As you make your way up the steps Al-Dimashqi joins you, wanting as well to test the properties of the shield, and equally, wondering if you could leave this distorted place in time.
You head up to the foyer to see the shattered window, boards dangling from its edges. Rain has begun to rush in, as you walk up closer to it, you see that the hole formed in the shimmering shield from before is starting to close up. You know that objects can pass through the hole in the shield just fine, but Al-Dimashqi wonders about the properties of the material making up the shield itself. You find it not too dissimilar to your own goals to allow him to experiment, after all, it would be information for you as well.
You stand back for a moment as Al-Dimashqi goes in search of a few things to test the shield with. You watch as Al-Dimashqi begins to fling acid and alkaline at the shield, which it repels like a shiny glass surface. In fact, fire is the only thing capable of destroying it, as seen when your companion places a match close to the shield's surface.
This is slightly disappointing, as how can a shield be effective against nuclear warfare if it can't even withstand fire? But you know that many prototypes are needed for a final invention. This shield is but a raw material you can exploit, maybe you could modify it, mutate it. Maybe it can still be useful.
As Al-Dimashqi burns the shield away to a sizeable hole once again, he gestures to the outside, reading your mind, “Would you like to know as well?”.
You both climb out of the window with ease, bar the shards that still poke out from the sides. You feel no resistance in the shield's opening, only the wetness of the drizzle outside.
A relief washes over you, you can leave!
You don't know where you would go, or how you would find comrades here, but at least you aren't confined to that horrible, foreign place with its spices, Indian tyrants and musty smells of a barely functioning bookshop. You begin to walk down the street, seeing the Bookshop fade further and further into the distance. Above you, streetlights illuminate your path. They seem particularly bright and yellowish.
You feel them coming towards you, growing bigger in your vision as compared to the rest of the street. There is a lightheadedness that affects you as you blink. The light starts to take up more and more of your vision. You see through your remaining vision more light starting to appear from the other side…Orbs…of light.
You close your eyes as it gets too bright.
And you smell it again.
Incense, spices, carpet.
No!
You are back in the bookshop's main room, the chandelier with a golden-eyed serpent wrapped around it staring down at you.
You were sure it was those… dastardly Orbs that brought you back here, they must be the ones behind the shield after all! You run back up to the foyer and hop out the window to try and catch them again, wanting information as to how they work. As you go on outside, disobeying the shield you believe they so meticulously put up. You run out into the cold rain again, but as you see the orbs, the bright light envelops you and you're back in the great hall again.
“I just want to talk!” You bellow, going out once more, knowing that it is a tactic to get them to appear.
You try and yell as soon as you're out there, “Can you withstand nuclear weaponry??”
Bright lights, warm carpet once again.
“Did you make the shield!?” You cup your hands around your mouth to make the sound louder, wanting them to hear you and respond. You yell in the foyer, but they don't seem to come out, the only consistent way seems to be through leaving.
“I would like to exploit you as a being to protect my homeland!”
“If you could come peacefully that would be appreciated!”
Each time you try going out onto the streets, the Orbs do appear, but they are too fast for you to capture, they only exist to bring you back to this insufferable bookshop you wish to escape. They do not talk, nor to they tell you how they intend to be compensated for being complicit in a potential nuclear war. Information that would be vital if they were to be used to build a strong defence!
Eventually, after ten or so tries, you feel your eyes straining from the repeated flashes of bright light from the Orbs, as they swoop you back into the bookshop's main room. As you open your eyes, you find white spots in your vision, like parts of your retina have been bleached. As you look around the familiar room, you find that these white spots in your vision will not leave.
Through being transported against your will so many times, you do gather that perhaps, the Orbs are stronger than they look, and are not just for the purpose of giving out scones and tea. Though they must remain benign for some reason. Perhaps to stop people from leaving the library…
One thing is for sure, the Orbs do make the shield, and the shield has all the potential to be stronger. Though, its weakness to fire is pretty obvious.
You have received the Major Injury: Retinal Damage
As you wind down from your outside excursions, you see an old mirror hanging in the foyer, it is about 30x30cm, framed in silver.