Welcome to Gaia! ::

The library was always a fountain of knowledge. It was the best place to go when you had questions. The internet wasn’t always the best for the kind of deep dive he was looking for. There was too much ‘noise’. Too many sites that contradicted themselves or filled with AI slop. Besides… ‘Someone’ was always watching, tracking, what you searched, what you looked at, and what you read. It might have just been a computer gathering random data but for the kind of research Nate was trying to put together he didn’t even want that. He didn’t want any kind of trail that could lead back to him because he was trying to see if there was anything he could glean about Earth’s Sigiriya that could help him with his wonder. He wasn’t expecting much but every little bit helped as far as he was concerned but it was definitely not something he wanted tied to him in any way. Not when the possible dangers were just too many.

So Nate had piled his table, the one he had kind of commendeared, full of various books, not just ones about Sigiriya and Sri Lanka but a wide range of texts. Ones on plants and gardening, ones for art and history, ones on ancient Egypt, and even ones on spirits and the supernatural. All in some way tangentially related to things he wanted to know but varied enough that someone just looking likely wouldn’t know where to start. And none of it was something he would be checking out.

Knowing this he kept meticulous notes. Which book said what, the author, the ISBN. Everything noted. Everything written down. He was working quietly, only occasionally muttering to himself over a particularly twisting passage, until one particular thought came to him and he sat up straighter. After flipping through his notes he realized he was missing an angle he should have thought of. One he didn’t have in front of him.

With a soft sigh, he climbed to his feet and made his way into the stacks, his notebook in hand. He was looking for mythology. Specifically Buddhism, Hinduism, and Egyptian. Maybe there were some hints from the myths since they say there is always a kernel of truth hidden in tall tales.