Page 2892

~~Christmas Day Special - (page 22 of 24)~~

He could feel his consciousness slipping. This frustration wasn't doing him any favors. The tether was weakening. He had to pull himself out before the risk became unacceptable.

So he did.

His eyes opened, and his hand came away from the glass. And he felt his own body again. Breath in his lungs. Flesh and bone wrapped around his soul.

He gave a long, tired sigh.

This wasn't going to be easy, was it?

After a few moments of allowing his thoughts and emotions to settle, he moved to press his hand against the glass again.

But halfway, he stopped himself.

Perhaps he needed to rethink his approach. There was far more ardor in this machine--if it could even be called that--than he had expected. At this rate, searching for the name could take days, weeks, or even months. Hell, maybe longer. He didn't really know how deep the ardor was, yet.

He looked around the chamber. It wasn't just the Forge in here. This place was obviously some kind of ancient workshop. Hector and his associates may have already inspected it from top to bottom, but perhaps it would be prudent to give it a look himself. They said they hadn't found the name in any of those books over there, and he believed them, but there could still be useful clues therein.

Honestly, he didn't know what he was looking for. He had a faint hope that something he learned would help him to locate the name when he dove back into the ardor. Some kind of historical context, maybe?

He couldn't read the language that these books were written in, but fortunately, Worwal could.

So they set to work--Worwal reading, Abbas turning pages. He counted twelve books on this shelf, and perhaps another ten or so on a different shelf by the door.

But if he had to sit here and let Worwal read every single one of them, cover to cover, then he would.