Caligo mindlessly followed his memory of the Veiled Stacks since, by now, it was the only place that he "remembered". He passed through ominous alleys, climbed the buildings of Solarae, and swam through fountains until he came across a hut on the edge of Sunforged City with a trapdoor built under a carpet.
Caligo looked at the carpet. The carpet looked nice. It had nice check patterns. He had difficulties withing the hatch, so he brutally smashed it into pieces using his bare hands.
Under the trapdoor, there were stairs leading to the basement of the hut, and so Caligo followed them.
As he descended the creaky stairs, he began to hear unsettling noises that echoed through the corridors of the basement.
Luckily for him, the curse made his Essence Strings fray once again, which, due to the constant exposure to stress, made him agonize in pain and forget about those scary sounds.
It took him a moment to pull himself together. He continued his search for the library while evading deadly traps that most likely were set up by the Followers of The Eye. For example, a false wall mirage, which prolonged Caligo's stay immeasurably until he accidentally ran into it while running away from a boulder rolling towards him.
After the gruesome, life-threatening expedition, he found himself facing a pair of reinforced doors. There was a note attached to them with the following message:
"No entyr for unathurorized persons"
There was another note attached to the first one:
"Are you well?"
Despite the warning, Caligo didn't know how to read, so it didn't apply to him. He glared at the doors, swung his Umbra blade with a grunt, generating a wave of Umbra which blasted the hinges apart.
Carelessly entering the library, he looked around him; a dark room with tall shelves packed with old books, their covers cracked and dusty. Dim violet runes on the walls pulsed faintly, casting weird shadows that moved like they were alive.
The only thing that caught his eye was a brightly glowing book. It was so bright that Caligo had to face downwards to approach it. Once he managed to get to it, he injected enough Umbra to lower the book's Radiance to a level where he would be able to open it and see the text clearly without damaging his eyes.
Since he couldn't read, he didn't pay mind to the front cover and instead opened it on a page titled "World's Creation".
"Solaris came from two gods. Sol Invictus made light, fire, and life. His sun burned bright, giving hope. Oculus Tiertus spun shadows, chaos, and secrets. His third eye saw everything, hiding the truth in the dark. They fought over.... which of them is prettier? Yeah, makes sense, continuing....
...but neither won. Their clash made the Divine Dichotomy, the magic of Solaris, a balance of light and shadow. The Divine Dichotomy is maintained by the Protectors of Solaris."
"The gods shaped five nations. Solarae got Sol's light, with humans and glowing cities. Veldoria got wild plains, where beasts sing under stars. Sylvantara grew forests, where elves guard trees. Aetherion floated in the sky, with elementals and air. Montumbra dug deep, where dwarves forge metal and fight shadows."
"Every living thing has Essence Strings, internal energy spread across the body, like invisible threads. They let people Essence Weave Radiance or Umbra magic."
"Well, that's interesting for sure, not like.. I've heard it one too many times already.."
Caligo spun toward the voice and saw a small fox with red fur and a glowing tail, its amber eyes glinting in the dim library. It sat on a shelf, grinning, like it knew something he didn't.
"I'm not that creepy, am I? You act like you've seen a ghost."