When Law had opened the door to the library, I felt my excitement rising up. I wondered just how much information about the portal might be inside and what else there might be. Surely, they wouldn't only have books or notes about the portal. If just to hold up the disguise. I was sure the information we were looking for wouldn't be in plain sight either.
As I stepped inside behind Law, I took in the scene unfolding in front of me. The library was far bigger than what it had looked like from the outside. There was an open square in the center of the building with the bookshelves all standing vertically to it. Once I stood at the handrail, I saw multiple floors going down. It was like a tower build into the ground. In awe, I counted five levels underneath the first floor we were at. That made seven floors in total, since there was an upper floor too.
"[Let's go down.]", Law suggested. In agreement, I followed him downstairs. We split up on each floor to scan through the bookshelves. It was very likely, that what we were looking for was at the very bottom of this library, but we didn't want to take any chances, thus mistrusting the signs indicating the topics of the shelves. To our good or bad luck, I wouldn't decide, the signs seemed to be correct.
"With the library descending like this, the portal could also be down there, don't you think?", I asked Law on the second lower floor, when we met up again to go further down.
"Might be.", he answered briefly.
It took us about 1 hour to get to the very bottom. I noticed the books getting older and fewer the further we went down. The fourth floor was completely empty.
"The shelves down below look empty as well.", I thought upon looking down. But Law continued straight down, so I followed behind. It must have been a means to distract unauthorized people from finding the notes about the portal. Because now at the very last floor, the shelves were only empty as far as one could see from above. Still, I could see there weren't many notes. I expected more, considering how long the portal must have been used.
I had noticed the temperature falling with the lower levels. I was fine since I wore a cardigan above the dress, but it would have been too cool without it. I knew the cool temperature with low humidity was to preserve the old notes.
"Wow. This is like traveling through time.", I said to myself. Carefully, I took one of the few books out of the shelve. I realized rather quickly, that this book was actually just another collection of handwritten notes, bound together.
As I read the first page, I got stuck on it immediately. My curiosity not letting go. It was about the pledged items one had to leave behind to go through the portal. I vaguely remembered the portal talking about that. But I didn't remember choosing one and none of my things were missing when I looked through them afterwards. The only thing I noticed was an uneasy feeling every time I thought of going home. It had grown stronger with the day of my departure getting closer.203Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiQK4GfVxBm
I wasn't sure what it meant. In the end, I just shrugged it off as nervousness because I was away from home for so long and would suddenly just reappear that day. "How will they react?", I asked myself several times.
I read through the notes of Adam, as I read his name at the bottom of a few pages. He seemed to have been one of the many researchers ordered by the late queen to find out more about the portal. He decided to investigate the system of the pledged items one had to give. The first few pages listed the pledged items of a lot of travelers. They seemed rather random at first glance. But upon second look, I noticed a lot of them being either something of personal value or a weapon they had with them.
Another thing that caught my attention were the entries of items like memories or emotions. Adam described some persons to have had a different personality on the other side of the portal until they returned back. So abstract things like those were also possible to count as pledged items.
After the lists, Adam had written down his theories and some reports to the queen were in between. I looked to see whether there was some kind of summary at the back of it, as there were too many pages to read for now. A relieved sigh escaped my lips as I was not disappointed.
"So at first glance the pledged items seemed to be chosen randomly, but upon further investigation it was discovered that there were two main criteria.", I mumbled as I read the final summary.
The pledged item was either the strongest weapon the traveler had obtained in the world he departed from or it was what was of most personal value to the traveler. Both items needed to be something the traveler had with them when they entered the portal.
Another important thing to note was that the pledged item could also be something abstract, like a memory or a certain emotion. He concluded that the ultimate goal for the pledged item system was to maintain peace between the worlds, as most of the abstract items also took away any motivation or power to fight. He named a few examples of rather explosive personalities having their temper or anger taken from them as the pledged item. They had no intention of fighting without those.
"This is actually quite amazing.", I thought, as I put the book back into the shelve. A system preventing war between the worlds. I liked that. Though I still had no idea what the pledged item could have been the portal took from me. I also thought that, I might have just gotten something back, that was taken from me when I came to the One Piece world, but I couldn't think of anything.
Adam wrote, that every time an abstract item was returned, the traveler just somehow knew what they had been given back. Especially when looking back, they would have noticed something had been amiss.
The strange thing for me was, I didn't experience any of that. I still couldn't remember what happened right before I woke up in Law's room and I didn't realize anything been given back to me after returning to my home world. It was actually more like a feeling something had been taken from me. But I couldn't make out what it was. But I came back home, I told the portal I wanted to go home, yet I hadn't been given back anything.
Confused by my own thoughts, I looked around in search for the pirate captain. I wanted to talk with him about his plans on accompanying me the day after tomorrow. He didn't know about the fictional work One Piece that was popular in this world. I couldn't just let him walk around an airport like that. At least not, if we wanted to not be the center of attention.
I found him at one of the tables with a few folders next to him. Curious as to what those modern looking folders were about in between all those old notes, I walked up behind him.
"This is-!", surprised, I leaned onto the table with one hand and looked over Law's shoulder. He raised his head in surprise.
"I found those at the back of the mostly empty shelves.", he explained. "They seem to be reports about the research on the portal, written by the lord to the queen of this country I assume.", he continued. As I read the first line, I confirmed his assumption with a nod.
"He's right. This is addressed to queen Elizabeth II. That's an amazing find.", I thought. "We won't necessarily need to go through all the old notes like that. Are those all?", I asked him. He shook his head. "I only brought the first and the last one. There are three more back in the shelve."
"Alright, I'll look through this one.", I said, took the remaining folder from the desk and sat down opposite of Law.
In my hands was a folder containing copies of top secret reports sent straight to the queen of England about "research on the archangel's egg", I read silently.
"The archangel's egg?", I wondered what that might mean.
"I guess it's something like a code name. Though I have no idea what it means.", Law noted.
"The archangels are figures of a widely spread religion. I'm not very familiar with the stories, as I don't believe that way, but I guess they thought the name fitted.", I explained. The only thing really confusing me, was their choice of 'egg'. Like, what the hell?
"So 'Uriel' is something connected to those archangels?", he asked. Every time the portal was mentioned in the report itself, it was called 'Uriel'. That I thought fitting.
"Uriel is one of the archangels. He had something to do with light, if I remember correctly. And, well, the portal is basically a giant ball of light. I assume that's the connection.", I finished my brief explanation.
Law answered with a nod, before returning his attention to the report in front of him. I noticed he read them very closely, even though they looked rather sparse from afar. Excited to be able to read an official and highly confidential report sent straight to the queen, I directed my attention back down at the folder in front of me.
The very first document was a report written by Lord Trafalgar's father. It summarized his accomplishments and requested for his successor, the current lord, to continue his research on the portal. This would be his last official report to her majesty the queen, as he finished it off.
The lord's father hadn't accomplished many things, to be blunt. He had the portal be measured with all kinds of new technology and managed to just barely prevent the public from learning about it. His biggest achievement was the construction of this library and the collection of all those notes and books containing results and theories of the research on the portal. As it seemed, many of those were spread throughout the world. A lot of them were held onto by ancestors or sold between conspiracy theorists. Still, what he had collected was not much, as the late lord concluded. Many of the few written down notes were destroyed during the many wars science always suffered from.
At the end of that report was a summary of the current research results. It surprised me to read that they really hadn't worked out yet how to open the portal, even though they had notes from when the portal was actively used stating how it should work. That was strange, I thought.
The next report was obviously the first one to the queen written by the current lord, Law's father. I checked the date of the report. October 1999. From what I've heard, it must have been less than a year before Law had disappeared through the portal.
There was a letter attached to it in which he introduced himself briefly to the queen. The report contained a summary of how Lord Trafalgar intended to continue his research. Apparently, he intended to go through every researcher's notes about how the portal worked one more time, looking for any subtle details that might have been overlooked in the past. He explained a systematic plan of how he would do that while also checking other researcher's notes for any conditions for the portal to work. An example he gave was like a certain item or material needed to be present, but since almost everyone had it at the time, it was never once considered. He'd also keep searching for any remaining research results spread out in the world. This would take it's time, since the only assistant he had for those tasks was Mr. Sheffield, who had already assisted the lord's father.
"Why would they not get more workers for the research?", I wondered. That was so inefficient.
The lord finished the paper with the information of his reports to be written monthly from thereon, unlike the weekly report from his father. He explained that decision with the research on the portal progressing at a lower pace than before. Though he assured the queen of immediate notice if anything important were to be achieved or discovered.
The next few reports I read through weren't that interesting. Going through all this research material so diligently definitely took it's time, but their pace wasn't bad, I thought. The next really interesting report was from August 2000. It was then, that the lord reported the queen his son had vanished after the portal was activated.
"August 2000
RESEARCH ON THE ARCHANGEL'S EGG – SPECIAL REPORT
I, Wilfred Maxwell Trafalgar, Earl of Devon, report to her majesty the queen, in this special report about an incident that occurred two days ago, on the 2nd of August.
Due to yet unknown reasons, my son, Law Trafalgar, 4 years old, entered the secured zone and vanished, after the opening of Uriel was registered. Uriel had already closed itself upon the arrival of authorised personal, the child was not to be found. It is to be assumed that he entered Uriel. It can also be assumed that he opened Uriel by accident.
The hole in security as to how the child was able to enter the secured zone as well as the exact details of what happened is currently being investigated. Despite the current situation, the data from Uriel opening should be useful and is being analysed at the moment. Any results will be reported immediately.
A disturbance of the surrounding area within a radius of about 820 yards was registered. The disturbances consisted of the magnetic field being gravely influenced, as well as nuclear radiation and a change in air pressure being registered. Thus, radio waves and electricity were disturbed in the area.
The raw data will be sent separately.
I, Wilfred Maxwell Trafalgar, assure Madam, her majesty the queen, that I will discover how my son managed to open Uriel. I will devote my everything to this task. The day will come that I am able to report the successful activation of Uriel.
I have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty's humble and obedient servant.
Wilfred M. Trafalgar"
It was an official report, so his personal emotions had no place in it, but I noticed he didn't write the report completely without them. It was through this declaration that he demonstrated some of his frustration and grieve to the queen. I couldn't imagine the lord to not have been aware of this, but I guessed he just decided to leave the report as it was, rather than to cancel that part out.
"He must have felt so frustrated.", I thought. For once because his son vanished into a world he had no access to, but also because his little son, only four years of age, accomplished something he and his ancestors were never able to for all those years. Probably by accident too. That must have been humiliating to some degree.
The exact data from the measuring instruments were not part of the report, as a copy of those were sent separately to the queen. I was a tad disappointed to not get a look at them.
With interest, I turned the page to read the following report.
The analysis of the data from that day didn't help them much in opening the portal. The activation of it made an impact on the surrounding area, but it turned back to normal immediately after the portal closed off again. So that data was only helpful in discovering how exactly that portal worked as a gate between different universes in a physical matter.
But, going through the following reports, I noticed the pace of looking through the old research material to have quickened considerably. Activating the portal to find his son surely was a completely different motivational factor than to just activate a portal to another world. It wasn't curiosity driving the lord anymore, but longing and fear.
Skipping some in between every now and then, I went through the following reports without finding any more major information. Lord Trafalgar never once mentioned the disappearance of his son ever again specifically. He only reported the incident to be left unexplained until further notice two months after it happened. The folder ended with the report of December 2004. There was no further notice until that time. They had finished going through the research material about the activation of the portal and were nearly done with checking the other notes for any connections.
Finished with my folder, I looked up to see Law had been waiting for me to finish.
"Would you mind summarizing that folder?", he prompted. I didn't mind.
After giving him the important information regarding the portal, I mentioned the report about him entering the ball of light and showed him the paper in question. He read it once, then closed the folder again.
I didn't press the matter of his past world traveling, because I had no idea what he might be thinking or feeling about it. Right now, I just wanted to keep up the comfortable atmosphere we had without any complicated personal matters.
"So, did they find out anything interesting since then?", I spoke, breaking the moment of silence.
Law told me about the lord's theory that there are certain conditions someone must fulfill for the gate to activate. So not anyone could travel between the worlds. His theory contained the criteria to have some kind of connection to the other world. The person in question traveling to the other world must also turn into a win-win situation for both worlds. So they would need to be in possession of something helpful to the other world. Like an object, a skill to teach or knowledge to share.
Though I wasn't sure how Law and I fitted those criteria when we first traveled to the One Piece world, we did fulfill them when traveling back now. And now that we had once been there, there was an undeniable connection. Judging by the fact that all the 'ingredients' needed to activate the portal were always kept ready, all we had to do now was to find the location. To our disappointment, there was no hint in these reports either to that.203Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDc43xjMCBe
