Morning Meeting

Kim felt annoyed that she'd have to eat her breakfast while everyone held a meeting in the cafeteria. Plus, there was a strange smell coming from one end of the cafeteria like someone had been engaging in carnal activities.

Unconsciously her gaze meandered towards Patrick and Patricia who looked like they hadn't been doing that, but that hardly meant anything for Kim. They were the chief suspects as far as she was concerned, but it was hardly an important issue.

Though, it was a little distracting to her. Not that she couldn't put it out of her mind.

However, as she was getting her meal, the meeting officially started. Meaning she'd have to mix her participation with eating her meal. Which wasn't a problem for some of the others, given they clearly had already eaten.

Though, Kim accepted that this was a consequence of waking up later than everyone else as it wasn't like it'd be fair for her to demand that they hold off on the meeting just so she could have a leisurely meal.

"So, first thing we have to discus is that Blot thinks that he might be the Book of Living," Jonas announced. "Which means that we might need to consider having him as one of the books we can trade."

"How sure are you of him being the book we're looking for?" Elwin asked, chewing the last of his breakfast steak. "I mean, sure we have the copy of his cover for him to look at, but what about the rest? Will Elmo finish it so we can be more certain about it?"

"I planned on getting the rest," Elmo protested, "but Blot seemed certain enough from what he saw of his own portrait- I mean copy of his cover."

Kim wasn't sure what to make of Elmo's slip up. It was possible that he was just making it seem more real, but at the same time, Kim thought he hadn't meant to refer to it as a 'portrait' instead of copy. Why he mentioned 'portrait' was something she couldn't help but wonder.

"So, if he's the Book of Living, what other book will we choose to get?" Owen asked. "I'm personally in favor of the one that would allow us to move between worlds ourselves. I mean, that could prove rather useful."

"We can get to that after we finish dealing with Blot being the Book of Living," Kim said, quickly swallowing what she'd already put in her mouth. "I mean, we haven't dealt with that matter yet, so we should first come to a consensus or something before we move on."

"What about his cover makes Blot think that he's that book?" Bart asked, sounding like he knew more than he did about this subject. Kim was certain of that fact.

"Doesn't matter what made him think that," Patrick said, making Kim wonder if letting this be an open discussion for everyone was a mistake. At least with letting Patrick express his thoughts. "All we need to do is determine whether or not he is."

"Let's let Blot explain that," Elmo said, motioning to Blot who then jumped up on the table.

"Do we have to?" Bart asked as Blot looked like it was about to say something. "I mean, we already heard that he thought that he was. Isn't that enough?"

Kim would normally agree, but this would give her more time to finish her meal before she'd need to talk, so she really had no objections about the matter. At least for the moment.

"Well, let's put it to a vote then," Elmo said, sounding a little annoyed. "Those in favor to listen to what Blot has to say versus those who just want to use the summary of what he likely would have to say. Any objections?"

Kim had to admit that Elmo certainly was sounding more authoritative at the moment. With a quick glance to Jonas, she had a feeling Jonas had coached him on what to say about the matter. Though Kim doubted that Jonas would have been able to figure out what would be said before it had been said. That seemed like it would require a little more foresight than Jonas had shown so far. Not that she expected Elmo to have that much foresight either.

Still, she couldn't say that she objected at all, even if she wasn't in the middle of eating. The proposal would at least get one side of the issue to shut up and she was confident that the side wanting to listen to the book was larger than those who wanted to move on.

As such, she voted with that in mind as she raised her hand to hear Blot out.

While she personally would prefer to move on to the final vote of if they should select Blot as one of the two books they could take with them, she was at least willing to entertain the discussion of the matter. After all, taking Blot with them was as good as any other. Especially with how it wasn't like they had any other leads on where to find the book mentioned in the announcement.

The only problem with it was that she couldn't think of how they were expected to find this library anyway when they'd only heard about it in the first place by chance. Which meant that those running this lousy competition were either expecting this to take a lot longer than it currently was or there was something else going on that wasn't quite clear to her just yet. Nor was she sure which to think would be the case.

Unless there was some other place that had mentioned this library that she'd missed, this would have been the challenge with the potential to be one of the longest. As while she wasn't sure how long firebirds lived, this one could easily take years to even learn of this library in the first place if they didn't know where to look. Almost like this challenge depended more on sheer chance than anything else.

Especially considering the fact that it was only chance that Blot even noticed something in the copying of its cover in the first place.

"So that's why I don't think we need to look any farther than Blot as the book we should take to the dungeon we started in," Elmo said in clear response to something, or in connection with, that someone else said that Kim hadn't caught.

She'd been pulled out of her thoughts by Elmo's statement, though she couldn't say where the conversation had led as a result. Plus, she also could see that she'd finished her meal without even realizing it.

She doubted that what had been said was that important anyway. That it wouldn't affect her thoughts on the matter or the fact that she was ready to move on with their attempt at this challenge. A task that she was ready to be done with, regardless of if Blot really was the book they needed.

Maybe she was just tired of being cooped up in this library where they couldn't even see the sun, but she was ready to leave this place, even if they got the wrong book.

If nothing else, they'd reach the dungeon and find out that they were wrong and that they'd have to go back out and try again. It'd cost them a little bit of time, but it'd also be time where she'd be able to further study the book that contained what they'd need to know about moving between worlds.

So if they got stuck here in the end, they'd still be able to return to their home worlds and if they were able to return to their own homes, then she'd still be able to see Elin when she'd want to and the others would be able to go where they wanted as well. What the others did didn't concern Kim as much as her being able to visit Elin did.

Kim made herself focus on the discussion, no matter how disinterested she was in it. Simply because she could see that if she wanted it to move along, she'd need to say a few things to stop those who were already making this go on longer than was really necessary. Though, no one had started repeating the same arguments just yet, Kim was pretty sure that it was only a matter of time before that happened.

However, before she had a chance to say anything, Elwin, one of the ones who in Kim's opinion seemed to want this to go on and on, spoke up about putting the matter to a vote.

"I know Elmo wants to review the book that he and Elin were so interested in, and I also have some books I'd like to examine more closely. So I propose that we choose the book that has the information about traveling between worlds and Blot as the two books we're trading," Elwin announced. "After we make the trade, we'll spend some time going through the other books before we'll start on our way out. That way we'll all be able to have as few complaints about leaving as possible."

Kim had to admit that it was a well stated proposal. One that would let her get what she wanted, which was a timeline of when they'd be able to leave, but also give Elmo the time he likely had been wanting but hadn't seemed like he'd get to really focus on the book Prenatal Magic.

A proposal Kim voted in favor of at the first opportunity she got.