you're thinking. They BURST into flames, leveling everything around them in a hundred meter area. What's left is a raging inferno that quickly spreads and takes out everything around it. No one survives within five hundred meters of where the catalyst was. What else did you notice?"
His smile set me on edge, but I purse my lips and add, "Unknown death's became high around the time that hundreds of thousands went to a 'new city', and Violent Furies have ceased to exist since."
I shake my head, knowing that what he said is true.
"Catalysts were put to death so no one could be destroyed by this 'Violent Fury'. Corruption in politics could go on, with out care and have been doing so since, without the help of the ones who were capable of defending the weaker, poorer masses, the massive divide between districts grew even more."
Emotions started building up in me, ones I knew from before. Anger, frustration, outrage, sorrow, despair, they fill me as my hands clench and my knuckles pop and crack in a fist.