Chapter 405: An Archaic Solution

The doors pushed outwards, carried by the spreading wave of wooden flooring clicking together as it spread across the ground. At a wave of Belladonna’s hand, sections of the wooden flooring burst upwards, as towering pillars sprouted from beneath the wood like trees growing thousands of years in a second.

The pillars, wide enough that if you wrapped your arms around them your fingers would only reach the half way point, grew until they were over ten metres tall, before their tops started to spread outwards.

Wooden boards sprouted from the pillars like tree branches, growing more and more of their kin the further they spread as they formed balconies and an entire second floor level to the grand structure Belladonna was creating.

She slammed her hand down, grabbing hold of the flooring in front of her and ripped it upwards, tearing a rectangular section up that contained a hidden bookshelf beneath it, and with an upwards throw the bookshelf rose to eight metres tall.

It’s shelves were dust free and ready for the material that would soon decorate it and fulfil its singular purpose in existence.

Following their brothers example, more and more shelves burst from the floor, creating a labyrinth of endless literature for one to get lost in for hours, if only their barren shelves had the literature in question.

Railings for the balconies rained down from the sky like arrows shot by an invading army, plunking into the edge of the second floor in perfect uniformity, before they were topped by a slithering serpent that turned solid once it had completed its journey.

Walls rose around this labyrinth, sealing them inside with only the three doors for an escape.

As for the ceiling itself, it was left open, although the boundless white void shifted to a tranquil night sky with only the smallest hints of rumbling thunder in a few of the sparse clouds, creating the perfect atmosphere.

Belladonna took one last look around the grand Library that she had created in her mindscape and let out a sigh of relief.

Naturally the dramatics of it all was not necessary. Such a thing could have been created in an instant had she wished, but she did not. The process was important, and cathartic. It allowed her to flex her creative muscles much more than the simple computer did, even if a majority of the design came as a direct inspiration from the Library her physical body was standing in.

Yes, Inspiration. That was definitely the better word.

"Now all it is missing is the knowledge. So Scribe, let there be books."

And Books there was. A leather bound tome, 3 inches thick, slammed down onto the ground in front of Belladonna, it’s title reading "The Basics of the Runic Language, Vol. 1"

The sight of it made her chuckle, although it really should have made her realise the true weight of what she had created, considering this tome was only Volume One. However the realisation of the true weight came when the rest of the volumes arrived, along with every other book.

Volume Two slammed next to her, Volume three bounced off of a bookshelf and smacked her in the shoulder, and Volume Four cracked her directly on the top of her head.

More and more books poured from the sky like a literary waterfall, crashing into the floor, and crushing Belladonna beneath the weight of a lifetimes worth of knowledge, and then some.

Digging and clawing her way out of a death that could send someone to another world, Belladonna brushed herself off once she was finally out of the pile and looked over the mess with a frown.

"Hmm, that might be an issue... It doesn’t auto sort like the computer. I guess it’s not as easy to categorise since it can’t just do sub-menus and drop downs. Plus, there is also that..." Belladonna muttered to herself, glancing at the notification that was floating next to her.

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[Designation for literary works allocated.]

[Audio and Visual Media incompatible with Literary Designation.]

[Please allocate new designation for Audio and Visual Media]

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A designation for Audio and Visual media, hmm? That had to be songs and films, she had plenty of that ’knowledge’ jammed in her head over the years. It might not be the most important, but it was part of the Scribe to it had to be done.

It would be a shame to go through all of this just to jam it back into a computer, was there no other way?

Belladonna thought long and hard about the perfect way to store such media, all whilst the pile of books sat patiently waiting to be sorted, instead of taking the initiative to sort themselves out. It was rude of them, but not unexpected.

Finally, Belladonna smiled widely and snapped her fingers, as the idea flashed into her mind, and at the same moment a flash of light spawned that very idea.

She watched the designated media fall from the sky, and snatched it from the air before it could join the pile.

In her hand rested a clear, square box that itself contained a circular, shiny and highly reflective disc. She had remembered an utterly ancient, archaic and truly outdated form of media called a ’Compact Disc’.

Although perhaps the Scribe got the form wrong, because this thing didn’t look very compact. It was larger than a coaster, and she had seen dozens of implants thinner than this hunk of junk. But it was all she could think about.

All she had to do was add the right system to access the media, and the scribe would be perfect. Thankfully, in her brief studies of past technology to overcome her issues with implants, Belladonna knew exactly how this thing worked.

She fell backwards, landing in a comfortable arm chair that rose from the ground to meet her, and turned to the coffee table by the chairs side which held the player.

It was a flat box on small stilts, with a spinning axle sticking out of the top of the box. It was played by a needle that she had to place onto the disc, and which would read as it scratched along the surface and project the media out through the cone shaped object connected to the box. According to the books she had read, it was called a ’Gramophone.’

She placed the ’Compact Disc’ onto the box, slotting the axle through the hole in the disc, and moved the player into place.

The needle touched lightly against the glimmering, mirror surface of the ancient disc and started to spin. After a few moments of tense silence, the sweet melody of childhood memories sitting in front of the Holoscreen watching cartoons drifted out of the cone, as the cartoons theme song played.

It was surprisingly good sound quality for such an archaic solution, but it seems that was the true wonder of the ancient people and their primitive technology.