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“Fine,” Ibai pouted. “Where do I find this Keeper of the Library, then?”

“Bottom floor, most likely,” said Germal. After a beat, he seemed to remember something and added, “Oh, and the current Keeper is Gohvis, by the way. Perhaps I should have mentioned that earlier.”

Emiliana just kind of stared at him.

“Ah, Gohvis, huh? I suppose--” Ibai was interrupted by the Library again, but this time, it wasn’t an explosion.

Instead, it was only a simple rumbling. Which grew more intense. And kept growing more intense. Until Emiliana was sufficiently unsettled and began to prefer explosions.

Every single bookcase in her line of sight was shaking, even the ones on the other side of the room’s center pit.

Ibai smacked his lips. “Well, I’m going to go now.” He teleported away just as the room erupted into a storm of paper.

Thousands of books and pages flew together in the center of the room, coalescing into a single, connected form, and a kind of hulking serpent was born. It spiraled in place for a moment, hovering, and then snaked up and over to the floor directly above them. A cluster of familiar crashing noises soon followed. Then there was a pause. Then more crashes.

The pattern repeated from there, and Emiliana got the feeling that it wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon.

At length, Germal began leading her downward again. “...Is your friend going to be okay?” he asked.

“...I have no idea.”

When they finally did reach the bottom floor, the first thing Emiliana noticed was a gargantuan pile of bones just sitting there by the stairwell.

“Are these dinosaur bones? Shouldn’t they have a proper display exhibit or something?”

“Those are not dinosaur bones,” said Germal. “Those are the Library’s previous Keeper.”