As the two women reached the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves in a large room, full to the brim with bookshelves. "The guild's library," Melissa exposited. "This is where all the research the mages did ended up."
"They must have left in a hurry for them to leave so much behind," Catherine wondered. After some thought, she added, "Assuming they left at all." She proceed to grab a couple of books at random; they could come useful, she thought.
"Do you think it's a good idea to start using magic after what happened to you?"
"How hard can it be? It's only reality bending power scholars have spent decades mastering; I'm sure there's at least one spell I can do." Melissa gave a slight chuckle. Catherine decided to start skimming the books. "So, I'm guessing you don't get along with the other bosses."
"They're very overbearing, always thinking they have better ideas about what to do with our... guests. You think being a statue is bad? You have no idea, little maid."
Catherine felt a lump on her throat. She went back to her book. It was surprisingly understandable; some of the vocabulary went over her head, but she could infer them from the detailed instructions. Weirdly enough, the spells were surrounded by walls of autobiographical text, surprisingly recent at that. Halfway through the book, the writing stopped appearing; after sifting through many blank pages, she found a spell with some writing under it:
"Try this one, little maid."
Out of surprise, Catherine reflexively cast the spell.