Kazue felt much more tered now, though still a touch overstimuted. She had certainly e night’s attention, but it had left her mood lifted so high she’d felt like she was floating for a while. But it was best not to dwell upon what happeoo much, she didn’t want to get distracted from the viewing.

  The party had figured out their methodology pretty well here. Shizoku and Takehiko were w to both uhe biting words structs by using minics to push around any unattended books with wind them off a shelf. This sort of magic use was sustainable, was det at revealing the false books before they could ambush the party, and in doing so made it safe it ihe books to find any of value.

  Of course, it also damaged any books that weren’t i dition, so they were risking losing out on loot, but it was certainly safer this way. The method table, as it signifitly slowed down the party while they used a sustainable amount of magic, providing energy for the duo grow in the long term. And even the bunbrariah screams only made the thirteen-year-old Shizoku flinch a little.

  A simir methodology was used for every growth of root and vine. Whether it was with an arrow or a bolt of iergy, every potentially dangerous se of pnt was tested, and anything that twitched was assaulted from a safe distance.

  Of course, that made noise and drew the bunbrarians along with more bookwyrms, sometimes for situations where there was no daherwise. So it did have its drawbacks. Kazue was amused to notice that Mordecai had pletely filled their bunbrariaes today to deal with this group. Normally he waited to fill in all the slots sihe buff couldn’t be removed until the dawn, and that meant that the bunkin had their minds and bodies altered for that duration.

  She was very gd that Mordecai had known this trick, iing some of their capacity into an upgrade that could be put on. For some ges, it was fine for things to be one-way, especially if it enhanced a path of learning that the bunkin was already on, but for something like this, the kitsune was very gd that no one was stu this mode all the time. It wasn’t as effit in some ways, but even on the bat path, Kazue wanted some unity.

  Givehodological progression and the time-ing nature of mapping out a chaotic maze, this floor took quite a while, so Kazue and her family and the bunkin and rabkin who were watg, all took the time to go about other business as well. That was sort of the nature of having a more anized, professional group w their way through. It just was not as eaining as someone rushing their way in with only half a clue. But it also took a lot less monit, as they were not as likely to do something that could get themselves killed.

  “I see you went for double-boss arena again.” Kazue noted upon seeing the branches growiween bookshelves.

  “Yes,” Mordecai responded, “I think I’m going to let the fight go by its default rules. Bookwyrms and biting words will show up at their normal rate. It does mean Takehiko will be freer to sling his spells, and he’s not burhrough a sizeable k, like they had whesune were here st time, but he’s also not as powerful as your mother is.”

  The fight went much differently than when Akahana had simply tried to bulldoze her way through. Knowledge and preparation are powerful tools, and it was clear that they’d kept their most powerful spells in reserve, and Takehiko started off by effectively eliminating almost a third of the boss room from py as soon as Biblios made his appearance. Shizoku used a spell prepared to provide them with a brief wall of force to protect them from the initial onsught while Takehiko jured seething clouds that covered the far end of the arena’s ceiling. Those clouds promptly began to rain a dark liquid that sizzled where ever it hit.

  “Looks like he’s starting from the top of his spells and w his way down as he runs low,” Akahana ented. “A strong start in some ways, he’s making it easier for everyoo find their foes sino one is going to want to sit in a storm of acid, but that also means that he’s not going to be doing any damage with that spell. And that one has no safeties, it’ll burn the group as easily as the enemy.”

  Nainvil and Brongrim were pying defense for this fight, making sure that the struct dragon couldn’t close on the party without she fighters getting in the way. The three guards had their crossbows out and were ign Biblios in favor of keeping watch for Horace. Any time the utan attacked, whether with tome or ink, at least one of them could rea time to take a shot.

  They didn’t always hit, the shots had to be taken fast and Horace was fairly adept at moving out of the way right after he attacked, but it was a strategy that made it harder for the librarian to simply assault them at will.

  That left Takehiko and Shizoku to take the offensive on the dragon. The group kept their formation loose as they made their way forward, stepping a det way shy of the ter. That was when Takehiko cast his sed storm spell, only this oook some of his tration. A burst of clouds formed directly over the party, rumbling with the threat of thunder. While there were some clear areas around the edge of this cloud, betweewo spells, about two-thirds of the arena was covered, and the remaining third was a thin strip. The five-tail kept his tration on the spell, sending down bolts of lightning anytime Biblios attacked, and while he did so his fairy eidolon circled around the party, her aura and spells keeping the party protected and slowly healing any wounds they picked up.

  Shizoku finished setting up their area of trol by secutively casting three spells that jured up a curved wall of wind along the outside of the lighting clouds, needing all three to cover the total distahe spell wasn’t harmful, but it was difficult to fly or attack through, and effectively forced the two bosses in closer to attack, making the job easier for Takehiko and the guards, with Brongrim able to get off the occasional shot with his pistol.

  Biblios decided to not let this py out as a led fight and dove from cover directly above the party, f them to scatter as he hough the a did give an easy shot for Takehiko’s bolt of lightning. The dragon spun to face the archers, using his tail in a sweep to forainvil and Brongrim to approach carefully, then bsted the guards with a storm of paper flechettes before charging directly at him.

  Horace took this opportunity to assault the mages with tomes and vials of various noxious and slippery inks. Takehiko kept his focus on the dragon, while Shizoku did her best to cope with Horace. Her stro spells were already gone, but she was far from helpless. Though her first attempt at a spell had no visible effect other than Horace baring his teeth in a snicker before disappearing.

  Kazue frowned as she tried to figure out ell the younger girl had cast. “Was she trying to hit Horace with Hysterical Laughter?”

  Mordeodded. “Not a bad idea; if she could make him ugh untrolbly for even a few moments, he’d likely have fallen and that would have opened him up to more attacks. But Horace has an exceptionally strong will, so it was a bad match-up.”

  Kazue leased that her training with Mordecai had paid off; she would not have had a clue on how to identify that spell in her previous life.

  Shizoku wasn’t dohough, and spent two spells on juring fire sprites. They weren’t terribly strong elemental creatures, but they could breathe out es of fire, so she set them to searing off all the greehey could.

  This made them Horace’s argets, as the nodes of branches covered in leaves were both his cover and where he could teleport to. But while he was attag them, the archers were still doing their best tet the utan. They had scattered, f Biblios to pie to chase aing the other two tio attack.

  The fire sprites didn’t st long, but the e primate now had several more arrow wounds. In the meantime, Brongrim had mao lodge several more lead bullets into Biblios, and Nainvil had gotten in a solid hit on one of the dragon’s back legs, ming it and f it to turn on them instead of the archers.

  Shizoku switched her attention to Biblios as well, since he was in range of her alchemical mixtures. Fire bombs and paper dragons did not get along well, and the dragon already had several holes from Takehiko’s lightning assault.

  The moment Biblios went down, Mordecai recalled Horace, there didn’t seem any point in prolonging the battle. The couple of bookwyrms that had time to form on the shelves had been battered by the winds and hadn’t had a ce to join the fray.

  “Not surprising,” Mordecai said with a slight sigh. “Between numbers and Takehiko’s spells, even our boost wasn’t quite enough.” Then he grinned. “However, the gap is closing, and I didn’t have to add swarms of weaker creatures to make them work for the victetting through the level should prove much more iing sihey don’t really know what to expect.”

  The party ulling itself together and waiting out the st of the acid storm and the wind walls before colleg everything valuable they could and moving on to the floor to set up camp. This part was a lot less exg, and so the viewing party disbanded for the day while the adventuring party rested. Aing started early oing was wise, given that they were going to o take shifts, uhe rest area for the library.

  Zagaroth