VM – Chapter 3

Destined Turmoils

Sunlight split the dawn of a brand new day.  Though, deep within the great library of the elves, you might not be aware of its passing.

Mhyl for years now had lost all sense of time.  For her, the greatest signs of day or night was if the library was busy or quiet.  The waking hours of her day’s free time were spent doing only a single thing, reading.  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the library carried over millions of books, it was not only possibly one of the biggest buildings of the Elniri, a folk already not known for having many buildings, but was a rival of the Magus Citadel itself.  More than a castle, the sheer expanse of the library competed with the size of both human capitals.  The halls of books were akin to streets at market, the shelves resident the most popular patron of the halls, the books.  However, Mhyl was yet another resident, an oddity among the endless tide of papers and binding.

She wasn’t the only elf to grace the halls, the library’s staff frequented around, doing whatever work they needed doing.  A library of this size needed constant staff and had endless things to do.  In consideration of their hard work, Mhyl made certain to carefully treat every book with care, and properly return any material exactly from where it was found originally.  It was not as if she was the only elf to live among the books, but all of them worked here.  Even a library patron was a rare oddity in the halls, as no one would bother searching the miles of the halls for anything specific, when they could just leave a request with the staff and have their book brought to them.

She was special in her own right, her mother was the High-Sage, an elven point of influence on par with the human Arch-Magus.  But contrary to the workings of most human politics, the High-Sage was an elf chosen by nature itself.  When her mother was young, the wills of the wilds had carefully chosen her in a naming ritual, making her henceforth the next High-Sage.  When it came time for her mother to step down, the same ritual will be held, and the wills of the wild will chose another elf.  In all accounts, her mother was still young enough to keep her position for a long time, and the naming ritual tends to pick someone rather young.  Mhyl’s chances of being picked for the next one were basically nothing, this wasn’t a matter of linage.

What did matter was that she was the daughter of the High-Sage, and as a mother, the High-Sage was especially overprotective.  As a result, Mhyl had never in her life stepped from the walls of the library her mother presided over.  The library was effectively the great office of the High-Sage, offering a world-renown collection of wisdom as a resource for the most sagely of elves.  To share in the bountiful harvest of her blessing, her daughter has had free access to all of the information held within.  She was effectively a caged bird.

She was quite friendly with all of the passing staff, but her biggest friends were still the books.  Those books would share with her tales of the world beyond, places she would never get to see, people she would never get to meet.  She knew that her role in life was to one day become yet another staff member of the library, and just live here forever.  She took that sense of responsibility to heart.  She started accounting for the placement of each book, and had gotten faster at finding books than most of the staff.  While reading, if she found books misplaced, she fixed them.  This is itself why none of the staff had yet felt inclined to begin presenting her with any form of responsibility, why she was still not staff.  Nothing was a matter of getting paid, her mother already accounted for all of her needs as is, and becoming staff would only mean that her earnings would go to her mother’s estate, which wouldn’t then change anything.  For her, money was a thing from stories.

For obvious reasons, Mhyl never really felt alive.  Everything of life came from books, a life is what she experienced in stories, and then the book reached its end, was over, and she would turn to the next.  She herself had no value in the slightest, no purpose, no ambition, nothing.  The days just rolled on, and she never noticed.

Today came the unexpected.  The halls gained another visitor.  A traveler among the elves, he had seen things and been to places, and would do both many more times.  In order to accomplish his goals, he was in need of a book.  The staff at the counter, as always, had said that they would locate his book for him, and present it when available.  This would of course take days.  However, he was a traveler, and was not afraid to travel the halls of the library, and there was no rule saying he couldn’t.  With such, he then set off to locate his own book from the collection of halls.

Mhyl was a very trusting girl, never having reason to not trust anyone.  When she found this new stranger among the halls of books, she approached him without any fear.

“Good sir, hello.”  “Hello my dear, are you here too searching for the right book?”  The question alone puzzled her.  Searching for books was a normal thing, but was there ever such a thing as the right book?  Was any one book ever right, or were all books just there to be read?  Her puzzled expression concerned him.  “I’m certain in this wealth of knowledge hides the perfect book, you will find it if you try.”  “I’ve been here for years, and never found such a thing before.”  Her passing remark surprised him, he wasn’t aware of her circumstances.

“I take it then you find yourself a bit of an expert on the books here?”  “Of course, I’ve gotten really good at keeping track of many of them.  I’ve worked very hard!”  “Ah, then maybe you would know where mine is?  I’m looking for a Celesi Atlas, a book that describes every corner of the entire world in complete detail.  There have been many who have started with such, but I’ve yet to find a book that describes everything.”  The whole world, that would be quite an impressive book indeed.  She thought back to countless books that spoke volumes of many places, but couldn’t quite recall if there was a single book that recounted… everything.

“I’ll help you look.”  He had her interest.  A book with this much to share would indeed be quite impressive.  More so, her inability to figure out such a book had bothered her, like his was a challenge presented upon her, and her own ability wasn’t enough to resolve it.  She needed to know where this book hid, so she would know next time.

“Why are you searching for this book anyway?”  “Because I myself feel the need to explore every place in the world.  The world changes every day, as well, so there is always something new on every adventure.  Having such a handy guide would be priceless.”  Having explored the world of books, hearing from an explorer himself was new.  This was like the one who accounted for the stories told in books she had read.  And truthfully, two others in the same place have a whole different story.  However, she was also feeling deprived, reading a story again… was just the same story.  This idea of going to places and seeing new things was making her envious.

While they searched, he shared tales of his own adventure, seeing her eagerness for such stories.  Hearing his recounting felt like the most immersive story she had ever found, her own questions bringing her deeper into a story than any book ever could.  His story continued until the day ended, only to resume when he returned the next.  And by the end of the second day, she went to bed dreaming of more stories, of thrills and adventure… and she was right there in the middle of it.  By the third day, they had found the book, or something acceptably close enough.  He did admit it wasn’t complete either, but it was still remarkable and would help him on his next adventure.  He then gave her a different book.  He told her it was his previous atlas, the book he had been using on his adventures in the past, and that with it she could maybe see the world as it was.  After parting words, suddenly, he was gone, and once again she was alone.

She had doubted there was ever existed such a thing as a perfect book, but there in her hands it was.  This book came directly from a traveler she had personally spoken with, learned tales from, and… this book could shape any tale for her.  She flipped open the book and took marvel to its maps.  The great expanse of the Elnir Woodlands, the human nations of Wyxir and Qicir just beyond it, the great mountain of the magus.. where the magus citadel resided.  And from that, everything beyond.  The world was vast, huge, she could see it in this book.  Worse, she craved it.  She needed more than just to read tales about places now, she deeply desired a more personal experience.  That traveler, he was driven to see more of the world, and now she was too.  None of these books were enough, none of them.  This book was the only one she needed, because within it was a map to guide her own footsteps to her own discovery.  Instead of giving her a story, this book would give her a way to make her own story, to live her own story!

Her plans begun immediately.  Most of her knowledge was from books, but she had studied hard on what it recounted was necessary for such a journey.  Exploring the halls alone had a lot of demands of supplies, some halls could keep you days from food.  While preparing, the staff never once questioned her, she was just left to do her own thing as she had always done before.  No one thought to question anything, right up to when the great doors of the library slammed shut.  The staff ran to investigate, but it was too late.  Mhyl was already gone.

She was incredibly smart, much like bookworms can tend to do.  She knew, the moment she left the library, an alarm would be raised and people would come looking for her.  If they found her, she would only find herself stuck back within the library.  That certainly would not do, she needed to escape.  The library belonged to her mother, and the High-Sage had considerable authority over all of the elves.  However, such authority would do little outside of the elves domain.  Fitting in with humans, she’s read stories about it, but it would cause complications if she was identified as an elf.  An elf’s most distinguishing features are her ears.  There are other smaller features, elven female shoulders having a slightly different bone alignment would stand out, but proper clothes could easily hide everything else.  She just needed to ensure that her ears stayed hidden.  Prepared on this front, her hairband used the volume of her hair to cover over her ears much better than any hood might care to, though she also had a hooded cloak just to be certain.  The soft azure tones of her dress complimented the cloak completely.  Her outfit itself wasn’t even identifiably elven make.  For never having done this before, and only having moved on impulse, she was quite prepared.

Less prepared she was for what she found leaving the woods behind.  On the other side, using her keen sight thankfully better than humans, she instantly saw the war encampments at both sides.  She had left the woods along the border of both nations, right in the middle of the heated context of their conflict.  It wasn’t exactly a time of war, no one was fighting at this point, it was more an exchange of heated words and high tension.  The border between was along a river, with a lot of rough insets into the land, the water not covering the entire depth of it’s canal.  Keeping low and following the river, she traversed the path keeping completely out of sight.  A rudimentary bridge further on provided sufficient cover for her to stop for lunch.  She consulted her book to figure out a decent enough plan.  According to the book, this river goes straight to the Magus Citadel.  Also recorded, the Magus Citadel was a place considered very neutral among humans.  It would be the safest place to suddenly make an appearance along the entire expanse of this river.

She did need to consider where she would go to begin her adventure.  She was within human lands, that’s a great start, but she needed something more specific.  Both rival kingdoms were in a very heated situation, it would be even more ground to cover just going far enough into either to get past all that needless conflict.  She needed a place where she could get her bearings, get started, and figure everything out.  A place that wouldn’t be too far, and was simple in its circumstances, and yet central enough to over the most opportunities.  From there, she could gather more information, figure everything else out, and get started.  Such a place would mark the beginning of her journey.  She consulted her map once again in search of any other answers, and found nothing else.

The citadel might be her answer.  She arrived late that afternoon.

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