Chapter 38: [Bonus chapter] Athena

Having finally been given the chance, Athena had joined 'The Lost Hall Society'!

The Tentacle entity named Kraken led the way past various foggy bookshelves giving Arthena the ability to know how big their information base was. The majority of the books had a title on the spine of the book, but the books had either other languages that Athena herself didn't understand, or the titles made no sense at all.

"What does this one mean?" Athena could no longer wait any longer even though only ten minutes had passed since they had begun walking.

Kraken turned and looked at the book Athena had pointed at. It read "Poiuntus Madness"

"You may read everything, and understand everything, but only after we reach the place to be able to initiate you into the Society. For now, just know that specific book is all about a strange disease named after the only one who got it."

After answering Athena he ignored everything again and kept walking even as tens of hundreds of questions were thrown at him by Athena who just got a taste of the knowledge here.

An hour later after being ignored for every other book she had asked about, Athena finally gave up and kept walking alongside Kraken. It was also at this time she saw another completely different entity sitting on the only chair in sight. It was a humanoid figure with pitch black skin, but the skin was cracked that allowing for the red underneath to be revealed making the entity look even scarier.

Kraken stopped in front of the entity and spoke, "Bleed. I have brought a new recruit to join. Open the path."

The entity named Blood looked up from their book and looked straight into Athena's eyes. After ten seconds of staring it nodded and spoke in a completely distorted raspy voice, "Wait."

Standing up Blood put his book back on the shelf and then walked to another section nearby before removing six books from their place and setting them on the floor. The bookshelf revealed a hole in the wall that Blood stuck its' arm into for a few seconds before the ground in front of Athena began to fall into a staircase. The ground that was made of stone bricks fell down for 3 meters before the ground stopped falling and revealed that it connected to a different staircase that kept going even further down.

"Come." Kraken waved Athena over as he began to walk down the stairs that had appeared.

"Can you tell me what that was and how does it even work?"

For the first time in the last hour, Kraken answered, "The stairs are using mostly gears and levers. Blood is strong and can lift the start to set off the stairs to fall. He will also reset the stairs after we leave his sight. Although it isn't advanced, it is very complicated which is why we did it this way. Everyone likes to show off how vast their knowledge goes."

"OHH! Does that mean I can learn everything there is to know to build something like that? Also, why could you send my father away from the level like it is nothing, but we can't use that same skill to not walk all the way here?"

"Changing levels is a skill we have mastered with the help of keys, but moving around a level instead of just sending someone to a different level is a completely different challenge. I believe only one person in 'The Lost Hall Society' can use the keys in such a way to move someone within a level. Now no more questions."

"Wah- But why not?" Unfortunately, Kraken meant no more questions as he continued down the stairs without making a sound. This soundless movement became even more apparent to Athena who had originally been focusing on the library and now could only notice how loud her feet were while walking.

While thinking about why she makes so much noise while Kraken doesn't, the pair soon reached the bottom of the staircase. The path opened up to a huge open gate that had extremely complex design patterns all around the stone gate.

Sounds of strange voices were slowly getting louder as Athena walked into the gate. The first and most obvious thing to see was the hundreds of entities that could be seen just looking around what looked to be an entity town.

Kraken pointed to various buildings and spoke, "Those buildings are places where we discuss the information we learned and argue what we believe should be right and what is most trustworthy." Pointing at more buildings that were even bigger than before, he continued, "Those buildings are for experimentation to test ideas we have either while discussing or have learned from books."

Kraken turned to Athena looking straight at her, "Understood?"

Athena nodded to which he pointed at smaller but more decorated buildings, "Those are places where you can order a specific device to be built for certain experiments, but know that they are in charge and can deny anything they don't want to make. Also, make sure your requests are research-oriented, I know some humans try to use them for simple willful desires."

Again Kraken turned to Athena looking straight at her and asked just like before, "Understood?"

Athena could only nod to which Kraken started to walk again heading in a different direction than he had pointed to before.

Athena who had just seen something she had never thought possible was far too curious and began asking questions like she had to know everything, "How big is this town? How does everyone communicate so well with each other? Where are we going?..." and so on.

After asking questions without stopping the pair reached a large extremely detailed decorated building. As they walked inside, Athena became distracted and looked all around stopping her barrage of questions.

Kraken took the time to speak, "Welcome to the Main Hall. Here is where we keep information of our members and specifically information about our Society and our enemies."

The hall inside had incredibly detailed statues of different entities There were even three statues that all looked like they were just regular humans.

Athena couldn't help herself to ask about the statues that all just looked human, to which Kraken actually answered, "That one is human. That one is what you humans call 'Skin Stealers' if you look closely you can see those small lines that are what they use to hold their skin disguise and where the skin disguise splits at. The last one you pointed out is called Doublers who are more special, they take on any form they want, their favorite form is human so that is why it looks that way."

Athena getting an answer took the opportunity to keep asking while she could, only to be ignored like he couldn't hear her. Though annoyed Athena could only follow until they reached a desk where another Tentacle entity just like Kraken was sitting and reading a book from the stack of books next to them.

The entity looked up after hearing Athena's footsteps and spoke without any emotions, "New?"

Athena nodded to which the entity just pulled out papers and started to fill out some information for a while before giving it to Athena.

"First fill in the blanks marked with stars, then tell me what languages you know, lastly tell me if you know sign language for our entities that aren't able to speak."

After being handed a pen Athena could only fill in the paper while answering the questions when was asked, "I only know this language... Sign language? Never heard of it."

The entity on the other side of the table filled in another paper as Athena handed back the paper she filled in completely as she was told.

"Alright go that way to learn sign language since that is a necessity and I will inform all necessary parties to set you up for your immortality. If you want to ask anything to do with this process please ask now or get moving."

Athena who felt like she hadn't been able to learn anything suddenly felt amazing being given a chance to ask questions. Just as she was about to throw out dozens of questions to the entity in front of her, the entity spoke up again, "I don't want to be asked forever so I suggest you keep your questions under ten. Anything more I will probably not answer unless I find that question to be interesting, but know I don't find much interesting anymore so you probably won't get any more than ten questions out of me."

Athena's smile and excitement that was just about to peak froze. With a sad smile, she thought deeply about the questions she wanted to ask before she officially joined this organization.