The Library of Lies

The Library of Lies is the sixth round in The Grand Battle.

Description
It is the Director's personal library. It has lots of books in it, including one that details things about the Director, but many of them are filled with falsehoods and misleading information. The round was not supposed to be set here, but Nathan's dying actions interfered with the Director's plans. The Gentlemen are told they may intervene directly so as to stir up conflict now that most of the survivors are peaceful, and they go about enacting their own plans.

Summary
There's a lot of walking around, reading books and discovering mysterious artifacts. Arnold Fogge, Drake Eon and Ari meddle a bit, doing things like making giant spiders appear; they all have their own hidden agendas, and only Ari tries to force the contestants to fight much. Aeon finds books of the other battles. Amethyst decides her only value is to try to save the others, and uses her soul to fuel an attack directly on the Director; she dies in casting it, and the Director is harmed but survives.

Important NPCs
Ari: Aeon's sponsor, he spends most of the round acting in the Director's interests and attempting to force the contestants to fight.

Drake Eon: Amethyst's sponsor, he spends most of the round attempting to manipulate the contestants and other Gentlemen. At the end of the round, he is killed as a result of Arnold Fogge's trickery.

Arnold Fogge: Eximo's sponsor, he spends most of the round inhibiting the other Gentlemen, particularly Ari, and confronting the contestants. He acts primarily on his own goals.

Events
Warning: Significant Spoilers The Director explains that this is his personal library and one of his Gentlemen stage-whispers that perhaps the Director should retrieve the book about himself. Aeon decides that pursuing escape is most possible now that the survivors are all on good terms; he notices that in defeating the demon, all of Emily's remaining energy has left his tool, and in the process healed him and restored his eye. Ari, Aeon's Gentleman, retrieves Drake Eon, Amethyst's Gentleman, from The Abandoned Base, saying that the Director wants a conference. Amethyst concludes that Eximo must be acting on the fake Konka Rar's orders and resolves to avoid it; she believes the Director's hints wholeheartedly and begins programming a spell to find his book for her. Ari and Drake return to the Director's territory; Ari reveals the note Drake gave them all was blank, and Drake tells him he had to erase them as something came up. Eximo begins exploiting loopholes in its programming to make it more difficult to hunt the other contestants, and empties its gun of ammunition. Aeon discovers thought-controlled ladders that allow him to move about the library very quickly and obtains a book entitled Tetraspace: a Comprehensive Guide to the Higher Dimensions. The Director tells his remaining Gentlemen that there is information in the library that he cannot allow the contestants to obtain, and that their relationships are too friendly. He gives the Gentlemen permission to intervene directly in this round only. Drake and Arnold Fogge, Eximo's Gentleman, leave immediately, but Ari hangs back and reveals that someone has been tracing the battlers' teleportations across rounds. He requests permission to deal with them and it is granted. He immediately confronts the woman who has been following the contestants, who has just arrived in a previous round location. Arnold reveals himself to Amethyst, intent on killing her; Drake decides to lead Eximo to Aeon in the hopes one of them will kill the other. Eximo acquires a pair of books entitled Elfin Journey and Deadly Sector, convinced they are somehow important. Drake notices that the other books where they were shelved are all dictionaries, and believes that someone is intervening more heavily than they should. Eximo spots Drake tailing him. Ari tells the woman tracking the contestants, who appears to be from the same village as Aeon and Aegis, that she would make a good contestant, then imprisons her in time and returns to the Library. Aeon begins receiving messages in the form of letters left for him to find, then begins reading Tetraspace. Eximo declares its intention to attack Amethyst, hoping Drake will be forced to stop it. Arnold continues fighting Amethyst, not hoping to actually kill her but to waste her mana so that a contestant can. Drake reveals he somehow wins regardless of the outcome of the battle. Ari appears to Aeon and asks him about the woman's quicksilver, then leads him to Amethyst, warning him to avoid Eximo. The Monitor contacts the Director, annoyed that he has let one of his Gentlemen to interfere with the Intense Struggle; the Monitor warns that the Director's chance of surviving the battle is very low. Amethyst tells Arnold that she plans to convince Eximo that Arnold is a 10th contestant so that it will attack him. Drake tells Eximo that there is a book in the library that it would be beneficial to find regardless of what its objectives are. Arnold disappears. Eximo goes to find the book, then runs into Amethyst; she tells it that the three Gentlemen can now be considered contestants in the battle and that any information they've given it is suspect. Eximo retreats to confront Drake again; as it leaves, "Amethyst" reveals herself to be Arnold in disguise. Drake talks to Eximo, making it doubt everything it's learned. Amethyst finds a children's book in a shelf of biographies; Drake tries to stop her from reading it, but she runs off. Eximo comes to the conclusion that it doesn't have enough information to classify the Gentlemen as certain contestants and must place them as lower priority targets. It then realizes that since it is in a library it may be able to find relevant information. It obtains a book of puzzles that appears to be communicating with it, then decides it will puzzle the puzzles later and returns to searching for the book Drake mentioned. Aeon hears Eximo nearby and stops following Ari; Ari leaves after giving Aeon the woman's quicksilver. Aeon ponders what he's read in Tetraspace and combines the quicksilver with his tool. Arnold and Drake talk a bit and discover the book, which Drake took from Amethyst offscreen, is an Aesop's Fables-esque rendition of the contestants lives. Arnold reveals that by changing the book, he can change things in the round itself. The two of them summon a giant spider that will capture the contestants without killing them, giving the Gentlemen time to accomplish their own goals. Ari tells Eximo Aeon is planning to kill it and begins leading it to him. Drake begins searching for a book he hasn't read. Eximo and Aeon fight, Aeon trying to convince Eximo no to. Arnold tells Drake that Ari has started a battle that might end the round, preventing them from accomplishing their goals. Aeon flees on a ladder, leaving behind Tetraspace and giving Ari the chance to retrieve the quicksilver. Aeon comes across a new bookshelf in an especially old portion of the library, filled with books that appear to correspond to the Gentlemen. Ari arrives and prevents Aeon from reading the book about him. Eximo begins catching up, which forces Aeon to flee before he can read anything useful. Drake shows himself and begins attempting to read Arnold's book; the book resists him, and Drake continues following Eximo. Eximo can't keep up with Aeon as long as he's using the ladders, so Drake suggests Eximo set a trap for him at the Gentlemen bookshelf. Eximo doesn't trust Drake's information, so continues to follow Aeon; Drake communicates with Arnold through his book, Arnold saying he'll work on Aeon and that he's found some books Drake might be interested in. Amethyst discovers a book that appears to be quizzing her on her own life; she comes to the conclusion that Midnara is all she's truly fighting for, then Drake appears and tells her that when she watched Midnara die in Battleopolis, she felt nothing. He tells her all she's really been doing has been trying to return to normalcy and that normal people are assholes; he warns her about the spider and leaves. Ari approaches Aeon, inadvertently revealing the existence of the other battles and All-Stars. Ari leads him to a dead-end and disappears, where he finds a glass plate and takes it. Ari teleports Eximo close to Aeon as Aeon is discovering that the glass plate reveals hidden messages when put onto a book. Aeon tries once again to get Eximo to disobey orders; Drake shows up to stop the fight and Ari shows up to stop him stopping it. Aeon hears their name and realizes the nature of the Gentlemen books, then flees with the glass plate. Eximo chases him, throwing knives and books and the mirror he picked up in Pop-Up Land; Aeon catches the mirror and escapes. Arnold appears to Ari and Drake, telling them that he subtly provided the mirror to Eximo and that it can reveal truth even through lies; it will be a problem for all of them in the hands of Aeon. Ari decides that the mirror won't cause problems if one of the contestants dies before they can use it and goes off to arrange that; Drake becomes angry at Arnold for telling Ari, but Arnold claims that Ari is his backup plan. Aeon spots the giant spider, reasons it is probably hunting Amethyst, and begins following it. Arnold summons a pair of suits of magical armor from a book, which he and Drake don. Eximo obtains book one of four in The Life of the Director, but it is almost entirely blank. Amethyst tries to convince herself to keep working towards escape, but Ari appears and orders her to fight. Drake arrives to stop him, and the two battle. Arnold arrives and freezes Ari and Amethyst in place. They plot how to get the mirror back from Aeon, and Arnold rewrites the spider so that it is only hunting Aeon. Aeon sees the spider through the mirror, revealing that it's made of paper. Eximo, who can no longer detect Amethyst due to her freezing, resolves to warn Aeon about her disappearance so he can help in ways Eximo would be unable to. Ari approaches the Director, asking to become his apprentice. Arnold begins searching for clues about the location of the Director's book. Amethyst expends most of her mana escaping from the ice; Ari appears to offer her more if she does what he asks. Aeon finds Arnold looking through the Gentlemen books, and the mirror reveals that many books in the library are fakes. Arnold begins talking with Dexter through his book, but is actually just sorting out his own thoughts. He concludes that the Director's book must only really exist on the spiritual plane, and decides to disembody Eximo's spirit again to help him find it. Amethyst follows Ari, then decides she will sacrifice herself to save Aeon and Eximo, using her soul to fuel a spell that will kill the Gentlemen and destroy the library. Arnold recreates the healing crystal, discorporating Eximo. Eximo's spirit detects a powerful spirit all around it, and demands the nearest body, Drake, save it. Drake seeks out Arnold so that he can get Eximo out of his head; Arnold hears about the spirit all around Eximo and realizes that the entire library is itself the Directors book after taking the mirror from Aeon. Eximo's body tries to attack Amethyst, but is very ineffective without its biological components or mind. Ari tells Amethyst that he will destroy Eximo unless she cooperates; Eximo cannot be healed by the crystal, and she cannot harm Ari as long as the crystal exists. Amethyst tries to run to stall Ari, but he simply teleports to her. Arnold arrives and binds him, revealing that his ultimate goal is to kill the Director. Drake approaches Eximo and Arnold destroys the crystal, allowing Eximo's spirit to return to its body. Amethyst decides to unleash her spell now that all three Gentlemen are present. Her spell causes the Director to believe Amethyst has died, and he removes Eximo and Aeon from the library. The spell forces the library's membrane to collide with the Director's bubble dimension, causing havoc with physics and reducing everything to one linear corridor. Amethyst's soul-powered spell breaks through the battle's first seven barriers; the Director uses some of his own power to stop it, but as Amethyst's soul is consumed, the last barrier breaks. The Director himself is hit by the blast, but Amethyst's spell didn't have the power to overcome all the barriers and the Director's own abilities. Arnold makes an attempt on the Director, disguised as Drake, but even in his weakened state the Director fends him off. The real Drake is killed for his interference in both the Grand Battle and Intense Struggle, although it is implied he may have survived somehow. The Director makes it clear he is not pleased with Arnold or Ari either, then moves on to the final round.