Chapter 501: No Reasons
He raised his tired eyes to Strax. “I saw the magic you used in the city. Truly amazing, Mr. Dragon.”
Strax took a few steps forward, stopping in front of the old man. Despite his imposing presence, his voice sounded low and respectful. “I am honored, master… but I did not co here for praise. I ca for answers.”
The chief archivist—an elder with a thin face and short silver beard, his fingers still slightly singed from recent spells—took a deep breath before leaning on the table behind him. His eyes had the emptiness of one who had seen more than he should have.
“Do you think you’ll find them here?” he asked, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
Yennifer stepped forward. “Was there not even a pattern? A clear origin? A primary target? Anything that tells us why they attacked the tower?”
The old man just shook his head slowly. “No warning. No letter. No premonitory aura. The demons ca like a silent storm. By the ti we felt the first magical crack in the skies, it was already too late.”
Cristine crossed her arms, irritated. “But they didn’t take anything? Forbidden books? Relics? They didn’t even try to break the seals on the hidden chambers?”
The archivist raised a thin eyebrow. “Nothing. No artifacts were taken. No seals were touched. No attempt at deep invasion. It was destruction… for destruction’s sake.”
Strax frowned. “Attacks like this are not common. Even demons choose targets out of desire or hatred. This…” He looked around at the broken crystals, the grimoires piled around like victims. “…this seems purposeless. As if it were… a demonstration.”
“And maybe it was,” Thali murmured from the doorway. She was still holding the cloak with the nas on it. “A demonstration of strength. Or cruelty. Or a new power that no longer cares about negotiations and treaties.”
The archivist sighed. “The towers are, historically, the first targets when one wants to plunge the world into chaos. Not because they are weak… but because we are the eyes. The records. The ones who announce what is coming. If they silence us, the world walks blind.”
Yennifer murmured, “And now the world is blindfolded.”
Cristine approached a side table, where burnt scrolls lay like bodies. “What about the surviving mages? Did anyone see anything? Any prophetic visions, even incomplete ones?”
The old man shook his head. “The seers are dead. And the oracular waters were evaporated in the first minutes of the attack. The sky was darkened. Not even the stars wanted to witness the massacre.”
Strax looked at the elder, his frustration beginning to show. “And that was it? Hundreds dead. One of Thalassia’s greatest centers of trade and magic razed to the ground… and you have no idea why?”
The old man stared at him. “Do you think I’ve been sleeping since that day, boy? Do you think I spend my ti reciting spells of flowers and nostalgia?” He slamd his wrinkled hand on the table. “I saw my students burn alive! I saw my arcane mories scream and crumble! And I found not a single clue among the ashes!”
The silence that followed was suffocating. Even Thali looked away, clutching her cloak as if it could protect her.
Strax took a deep breath. His anger was different from the old man’s—more restrained, but much older. He looked at the floating crystals that slowly spun above the hall, reflecting the dim light.
“I expected to find sothing here. A trace. A motive. A magical signature linking all this to soone.”
The archivist shook his head. “If there was a signature… it has been erased with absolute perfection. As if the author wanted the world to never know who did it.”
Cristine turned to Strax. “So… we’re back to square one. No pattern. No motivation. Just large-scale destruction. That’s… despairing.”
Thali approached slowly. “Maybe that’s what scares us the most. Not knowing. Because if we knew… if there was hatred, or revenge, or greed behind it… then we could fight back. Plan. But fight against emptiness? Against the absence of intention?”
She stopped beside Strax, looking at the old man. “This is terror. Pure terror.”
The archivist sank into the chair behind him, his shoulders slumped. “We’ve seen wars before. We’ve faced tyrants, monsters, rabid animals, other races. There was always logic. Even if it was twisted. But this…” He raised his eyes one last ti. “This was gratuitous.”
Strax closed his eyes for a mont. When he opened them, there was sothing new in them. Not anger. Not fear. Sothing few knew: the absence of direction. A warrior without an enemy.
“And if there was no logic,” he said, “then there is only one hypothesis left.”
Cristine stared at him. “What is it?”
Strax looked back at her, his eyes burning with the spark of a dark conclusion. “That this attack was not planned by a traditional enemy. It was instinctive. Like a reaction… to sothing bigger. Sothing that is awakening in the world.”
The old wizard raised an eyebrow. “You believe… that the demons didn’t co with a plan?”
“I think they sensed sothing,” Strax replied. “Sothing that upset the balance for them. Sothing so ancient… that even the demons didn’t know how to react rationally.”
Yennifer murmured, “As if they had panicked.”
“Or fear,” Cristine added.
The archivist leaned forward. “If that’s true, Strax Vorah… then maybe whatever caused this attack hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe this was just the echo of sothing bigger.”
Strax clenched his fists. “Then we have to find out what it is. Before this ‘sothing bigger’ does to the world what the dragons did to this tower.”
Thali looked around—the remains of what was once sacred, safe, eternal. Now, everything was ruin and loss. And yet, she nodded firmly.
“If you go in search of that truth… take this with you.”
She handed Strax a small mory crystal, encased in silver. “It is Master Kalem’s last arcane record. He recorded it on the morning of the attack. I didn’t have the heart to watch.”
Strax took the crystal carefully. “We will watch.”
Yennifer touched Strax’s arm. “We must leave here. Now we have more questions… but also more fear.”
Cristine, looking at the broken tower around them, murmured, “And perhaps, finally… more direction.”
The trio walked away in silence, with Thali staying behind, her eyes teary but steady.
The old wizard whispered to himself, watching them leave: “Gods… be with you. Because books are no longer enough.”
“If you only knew what the gods have been doing…” Strax thought, before nodding…
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