Devotion drifted to sleep quickly, eventually finding himself dreaming. He was within an endless white expanse. He nearly immediately recognized it as his own Astral Space. It had been some time since he returned here.
In front of Devotion was his Qi platform, his glowing Qi reserve, and two objects: The floating, black, staff form of Ghostwhisper, and the old page Devotion had picked up from the desk.
"What's next, you're going to tell me this page is also sentient and has some grand destiny with me or something? Seems to be a trend." Devotion thought out loud. It really had been a recurring theme. Almost every item that showed up in his Astral Space had began to talk. Ghostwhisper, Ysmir, and now what? This page, too?
"No, you idiot. It's a sheet of paper." Ghostwhisper's raspy voice rang out from the staff.
"Oh, so now you talk, yet you fall silent when I'm about to get gored by a giant fucking spider. At least Ysmir helped." Devotion retorted. Speaking of Ysmir, the fox had also materialized within his Astral Space. It was currently asleep near the page.
"I can only talk because you're right next to my Astral Self. You're lucky you didn't come at a crucial time in my recovery, you could have ruined everything. It's still going to be a while, since I already used so much of my energy to save your ass. You're lucky my entire consciousness didn't fade when I did that."
"I think I would have been way more lucky if it did. At least I wouldn't have to hear this shit from you every time I go to my Astral Space."
"I'll ignore that. More importantly, do you really not realize what this page is? It doesn't seem familiar to you, at all?" Devotion shuddered every time he heard that staff speak. Its voice was so raspy and shrill, it would chill even the strongest of wills.
"It does feel somewhat familiar to me, although I can't quite remember from where I've seen it."
"I want you to think long and hard about our first encounter, Devo. Before I was a staff, what was I disguised as? I know it's really far back for your goldfish brain to think back to, but it's important." Ghostwhisper replied.
Without even waiting for Devotion to answer, the staff continued. "I took the form of an old journal page. Before Rydel Alabaster, blast his soul for eternity, died, he spread his entire inheritance throughout the entire continent. The most vital of this inheritance was his notebook. Each page of that notebook has unimaginably powerful information. If you gather every page of that notebook, you'd be unimaginably powerful. I disguised myself as a page hoping some greedy, powerful fucker who knew what it was would pick it up. Since I'm cursed, I got you, but I'm making it work."
Devotion sucked in a cold breath, ignoring the insult from the staff. The name Rydel Alabaster rang a bell. Alex had mentioned it earlier, saying that he was an incredible magician.
"Looks like you stumbled on one of his pages about beast studies. Unlucky it isn't more useful, but this is still good. Too bad none of us can read it." Ghostwhisper explained.
"You can't read it either?"
"It's in ancient speak. I don't think there's a soul alive who can speak that fluently."
"Then how the hell is this page useful? And what is ancient speak? I feel like I've heard of it before."
"I'm not sure where you would have heard of it, but I can't really explain more without accruing Karma for you. Just know it's important." Ghostwhisper said, choosing its words carefully.
"My god, what doesn't accrue Karma with you?" Devotion complained. It was frustrating how nearly every time they talked, something would come up that he wasn't allowed to learn. He had almost lost count of how many things he was not allowed to learn.
"Maybe if you were stronger and more qualified to learn this shit, we'd actually be able to have a conversation, but right now, you're stuck screwing around in the First Rank with no sign of improvement."
"Alright, I'll stop arguing with you about useless stuff. Besides the information on it, is there anything else to the page that I should know?" Devotion changed the subject before he got too frustrated.
"The page, while it appears old, is protected by a series of increasingly complex magical warding spells. In short, it is completely indestructible. While it isn't quite large enough to protect you from anything, I'm sure you could come up with something. Also, if you were to become powerful enough to dispel every enchantment on it, the last shield would translate it into a readable language." Ghostwhisper explained. "I sense you're about to wake up, so I'll be fast. What you've just found is an unimaginably valuable treasure, so keep it well. If you see another like it, be sure to get it. I sense something great will happen if you gather all of them."
Devotion woke up, well rested, despite the day he had had before. It was strange. Normally it would take him a few days to recover after exhausting his Spiritual Qi, but he completely recovered overnight this time. He'd have to figure out how that had happened, so he wouldn't be out of commission for so long after every fight.
He looked at Ysmir, who was curled up asleep at the foot of the bed. Lucky bastard hadn't even needed to recover, since it had barely used any energy the day before. Devotion slowly got out of bed, pulling on his robes and stepping outside. For once, he had gotten up before the other two did. At least he won in something.
Devotion headed over to Victor's door and gently knocked.
"Hey, Vic, time for us to get up. We should head out if we want to get back to the Guild at a reasonable time." Devotion called through the door.
There was no response from the other side of the door.
"Come on Vic, we all need our beauty sleep, but it's really pretty late." Devotion called, increasing the noise on the door. After knocking for a continuous ten minutes, the door finally opened, a groggy Victor wiping his eyes.
"Devotion, did you even look outside before knocking? Do you have any idea what fucking time it is?" Victor asked, his voice a half mumble.
"No, but I'm up, so I assumed early." Devotion replied.
"For the love of god, Devotion, look out the window. It's the dead of night. I got stabbed, I'm tired, let me sleep." Victor said, slamming the door and going to bed.
"Suppose it wouldn't hurt to check next time." Devotion said, heading back to bed for the night. One day, he'd wake up at the correct time. Today wasn't that day.